Charente

Saint-Amant-de-Boixe et plusieurs autres communes (Aussac-Vadalle, Nanclars et Villejoubert) de l’ancien canton dont cette localité était le chef-lieu présentent une particularité notoire. Les parlers traditionnels qu’on y a pratiqués au moins jusqu’au XXe siècle constituent l’extrémité la plus occidentale du Croissant, une aire linguistique située au nord du Massif Central et qui se caractérise par l’existence de variétés langagières présentant à la fois des traits considérés comme typiques de l’occitan (ou langue d’oc) et des langues d’oïl. Dans cet article, je présenterai tout d’abord le Croissant linguistique. Ensuite, dans une seconde partie, je parlerai plus en détail de la partie charentaise du Croissant. Puis, dans une troisième partie, je démontrerai l’appartenance de Saint-Amant-de-Boixe et des trois autres communes mentionnées ci-dessus à la zone du Croissant, en me fondant sur les rares données disponibles, essentiellement celles contenues dans la thèse du linguiste charentais Adolphe-Louis Terracher (1914). Je conclurai enfin sur les perspectives qui s’ouvrent pour essayer de mieux connaître les parlers croissantins de Saint-Amant-de-Boixe et de ses environs ainsi que sur l’intérêt scientifique et patrimonial de ces parlers, situés depuis des siècles à la croisée des isoglosses et de diverses influences

PDF di 36 pagine con le immagini (descritte e commentate) mostrate durante il Caffè Araldico n° 2, incontro su piattaforma Internet fra studiosi e appassionati - versione italiana o inglese (rivolgersi a: caffearaldico@gmail.com)
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36-page PDF with images (described and commented) shown during the Caffè Araldico n ° 2, meeting on Internet platform between scholars and enthusiasts –  Italian or English version (contact: caffearaldico@gmail.com)

The prehistoric site of Le Placard, located in southwest France, was discovered and first explored 150 years ago, at a time when prehistory was just emerging as a scientific discipline. Throughout this century and a half of explorations, the site has been invoked in numerous debates concerning prehistoric research; it has also yielded an extraordinary amount and diversity of archaeological material (i.e. lithics, faunal remains, worked bone, body adornments, pigments, human remains, mobiliary and parietal art, hearths, etc.). Yet this site appears now to be valued poorly due to the devastating 19th-century excavation techniques that almost completely emptied the cave interior. Consequently it is surprisingly little known. This 150-year milestone gives us an opportunity to look back at this exceptional site and its associated material in order to demonstrate that it still holds unique potential to inform debates about these Late Pleistocene hunting and gathering societies. The various chapters cover different aspects of the research history and of the collections, present detailed studies on the material culture (worked bone objects, spearthrowers, musical instruments), and address specific issues related to parietal art, social networks and the political nature of these prehistoric communities. The best hypothesis and explanation to account for this exceptional diversity of remains would argue that Le Placard was a village occupied by various groups of complex (transegalitarian) hunter-gatherers. Christophe Delage (Ph.D., 2001, University of Paris 1-Sorbonne) is a specialist in the study of lithic raw material sourcing and chipped stone industries. He has been working in the southern Levant (Israel and Jordan) for 25 years and in southwest France (Charente and Vienne) on the Magdalenian for about 10 years. He has published various articles and edited books relating to these topics. He is currently affiliated to

Rescue excavations of the site of Bellevue in
Châteaubernard (Charente) uncovered a complex of ten
circular, quadrangular, or horseshoe-shaped dugout
enclosures. The rare archaeological remains recovered from
fill at the top of the ditches place them from the Late Bronze
Age to the end of the Late Iron Age. An analysis of the
ditches’ fill sheds light on the history and evolution of these
monuments. Finally, the absence of burials calls into question
the site having a funerary function and provides elements for
discussing the complex cultural issues of protohistoric
western Gaul.

For the first 125 years of research the chronology of Le Placard was confusingly addressed drawing on the presence of certain very characteristic osseous and lithic tool types. In 1990-92 nine radiometric dates were produced at the Gif-sur-Yvette Laboratory (France) as part of a new research project led by Jean Clottes, Louis Duport and Valérie Feruglio. Despite the fact that these dates were all considered reliable by the laboratory and the archeologists it seems that some inconsistencies may exist in their cultural attribution. This paper thus discusses their reliability.