Can you tell us about your activity/research topics?
My research and teaching focus on Aegean protohistory, on the successive societies in the Aegean basin from the Neolithic to the end of the Bronze Age (7th – 2nd millennia before Christ). I am also specialized in the history of agricultural and craft techniques. To reconstruct these techniques, I study the tools involved in these activities and the waste generated: splinters, defective objects etc. To interpret these wastes, I compare them with wastes we produce experimentally by applying old techniques or with those resulting from traditional non-mechanized workshops. I use this so-called ethnoarchaeological approach when I work with craftsmen and farmers in Greece, Morocco, Tunisia and India. This approach shows that despite cultural variability, cross-cultural constants govern technical actions. I am thus trying to contribute to the safeguarding of traditional know-how, which has lasted for several millennia and which is today threatened by mechanization.
You presented at the CNE annual meeting last March: “From containers to packaging: a journey of a few millennia”. What did this experience with a very attentive audience teach you?
I have discovered that we share several common questions about waste management and especially about the relationship between waste management and society. Contrary to what is usually thought, archaeologists are not “treasure hunters” but rather “waste hunters”. We search destroyed settlements, houses in ruins and backfilled, containers abandoned, broken, thrown away. By examining the waste, we try to understand the way of life, practices and mentalities. In the United States, the Archaeology of garbage seeks to reconstruct current consumer practices through scientific excavation of garbage bins and landfills. The paparazzi were inspired by it, they look in turn for “scoops” in the bins of stars. All this work certainly shows the impact of social and economic factors on waste management, but also suggests variability linked to collective and even individual mentalities. This is also the case for protohistory, when practices could vary within one period and within one social and economic system.
As an academic expert in archaeology, can we consider that the past can enlighten the present and put forward “right packaging” solutions for the future?
The way of perceiving the past, the present and the future is neither immutable nor universal. For the Maori, for example, the past is ahead, the future is behind. They consider that time is “interrelated” and that the future depends on the past.
Like the Maori, I am firmly convinced that the future depends on the past and that archaeological data can contribute to current societal issues. If our companies commit themselves to the development of recyclable and environmentally friendly packaging in the long term, indeed, the archaeological data provide us with a great amount of helpful information. Several packages presented nowadays as “innovative”, such as packaging in consumable vegetable leaves have existed since the protohistory (vine leaves etc.). Plaiting nets, basketry made by “weeds” and bags made of nettle thread have been attested since the Neolithic and can inspire the innovative packaging of the future.
It was noted during your presentation that man, over the centuries, has reproduced patterns with regard to the environment (overconsumption, single-use containers/packaging, etc.). Can we start explaining this repetition of facts (sociology, opulence, lower perceived value of things, etc.)?
As for protohistory, cases of overconsumption are very rare and are linked to elites. A rational management of resources is the rule. Agricultural systems are vulnerable and the management of stocks that ensure the survival of groups is at the heart of concerns. The installation of effective containers, which protect the harvests, was a major challenge: ceramic storage vases hermetically sealed, basketry that allows to aerate the grain, etc. Broken ceramic containers are very often repaired (with metal staples); we are far from single-use packaging.
It is not before the historical periods, especially the Roman period, that we notice accumulations of waste containers whose management is a problem, as shown by the Monte Testaccio in Rome, an artificial hill formed by successive layers of shards of oil amphorae. During this same period the recycling is also certified, the shards can be used as building material, they can be crushed to make mortars, etc.
The value of packaging also varies. Nowadays, we do not have any problems with throwing away containers. However, from the Bronze Age on, small clay amphorae containing scented oils, from Mycenaean Greece, are diffused in the Mediterranean and constitute a luxury container that we keep even after consuming the product.
In the past, man found solutions to optimize his containers. Can man take advantage of good practices of the past to apply them today? If yes, which ones?
The past should not be idealized. Apart from ceramic containers, the small number of packages in archaeological excavations is linked to the use of perishable organic materials. Animal bones, remains of charred seeds, various objects show that most often the public space (squares, streets, etc.), is covered with rubbish.
Good practices are first of all linked to the materials used. On a local scale, we exploit all natural environmental resources, even wild resources such as weeds or leaves. Manufactured objects, especially ceramics, are repaired and recycled. I think these approaches will be interesting to explore in the future.
