ALLONVILLE Somme, France.
In the Amiens arrondissement, canton of Amiens-Nord. Allonville is in the center of the city of the Ambiani, NE of Amiens, between the Roman roads running from Amiens to Arras and from Amiens to Cambrai and Bavay. Aerial photography has recently revealed far more than the archaeological studies of the 19th c.: a Roman villa in the area of Les Faurieux, another building of the same period at La Vallée du Cange, and two tumuli of an undetermined period (Bronze Age? Iron Age?) at Le Beuvrin. However, two important digs in 1966 confirmed the richness of the Allonville site. The first allows us to settle the much-debated problem of the dividing sandhills that are an essential feature of the Picardy landscape. These are not the result of natural modifications of the soil, as had long been thought, but of man's efforts to prevent erosion of the land. Excavation revealed a series of fossil-bearing furrows, showing that swing-plows once passed over the chalky soil, at the edge of a prehistoric ditch. A pile of earth was spread over everything, to break the slope. The other dig revealed a large cremation tomb inside a square enclosure. The large number of objects found there—vases, goblets, urns, etc.—seems to argue in favor of dating the tomb from Iron Age I. Now in the Musée de Picardie at Amiens, this material is being studied.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
R. Agache, “Archéologie aérienne de la Somme,” Bulletin special de la Préhistoire du Nord 6 (1964) pl. 32, no. 105; id., “Détection aérienne de vestiges protohistoriques gallo-romains et médiévaux dans la bassin de la Somme et ses abords,” Bulletin de la Préhistoire du Nord 7 (1970) pl. 82, no. 275, p. 194, no. 315, pl. 205, no. 651; E. Will, “Information archéologique de la circonscription Nord-Picardie,” Gallia 25, 2 (1967) 200-2.P. LEMAN