Uses, Contexts, and Circulation of Amber between the Rhine watershed and the Moravian Gate from the Bronze Age to the Hallstatt period : New interdisciplinary perspectives

This thesis proposes a new approach to deepening our knowledge of Bronze Age and Hallstatt-period amber artifacts across a geographical area spanning eastern France to the eastern Czech Republic. This work is based in particular on comparative studies conducted directly on archaeological amber material and on artifacts found in the same features (pits, tombs, deposits, etc.) preserved in museums and archaeological institutions in the Czech Republic and Alsace. By studying the deposition contexts and associated artifacts, this work aims to answer questions about the place, use, and symbolism of amber in protohistoric societies by comparing them with neighboring cultural areas such as Germany, Switzerland, and Hungary, as well as more distant areas such as the Mycenaean cultural area. To this end, this thesis adopts an interdisciplinary approach that combines high-resolution microscopy, traceology, physicochemical analyses, and conservation sciences. The interregional approach provides an overview of the similarities and differences among amber object typologies, the contexts in which they are found, and the sets of artifacts with which they are associated. The uneven distribution of information available on amber artifacts and the contexts in which they were discovered and deposited, depending on the country and region, is highlighted as one of the most significant problems for the study of this fossil resin in archaeology. The advanced state of deterioration of amber and unsuitable storage environments are also obstacles to the study of this material. Finally, this work includes an experimental section that evaluates the usefulness of 3D modeling on amber artifacts. After digitizing 28 beads and pendants, the Structure from Motion method shows promising results for the conservation of this material and offers new possibilities for studying it using 3D models. This thesis is currently one of the most comprehensive research projects on archaeological amber in Europe, providing a large-scale, synoptic, and diachronic study and proposing a new combination of analytical and conservation methods.