Sériation des gravures piquetées du mont Bego (Alpes-Maritimes, France)

Thomas Huet

«Archeologia e Calcolatori» 2016, 27, 27-45; doi: 10.19282/AC.27.2016.02

Abstract

The site of Mount Bego is one of the most important rock art concentrations in Europe for recent Prehistory. After a study conducted for more than 45 years by Henry de Lumley, the majority of the 4,000 engraved rocks have been positioned and the near 36,000 engravings have been drawn. The engravings were firstly attributed to Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age, on the basis of a comparison between the engraved weapons and real weapons that have been discovered in an archaeological context. During his PhD (2012), the author carried out the first systematic geostatistical analysis of the entire corpus, bringing out a series of effects (iconographic and geographic seriation, preferential location, etc.) in the engravings distribution. Thanks to the study of superimpositions, these quantitative results allow to consider a periodization of the main families of engravings. While weapon representations appear to be the most recent layer of engravings, reticulated figures and schematic horned figures seem to be the most ancient ones. Therefore, dating on the basis of weapon representations can no longer be considered valid for the entire corpus of engravings. Besides, Mount Bego site shows early occupations, as documented by archaeological artefacts (Cardial ceramics, Chassean flints, Recent Bell Beaker ceramics, etc.) and indices of human activities (certain since ca. 2400-1800 BC). This article presents the geostatistical predicates, methods (unimodality of realization periods of engraved themes, correlations, seriation, toposeriation, etc.) and principal results on which a first periodization frame has been built.

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