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Introduction
Publications
Publications (85)
Data on how Stone Age communities conceived domestic and utilitarian structures are limited to a few examples of schematic and non-accurate representations of various-sized built spaces. Here, we report the exceptional discovery of the up-to-now oldest realistic plans that have been engraved on stones. These engravings from Jordan and Saudi Arabia...
Desert kites are hunting mega-traps found from the Aralo-Caspian zone to Western Arabia. These structures present a singular and systematic layout suggesting that they were associated with an elaborate and standardized hunting technique. However, the morphology of these structures is very diversified (size, shape, and number of constituent elements...
The publication at hand are the proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Archaeological Prospection held between March 28 and April 1, 2023, in Kiel, Germany. The content of the articles ranges from local to large-scale case studies all over the world and from various archaeological times, over methodological improvements, new processing...
Following a first season of joint investigations carried out at the two settlement sites of Bāt and al-Arid (15 km north-west of Bāt) in the Sultanate of Oman, during winter 2019 (Castel et al. 2020), the MBA Mission (Mission archéologique de Bāt/al-Arid) carried out a second season of excavations at the settlement site of al-Arid in 2020.
This con...
Desert kites are very large archaeological constructions discovered in large numbers during the last decade thanks to their identification on satellite images. The geographical area where they are present is considerable, from the Aralo-Caspian zone to central-western Arabia. Always present, several elements make up the layout of the kites, which m...
New desert kites have been discovered over the past two years during the observation of satellite images of north-western Arabia. Great numbers of these large archaeological traps were known prior to this from the Aralo-Caspian zone to the Arabian Peninsula. Many of these recent discoveries are constructions without the same closed enclosures as ki...
Nearly 500 kite-like structures have recently been discovered in the western Sahara using high resolution satellite images. Although four distinct types with different morphologies have been distinguished, their characteristics, topographical location and orientation in the landscape indicate that they are all most likely hunting traps.
For almost a century there has been debate on the functional interpretation of desert kites. These archaeological structures have been interpreted as constructions for animal hunting or domestication purposes, sometimes for both, but with little conclusive evidence. Here, we present new evidence from a large-scale research programme. This unprecede...
Une campagne de carottage exploratoire dans la plaine de Jalès s’est déroulée en novembre 2020. Elle permet d’aborder quelques éléments de discussion relatifs à la composition et la provenance des sédiments. Cette campagne s’inscrit dans le Projet Collectif de Recherches (PCR) consacré à la Commanderie de Jalès. Déployé sur 4 ans, ce programme a dé...
The settlement of Godedzor is located at 1,800 m asl in the region of Syunik (south-eastern
Armenia). Previous studies have highlighted the strategic position of the site in connection to
both east to west and north to south routes of communication and in relation to the proximity
to the main obsidian outcrops of the region. Excavations at Godedzor...
Résumé. Depuis une dizaine d’années, la mise en ligne libre des images satellitaires à haute résolution a permis la découverte de très nombreux desert kites, constructions en pierre de très grande taille qui jalonnent les marges désertiques du Croissant fertile. Leur nombre et l’étendue de leur répartition géographique laissent soupçonner un phénom...
During winter 2019, the Archaeological Mission of Bāt/al-Arid conducted a first season of explorations jointly on both sites of Bāt and al-Arid (15 km North-West of Bāt), inland Oman.
This article aims to present the first results of this new Mission: excavations and a microregional study of the site of al-Arid, and explorations in the necropolis o...
During the winter of 2019 the French Archaeological Mission at Bāt and al-Arid (MBA) conducted a first season of investigations jointly on both sites of Bāt and al-Arid (15 km northwest of Bāt), in central Oman. This article aims to present the first results obtained during the 2019 fieldwork: a micro-regional study of the site and first excavation...
The aggregated cells were discovered during the fieldworks about desert kites conducted on the western slopes of Mount Aragats between 2011 and 2015, which is not surprising after all: the two categories of constructions share some logics of location in the landscape and it turns out that their respective extension areas, in Armenia, are very simil...
In a recent article, Malkinson and his colleagues (Malkinson et al., 2017) have put forward a series of hypotheses on the function, seasonality, and chronology of kites discovered on the slopes of Mount Aragats, in Armenia. Among their hypotheses relevant to function, Malkinson et al. propose that the kites without antennae would have been meant fo...
The Zagros mountain chain forms the western border of Iran,
from its contact with the eastern Taurus in Turkey to the Persian
Gulf. This mountain range, which provides a formidable barrier
reaching elevations of 4000 m above sea level, is cut in various
places by passes that provide communication with the lowland
regions on either side.
Recent stud...
Les photographies aériennes à échelle très fine et les documents dérivés qu'il est possible d'obtenir présentent, en archéologie, un intérêt évident : les images satellites haute résolution ou les photographies aériennes « traditionnelles » présentent souvent une résolution trop faible pour permettre d'appréhender les objets de recherche. Le recour...
Le projet « Recherches archéologiques et épigraphiques dans la région du
Tigray, Éthiopie (périodes pré-aksumite et aksumite, Ier millénaire avant notre
ère-viiie siècle de notre ère) » a pour principal objectif de contribuer à l’étude
de la transition entre des périodes historiques (pré-aksumite, aksumite et post-
aksumite), des types d’installati...
Kites are huge archaeological structures of stone visible from satellite images. Because of their important number and their wide geographical distribution, automatic recognition of these structures on images is an important step towards understanding these enigmatic remnants. This paper presents a complete identification tool relying on a graph re...
The Aralo-Caspian region includes a ninth of the total number of 'desert kites'. These are located at a considerable distance from the large concentrations of the Near East and the Levant. A combined fieldwork and satellite image analysis, undertaken in September 2013 on the southwestern fringe of the Ustyurt plateau, allowed us to record and descr...
This paper argues that the wide geographical distribution of desert kites, which are huge archaeological structures of stone visible from satellite images, must be more broadly acknowledged as a momentous factor in the study of their variability and function. This is important so that researchers can more accurately understand and interpret their i...
In the last few years, the number of inventoried kites has increased fivefold, and the known distribution zone has been greatly extended across the Near East, Arabia, the Caucasus and Central Asia. High-resolution satellite images provide substantial amounts of data that can be subjected to geomatics analysis. The resulting spatial data is used to...
Unity and diversity of the kite phenomenon: a comparative study between Jordan, Armenia and Kazakhstan Desert kites are found across a vast region. This paper presents a detailed description of kites from the Harrat al-Shaam region (Jordan) and proposes a comparative study, as well as an analysis of the morphology and organisation of kites known fr...
Kites are remnants of long stone walls that outline the shape of a child’s kite. But the kites are huge, their big size makes them often clearly visible on high-resolution satellite images. Identified at first in the Near East, their area of distribution is getting larger and larger. This wide distribution gives new dimensions in the interpretation...
The desert-kites have seen their spatial distribution considerably expanded in recent years, thanks to new discoveries. This spatial distribution shows some areas of high density, while the presence of hiatuses exists. Therefore, among these new discoveries, the Aragats kites in Armenia form an isolated aggregate. The comparison of their morphology...
Le projet « Recherches archéologiques et épigraphiques dans la région du Tigray, Éthiopie (Ier millénaire avant notre ère-VIIIe siècle de notre ère) » porte sur les civilisations de l’Éthiopie antique, la transition entre diverses périodes de l’histoire antique, la transformation du milieu naturel et les types d’installations humaines. Le site de W...
Many desert kites have recently (2010) been discovered on the basaltic slopes of Mount Aragats in Armenia. The implementation of various complementary techniques (geomatics, statistical analyses, geoarchaeology, malacology, radiocarbon analysis) has enabled defi nition of their specifi cities. Isolated from the classic Syro-Jordanian zone, they are...
The work undertaken since 2002 by the Franco-Syrian team on the site of Tell Al-Rawda has led to confirmation that this was a new city constructed in the steppe in the middle of the third millennium and abandoned only a few centuries after its foundation, about 2200 BC (radiocarbon determinations calibrated through Bayesian analysis ). The work of...
L'information archéologique est spatiale par nature. Quels que soient l'échelle (fouille, habitat, ville, région), le contexte (urbain, rural), le thème (peuplement, territoires, matières premières, réseaux d'échanges, culture matérielle...) ou la démarche (terrain, documentation), la localisation est une donnée fondamentale et la production de doc...
Chapitre portant sur la description des données géographiques : formats de données, géoréférencement, métadonnées, acquisition...
Dans le domaine des géosciences, les Modèles Numériques de Terrain (MNT) sont des données essentielles et souvent de base pour de nombreuses recherches. Or, il s 'avère que ces modèles font souvent défaut sur le marché pour travailler à certaines échelles, notamment les plus fines. Des acquisitions spécifiques sont alors nécessaires.
Cette contribu...
La méthode de relevé suivie sur le site archéologique de Qalhat (Oman) combine les ressources du DGPS et des photos aériennes, en concevant d’emblée le plan comme un système d’information géographique. Outre la rapidité d’acquisition que permet la méthode, la structuration des données offre des intérêts multiples, tant sur la transparence de l’inte...
La méthode de relevé suivie sur le site archéologique de Qalhat (Oman) combine les ressources du DGPS et des photos aériennes, en concevant d'emblée le plan comme un système d'information géographique. Outre la rapidité d'acquisition que permet la méthode, la structuration des données offre des intérêts multiples, tant sur la transparence de l 'int...
Tell Al-Rawda (Syrie) est une ville neuve implantée en front pionnier à la fin du Bronze Ancien. Compte tenu des contraintes environnementales régionales (aridité), la question des modes de subsistance d'une population importante s'y pose avec acuité, dans un contexte d'expansion territoriale et de conquête de la steppe. Les informations disponible...
Tracing the transport of obsidian in the ancient Near East has played an important role in identifying prehistoric trade networks. The quantitative aspect of these exchanges has until now been rarely studied, whether the weight of material transported, its correlation with the means of transport (carried by humans, by pack or draught animals, by bo...
The Atlas of Near Eastern sites (ASPRO - Atlas des Sites du Proche-Orient) is an analytical index of nearly 2000 archaeological sites occupied between 14,000 and 5700 BP (about 14,000-4500 BC) in an area extending from the Sinai to Turkmenistan and from Anatolia to the Arabian-Persian Gulf. Its objective is to propose consistent information concern...
This preliminary report presents the results of two campaigns of excavation and survey in 2005 and 2006 on the site of AI-Rawda (West-Central Syria) and in the micro-region of 100 km2 around it. The site is a pre-planned circular new town. It was founded around 2400 BCE, in the steppe zone and was inhabited only during EB IV, until the end of the 3...
The survey carried out in the ‘arid margins of northern Syria’, a region with great climatic and edaphic constraints, covered nearly 7000 km2. The large number of sites discovered, the repetitiveness of the types of situations and the analysis of the environments enables us to address the problems concerning the occupation of the land and human exp...
Les travaux d'archéologie pastorale entrepris à Anéou depuis 2004 sont inclus dans le PCR " Dynamiques sociales, spatiales et environnementales dans les Pyrénées centrales " co-dirigé par Ch. Rendu et D. Galop (CR au CNRS). Ils visent à saisir, à partir d'une zone atelier restreinte (l'estive d'Anéou), l'histoire et les transformations des systèmes...
Sciences de l'Homme et de la Société