Францын Шампини-сюр-Марн хотын орон сууцны барилгын талбайгаас неолитын үеийн ховор олдворууд илэрсэн нь тус бүс нутгийн түүхийг шинээр харах боломжийг бүрдүүлж байна.
Францын Урьдчилан сэргийлэх археологийн үндэсний хүрээлэнгийн (Inrap) судлаачид барилгын ажил эхлэхээс өмнө Марн голын хөндийд малтлага хийж, 6500 жилийн настай 11 булш, 30 аварга чулуу болон 10 тонн орчим жинтэй хүн дүрст хөшөөг илрүүлжээ. МЭӨ 4750-4300 оны хооронд хамаарах энэхүү олдвор нь тухайн үед уг бүс нутагт ийм төрлийн цогцолбор байгууламж байсан гэх таамаглалыг дэвшүүлж байна. Өмнө нь энэ бүс нутгаас олддог байсан неолитын үеийн булшнууд ихэвчлэн ганц нэгээрээ байдаг байсан бол энэ удаагийн олдвор нь олон булш, модон тулгуур, шороон болон чулуун байгууламжаас бүрдсэн бүхэл бүтэн цогцолбор болох нь тогтоогдсон юм.
Малтлагын төв хэсгээс олдсон 3.04 метр урт, 9.7 тонн жинтэй хөшөө нь хүн дүрстэй бөгөөд гадаргуу дээр нь бүс, жижиг хонхорхой зэргийг сийлжээ. Судлаачид хөшөөний гадаргуу дээрх хар болон цагаан толбо нь пигмент байж болзошгүй гэж үзэж байгаа бөгөөд хэрэв энэ нь батлагдвал хөшөөг будгаар чимэглэж байсныг илтгэх юм. Түүнчлэн барилгын ажлын явцад элс, шороо, карбонатлаг материалыг хольж гаргаж авсан эртний цемент төст бодисыг булш болон байгууламжийн сууринд ашигласан нь тогтоогдсон байна.
Олдворуудын дунд нэгэн сонирхолтой булш байгаа нь кальцитаар бүрхэгдсэн хөл бүхий суугаа байрлалтай хүний шарил юм. Археологичид малтлагын үеэр олдсон нийт 11 булш болон бусад байгууламжид цаашид эртний ДНХ-ийн шинжилгээ, изотопын судалгаа хийхээр төлөвлөж байна. Энэхүү цогц судалгаа нь тухайн үеийн хүмүүсийн нас, хүйс, эрүүл мэнд, хооллолт, гарал үүсэл болон нүүдлийн талаарх шинжлэх ухааны тодорхой мэдээллийг өгөх юм.
Дэлгэрэнгүйг эх сурвалжаас харах
↓Эх сурвалжийг нээх ↓
Archaeologists digging ahead of a housing project in Champigny-sur-Marne have uncovered a 6,500-year-old cemetery with eleven graves, thirty giant stones and a human-shaped statue weighing almost ten tonnes. The builders also used a crude cement made from local sediments.
The find was made on a terrace of sediment left by the Marne River, on the southeastern edge of Paris, by archaeologists from Inrap, France’s national institute for preventive archaeology. Its job is to dig a site before the bulldozers arrive.
The place does not fit what researchers thought they knew about the region. Middle Neolithic graves, from the farming era that here runs from 4750 to 4300 BC, normally appear in the Île-de-France one at a time and on their own. Champigny, by contrast, offers a whole group of burials, along with wooden posts and structures of earth and stone, all of it older than writing and older than the wheel.
A Statue Lying In Its Pit
The centerpiece is a menhir statue, a long stone meant to stand upright and carved into a human shape. It measures 3.04 meters long, 1.68 meters wide and 0.74 meters thick, and its weight is estimated at 9.7 tonnes.
The surface has been worked heavily, with an engraved belt and a series of cup marks, which are small round hollows made by human hands. They sit among other round holes formed by water slowly dissolving the rock. Before any engraving began, the whole surface was pecked with repeated blows. In the tiny pits those blows left in the upper left quarter of the main face, Inrap found white and black stains that could be pigments. If that is confirmed, the statue would have been painted.
It was lying on its side in the wedging pit dug to hold it upright. Inrap reads the scene as a snapshot of abandonment after the stone fell, although the report does not say why it fell. Two smaller sandstone blocks lay nearby: one looks like a stela, the other like a miniature menhir, possibly set up to mark the burial area.
Eleven Graves And A Mound With No Body
Two badly eroded graves turned up during the preliminary survey, each holding the skeleton of a woman lying on her back, oriented east to west. The main excavation added nine more, seven of them with the body stretched out. Eight of the eleven are packed into about 60 square meters along the southern side of an earth mound, while the other three surround the menhir statue and two megalithic blocks, an area disturbed by modern construction.
Objects left with the dead are mostly worked flint, such as blades and points, plus an axe made from local sandstone. Two graves also held bone tools. The most striking burial is a narrow circular pit holding a seated adult, whose lower legs and feet are completely trapped in calcite. Inrap’s report does not explain why this person was treated differently.
In the southeast of the plot sits a mound of fine brown earth covering about 30 square meters, topped by a small stela broken in two. Beneath it lay pits, palisade trenches, a paving of stones and wooden posts. It looks like a burial mound but covers no grave, and Inrap itself asks whether it served as a landmark in the landscape.
A 6,500-year-old Primitive Cement
The builders did more than pile up stones and earth. Inrap describes a primitive cement, made by mixing local sand and silt rich in carbonates with gravel and water, which hardened as it dried. Traces show up in the edges of the graves, in the wedging pits of the statue and the other blocks, and in the mound itself.
Preparing building earth with carbonate-rich materials was already known from other sites in western Europe. What is new at Champigny is the setting. In fact, a burial ground with megalithic monuments in the Île-de-France. Marc-Antoine Vella leads the geoarchaeology studies and Alessandro Peinetti the micromorphology. The press release also said that the researchers plan ancient DNA and isotope analyses, which should reveal the age, sex, health, diet, origin and mobility of those buried here.
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