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Origin and history

The Constantine Protohistoric Site is a Celtic Protohistoric Site located in Lançon-Provence (Bouches-du-Rhône), Provence, France. Built in the Iron Age (VIth century BC), it extends over 7 hectares, overlooking the plain of the Berre pond. Surrounded by dry stone ramparts and seven towers, it housed a chtonian temple, habitats, a paleo-Christian chapel and traces of agricultural activities (Latenian presses). Under the tutelage of the Salyens, he served as a stronghold, a place of exchange and worship at Belenos, the Gaulish god of the waters.

The site reflects the commercial tensions between Salyens and Phoceans (Greeks of Massalia) as early as the 2nd century BC, playing a role in the "defensive crown" against the Massaliot expansion. Its ruins reveal a fluctuating occupation: abandoned between 20 and 10 B.C. for a plain habitat under Rome, it was reoccupied from the 5th to the 9th century (Wisigoth and Carolingian period), housing a village community around a chapel of the 6th century.

The excavations, since the sixteenth century, have often been destructive, but the rigorous campaigns (1980–2007) revealed five stratigraphic layers, ranging from Hellenism (II century BC) to late antiquity (V century). Key artifacts include a simplified "pre-Roman" ionic capital (1991), a stone engraved with a Gallic bust (1978, Granet Museum), and protohistoric sarcophagus (2013) suggesting a necropolis along the south road.

The architecture combines cyclopean walls (3 m thick) and habitats in raw land, typical of the Regional Protohistory. The site, privately owned by the Domaine de Calissanne since the 19th century, has been listed as a Historic Monument since 1926. Its access requires authorization, emphasizing its status as a guarded hunt and protected heritage.

The strategic geography of Constantine, close to the neolithic (future Aurélian way) and neighbouring sites (Roquepertuse, Oppidum des Escalèdes), makes it a commercial and military node. Medieval legends, like that of the golden statues in the avens, bear witness to its mystical aura, while the 17th century scholars (Bouche, 1664) already rented its walls "of a great antiquity".

Abandoned after the Carolingian Empire, the site illustrates the cycles of occupation related to insecurity: protohistoric refuge, medieval village, and then decline in the face of urbanisation of the plains. Its remains, ranging from votive avens to merovingian pottery, offer a rare testimony of Celto-ligure, Salyan and Paleo-Christian life in Provence.

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