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Abstract: This paper presents the first results of the geoarchaeological study of an unusual hilltop wetland, located within the protohistoric proto‐urban site of Corent in the French Massif Central. This small depression offers an exceptionally local sedimentary record that provided valuable data on long‐term human–environment interactions, as well as proto‐urbanization of the first millennium B.C.E. Field survey revealed a major archaeological discovery: a large ensemble of 114 Iron Age storage pits excavated in clayey deposits. The geoarchaeological analysis of stratigraphic logs and cross‐sections completed by geophysical survey and radiocarbon dating allowed us to refine the chronology of these structures. Here, we suggest these structures are probably contemporary with the Hallstatt occupation of the site (600–425 B.C.E.), consistent with the emergence at Corent of a short‐lived proto‐urban environment during this period. These investigations also allowed us to characterize the main evolution phases of the basin and the diversity of human impacts from first disturbance in the Early Neolithic to its final destruction in the Roman period. These findings highlight the nonlinear nature of the socio‐environmental interactions and the definitive shift to an “anthroposystem” as a consequence of major disturbance in the first Iron Age, centuries before the development of urban settlements in the oppida period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of the Neolithic way of life in the western Mediterranean during the sixth millennium cal. BC is the consequence of the spread of populations from the Near East after successive stages of cultural remodelling. Despite the clear contribution of the Near Eastern and Aegean Neolithic to the economic and technical changes that happened to the west, little is known here about their symbolic legacies, because of the scarcity of representations and ritual evidences associated to the earliest western Neolithic contexts. Excavations at the rock shelter of Pendimoun (southeastern France) yielded the first anthropomorphic stone sculpture from the western Mediterranean Neolithic (early sixth millennium cal. BC). Using both carving and painting techniques, it represents a realistic-looking human face and is a unique example within the western Mediterranean and European frameworks. After describing the shaping and colouring details of the mask, the authors here deal with its possible social significances and cultural connections. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]