GEOARCHAEOLOGY OF THE EARLY MIDDLE AGE TOWN OF SAINT DENIS, FRANCE
Channel: European Association of Archaeologists
Date: 2020-12-03

Located 10km in the North of Paris, the town of Saint-Denis has been developed since the early Middle Age on a complex geomorphological context dominated by alluvial deposits and hydrological systems. The former is composed by tertiary marls and quaternary loess and alluvium, forming 2 to 5m high hills above the river Seine. The town grows on the top of one of them. The latter is composed by the hydrosystems of different small tributaries of the Seine, which lies 1,2km westward. Until now, this substratum, and the pedo-sedimentary formation on which the town takes place, were poorly documented. The development of the town starts around the 10th c., in the surroundings of the rural basilica dedicated to Saint-Denis. The artificialisation of the hydrosystem has been documented by archaeological investigations since the 1970’s. Today, the main lines of the modification of the topography and of the water flows are quite well understood. Recently, geoarchaeological investigations have better documented the substratum and the pedo-sedimentary environment. Moreover, they allow to precise the relations between the urban activities, the development of the town and the artificialisation of the environment. Micromorphological analyses of waterlogged strata help identifying the urban activities, which used the hydrosystem and contributed to the filling of the channels and their abandonment. Moreover, specific activities and medieval indoor contexts have been sampled and characterised.


Author(s): Borderie, Quentin (CNRS UMR 7041-ArScAn)