Serge Cassen - Université de Nantes
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Serge Cassen
Université de Nantes
Histoire, Art et Archéologie
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Papers by Serge Cassen
Cassen S., Grimaud V., 2024. The form of an Axe. The process of reconnaissance and of misapprehending an image within the Neolithic iconographic repertoire. In: A. Ballmer, D. Neumann (ed.), Imitations, simulations, mock-ups and illusions. Heidelberg : Heidelberg University Library, 39 p.
This essay is a non-conforming presentation of a motif that is well known in the Neolithic iconog...
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This essay is a non-conforming presentation of a motif that is well known in the Neolithic iconographic repertoire of the west of France: the 'sleeved axehead'. The identification of this 5 th millennium BC motif remains an unresolved issue-just as the identification of the 'axe-plough' could have been, had it not been recognised as a sperm whale. It is now 20 years since the latter motif was deconstructed and reinterpreted as part of a painstaking study that wanted not only to approach designs in a sincere manner but also to undertake an exercise into how archaeological knowledge is constituted. The 'sleeved axehead' was one of the terms whose legitimacy was gained partly through a widespread iconographical tendency to take an ambiguous visual stimulus and make it into a clear and identifiable item, through a kind of optical illusion, and partly through its evocation of an iconic object-the axe with its polished stone axehead-which represented the Neolithic par excellence, emblematic of an agricultural way of life and of an epoch, in just the same way as the 'axe-plough' reflected the agrarian status of all these useful and practical symbols-domestic animals and tools. In this study, that symbolic tool of the Neolithic forester is metamorphosed into another legendary beast of the Ocean: the giant squid, a favourite prey and adversary of the sperm whale.
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Evidence suggests the 'sleeved axehead' motif was created simultaneously with major motifs in the region around the 5th millennium BC.
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Recent Excavation and Recording at the New Neolithic Rock Art Site of Vallée Aux Noirs, Buthiers (Seine‐et‐Marne, France)
Oxford Journal of Archaeology
SummaryFollowing the exceptional discovery of Neolithic engravings on a boulder at Vallée aux Noi...
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SummaryFollowing the exceptional discovery of Neolithic engravings on a boulder at Vallée aux Noirs in the Fontainebleau forest, south of Paris, an excavation trench was opened in order to access the buried part of the decorated rock panel and explore the stratigraphic context of the artwork. A palaeosol was found two metres below the modern ground level, underneath multiple layers of sterile sandy soil forming a very compact sequence from which only one archaeological artefact was recovered – an Iron Age fibula (c.200–300 BC). Dating of the palaeosol was attempted through two different methods: AMS dates from charcoal suggest a significant span from the Early Bronze Age to the Iron Age, while two more consistent OSL dates point to formation of the palaeosol during the Late Neolithic (3500–3000 cal BC). The entire engraved rock surface (16 m2), including its buried part, was fully recorded. Four main semiotic groups were identified: a typical fifth‐millennium crook‐hafted axe with a...
Fifty shades of green
A Taste for Green
Eclogite or jadeitite
Stone Axe Studies III
Ein europäisches Tauschnetzwerk : Alpine Jade des 6. bis 4. Jahrtausends v.Chr
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe)
, 2012
Alpine jades in the European Neolithic
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe)
, Oct 12, 2016
Con il volume intitolato Italia tra Mediterraneo ed Europa l'Istituto Italiano di Preistoria e Pr...
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Con il volume intitolato Italia tra Mediterraneo ed Europa l'Istituto Italiano di Preistoria e Protostoria inaugura la Serie dei numeri speciali della Rivista di Scienze Preistoriche. La nuova serie, che mantiene la veste grafica e le norme editoriali della Rivista, è stata pensata per accogliere volumi dedicati all'approfondimento di tematiche specifiche, con guest editors e procedura di peer-rewiev estesa a tutti i contributi. L'intento è quello di dare spazio alle molteplici occasioni di riflessione incentrate sulle tematiche della ricerca preistorica e protostorica in Italia, valorizzando l'attività scientifica degli studiosi e destinando loro una sede editoriale rispondente agli attuali sistemi di valutazione accademica. Già a partire da questo numero saranno quindi pubblicati in questa sede anche gli esiti delle Riunioni Scientifiche dell'Istituto, sostituendo la collana "Studi di Preistoria e Protostoria" che si avvia a conclusione. Per quanto riguarda i criteri editoriali, si è scelto di salvaguardare la distinzione delle due serie (ordinaria e speciale): la Rivista proseguirà la numerazione attuale con cadenza regolare e numeri romani, mentre la serie speciale manterrà il numero della rivista relativo all'anno di uscita, aggiungendo a seguire una numerazione (S1, S2, S3,...) in progressione interna continua. L'adozione di un colore differente per le scritte di copertina e l'inserimento di un logo di volta in volta differenziato, utile a identificare lo specifico numero tematico, completano la veste editoriale dei numeri speciali. Mi preme sottolineare il respiro internazionale con cui si inaugura la serie speciale, con un volume che rappresenta un'importante riflessione sul tema dei molteplici contatti che il nostro Paese ha stretto, fin dalla preistoria, con gli altri paesi d'Europa e del Mediterraneo, ricevendone influssi che ha spesso integrato nel proprio patrimonio, rielaborandoli e ritrasmettendoli a sua volta. Alla curatrice, già Presidente dell'Istituto dott.ssa Maria Bernabò Brea e al Direttore della Rivista, prof. Carlo Lugliè va il mio sentito ringraziamento per aver reso possibile questo progetto.
Les anneaux-disques réguliers à section triangulaire en jade ou en serpentinite
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe)
, 2017
International audienc
Bracelets en schiste et anneaux-disques en jadéitite, en serpentinite ou en amphibolite
National audienc
La parure en callaïs (variscite et turquoise) au Néolithique, dans la moitié nord de la France. Corpus et contextes
Dans la moitie nord de la France, perles et pendeloques en variscite et turquoise sont le plus so...
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Dans la moitie nord de la France, perles et pendeloques en variscite et turquoise sont le plus souvent inventoriees en milieu funeraire, et ne participent pas des depositions dans le paysage, enterrees ou immergees, a l’image des lames polies en jade. Ces contextes sepulcraux sont majoritairement dates des Ve et IVe millenaires, et se divisent entre tombes individuelles, en fosse ou en ciste sous tumulation, et tombes collectives a couloir sous cairn. Quelques allees sepulcrales et hypogees, et diverses reoccupations des tombes monumentales au Campaniforme, temoignent d’un regain d’interet pour le mineral en question vers la fin du IVe et au milieu du IIIe millenaire. La dispersion des objets au sein des plus vastes tombeaux carnaceens, ou en peripherie de l’espace funeraire, ne permet pas d’affirmer qu’ils etaient portes par le corps du defunt. On discutera plutot de pratiques de deposition et d’une mise en scene ostentatoire. Par ailleurs, aucune analyse technique serieuse n’a ete...
Les anneaux-disques irréguliers alsaciens et alpins
International audienc
Sarrazac et les grands anneaux-disques du Centre-Ouest de la France
International audienc
Résumé / Abstract JADE
Anneaux, marqueurs de statut, objets consacrés et quasi-monnaies
Le projet ANR JADE 2 (2013-2017) concerne l'ensemble de l'Europe – entre Atlantique et me...
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Le projet ANR JADE 2 (2013-2017) concerne l'ensemble de l'Europe – entre Atlantique et mer Noire – ou les transferts de jades ont ete alimentes par deux centres de production : l'ile egeenne de Syros des la fin du VIIe millenaire ; et les massifs alpins du Mont Beigua et du Mont Viso a partir du milieu du VIe millenaire. Cette synthese vise a eclairer les valeurs sociales qui sous-tendaient la circulation des haches et des anneaux-disques alpins, dans un reseau qui couvrait 3 200 km d’est en ouest. La demarche est fondee sur la comparaison entre les interpretations ideelles des producteurs (Piemont) et l'imaginaire social des receveurs lointains, dans les marges de l'Europe neolithique.
Les haches en " jades alpins " en Bulgarie
It has long been recognised that, in Neolithic and Chalcolithic Europe, there existed a kind of ‘...
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It has long been recognised that, in Neolithic and Chalcolithic Europe, there existed a kind of ‘mirror image’ between Carnac and the Gulf of Morbihan in the west and Varna in the east. Around the middle of the fifth millennium BC, these two areas display a remarkable wealth in their funerary assemblages (with jade and variscite being used in the west and gold and copper in the east), and they also shared some social concepts, featuring a marked degree of social inequality, expressed through symbols of violence and of power, curved throwing weapons, sceptres and axes. As part of Projet JADE, a recent expedition to study and analyse artefacts in the museums of Bulgaria has resulted in the recognition of a fine set of axeheads made from jadeitite, of omphacitite and of eclogite. These had previously been identified, incorrectly, as being of serpentinites of Bulgarian origin. We shall try to demonstrate that these axeheads had, in all probability, been imported over a long distance, or...
Typologie, chronologie et répartition des grandes haches alpines en Europe occidentale
Plutot que de vouloir privilegier, comme par le passe, des etudes regionales de toutes les haches...
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Plutot que de vouloir privilegier, comme par le passe, des etudes regionales de toutes les haches alpines - car le travail serait colossal a l'echelle de l'Europe avec certainement plus d'une dizaine de milliers de haches polies -, nous avons introduit l'idee d'une etude systematique, mais qui porterait essentiellement sur les grandes haches, la coupure (selon des criteres ethnographiques observes en Nouvelle-Guinee) etant etablie a 13,5 cm. Apres dix annees de travail en bibliographie et en musees, notre inventaire compte aujourd'hui 1 764 haches, reparties entre l'Irlande, la Bretagne et le Portugal a l'ouest, la Bulgarie et la Turquie a l'est, le Danemark au nord, la Sicile au sud. L'extension des reseaux de circulation des haches en roches alpines atteint donc 3 000 km a vol d'oiseau entre l'Atlantique et la Mer Noire. Pour le Ve millenaire, le classement typologique de ces outils polis permet de distinguer 15 types differents. En ...
Disc-rings of Alpine rock in western Europe: typology, chronology, distribution and social significance
In France, disc-rings made from Alpine jades and from serpentinite circulated over very long dist...
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In France, disc-rings made from Alpine jades and from serpentinite circulated over very long distances, as far as the Channel coast and that of Brittany. The authors offer here a typo-chronological study of these and other stone bangles, according to the types of rock used, and consider their distribution and their social significance. Two geological source areas are identified: the Inner Alps (where disc-rings of regular shape were made, and whose rocks were the first to be exploited, from around 5300 BC at the latest) and the upper Rhine, where cobbles from the riverbed were gathered and used to make disc-rings of irregular shape from the beginning of the fifth millennium. Exactly like the circulation of the long jade adze-heads of Begude type, that of the disc-rings of Alpine rock was underpinned by the belief systems of their users. That these objects were linked to the world of mythology is clear from the representations that were carved on monumental standing stones and on rock...
Autres anneaux-disques alpins réguliers
International audienc
Les grandes haches polies en jades alpins
National audienc
Disc-rings omade from Alpine rocks, in the social imagination of Neolithic communities
DISC-RINGS MADE FROM ALPINE ROCKS, IN THE SOCIAL IMAGINATION OF NEOLITHIC COMMUNITIES. In France,...
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DISC-RINGS MADE FROM ALPINE ROCKS, IN THE SOCIAL IMAGINATION OF NEOLITHIC COMMUNITIES. In France, disc-rings of Alpine jades and of serpentinite circulated over very long distances, as far as the Channel Islands and the coast of Brittany. The authors present a typochronological study for each rock type, along with distribution maps and a general social interpretation. Two origins are identified, of which the earliest lies in the high Alps, where regularly-shaped ring-discs were made from at least as early as 5300 BC. Then, at the beginning of the fifth millennium, irregularly-shaped disc-rings were made in Alsace, using cobbles gathered from the bed of the upper Rhine. Just as with the long Begude-type adze-heads of Alpine jades, the circulation of the regular-shaped Alpine disc-rings was driven by social imagination, which linked them to the world of myths – as shown in the representations carved into monumental standing stones and rock surfaces during the first half of the fifth m...
Fifty shades of green: the irresistible attraction, use and significance of jadeitite and other green Alpine rock types in Neolithic Europe
This chapter summarizes the results of two major international projects JADE and JADE 2. These ex...
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This chapter summarizes the results of two major international projects JADE and JADE 2. These examined the exploitation, circulation, use and significance of artefacts made from jadeite and other green rocks from the Western Alps in Neolithic Europe. The most-widely travelled of all the prehistoric materials, these Alpine jades seem to have been accorded special significance by many and diverse communities, particularly in Western Europe. This "Europe of jade" contrasts, however, with the "Europe of copper" in eastern and southeast Europe, where copper (along with gold) was the main material of choice in terms of socially-valued substances, while objects of Alpine jade are scarce.
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