VILLAGE GEOARCHEOLOGY: Variability of occupation patterns from the Late Neolithic to the Bronze Age in Italy and southern France. Cultural implications.

Between the Late Neolithic and the Bronze Age, the presence of grouped village-type settlements is a diffuse phenomenon, both in Italy and in southern France. Nevertheless, taking into account the variability of the forms of the stratification of the sites leads to the question of how the sedimentary record of occupation surfaces allows us to understand the village organization and its variability and what image it gives of the social and economic organization of the village. In order to address this question, we have chosen to conduct a geoarchaeological study on sites of different shapes, from various chrono-cultural and environmental contexts. The approach, based on the use of soil micromorphology as an analytical tool, aims to characterize the spatio-temporal organization of the archaeological soils at the site scale, according to a spatial approach of the formation processes of the archaeological stratification. The development of a model, based on a classification of sedimentary micro-facies according to the activity system, and its application to “laboratory sites”, allow the qualification of earthen construction techniques, the use of space and the occupation dynamics specific to each site, with the aim of determining the socio-economic behaviors and specificities of the village lifestyle recorded by the soils. This approach makes it possible to evaluate the constants and variables that qualify the different types of occupation. The soil, conceived as the materiality of village space, thus becomes a direct testimony to the cultural variability and different forms of organization of Late Neolithic and Bronze Age communities.