The GEOPRAS consortium comprises seven partners that have been involved for several years in coastal archaeology. Our programme studies the coastal societies of recent Prehistory (Mesolithic and Neolithic) on the French Atlantic shores in order to understand their social and economic organization and the role they play in broader historical dynamics such as neolithization. Characteristics such as the accumulation of goods through storage, specialised modes of production, and the emergence of a social hierarchy or a sedentary lifestyle are often attributed to these coastal populations, on the basis of ethnographic documents from the last two centuries. However, each of these social manifestations must be described according to regional environmental variables, without evolutionary preconceptions. Our research hypothesis is that environmental dynamics have greatly facilitated certain forms of historical evolution. This encourages us to determine with greater precision the nature of these environmental transformations, then to analyse human networks at the continent-ocean interface. The first task will be to restore the environmental benchmarks. During the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods, most coastal landscapes were radically transformed by the sea-level rise and the associated processes of erosion and sedimentation. The coastal environments of the past will be reproduced through a three-level approach combining a large scale (region) with an intermediate scale (nearby landscape) and a local scale (archaeological site). Our consortium proposes a combination of methods suited to different geographical conditions (dunes, rocky coasts, marshlands) around the Bay of Biscay, testing the limits of several of them. To gain the best possible understanding of an "archaeological signal", the GEOPRAS project will focus on developing rapid intervention and rescue methods for archaeology and geoarchaeology. We intend to apply these methods to sites currently being excavated or whose exploration is planned as part of the project, such as foreshore and marshland sites and shell middens. Optimal integrated methods and procedures will be developed for the recording of archaeological remains, which are often ephemeral on foreshores, as well as for sampling, particularly in shell middens. These procedures include geophysical surveys, archaeozoology, micromorphology, geochemistry, taphonomy, metagenomic approaches, and OSL datings. The second task is to study how human societies have managed the land-sea interface. Shell middens have become the emblematic nodes of these coastal Holocene settlements because they contain an abundance of bio-archaeological data. They will be analysed to judge biodiversity as well as food practices. The third task is to understand the specific features of technical systems in a maritime context, especially seafaring. This technical field is at the heart of all the questions raised about the relationships between coastal areas, as well as the decisive features of the various technical systems developed in these areas. To overcome the lack of knowledge of prehistoric watercraft, we suggest an approach, based on three disciplinary poles in permanent interaction: 1) ethnographic and historical references, 2) technological and use-wear analyses of lithic and bone tools, 3) experimentation. In addition to proposing methodological developments, we aim to lay down the conceptual, methodological and technical foundations of a maritime prehistory with procedures adapted to coastal heritage. The results will be included in a handbook of maritime prehistory, to be published in French and English. The involvement of amateur archaeologists, observers, tourists and other citizens in scientific tasks will be anticipated and coordinated by inviting them to take part in the main scientific meetings and, of course, in field operations such as surveys, excavations and experiments.

The project PARABAINO intends to address massacres and extreme violence through the ancient Greek and Roman experience in a comparative and multidisciplinary perspective (Anthropology, Archaeology, History, History of Art, Classical Philology, and Philosophy). The aim is to study the genesis of such practices by placing the Ancient World in the global debate on genocide and mass violence. As a result, we shall not only better understand the ancient societies but also contribute to an overall reflection on the subject. Research on genocide highlights the everlasting nature of mass violence, but also the difficulty of addressing it by means of a wording put forward by Westerners in the twentieth century. One of the main scientific obstacles to be overcome within this project will therefore be conceptual and terminological. Greek and Roman civilizations certainly knew of massacres (abusing people, destruction, mass enslavement, deportation, etc.), thinking in and graphically depicting them. Studying such civilizations makes us deeply reflect on identity, otherness and gender, dehumanization in short, and their resulting crises. Moreover, such studies provide us with “models” which in fact question the modern conceptualizations and interpretations of mass violence and their narrations, how they were put in history books, their memorialization and commemoration. Such ancient evidence constitutes useful paradigms of extremely convulsive situations at war. Moreover, their study through the looking glass of transgression will allow us to avoid any form of ranking put forward by any legal arrangement we may encounter in the historical evidence. We thus aim to foster a cutting-edge view of the past in order to illuminate our own present. In order to achieve such a goal, genocide will become the key of our global analysis instead of addressing it as a mere prerequisite for understanding war as an annihilation phenomenon with traumatic side effects. After listing the relevant facts involved, this project will focus its attention on the processes of liberation by determining timings and responsibilities. Then, their transgressive dimension will be questioned as well as the steps taken to assimilate, circumscribe and neutralize such destructive practices and their effects. Analysing transgressions will pose new queries regarding the foundations of the societies facing them. For instance, whose sacred values are tested when the physical integrity of men, women and children have been seriously damaged and even monuments destroyed? How do we measure and mould intolerance? In order to respond to such questions, the PARABAINO project team will conduct research through a corpus of evidence shared in an intranet. Such database will constitute the basis of our scholarly work, in addition to the methodological and epistemological choices put forward by project members. The aforementioned corpus will then be made available online in a simplified form for the benefit of researchers, secondary school teachers and the general public. The website will therefore provide free access by searching patterns to the analytical files of the main textual and iconographic sources, alongside the thematic files. Additionally, bibliography, a lexicon, summaries of articles and recordings of communications will be made available. Indeed, the scientific meetings answering the questions posed by the project and their publication results will complete the dissemination and valorisation of the project outcome. In particular, data will be also available to students and researchers, scholars from the ancient world but also from social sciences, all interested in genocide and mass violence. Thus the PARABAINO project, by focusing its main study on Antiquity, proposes to become a scientific point of departure for deeper and more general reflection on genocide which has already begun to be conducted by all sorts of specialists and public in general.

The Notre-Dame de Paris (NDP) wooden oak frame is one of the greatest masterpieces of Gothic carpentry in France. It was constructed during the High Middle Ages (HMA) between the 11th and 13th centuries, at a time of profound environmental and societal changes – climate optimum, strong demographic and economic growth – which created significant pressure on available forest resources, one of the key economic drivers of medieval societies. The destruction of the NDP wood framework in the fire of 15 April 2019 left thousands of charred and fragmented oak wood pieces. Analyzing this "forest" means to almost go back in time, by rebuilding the forests of past centuries and restoring this heritage for the public. The CASIMODO project aims to understand the impact of climatic and anthropogenic factors on the evolution of the HMA forest–wood socio-ecosystem: forest, raw wood material management, and manufactured end products in the Île-de-France and Paris Basin. The project proposes three lines of research to address society’s adaptive response to the availability of wood resources during the HMA. The first purpose is to define the climatic and the socio-economical context of Paris. In order to identify the potential technical adaptations of the medieval society, the second objective is to study the timber and destroyed framework from an archaeological point of view in order to characterize the construction supply methods of the building site. The third purpose consists of characterizing the forest stands exploited in the 11th–13th c., their management, and the possible silvicultural systems used for the production of adequate timber. The overall goal of CASIMODO is to provide crucial information and enable a fuller understanding of the evolution of an economic area under climatic, societal and demographic pressure, through the wood life cycle. We propose to develop an integrated approach by combining history, archaeology and bioarchaeology. Trees record variations in environmental variables, with each annual growth ring containing a means of dating, and a set of anatomical and chemical markers indicators providing information of the woodland structure, the geographical origin of the wood, and past climate. This information will be compared with contemporaneous wood data from secular and religious medieval frames from Northern France, Southern Belgium and Western Germany. Complementary proxies, such as textual archives and paleoenvironmental/bioarchaeological data of medieval archaeological sites in the Île-de-France and Paris Basin will also be integrated. By echoing the context of the current ecological threat, this project addresses recurring problems in human–nature relations and is in line with the theme of societies facing environmental change. Improved documentation of temporal and spatial variability in past global climates is needed to better anticipate the possible impacts of future climate change. CASIMODO can provide indirect clues on the extent of deforestation or even natural disasters and linked epidemics such as the plague. In addition, radiocarbone dating is a central tool of modern science (biology, ecology, geology, history, archaeology.); however, it is still hampered by the imprecision of dates obtained for certain periods. Progress in this direction will, therefore, be a major step forward for very large section of the scientific community

The aim of this multidisciplinary project is to study the roughly one hundred ground-floor latrines in the city of Ostia, one of the main cities of the Roman Empire, port and image of Rome, as well as the fifty or so downpipes considered to be evacuations of upper storey latrines. Their study will allow us to understand, through archaeology, all aspects of their architecture. The archaeometric analysis of the samples taken from the stercoral concretions formed at the bottom of the pipes will provide a reliable picture of the sanitary state of the population, but also of its diet and environment. This project is in the continuity of the researches performed on the ancient latrines, which have been revived for the last 20 years. The paleoparasitological analyses, by revealing the presence of digestive parasites, will offer the possibility of discussing the effectiveness of the hygiene measures, implemented by such structures, on the parasitic infections circulating within the population. Palaeomicrobiological analyses will track bacterial and viral pathogens. The filling of latrines will allow the study of the spectra of animal and plant species consumed in different parts of the city as well as their natural environment. The project associates 7 partners with complementary and multidisciplinary skills under the direction of A. Bouet: Ecole française de Rome (E. Bukowiecki), Parco archeologico d'Ostia antica (C. Tempesta), Ausonius (A. Bouet), Laboratoire Chrono-environnement de Besançon (M. Le Bailly), PACEA (O. Dutour), ISYEB (T. Wirth) as well as CReAAH of Rennes (B. Ephrem). Palynology will be performed as service provided by the ARPA Laboratory (J. Argant). This innovative approach carried out on the whole of the Ostia latrines will be a first at the level of a Roman city of the imperial period in the western Mediterranean.

This project aims to improve our knowledge of the transfer and toxic effects of mercury from phytoplankton to mussel using both chemical and molecular biology cutting edge approaches. The project will answer to the following questions: (i) do MMHg and IHg follow a similar transfer rate in mussels fed with diatoms or chlorophytes showing contrasted cell walls, (ii) does the proportion of diatoms in phytoplankton inversely correlate with Hg transfer in mussels? (ii) Does the subcellular fate of IHg and MMHg differ in waterborne and dietary exposures? (iii) Does molecular, cellular and individual response of IHg and MMHg differ in waterborne and dietary exposures? (iv) Can we statistically and biologically link an omic signature with apical effects in an exposome context? (v) Do Mytilus edulis and Dreissena polymorpha show similar responses to Hg exposure? Once these questions deciphered, we will use the data to further propose omic signatures of exposure and effect for improved monitoring of the flux and impact of contaminants through ecosystems. This fundamental knowledge is essential to better understand and predict the propagation of effects between trophic levels of aquatic systems and to identify innovative and more efficient biomarkers for improved risk assessment of contaminants.