The Bronze Age in Atlantic France around 1600 B.C

Description

In book: 1600 – Cultural change in the shadow of the Thera-Eruption? 4th Archaeological Conference of Central Germany. October 14–16, 2011 in Halle (Saale). — Halle (Saale), 2013. — pp. 567-576.The current state of documentation allows us to present only an incomplete picture of 16th century B.C. Atlantic France, during the transition from the Early Bronze Age to the Middle Bronze Age I (i.e. the Bz A2–Bz B transition). Continuity phenomena mostly concern the populations’ daily way of lives and productions. But some discontinuity phenomena deeply affect the funerary practices. The highly ostentatious funerary practices observed during the Early Bronze Age are followed by a very low visibility of the elites through their grave goods during the Middle Bronze Age in Brittany and in the Channel countries, in contrast to a high visibility in continental center-west of the Duffaits Culture’s elites. Regarding ritual practices, a tremendous increase in the burying of metallic dryland hoards and an increase in the immersion of artifacts in bronze in rivers and other damp environments is to be noticed.The years 1600/1500 B.C. were clearly in Atlantic France a period of drastic changes in the ideological and social systems. Despite a great number of new information recently provided by rescue archaeology, the data concerning 16th century Atlantic France (i.e. the transition between Early and Middle Bronze Age) still remains very scarce. For most of the concerned areas, only data about the world of the dead and the depositional practice of bronze material are truly abundant.