Le
Berry antique : milieu, hommes, espaces, Supplément No.21 à
la Revue archéologique du Centre by C. Batardy, O. Buchsenschutz
and F. Dumasay
Tours, 2001, ISSN 1159-715; ISBN 2-913272-05-3,
192 pp.
Supplément no.21 of the fast moving extra series to la Revue
archéologique du Centre is devoted entirely to an archaeological
atlas of Berry in the Iron Age and Roman periods, “Berry Antique”.
The editorial team behind the production of the atlas was evidently
led by Olivier Buchsenschutz, the leading editor of the first volume
in the supplemetary series published only in 1988 (Buchsenschutz et
al. 1988). The authors of the individual sections include Ian Ralston
(on the Iron Age oppida), who would otherwise have been quite
the most appropriate person to review this volume on behalf of the Prehistoric
Society.
Berry lies at the
very centre of France, centred on Bourges, the medieval and modern city
built on the site of Roman “Avaricum”. The middle reaches
of the Loire and Sançerre mark the north east boundary of the
region of Berry, embracing but extending also a little to the north
and south of the modern départements of Cher and Indre. Historically
Berry is defined as “la cité biturige”. On the eve
of the Roman conquest it was the land of the Celtic people of the Bituriges.
The long term history
and setting of Berry Antique are summarised and depicted in the opening
section of the atlas. A regressive analysis with maps takes the historical
story back to the Roman period. Summaries of the development of historical
and archaeological research, including field and air survey, are in
turn linked to maps showing the varying precision of archaeological
fieldwork in the context of modern day land use and vegetation. The
natural setting, geology, soils and palaeo-environmental data are in
turn linked to the long term archeological story of the Holocene.
The main part of the
volume is concerned with the mapping of the archaeological data for
the Iron Age and Roman periods. This is achieved within a geographical
paradigm, first looking successively at rural settlement, urban places
and the funerary landscape, each from the beginning of the Iron Age
to the end of the Roman period. These themes are then set within the
wider landscape as defined by roads, rivers and water supply. These
in turn provide the setting for the penultimate section on production
and exchange, agriculture and industry. The final section uses the data
from preceding sections to provide explanations for the distribution
and location of urban and rural settlement across the region.
As an archaeological
atlas this is a successful volume, avoiding the problems which beset
many such studies when set within the straitjacket of a defined series
and pre-defined format. There is a clear internal logic to this volume
and it certainly provides a useful introduction to the later prehistory
and Roman archaeology of the region. My main criticism of the volume,
which might be directed at many studies of the later and prehistoric
and Roman periods, is that it disregards the possibility that elements
of the later medieval medieval and modern countryside may be relict
parts of earlier Roman and prehistoric landscapes. In a region where
many of the principal highways originate as Roman military roads, is
it not possible that some other elements of the man made landscape,
such as roadways, tracks, field and land boundaries, also have their
origins at least partly in the Roman and prehistoric periods.
The layout and printing
of the volume are of a high standard, as one has come to expect and
enjoy in so many publications from France. Michel Sapin’s preface
notes that the reader might be surprised at the securing of financial
assistance for the volume from both European and more local sources,
but then concludes with some ideas for its relevance to present day
concerns - the future of agriculture, the development of rural industry,
natural and “touristique” areas or parks. Archaeological
mapping provides one means on which to reflect for the future.
References
Buchsenschutz O. et al. (1988), L'évolution du canton de
Levroux d'après les prospections et les sondages archéologiques,
1er supplément à la revue archéologique du Centre
de la France, Levroux, 1988.
Roger Leech
Department of Archaeology,
University of Southampton.
Review Submitted: June 2003
The views expressed in this review are not
necessarily those of the Society or the Reviews Editor.
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