Les meules, pièces maîtresses et les mieux conservées des moulins, sont emblématiques des questions relatives à l’histoire de l’économie et des techniques.De l’économie, parce que l’analyse des roches meulières révèle une chaîne complexe de recherche des ressources, d’extraction, de mise en forme, de distribution et d’utilisation qui dépend d’une série de facteurs qui ne concernent pas seulement les meules mais peuvent s’appliquer à toutes sortes de productions artisanales répondant à des besoins primaires de subsistance.Des techniques, parce que l’amélioration des procédés de mouture est le fruit d’une transmission des savoir-faire techniques alliée à une recherche constante de la meilleure réponse possible à des besoins alimentaires qui eux-mêmes évoluent. Cette notion de progrès technique, que l’on observe à la fois sur le temps long (ici plus d’un millénaire) et à l’occasion de brèves transitions politico-culturelles (la conquête romaine de la Gaule puis les migrations germaniques), est à l’origine de profonds changements socio-économiques.Sur la base de travaux de terrain (prospections thématiques), d’analyses d’objets (les meules) et d’un tour d’horizon bibliographique, cette thèse présente une synthèse régionale sur un type de mobilier modeste mais structurant des sociétés et des économies anciennes. / Millstones, as the centerpieces and the best preserved elements of mills, are characteristic of the questions relating to the history of techniques and economics.Of economics, because analysis of the rocks from which they are made reveal a complex chain including their research, extraction, shaping, distribution and use. The factors on which this chain depends don’t only concern querns and millstones but can be applied to all types of craft production that answer to primary needs of subsistence.Of techniques because the improving of milling processes is due to a transmission of technical savoir-faire, mixed with a constant research for the best solution to evolving food needs. This notion of technical progress is observed both over a long time scale (1000 years) and during brief political and cultural transitions (the Roman conquest of Gaul, and the Germanic migrations). This evolution is the basis of deep social and economic changes.Based on field surveys, artifact analysis (querns and millstones) and a literature survey, this thesis presents a regional synthesis on a modest but structuring element of ancient societies and their economies.

This paper deals with village history around millstone quarry Eastern Utsjö in Malung, Sweden, in the hope of finding deposits that could date the quarry, in that the quarry in the current situation is dated only by the millstone fragments outside the resort. My purpose was to conduct a discussion on the quarry alone can be dated by deposits outside the resort. I have used FMIS RAÄ:s fornsök and a lot of literature to identify village history. The results showed that it is not possible to date the millstone quarry from village history, but through deposits outside the resort of Malung, which have been found around Mälardalen, Sweden through archaeological excavations, and derived from the millstone quarry Eastern Utsjö, can put an age on the quarry.