Abstract: Bringing together research carried out on individual aspects of Roman military equipment, this study forms a (long overdue) comprehensive account of the arms used in defense and attack, examining both the practicalities of their manufacture and use, and their importance as indicators of military, technical and cultural evolution.

Abstract: L'objet fabriqué par l'homme, l'artefact, enregistre plusieurs strates d'informations utiles à l'historien : les techniques auquel on a recouru pour le mettre en forme témoignent directement des connaissances de l'artisan, et plus largement de la technologie de son temps. Mais son acquisition par un individu ou un groupe social, qui consiste à retirer l'objet du marché pour l'intégrer dans un contexte fonctionnel, s'effectue elle aussi en fonction de données spécifiques. Cette couche « superficielle » de sens, qui peut varier en fonction des époques et des régions, donc des cultures, est tout aussi éclairante sur les sociétés humaines. C'est entre ces deux approches complémentaires, celle qui relève de la création de l'objet et celle qui découle de son usage, que l'étude des mobiliers archéologiques trouve sa pleine justification.

Abstract: Thanks to archaeological excavations conducted during the last decades, we now have access, in the Herault valley, to rich collections of ancient artefacts in bone, antler and ivory. Studied in context, this data not only enlightens daily life and the influence of urban society on the countryside, as often stressed, but also synergies between crafts : here, the production of bone sewing needles at pezenas, on a site devoted to a textile production, most likely of wool.

Abstract: How can we compare ancient bone-workshops, if not from our main documentary source, the wastes ? In order to test the validity of such approaches, the wastes were attributed to one or another phase of the artefact production process. But the waste volume varies according to the operating chain considered. Although it can reveal unobvious similarities between workshops producing objects of various nature, the method needs to be precised according to the operating chains. Problem : several of them often co-exist on worshops sites, and the wastes are mixed. We therefore need a better description of the wastes elaborated on single-production sites.

Abstract: Previously interpreted as "magical" deposits aimed to attract protection, the depositions of small animals (snakes and birds) buried below the floors of several preroman houses in Languedoc, and dating back to the IVth-Ist c. BC, are reinterpreted here within religious domestic cults. The Roman iconography of the Early Empire makes clear, among others, how such animals could express the cosmological aspect of the Lares : their protection covers not only the home, but also the underworld below the ground as well as the aerial space.