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The Rural Archaeology of Roman Gaul

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

John Percival
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Extract

For obvious reasons, any question concerning the rural archaeology of the Roman West is likely to begin and end in France, and the necessity of taking the French evidence on any given topic into account is something of which non-French historians and archaeologists do not need to be reminded. The fact that such evidence is so often unsatisfactory and incomplete is frequently ascribed to inferior excavation techniques or methods of presentation, but although this is all too often the case a large part of the trouble seems to stem from the lack of proper co-ordination with regard to problems and programmes of study. It happens to be a fact that French archaeologists, in this particular field, are not always interested in the same topics, and are consequently not asking the same questions as their English counterparts. The questions and interests that lie at the back of the excavator's mind as he works are bound to colour the content and composition of his final report, and, unless these questions and interests are brought into the open and written down, the value of the material he provides is bound to be limited. Consequently, any publication which, however slightly, sets out the principles and aims of French rural archaeology is to be welcomed.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 37 , Issue 146 , June 1963 , pp. 121 - 125
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1963

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References

(1) As reflected, for example, in the annual summaries of the year’s work in Gallia and Revue Archéologique.

(2) E. Salin, La Civilization Mérovingienne, vol. II, 12.

(3) The French evidence is so abundant that a complete bibliography of individual sites is not possible here; for an introduction and summary, cf. E. Salin (note 2, above). For Britain, most of what can be said is in Collingwood and Myres, Roman Britain and the English Settlements (2nd ed., 1937), pp. 440-1, especially 441, note 2.

(4) A. Longnon, Les noms de lieu de la France (Paris, 1920-29), s.v. For a British parallel, cf. ‘Fawler’ in E. Ekwall, The Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names.

(5) Constantius, Vita Sancti Germani, 10.

(6) Mémoires de la Société des Lettres, Sciences et Arts de l’Aveyron, IX, 1859-67, pp. 228-236 (Argen-telle); ibid., x, 1868-73, pp. 198-214 (Mas Marcou).

(7) A. Albenque, Les Rutènes (Rodez, 1948); id., Inventaire de l’archéologie gallo-romaine du department de l’Aveyron (Rodez, 1947).

(8) A. Grenier, Manuel d’archéologie gallo-romaine, pp. 742 sq., with bibliography. For typical sites, cf. A. Fuchs, Die Kultur der Keltischen Vogesensiedelungen (Saverne, 1914), and C. E. Stevens, ‘Un établissement celtique à la Croix de Hengstberg, commune de Walscheid, Sarrebourg, Moselle’, Revue Archéologique, IX, 1937, 26-37.

(9) A. Grenier, op. cit., p. 767. See also L. Deglatigny, Documents et notes archéologiques, fase. I, Rouen, 1925; L. Musset, ‘Les forêts de la Basse Seine’, Revue Archéologique, 1950, 84-95 is also useful.

(10) Bibliography in Grenier, op. cit., 752 sq.; also Wichmann, ‘Ueber die Maren oder Mertel in Lothringen’, Jahrbuch für Lothringsgeschichte und Altertumskunde (Annuaire Metz), XV, 1903, 238-262. The dating of mardelles is a vexed question owing to the extreme rarity in them of any datable material ; some clearly go back to prehistoric times, but others show signs of occupation during the Roman period (cf. articles by T. Welter and A. Desforges in Bulletin de la Société Préhistorique Française, V, 1908, 41-52 and 391-5). They are usually found in heavy clay (a British parallel would perhaps be the so-called ‘Highworth sites’—cf. Allen and Passmore, ‘Earthen circles near Highworth’, Wilts. Arch. Mag., 47, 1935-7, 114-122), and are thus not often associated with villas; but it is noteworthy that the commune of Gondrexange (Moselle) contains not only a series of villas (cf. note 14 below) but also a very large number of mardelles.

(11) A. Grenier, op. cit., 922-3; C. Jullian, ‘L’analyse des terroirs ruraux’, Revue des Etudes Anciennes, XXVIII, 1926, 139-151.

(12) L. Joulin, ‘Les établissements gallo-romains de la plaine de Martres Tolosanes’, Mémoires présentées par divers savants à l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, Ière série, XI, 1901. Further bibliography and discussion in Grenier, op. cit., 832-8, 850-8, 888-897.

(13) A good example is G. Souillet, ‘Le peuplement et la mise en valeur d’une commune d’Ille-et-Vilaine de la préhistoire au Moyen Age’, Bulletins et Mémoires de la Société Archéologique d’Ille-et-Vilaine, LXVIII, 1944, 39-97-

(14) Bibliography in Grenier, op. cit., 906-9. For the series of villas, cf. Linckenheld, Bulletin de la Société historique et archéologique de la Lorraine, 1932, 46-8.

(15) The excavation of the main villa is reported by Wichmann, Annuaire Metz, X, 1898, 171 sq. For the subsidiary buildings, cf. M. Lutz, Les Cahiers Lorrains, 1952, 46-8.

(16) Fustel de Coulanges, L’alleu et le domaine rural pendant l’époque mérovingienne (4th ed., Paris, 1927).

(17) H. d’Arbois de Jubainville, Recherches sur les origines de la propriété foncière et les noms de lieux habités en France (Paris, 1890).