An estuarine tidescape of production: terrestrial laser scanning of fixed fishing structures and a tide mill in the Léguer Estuary, Brittany

Michael Lobb (1) , Tony Brown (1) , Jules Leyland (1) , Vincent Bernard (2) , Marie-Yvane Daire (2) , Loïc Langouët

1 Geography & Environmental Sciences, University of Southampton
2 CReAAH - Centre de Recherche en Archéologie, Archéosciences, Histoire

Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) provides a means of rapid and highly accurate survey of archaeological excavations and structures at landscape scales, and is particularly valuable for documenting tidal environments. Here, the authors use TLS to record tidal fixed fishing structures and a tide mill within the Léguer Estuary at Le Yaudet, in north-west France. As part of a comprehensive resource-exploitation system, the early medieval (sixth to eighth centuries AD) structures lie within, and exploit different parts of, the tidal frame. The results are used to quantify production within an estuarine landscape associated with seignorial or monastic control of environmental resources.

Keywords: France; Brittany; early medieval; fish weirs; terrestrial laser scanning; tide mill; tidal mill; estuarine resources; tidal zone excavation Research Region: Western Europe

Domains: Humanities and Social Sciences; Archaeology and Prehistory

Michael Lobb, Tony Brown, Jules Leyland, Vincent Bernard, Marie-Yvane Daire, et al.. An estuarine tidescape of production: terrestrial laser scanning of fixed fishing structures and a tide mill in the Léguer Estuary, Brittany. Antiquity, 2020, 94 (377), pp.1296-1313. ⟨10.15184/aqy.2020.135⟩. ⟨hal-02983981⟩