The symbolic value of grindingstones hoards: technical properties of neolithic examples
Résumé
Seven settlements of the Paris Basin and Hainaut have delivered grindingstones hoards dated from the Linearbandkeramik and Villeneuve-Saint-Germain-Blicquy culture, between 5200 and 4600 B.C. These hoards are always linked with domestical areas (houses or village), and are of undoubtefoul symbolic value. The disposition of the lowertools, in circle or in pile, associated to their coupled handstones and to several hammerstones, can be assimilated to a codified act. The study of the grindingtools technical and functional properties brings new data of interpretation of this phenomenon. The shapes, dimensions and stages of maintenance and use of the grindingtools are slighltly different in hoards and in detritic lateral pits of the houses. The symbolic value of such hoards is discussed in relation with the agricultural identity of the earliest neolithic of these regions. Hoards may be either an evolution of the previous symbolic of grindingtools from burial contexts, or an expression of the status of the house or its inhabitants, towards the social organisation of the whole village, or be assimilated as a ritual of abandonment of the village, linked with the owning of the land.