Sur les rives du lac du Bourget à la fin de l’âge du Bronze

The archeological knowledge of the lake Le Bourget has long been limited to the lot of objects dredged with little regard for the context on the Late Bronze Age lakeside settlements during the second half of the 19th century. Underwater surveys over the past two decades have resulted in a review of the observations of precursors of underwater archeology and allow to clarify the area and the conservation status of the sites. On several of them, and contrary to what was conventionally accepted, thick sedimentary sequences are present. Stratigraphic excavations and tree-ring dating are used to define several phases of occupation from -1068 to -805, interspersed by more or less important transgressive pulsations for which sedimentological and palynological studies provide clarification. Data were obtained on the forms of habitat, which are not stereotyped unlike the lakeshore settlements of the Swiss Plateau. For two sites, indications were obtained on the internal evolution. A model of the lake shores occupation begin to be documented, with a possibility of functional specialization of the sites. Various studies (carpology, parasitology, organic geochemistry…) give early indications on the land-use modalities and its evolution. At least, the abandonment of lacustrine shores no longer appears to be linked mechanically to climatic pejoration, but rather to the conjunction of unfavorable factors.