Intrasite spatial analysis based in a Geographic Information System and apply to extensive Middle Palaeolithic open-air sites in northern France. The example of Caours (Somme, France).

During middle Palaeolithic, northern France was occupied only by Neanderthals groups. However, the succession of glacial and interglacial periods explain a complex and discontinuous settlement, which involved complication in the study of the population dynamics at regional scale. Thereby, some aspects of Neanderthals behaviour are still obscure: in many cases, the sites function have to be precise. The intrasite spatial analysis will help us to answer those questions through the description of human activity areas and their interactions. However, for Middle Palaeolithic sites, we can’t see systematically on the field the spatial organisation directly, we sometimes need modelization. Therefore, we started to build a spatial analysis protocol based on a Geographic Information System and rely on sites of Caours and Beauvais (France). They are two open air sites that are exceptionally well preserved and displaying a large amount of faunal and lithic rests. Our protocol’s aim is showing the existence of a spatial organisation in form of artefacts concentration area. We first hypothesize with mesh analysis – or density, widely used in archaeology. Nevertheless, this method is limited by subjective choices like that of the mesh analysis. For that reason, we decided to use another methodology based on artefacts density but also on the distance between each other: The Kernel Density Estimation. Then, we will specified the function of this areas in a life space and their interactions through the spatial distribution of different lithic artefacts and faunal remains.