Ceramic baskets and basketwork in southern Corsica at the Bronze Age

A recent and global study of Corsican Bronze Age pottery has allowed the identification of an original technique for the flattening of container bottoms, on circular and flat straw mattresses made of concentrically woven plants. These procedures are only documented in very limited geographical areas (Sartenais, Alta Rocca and Porto Vecchio bay) for a restricted period (Late Bronze Age), and only concern, for each site, a minority of approximately 15% of the finds. Since the excavations are very old, or the information often comes from superficial collecting, the rarity of reliable stratigraphic contexts has to be regretted. The analysis shows the recurrence of the general characteristics of the technique and the cultural context to which it belongs. Thus, it has been possible to observe that protohistorical Corsican basketry is concentric and not spiral, which is particularly original. Corsican basketry also highlights the sometimes standardized character of production (shapes concerned, layout of patterns, thickness and diameter of the bottom). In a more general framework, the study of recurrent associations shows that the production is integrated in both the continental material background, the inspiration of which is linked to the Northern Italic Rhine-Switzerland Eastern France cultural groups (biconical vases), and in an interactive play with the north of nearby Sardinia (plates, low forms). This dichotomy illustrates perfectly the position and the role which Corsica could have played in the Tyrrhenian Sea region from the end of the 2nd millennium. In conclusion, some comparisons - archaeological (objects found in pile-dwelling contexts and small Sardinian bronzes) and ethnographic (sub-contemporary Sardinian basketry) - allow some hypotheses to be proposed with regard to certain aspects of Corsican and Sardinian protohistorical esparto work, namely with regard to the plants used, the way they were woven and the shape and function of the basketwork. Given that insular finds pertaining to objects made of woven plants are rare, this indirect evidence constitutes the main source of documentation on this kind of handicraft.