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Landscape of the Flemish maritime plain knew
intense periodic upheavals which therefore did
not modify the major nature of the medium,
primarily marshy and subjected to the maritime
influences (marine Transgressions) and fluviatile
(evolution of the delta of Aa). However, are the
materials available which condition the methods
of construction and the craft industries of a
soil. In addition only a deep knowledge of their
natural environment made it possible to the men
to adapt to this relatively hostile and unhealthy
surroundng. The various inhabitants of the
plain and its accesses thus developed, since the
Neolithic era, of the techniques using clay, sand,
wood and the reed, thus supporting the appearance
of a particularly typical medieval architecture.
The archaeological excavations carried out by the
GRAAL since 1989, had made it possible to put at
the day of many vestiges of habitats,
fortifications and craft industries. It was thus
possible to multiply the technical data. It is
the discovery with Coudekerque-Connects of a
whole of brick cooking, " a grinding stone
", which started within the GRAAL the desire
for knowing some more about the artisanal
techniques implemented. The majority of these
craft industries exist still nowadays but in an
industrial form having only few relationship with
our discoveries and there exists little of
specialized works dealing with the old techniques.
The GRAAL was thus implied in the rediscovery of
chains savoirs-to make artisanal disappeared or
ignored and thus developed activities " of
Experimental Archaeology ". The
archaeological excavation in it even give
information on site only in the shape of vestiges
often thin and sometimes not easily interpretable.
The apprehension and the comprehension of a
human settlement as a whole thus pass by a good
knowledge of its natural environment and its
potential like by an experimentation of the
processes, methods and techniques of manufacture
and construct
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