Phytoliths as a seasonality indicator? The example of the Neolithic site of Pendimoun, south-eastern France

Description

Pendimoun rock-shelter is among the oldest Neolithic sites known on the French littoral (Impressa culture, since ca. 5700 bce). It was discontinuously occupied from the Mesolithic to the end of the Neolithic. During the Neolithic, it was used for pastoral purposes and domestic activities as well as for pottery production. Agriculture and cereal processing are clearly attested during the Impressa occupation (grains, husk and straw macroremains, grindstones) and become less obvious in the overlying layers. Phytolith analysis concerned 1 Mesolithic sample (Sauveterrian culture) and 16 samples covering most of the 6th millennium bce (Impressa, Cardial, and transition to Early Square Mouthed Pottery-SMP cultures). Significant amounts of grass phytoliths and the scarcity of dicot phytoliths suggest that the livestock, whose dung constitutes an important part of the sediment, mainly fed on wild grasses. Inflorescence bract phytoliths are well represented only in the Impressa levels, confirming that cereals were partly processed in situ only during the earliest stages of the Neolithic. Amounts of Bilobate short cells proved to be higher than expected in an area where only a few panicoid species can grow. The three candidates for Bilobate phytolith producers (Setaria spp., Digitaria sanguinalis, Echinochloa crus-galli) all have a short vegetation cycle that lies entirely between the end of spring and the beginning of autumn, suggesting that the shelter was mainly used during that period. The low amount of inflorescence bract phytoliths (except during the Impressa) seems to restrict that range to the period before the ears become mature, namely the end of spring or early summer.

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