This original research aims at tightening the chronological and cultural framework of the Late Neolithic in western France. The fragmented cultural entities defined on the sole basis of ceramic assemblages form a mosaic that has, until now, undermined our understanding of Neolithic society. This reductive vision of the Neolithic needed to be updated in the light of recent and often unpublished discoveries. The topic of this research encompasses the late neolithic period, from 3800 to 2900/2800 BC. The study area spreads from southern Brittany to southern Vendée and to the Centre-West of France. The original approach of this project is based on the typo-technological study of material culture (lithic industry and ceramics), completed by physicochemical analyses (petrography, Raman spectrometry, organic chemistry). This may seem like an ambitious project, as it covers the totality of available data from material productions, human settlement and funerary contexts to trade and diffusion. Among the various themes that are approached in this synthesis is the notion of habitat and its perennial or temporary nature, a topic that has not previously been studied for this period. Thus, contexts and material cultures are studied in order to understand group and individual mobility. This prompts us to reconsider the favoured exchange and circulation corridors constituted by maritime and fluvial spaces and their role in the organisation of the territory. Funerary practices and the megalithic constructions associated with them form a basis for our theories because they are representative of the [Neolithic] society. At the end of our work, we propose a chronological sequence that divides the period into three shorter ones, reflecting the different rhythms suggested by lithic and ceramic assemblages.
