En Antiquité tardive, la communauté des clercs est en pleine formation et apparait de plus en plus souvent dans les inscriptions. D’où l’intérêt de faire ressortir de ces sources la position sociale du clergé, et de poser la question de leur spécificité dans la somme des inscriptions tardo-antiques. D’abord les sources épigraphiques des clercs sont resitués dans le vaste champ des inscriptions de l’Antiquité tardive, avant de mettre en évidence la diversité des inscriptions selon la charge occupée et d’aborder la question de l’(auto-)représentation des clercs. La position sociale du clergé, la fonction des inscriptions du clergé dans le contexte funéraire et un examen des domaines dans lesquels les clercs prennent un rôle actif constituent les chapitres 3 à 5. Dans le catalogue épigraphique (vol. II) sont présentées 847 inscriptions, de genres différents (essentiellement inscriptions funéraires et de construction, éloges versifiés et graffiti) provenant de toute la péninsule italienne. / In Late Antiquity, the community of clerics is considerably expanding and appears henceforth frequently in inscriptions. This is why it is interesting to work out of this type of sources the social position of the clergy and ask for their distinctiveness within late antique inscriptions. At first, epigraphic evidence of clerics is to be resituated in the broad field of late antique inscriptions, before exposing the diversity of the inscriptions depending on the offices held and resolving the question of the clerics’ (self-) portrayal. The social status of the clergy, an analysis of the inscriptions’ role in the funerary context as well as a study of the domains in which clerics appear as proactive people are the central themes of chapter 3 to 5. In the epigraphical catalogue (vol. II) are presented 847 inscriptions of various types (mainly sepulchral and building inscriptions, poems of praise and graffiti), coming from all over the Italian peninsula.

Yes / Grotta del Romito has been the subject of numerous archaeological, chronological and palaeoenvironmental investigations for more than a decade. During the Upper Palaeolithic period the site contains evidence of human occupation through the Gravettian and Epigravettian periods, multiple human burials, changes in the pattern of human occupation, and faunal, isotopic and sedimentological evidence for local environmental change. In spite of this rich record, the chronological control is insufficient to resolve shifts in subsistence and mobility patterns at sufficiently high resolution to match the abrupt climate fluctuations at this time. To resolve this we present new radiocarbon and tephrostratigraphic dates in combination with existing radiocarbon dates, and develop a Bayesian age model framework for the site. This improved chronology reveals that local environmental conditions reflect abrupt and long-term changes in climate, and that these also directly influence changing patterns of human occupation of the site. In particular, we show that the environmental record for the site, based on small mammal habitat preferences, is chronologically in phase with the main changes in climate and environment seen in key regional archives from Italy and Greenland. We also calculate the timing of the transitions between different cultural phases and their spans. We also show that the intensification in occupation of the site is chronologically coincident with a rapid rise in Mesic Woody taxa seen in key regional pollen records and is associated with the Late Epigravettian occupation of the site. This change in the record of Grotta del Romito is also closely associated stratigraphically with a new tephra (the ROM-D30 tephra), which may act as a critical marker in environmental records of the region. / Leverhulme Trust (F/0 0235/I) and by a Natural Environment Research Council ORADS radiocarbon dating award (NF/2011/2/7).