A travers l'histoire culturelle de la noix et du noyer en Occident, ce sont tous les rapports des sociétés passées au monde végétal qui sont interrogés. Que savaient ces sociétés de la noix et du noyer ? Que faisaient-elles de cet arbre et de son fruit ? Enfin, que pensaient-elles de ce végétal ? Quelles croyances et quels symboles la noix et le noyer ont-ils inspiré à l'imagination des hommes ? Autant de questions auxquelles il a été possible de répondre dans ce travail grâce à l'élaboration d'une méthodologie nouvelle prenant en compte le caractère de longue durée et l'interdisciplinarité inhérente à un tel sujet. Ainsi, par l'analyse de sources nombreuses, issues de divers champs disciplinaires comme la botanique, la médecine, l'histoire de l'alimentation, l'archéobotanique, les mythologies et les religions, les littératures populaires ou encore la parémiologie, une histoire culturelle de la noix et du noyer a pu être écrite. Cette histoire propose une promenade à travers les sources et les siècles, de l'Antiquité romaine au XVIIIè siècle, qui dévoile les évolutions majeures relatives aux savoirs, aux usages, aux mentalités et aux sensibilités qui ont entouré la noix et le noyer en Occident. / Through the cultural history of the walnut and the walnut tree in the Occident, it is all the relationships between past societies and the vegetal world that are being examined. What did these societies know about the walnut and the walnut tree ? What did they do with this tree and its fruit ? What did they think about it ? How did the walnut and the walnut tree capture the human imagination ? What beliefs and symbols emerged from those conceptions ? It has been possible to answer those questions through the development of a new methodology that takes into account the long-term history and an interdisciplinary approach, inherent to such a subject. Thus, through the analysis of various primary sources from numerous disciplines such as botany, medecine, the history of food, archeobotany, mythologies and religions, popular literatures or proverbs, a cultural history of the walnut and the walnut tree has been elaborated. This history offers a walk, through sources and centuries, from roman Antiquity to the XVIIIth century, and reveals the major developments and shifts regarding knowledges, uses, mentalities and sensibilities concerning the walnut and the walnut tree in the Occident.

The beginnings of human occupation of the Amazon go back to the Pleistocene-Holocene transition. Already at 8500 BP there are signs of human occupation in different settings, both riverine and hinterland, throughout the whole basin. The beginnings of ceramic production may be early as well, with dates possibly from the eighth millennium BP and certainly from the sixth millennium BP. Paradoxically, however, with the exception of localized areas, the archaeological record of the middle Holocene across the Amazon is characterized by large hiatuses with few if any signs of human occupation. Hence, although there are signs of continuous human occupation and population aggregation starting at 4500 BP at places such as the Upper Madeira, the Upano basin and the mouth of the Amazon, these seem to be isolated phenomena since no corresponding developments are seen at the same time elsewhere in the Amazon. It is rather later, from around the anno domini on, that a widespread and visible pattern of population growth, site aggregation and noticeable anthropic landscape changes become visible. These changes are matched, in the archaeological record, by the sudden appearance of large sites with deep stratified ceramic deposits associated with anthropic dark soils, raised fields and causeways, large villages surrounded by moats and connected by road networks and of artificial residential and funerary mounds associated with elaborated pottery, quasi-urban settlement systems, polished stone statuettes, long-range trade networks, and the construction of circular megalithic structures. Do theses hiatuses mean that the Amazon basin was scarcely occupied during the mid-Holocene? Is there a taphonomic bias towards the destruction or poor visibility of sites dating from this interval? Can these apparent hiatuses be correlated with events of climatic change? Current data from pollen records, carbon isotopes in stable organic matter, and fluvial geomorphology show that the mid-Holocene in the Amazon could have been drier than the present. If this is true, it is likely that many of the archaeological sites from this time are either destroyed, under water or under tons of alluvial sediment. Conversely, it is also possible that dryness and changes in water level and forest cover may have had a direct impact in human occupation, explaining the changes observed in the archaeological record. / Los inicios de la ocupación de la Amazonía se remontan a la transición entre el Pleistoceno y el Holoceno. Ya hacia 8500 a.p. existen indicios de ella en diversos asentamientos, tanto ribereños como del interior, a lo largo de toda la cuenca. Los comienzos de la producción cerámica también pueden ser tempranos, con fechas, posiblemente, del octavo milenio a.p. y, con certeza, del sexto milenio a.p. Sin embargo, de manera paradójica, con la excepción de algunas áreas, el registro arqueológico del Holoceno Medio a lo largo de la Amazonía se caracteriza por grandes lagunas con pocas evidencias, o ninguna, de presencia del hombre. Por lo tanto, si bien hay señales de ocupación humana continua y la congregación de gente se inicia hacia 4500 a.p. en lugares como el alto Madeira, la cuenca del Upano y la desembocadura del Amazonas, estas parecen constituir fenómenos aislados, ya que no se observan desarrollos correspondientes en otras partes de la Amazonía al mismo tiempo. Más bien, es aún más tarde, desde alrededor de los inicios de nuestra era en adelante, que se hicieron visibles un crecimiento notable y generalizado de la población, la aglutinación de sitios y transformaciones evidentes en el paisaje antrópico. Estas corresponden, en el registro arqueológico, a la aparición súbita de conjuntos de mayores dimensiones, con profundos depósitos estratificados de cerámica asociados con tierras antrópicas de color oscuro, campos de cultivo y caminos elevados, grandes aldeas rodeadas por fosos y conectadas por redes de caminos, montículos artificiales residenciales y mortuorios asociados con cerámica elaborada, sistemas de asentamientos casi urbanos, estatuaria de piedra pulida, redes de comercio de largo alcance y la construcción de estructuras megalíticas circulares. ¿Significan estos vacíos que la cuenca del Amazonas estaba apenas habitada durante el Holoceno Medio? ¿Existe una predisposición hacia la destrucción o pobre visibilidad de los sitios de este intervalo temporal? ¿Se les puede correlacionar con eventos de cambios climáticos? Los datos actuales obtenidos de registros y estudios de polen, análisis de isótopos de carbón en materiales orgánicos estables y estudios de geomorfología fluvial muestran que el Holoceno Medio en la Amazonía pudo haber sido más seco que en el presente. Si esto es verídico, es probable que los yacimientos arqueológicos de esta etapa estén destruidos, bajo el agua o bajo toneladas de sedimento aluvial. De manera inversa, también es posible que las alteraciones en el nivel del agua y la cubierta boscosa puedan haber tenido un impacto directo en los grupos humanos en cuestión, lo que explicaría los cambios visibles en el registro arqueológico.

Augustodunum, civitas Aeduorum, fondée à l’époque augustéenne, fut dotée de quatre portes urbaines : la porte d’Arroux et la porte Saint-André qui sont les mieux conservées, la porte Saint-Andoche dont il ne reste qu’une tour de flanquement et la porte de Rome, depuis longtemps disparue. L’étude stratigraphique du bâti des portes et la réflexion sur le fonctionnement du chantier de construction des portes urbaines d’Autun constituent le cœur de ce travail. Par ailleurs, antiquaires, voyageurs et artistes ont laissé depuis le XVIème siècle de nombreux témoignages de leur visite des portes romaines d’Autun. Ce fonds documentaire considérable, constitué de sources écrites et iconographiques, n’avait jusqu’alors pas été étudié de manière globale. Il a fallu mettre en série les sources textuelles afin de comprendre la part des emprunts aux travaux antérieurs. Un travail semblable de critique des représentations iconographiques des portes urbaines a également été effectué. Complément indispensable de l’étude stratigraphique des élévations conservées, l’étude de cette documentation ancienne a permis de proposer une hypothèse de restitution de l’histoire longue des portes d’Augustodunum de leur construction à nos jours. Le dernier volet de ce travail a consisté à replacer les portes d’Autun dans la série des portes urbaines monumentales de l’Occident romain construites entre le IIème siècle av. J.-C. et le IIème siècle ap. J.-C. mais aussi à présenter de nouvelles propositions de restitution du projet architectural, du plan des portes et de l’organisation interne de leurs tours de flanquement. / Augustodunum, civitas Aeduorum, roman city founded under the reign of Augustus, was equipped with four roman city gates : the gate of Arroux and the gate of Saint André, both well preserved, the gate of Saint Andoche which sole remaining part is a flanking tower, and the gate of Rome, destroyed long ago.The heart of this study lies in the stratigraphic reading of those gates structure and in thoughts about the building site of Autun’s city gates operating process. Moreover, since the 16th century, antiquaries, travelers and artists have described in many ways their visits to the roman city gates of Autun. These accounts constitute a major documentary collection of written and iconographical sources that had never been studied as a whole before. A classification of written sources was necessary in order to understand the borrowings from previous works. A similar work of critical study has been realized for the iconographical representations of the gates. As an essential complement of the stratigraphic reading of remaining elevations of the gates, the ancient archeological documentation study was indispensable to propose a restoration hypothesis of Augustodunum’s city gates long term history from their construction time to nowadays. The last section of this study aims to locate Autun’s city gates in the series of monumental city gates built in Western Roman Empire between the 2nd century BC and the 2nd century AD. Furthermore, that section presents new propositions for the restoration of the architectural project, of the gates plan and of the inner organization of these gates flanking towers.