The agglomerations of the North Western Mediterranean Iron Age and their dynamics: a case-study
Channel: European Association of Archaeologists
Date: 07/10/2018

In the archaeology of the Western Mediterranean Iron Age, agglomerations are often defined in an essentialist fashion: if an agglomeration meets certain criteria (presence of afortification, size, nature of the inner building for instance), it will receive a label (hill-forts, oppida, proto-urban settlements…) aimed at categorizing it.
Such a formalist approach does not focus on the analysis of the social organization, but on the general aspects of the remains. The predominant type of architecture, the density of the settlement, the presence or absence of such or such structure (public building, sanctuaries…) are considered as the main keys bringing toward identification, classification of the settlement. One may argue that such an approach focuses exclusively on the aspect of the site at the end of the excavation process, thus implicitly considering that the function and the status of the agglomeration remained static through time. Moreover, this approach may be considered as teleological, in the sense that the whole historical trajectory of the agglomeration is analyzed through the lens of what it became at some specific moment of its occupation.
This paper offers to challenge such a point of view and to propose, through a case-study, new methods and new perspectives for studying Mediterranean Iron Age agglomerations. These have to be considered as the result of dynamic processes, commencing with the first occupation and ending at the moment of the excavation. The excavation of the hill-top settlement of Malvieu, inhabited from the Late Bronze Age to the end of the Early Iron age, provided the opportunity to experiment new approaches aimed at studying the agglomeration through three steps: morphogenesis (its "birth"), morphodynamics (its evolution through time) and processes of formation as an archaeological site.

Author: Dr Gorgues, Alexis - Université Bordeaux Montaigne; UMR 5607 Ausonius (Presenting author)
Co-Author: Mr Comte, Florent - UMR 5607 Ausonius; Labex LaScArBx