Early medieval exchanges with northern European populations

The village of La Flotte is located on the north coast of the Ile de Ré, on France's Atlantic coast. From October to December 2024, Inrap archaeologists carried out an excavation there, led by Annie Bolle. The French institute (Inrap) operates across mainland France and its overseas territories, conducting excavations in areas where construction or development projects may impact archaeological remains, including urban and rural developments, major transport routes such as high-speed rail lines and motorways, or material extraction sites like quarries. The excavation at La Flotte was conducted prior to the construction of a house. The excavated area lies next to a Gallo-Roman villa that was occupied from the 1st to the 3rd century. Most of the findings concern the Middle Ages, in particular a chapel and burials dated between the 8th and 15th centuries. A few burials from the Carolingian period (late 8th to 10th century) yielded objects of Nordic origin, more specifically from the southern North Sea (British Isles, Saxony and Friesland).