Abstract
The excavations undertaken in the « abri Sous-les-Rideaux », a rockshelter in the Pyrenean foothillsat Lespugue (Haute-Garonne), have made it possible to study charred seed assemblages associated with acombustion structure. Ceramic material and a direct radiocarbon dating of the seeds allow us to date thecarpological assemblages to the beginning of the Early Iron Age (828-672 BCE). The study is based ontwo series of samples: 13 samples were water-sieved on site with 5 and 2 mm meshes and while 9 sampleswere hand floated with 2 and 0.5 mm meshes. Thousands of macrobotanical remains allow us to identifyat least 20 taxa. The spatial and stratigraphic distribution of the carpological types show the existence ofseveral successive deposits. The lower level is composed of diffuse waste from cereal food products andcereal cleaning (hazelnut shell fragments, cereal chaff, weed seeds). At least two different assemblages arelocated above this first layer; the first one is composed of acorns (Quercus sp.) and the second of hulled barleycaryopses (Hordeum vulgare). The presence of a few acorn pericarp bases and fragments of the embryos atan early stage of germination indicates that the structure was used to dry or parch acorns in order to stop theirgermination and probably facilitate storage. The purpose of the heat treatment applied to barley grains, whichwere still hulled, is uncertain. Parching was possibly aimed precisely at weakening the glumes to facilitatedehusking before milling or consumption. Naked wheat and millet grains are identified in less numbers andtheir relationship to the fire structure cannot be ascertained. Although the sampling does not allow a sufficientnumber of contexts to be documented to obtain a representative picture of the site plant economy, these resultsoffer unique information on the resources and practices of cultivation and gathering in the central Pyreneesduring Protohistory