This project focuses on the relationships between two regions considered key to understanding major sociopolitical processes in Mesoamerican Highlands: Western Mexico and the Basin of Mexico. The study of the inter-regional social relations is a subject extensively explored by Mesoamerican archaeology, which traditionally relies for this purpose on the similarities between their respective material productions, especially pottery. Since the highlighting of a Tertium Quid in the Mexico Basin associated with Western ceramic traditions during the Early Formative (1000-800 BC), it has been a recurring topic of discussion. However, the nature of these links is still poorly understood because the proposals remain generally based on stylistic correspondences. Therefore, the CHUPICERAM project proposes to renew our comprehension of these relations by fully exploiting the information potential of the ceramic material in a comparative perspective. The project focuses on the Late Formative period (600 B.C. - 250 A.D), which witnessed the development of two cultural cores: Chupícuaro in the Lerma valley (Guanajuato) and Cuicuilco in the Basin of Mexico. During the XXs, stylistics analogies on ceramic materials between these two regions led to diverse interpretations, involving population movements, commercial interactions and political and ideological influences, which often granted Chupicuaro a primal position as a possible area of emigration or as a prominent ceramic production center disseminating its beautiful products over long distances. In order to clarify the nature and intensity of these relationships, CHUPICERAM will focus on the ceramic production processes from the raw materials acquisition strategy to the finished product. The project’s goals are to characterize the technical traditions specific to each region, understand the variations over time, establish and question the links between the different ceramic assemblages and discuss the topic in terms of economic, social and cultural proximity. One of CHUPICERAM's strengths is its willingness to apply a methodical comparative approach based on a representative sampling and integrating recent archaeological assemblages from the Chupícuaro region, and museum collections built up during excavations carried out in the first half of the twentieth century, both in the Chupícuaro region and the Mexico Basin. This is the first time that these different collections will be evaluated following the same analysis framework with high-performance instrumentation adapted to sherds and/or complete objects: techno-stylistic study based on the analytical tool of chaîne opératoire, petrographic and mineralogical characterization, a wide range of chemical analyses and a full set of non-invasive techniques including hyperspectral imaging, X Ray Radiography, 3D Imaging, X-ray fluorescence, visible-infrared light reflectance and Raman. We consider that only the crossing of all these data will make it possible to overcome the limits induced by stylistic analogies. The project brings together archaeologists, museum curators, geologists and specialists in applied physics and analytical chemistry from Mexican and French institutions, who will work on the same sample to answer the same questions. By pooling the French and Mexican expertise, CHUPICERAM is taking up the challenge of bringing to the forefront two still little-known cultures considered to be among the most singular and creative Formative Mesoamerican traditions.

The age of the first manifestations of Art in South Africa, as well as the chronology of the Middle Stone Age (MSA) lithic industries to which they are associated, are hotly debated. This is due to a lack of consensus about the available dating results obtained these last years by the application of the luminescence dating techniques. We propose in this ANR project to develop a new chronology of the MSA based on the direct dating of bio-minerals (ostrich eggshells –OES, snails and other carbonated and phosphated materials –teeth) using the U-series dating method (U/Th). But, conversely to the usual way of application of this method, our first objective is to map in our samples the distributions of uranium (238U-234U) and thorium (230Th-232Th) on large areas (typically, a few square millimetres) in order to identify zones not affected by post-depositional processes. Getting such spatial distributions has recently become possible thanks to the development of a high performance, unique in the world, high repetition rate UV femtosecond laser-ablation system allowing to achieve a resolution of typically 6 µm. Mapping the distributions of uranium and thorium would allow, theoretically, to compute ages but, because of the extremely low 230Th signal intensity, we will use the same laser-ablation system to sample the unaltered parts of these materials and get enough material for precise measurements. The second objective will then concern the analysis of these micro-samples (ranging from the sub mg to 100 mg): we will develop novel approaches in order to address the analytical challenge consisting in determining low uranium and thorium contents (2-500 ppb) and low abundant 234U and 230Th in these microsamples. Preliminary tests performed recently on OES by the partners of this consortium showed these new approaches could be successful: if it is confirmed, this would open new horizons for establishing a detailed chronology of numerous MSA sites, fuel the debate on the emergence of modern behaviors during the MSA period and perhaps, allow in the future the direct dating of engraved OES whose age could be as old as 80,000 years, what has never been done before. Beyond South African MSA, numerous studies could also be undertaken for archaeological sites spread all over the world with the ambitiousness to revisit the chronology of the Prehistory (<500 ka) on all continents. Moreover, these analytical developments could likely be transposed as well in other scientific domains, such as environmental sciences, nuclear safety or upstream petroleum industry where technical improvements usually open new perspectives. Keywords : High repetition rate UV femtosecond Laser-Ablation (fsLA-), Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICPMS), U-series Dating method (U-Th); Geochronology; Ostrich EggShells (OES); Teeth; Art; Prehistory; Middle Stone Age (MSA); Early Modern Humans; Early Modern behavior; South-Africa. PARTNERS-list: Partner 1 = IRAMAT-CRP2A: UMR 5060 CNRS-Université Bordeaux Montaigne (France) + Prehistorians from South-Africa, Germany, France; Partner 2 = IPREM-LCABIE : UMR 5254 CNRS-Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour (France) ; Partner 3 = LSCE/IPSL : UMR 8212 CEA-CNRS-Université Versailles Saint-Quentin (France). Requested funding to the ANR = 126.9 k€. Project duration = 24 months, starting in January 2017 and finishing in December 2018.

The aim of the project is to contribute to the understanding of the economic, social, artistic and technological development of the continental part of the Western Latène Culture (mid 5th-1rst centuries BC) through the study of the production and consumption of gold objects. This culture of the Late Iron Age, cross-bordering a large part of the European continent and the British Isles, is characterized by new social and economic dynamics leading to foreign contacts (trade, mercenary, individual mobility…), more precisely with the Mediterranean, and migration phenomena of the Celtic population. The new context is visible through metal working, style and technology. This period is crucial for the development of the Celtic art, which finds its most important expression in gold work. It also marks the starting point of coinage, with new exchange systems and new access to the raw material gold (with minting Greek, Carthaginian, Celtic and finally Roman coins). Apart of the emergence of coin use, furthermore intense gold mining, in particular in the Limousin area, brings an innovative point into gold studies. We intend to study the social dynamics and hierarchies, combined with craft specialization during the Latène period by mainly investigating prestige objects, except coins, from rich burial sites and hoards. Our geographical focus will mainly concern Germany, France and Benelux, but also Switzerland. Fine metal work is especially suitable to reveal traditions and local innovations as well as foreign influences and exchange networks in arts and crafts. It shows the mobility of people, objects and ideas. The strength of the project is in the international collaboration of German and French scientists and in their interdisciplinary excellence in archaeology, archaeometry, technology and experimental archaeology. It is also based on new laboratory equipment allowing innovative high precision observations and material analyses. We intend to take into account all aspects of Late Iron Age fine metal work for the first time: from the raw material, covering the transformation into artefacts, their artistic creation, utilization and distribution, until to the final deposition and finally the archaeological discovery. In addition we take into account coins, in particular those found associated with fine metal work, for their information about material composition, probable raw material provenance and the their economic value. These observations will be integrated into a wider socio-economic and technological context in order to enlighten changes in stylistic traditions and technologies of luxury objects in relation to the socio-economic organization of the Latène period for a discussion of historical, archaeological and theoretical interpretations.

The CodikHum project aims the development of new instruments for the study of ancient inks used on Renaissance documents, manuscripts or early printed books. 132/5000We wish to have specific tools for the study of the diffusion and reception of ancient works in the Renaissance. We also want to use these techniques to authenticate documents in the absence of verbal indications. The CodikHum project gathers three research teams in different scientific disciplines. These teams are used to work together, in a transdisciplinary way. CodikHum has several goals and steps to overcome. We want to increase the documentation available on older inks, build a larger corpus of analysis, find other methods to analyse inks and to establish their identity. At the end of the research, we also want to adapt the available material and miniaturize it. The project led to the drafting of a specification for the manufacture of a new tool which could then be industrialized.The methods used in the CodikHum program are based on spectrometry, colorimetry, ink surface analysis and microscopy. Each of the proposed methods has been tested, either in a corpus of pigments or inks, or on other materials. The corpus of the proposed analyzes will be extended not only to handwritten inks for which a relatively extensive bibliography is available, but also to the inks used by the first printers, much less well known. These analyzes, combined with those already done by the members of the consortium, make it possible to draw a panorama of Renaissance techniques used to write and print books. They also lay the foundation for a future database that is still to be established today.The project also includes a training component, the aim of which is to enable researchers from each of the scientific communities represented to better understand the radically different methods and protocols of disciplinary fields. It also includes a valorisation dimension to publicize the results of a survey which is of great technicality but concerns the very foundations of European thought of the Renaissance.

The “Neolithic way of life" developed in the Caucasus ca. 6200 BCE, which is fairly late when compared with the astonishing steps taken by Near-Eastern cultures in the neighbouring Fertile Crescent as early as the 9th mill. BC. The existence of organic links between the Neolithisation process of the Near-East and that of the Caucasus is still a matter of debate, but the Caucasus no doubt appears as a marginal, backward area in the overall dynamics that shaped part of South-western Asia in the early Holocene. During the following period, i.e. the Chalcolithic, these dynamics seemingly changed completely and South-Western Asia underwent a progressive shift in its centre of gravity: some time ca. the 5th-4th mill. BC, a change in circulation flows appeared in the obsidian procurement strategies of Iranian and north Mesopotamian communities, which started to exploit Caucasian obsidian beds as well, instead of focusing on East Anatolian deposits. This shift in obsidian sourcing networks is coeval with the development of major technical innovations such as extractive copper metallurgy and the production of wool fabrics, which led to the systematic exploitation of a new range of raw materials (salt and metal ores) and probably entailed the appropriation of new territories - the Highlands. At any rate, it appears that Transcaucasia became a major source of attraction for human groups living in Iran, North Mesopotamia and beyond from the Late Chalcolithic onwards (ca. 4500 BCE), as shown by the number of Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age sites found in the Araxes and Urmiah basins. How should these profound, structural, changes be interpreted? The explanation that leaps to mind is of course that major changes in economic flows were prompted by technical innovations. We need to test this hypothesis by breaking down the intricate relationships between the development of these innovations, the quest for raw materials, and the rise of other practices, such as vertical pastoralism or long-distance nomadism. Indeed, innovations, which may be technological or zootechnological, may have involved the migrations and/or increasing mobility of human groups living in the Near and Middle East, as claimed by several studies. But the processes underlying the changes in economic flows are still poorly understood, while the reality of human migrations from the Near-East towards the Caucasus during the 4th mill. BC has been actively challenged. Altogether, it is the agency of Late Prehistoric Caucasian communities that is being debated, between a centre-vs-periphery perspective that considers the Highlands as a mere source of raw materials, exploited by the proto-urban communities of the lowlands, and an analytical stance that places the evolution of the Caucasus within the complexity of Eurasian dynamics in Late Prehistory, which integrates not only the Near and Middle East but also the Pontic universe and the northern steppes. Thus, this project lies at the core of on-going international research on: a) the neolithisation processes of the Caucasus, b) the interactions between the Caucasus and the Near and Middle-East from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age. Considering the state of the art, we have three goals in mind: i) the study of the Caucasian Neolithic, as seen from the Araxes basin, with a special emphasis on its possible connections with the Neolithic communities of the Fertile Crescent; ii) the study of interregional economic networks between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age, in relationship with the emergence of new economic hubs; iii) the study of the human mosaic developing in the Highlands during the 4th mill., with a view to identifying the various cultural groups involved in what appears as a "copper rush".