Added March 1998. Updated November 28, 2000.

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Parameters of the neolithisation in the west of France: from the circulation of prestige goods to the invention of symbols.

Research on the spread of the early Neolithic in Western France currently focuses on the rise of monumental funeral architecture, as well as the nature and the circulation of prestige goods, sometimes over considerable distances. The increase in economic and, almost certainly, matrimonial exchanges between "Mesolithic" sedentary societies of the coastal regions of the Armorique and agricultural groups are, very probably, at the root of a new social competition at about the middle of the fifth millennium cal BC. Thus, cereals, non-functional polished stone axes, rare-rock bracelets, variscite pendants all accumulate on the shores of the Atlantic, at a distance of several hundred kilometers from the raw material sources.

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Dr. Serge Cassen

Laboratoire de Préhistoire

Unité Mixte de Recherche 6566 du CNRS

Université de Nantes

BP 81 227 - 44312 NANTES cedex 3

France

Tel. 02 40 14 11 07, Fax 02 40 14 10 05, cassen.s@humana.univ-nantes.fr



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