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Grotte de Fontbrégoua is a limestone cave overlooking a small valley of the Bresque River. Near the Mediterranean hinterland
Located in the Salernes, Var department. In the Provence region of southeastern France.

Excavations were conducted primarily by Henry de Lumley and later by J. Courtin, J. Guilaine, and P. Villa. In the 1960s to 1980s
They helped identify phases that were early to middle cardial (impressed ware) neolithic, ca. 5500–4800 BCE.

Fontbrégoua is a cave site, like Cova de l’Or. It’s not dealing with a village of longhouses, but with internal living zones within a karstic chamber

Excavations revealed
Hearths and domestic floors: with repeated rebuilding episodes;
Stone arrangements and postholes: possibly forming light internal partitions or supports for racks and wattle screens; and
Layers rich in ash, pottery, bones, and charcoal: representing long-term occupation phases.

There was no “central building” but its the main chamber served as a communal domestic space
Probably for cooking, craft, and social activity.

Unique architectural or spatial features included hearth areas that were carefully maintained, and reused Showing deliberate organization.

Storage pits and refuse zones suggest a planned use of interior space.

Some stone slab structures might have served as low walls or bins for storage too.

No monumental or ritual building have been identified. But the complex layering and repeated hearth renewal, indicate long-term structured use
Similar to what’s seen in Cova de l’Or, or Pendimoun.

Archaeobotanical and faunal analyses show cardial inhabitants practiced mixed farming, collecting and herding. Typical of early Mediterranean neolithic lifeways
Cereals: Triticum dicoccum (emmer), T. monococcum (einkorn), Hordeum vulgare (barley);
Legumes: Pisum sativum (pea), Lens culinaris (lentil), Vicia faba (broad bean);
Oil/fiber plants: Linum usitatissimum (flax);
Fruits/nuts: Acorns, hazelnuts, wild olive, wild grape; and
Animals domesticated: Sheeps/goat, cattle, pigs, plus wild red deer and boar

No boats or boat remains were found at Fontbrégoua
It’s an inland cave, roughly 30–40 km from the Mediterranean coast.

Nevertheless, the pottery style and the Lipari or Sardinia obsidian traces link it to coastal cardial maritime networks
Implying indirect boat-mediated exchange.

Check it out with some more neolithic architecture today!

Bibliography: White, Tim D. (1992). Prehistoric Cannibalism at Mancos 5MTUMR-2346. Princeton: Princeton University Press

Le Bras-Goude, G.; Binder, D.; Zemour, A.; Richards, MP. (2010). “New radiocarbon dates and isotope analysis of Neolithic human and animal bone from the Fontbrégoua Cave (Salernes, Var, France)”. Journal of Anthropological Sciences. 88: 167–178. PMID 20834056 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20834056)

Nos ancêtres du Midi : voyage dans le temps (https://archive.today/201301232