In deciding to dig the basement of the Lac du Puy, the team of researchers from the archaeological dig of Corent in the Puy-de-Dôme, expected some discovery, without knowing what kind . The choice is not by chance: this wet vacuum - an old pond of medium size - is 300 meters away from the site of Corent. There is probably stood the capital of the Arverni, a large Gallic city which occupied a hill at the edge of the Allier, eight kilometers from the battlefield of the famous Gergovie.
"We immediately saw the draw round earth, spaced one meter very evenly, testifies Matthieu Poux, a professor at the University of Lyon-II and head of excavations of Corent. We cut one or two by mechanical shovel, which has highlighted the flared shape characteristic of a silo crops, then another and another. Less than 10% of the lake area, we have already found 125. This is huge. "
According to estimates reveals that Le Monde Thursday, August 13, the site could count about a thousand silos (600 to 1500), of varying depths, but regularly implanted in clay soil. With a volume of about one cubic meter, everyone had the capacity to store 500 kg to 1.5 tonnes of cereals: what durably keep hundreds of tons of grain at a time. Such an arrangement represents a massive civil engineering project for the Gauls who lived in the Iron Age. "Under each silo, a widening is observed as if we had made a small borehole to verify that the clay layer was sufficient," says Matthieu Poux.
Archaeologists know that this facility already served more to Roman times. She had been filled and covered: surface debris ceramics attest. But they can not date this discovery more accurately for the time. "The pits have been dug at the beginning of the Iron Age, between 750 and 450 BC or 150 to 50, when the agglomeration of Corent occupied all 50 hectare plateau, including So storage center, or between the two, "explains Mr. Poux.
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Other batteries silos dating from 400 BC have been unearthed in Germany, in Berry or in Catalonia, but the discovery in the Auvergne region is of a magnitude at least three times. It is also distinguished by its location 500 meters above sea level on a plateau topped by a large clay pocket.
"The system is ingenious, it is a kind of" vacuum pack "," enthuses the archaeologist. Carved into an almost totally impervious to water and environmental air, pits were filled to the brim with grains of wheat or barley, then hermetically sealed. Once lightly cereal fermentation had consumed what remained of oxygen, conservation was guaranteed several months or even years. Coal remains on the edges of the silos suggest that they were sterilized three or four times to fire in order to be reused.
Why did you garner such quantities of crops in the same place? For a population threatened by a seat? To make trade, while Corent housed large fairs? And why have installed a mega-site storage outside an agricultural plain and without direct access to a river for transport?
These are some of the questions posed by the find - yet another - on the site of Corent. The excavations are conducted for fifteen years continue to bring new surprises on the urban culture of the occupants of this settlement. Have been unearthed in this oppidum - "a true populated city of several thousand inhabitants," said the team - a "theater" Gallic probably used as a place of deliberation or tribunal, a sanctuary, a striking center Money, a prestigious habitat and valuable jewelery ... And now this summer additionally deliver these excavations some startling revelations about how the Gauls were able to control their natural environment.
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Les chercheurs se demandent en effet si ces derniers n’avaient pas asséché volontairement le lac pour en utiliser le fond argileux.
« C’est une possibilité, mais nous ne pouvons pas trop nous avancer, car ce bassin a une histoire complexe, tempère Alfredo Mayoral Pascual, qui dirige le volet paléoenvironnemental du sondage de l’étang.
Comment les Gaulois s’y seraient-ils pris ? En creusant une cuvette au centre, en drainant l’eau vers des fossés extérieurs ? Nous ne le savons pas encore. »
Le travail de ce doctorant du laboratoire Geolab de l’université Blaise-Pascal de Clermont-Ferrand repose, lui, sur l’analyse des traces biologiques et sédimentaires héritées de l’histoire des lieux. Il étudie les strates du sol, la qualité chimique de l’eau qui peut témoigner de la présence de maréchaux-ferrants ou de tanneurs ou encore analyse des pollens qui racontent l’évolution des paysages – forêts, champs ou friches.
« Sans le croisement de toutes nos données avec celles des archéologues, nous ne comprendrions rien à Corent », assure Alfredo Mayoral Pascual. Savoir si les grains emmagasinés dans les silos correspondent aux restes de galettes trouvés dans les cuisines de la ville gauloise : voilà le genre d’énigme que l’équipe pluridisciplinaire espère bien résoudre.
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averni silos found
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