La parure en callaïs du Néolithique européen

Callais refers to the green stones from which the remarkable ornaments discovered in several Neolithic sites in Western Europe are made. This volume brings together the contributions of the best European specialists in callais, variscite and turquoise, who spoke at a symposium on this ancient gemstone held in April 2015 in Carnac.

Callais refers to the green stones from which the remarkable ornaments discovered in several Neolithic sites in Western Europe are made. A term used at the beginning of our era by Pliny the Elder and taken up by the first archaeologists of the early 20th century during the first excavations of the large tumuli of the Carnac region (Morbihan), callais includes several mineral species, especially variscite and turquoise, both hydrated aluminium phosphates with a green to blue colour. Beads and pendants made of this precious material, combined with other objects such as axes made of alpine jade, fibrolite, amber or jet beads, sometimes from very distant sources, were deposited with the deceased, reflecting their high rank among the first agropastoral societies, or sacrificed in the form of deposits. The question of the nature and origin of these Callais pearls and pendants has been discussed many times during the last century by mineralogists and prehistorians. Since the first discoveries on this gem, many researches have been carried out both in the field and in the laboratory to elucidate what some had called ‘the mysteries of the callais’. This volume, prefaced by Yves Coppens, Honorary Professor of the College de France, brings together the contributions of the best European specialists in callais, variscite and turquoise, who spoke at a symposium on this ancient gemstone held in April 2015 in Carnac. The objective of this book is to disclose the results of the latest research relating to these jewels by scanning multiple fields: variscite geology, gemmology, Neolithic but also Roman exploitations, chemical characterization, production of objects and their diffusion, inventory, dating, place of these jewels within agropastoral societies that occupied part of Europe from the 5th to the 3rd millennium.

Préface – by Yves Coppens ;

Introduction – by Guirec Querré, Serge Cassen,Emmanuelle Vigier ;

CHAPITRE I : GÉOLOGIE - MINÉRALOGIE - GEMMOLOGIE ;
Les minéralisations de variscite du sud-ouest de l´Europe : caractéristiques minéralogiques, géochimiques et genèse – by Agustina Fernández, Candelas Moro, Marie Pierre Dabard (Ɨ) ;

Gemmology of gem phosphate: a review with particular attention to variscite – by Emmanuel Fritsch, Benjamin Rondeau, Yves Lulzac, Blanca Mocquet ;

CHAPITRE II : EXPLOITATION DE LA VARISCITE EN EUROPE OCCIDENTALE ;
Gavà (Barcelone), mine et atelier au Néolithique – by Josep Bosch Argilagós ;

Palazuelo de las Cuevas and the exploitation of variscite in the northwest of Iberia – by Ramón Fábregas Valcarce, Carlos Rodríguez-Rellán ;

Pico Centeno prehistoric variscite mines (Encinasola, Huelva, SW Spain) – by Salvador Domínguez-Bella, José Ramos-Muñoz ;

Hispaniae Callais. The use of Iberian variscite in jewellery and mosaics in Roman times – by Salvador Domínguez-Bella ;

CHAPITRE III : APPORT DES MÉTHODES D’ANALYSES À L’ÉTUDE DE LA DIFFUSION DES PRODUCTIONS ;
Provenance des parures en variscite du Néolithique européen : élaboration d'un modèle chimiométrique – by Guirec Querré, Thomas Calligaro, Serge Cassen, Marie-Pierre Dabard (Ɨ), Salvador Domínguez-Bella ;

Origine des bijoux néolithiques en Callaïs de l’ouest de la France – by Guirec Querré, Thomas Calligaro, Serge Cassen ;

Iberian variscite: icp-ms-la and pixe analysis of recent prehistory beads et pendants from Spain and Portugal – by Salvador Domínguez-Bella, Guirec Querré, Thomas Calligaro, Javier Martínez López ;

The use of Raman spectroscopy in the characterization of variscite provenance: the Gavà case – by Joan Carlos Melgarejo, Laia Arqués, Cristina Villanova-de-Benavent, Tariq Jahwari, Lisard Torró, Josep Bosch Argilagós, Montgarri Castillo-Oliver, Marc Campeny, Sandra Amores, Aleu Andreazini, Saleh Lehbib,Antoni Camprubí ;

CHAPITRE IV : UTILISATION DE LA VARISCITE ET DE LA TURQUOISE COMME PIERRE DE PARURES AU NÉOLITHIQUE ;
La parure en callaïs (variscite et turquoise) au Néolithique, dans la moitié nord de la France. Corpus et contextes – by Serge Cassen, Christine Boujot, Audrey Charvet, Valentin Grimaud, Nicolas Le Maux, Christophe Le Pennec, Guirec Querré, Emmanuelle Vigier, Christian Obeltz, Frédéric Prodéo, Alain Villes ;

Les éléments de parure en callaïs dans le Midi de la France au Néolithique et au Chalcolithique – by Jean-Sebastien Vaquer ;

La parure en variscite au Néolithique dans la partie est de l’Espagne – by Miquel Molist Montaña, Monica Oliva Poveda ;

Going soft on green? Variscite and other green beads in Western Spain – by Carlos Rodríguez-Rellán, Ramón Fábregas Valcarce ;

Archaeomineralogy of turquoise in Eurasia – by Ruslan I. Kostov ;

CHAPITRE V : LES MODÈLES DE CIRCULATION DURANT LE NÉOLITHIQUE ;
Production et diffusion de parures néolithiques en séricite et autres micas en quart nord-ouest de la France dans son contexte européen – by Nicolas Le Maux et Serge Cassen, avec la collaboration de Juliette Durand, Marc Laroche, Didier Le Gouestre et Emmanuelle Vigier ;

Patterns of variscite acquisition and circulation in Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods in Portugal – by António Faustino Carvalho ;

Rings and axeheads of Alpine jades: imports to and exports from the Gulf of Morbihan during the 5th millennium and the beginning of the 4th millennium – by Pierre Pétrequin, Anne-Marie Pétrequin, Mauro Cinquetti, Michel Errera, Ramón Fábregas Valcarce, Estelle Gauthier, Frédéric Jallet, Yvan Pailler, Frédéric Prodéo, Alison Sheridan ;

Perles supposées en variscite du sud-est de la France (Arles-Fontvieille, IVe mill. av. J.-C.) : premiers résultats d’une recherche en devenir – by Laurine Viel, Sandrine Bonnardin, Maxence Bailly, Xavier Margarit ;

The time of callaïs: radiocarbon dates and Bayesian chronological modelling – by Bettina Schulz Paulsson, Serge Cassen, Carlos Rodríguez-Rellán, António Faustino Carvalho, Jean-Sebastien Vaquer, Miguel Molist Montaña, Josep Bosch Argilagós, Mònica Oliva Poveda ;

ANNEXE I : planches photos des perles et pendeloques en callaïs de l'ouest de la France ;

ANNEXE II : carte ouest-européenne des objets Neolithiques en jades et en callaïs ;

ANNEXE III : analyses chimiques des sources ouest européennes de variscite et / ou turquoises ;

ANNEXE IV : analyses chimiques des objets néolithiques en callaïs de la moitié nord de la France ;

ANNEXE V : analyses chimiques des objets Néolithiques en callaïs de la péninsule Ibérique ;

ANNEXE VI : auteurs

• Edited by Guirec Querré
• Edited by Serge Cassen
• Edited by Emmanuelle Vigier
• Preface by Yves Coppens