WP4 aims at understanding the environmental, technical and social conditions that allowed humans to occupy the European coastal fringes in the Holocene. It combines taphonomy, depositional practices, statistics and ethnological studies.
Particular emphasis is on understanding natural cycles of management of animals and plants in daily tidal cycles and seasonal cycles, which are associated with the growth rates of continental resources. Only through the analysis of these intertwined rhythms and their management by human groups, can we understand coastal societies as such as well as the relevance of coastal resources.
Knowledge of the development of technical devices adapted to the acquisition of salt, fish, or molluscs are making good progress on certain European coastal areas, but approaches need to be homogenised in order to change the scales of analysis and understand the transformations or resilience of these societies in the face of global change.
WP4 proposes an integrated approach to the most recent scientific methods (bioarchaeology including e.g. malacology, schlerochronology, archaeozoology), while insisting on the limits of each of them, in order to also assert the strong points of these inter-disciplinary approaches. Other data to be included are ethnoarchaeological records which give insights in management of sea mammals through time.
Finally, geomorphological approaches allow addressing the metamorphosis of coastlines under eustatic and isostatic effects. WP4 implements practical tools to understand the conditions of human existence on the coasts from hunting-gathering economies to early agriculture.
Synergies
The dynamics of these social and historical processes studied in WP4 are understood in synergy with WP2 and WP3. There are synergies with WP5 regarding management and communication of the sites.
Contact and PhD projects
- WP-leader: Catherine Dupont (CNRS), co-leader: Valdis Bērziņš (UL)
- Involved PhD-projects: DC6, DC7