Traditions culturelles dans les premières communautés villageoises du Levant Nord : l'analyse fonctionnelle de l'outillage en silex de Dja'de el-Mughara (Syrie, PPNB ancien, 9ème millénaire).

Starting from 12000 BC. deep social, economic, technical and cultural mutations took place that will lead to the emergence of sedentary societies in which the food economy will rely on agriculture and farming. This process –known as Neolithisation – can be observed in Northern Levant, particularly in the village of Dja’de that has been occupied during one millennium by hunters-gatherers who will eventually become farmers. Although the chipped stone industry of the early PPNB (9e millennium) has already been the object of technological and typological studies, no use-wear analysis has yet been done. In the context where relationship between humans and their environment changed, the study of the function of stone tools is primordial to understand the nature of these changes. During this process, it appears that the management of the tools becomes more complex: the use of the tools intensifies, the degree of sharpening increases, the recycling is more frequent, and the storage modalities evolve. This analysis of flint tools from Dja’de combined a functional approach with other aspects usually studied (technology and typology). For this period of the aceramic Neolithic that is still not well documented, the analysis of the traces of use, backed up by experimentation, has brought us new insights about the village activities, the techniques used by its inhabitants and the management of the lithic production, providing us a better understanding of the way of life and the organisation of pre-agricultural societies in Northern Levant.