Aubignosc (; ) is a commune in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of south-eastern France.
Geography Aubignosc is located in the west of the Durance valley some 8 km south by south-east of Sisteron, 21 km west of Digne-les-Bains and 36 km north by north-east of Manosque.Acme Mapper Orthodromic Distances Apart from the village there are the hamlets of Les Jardins and Le Forest.Google Maps
Topography The village is located at 460 metres above sea level on the eastern slope of the valley of the Durance. The land is on the border of the Pre-Alps of Digne to the east and the Baronnies to the west. The altitude varies from 432 metres to 1,330 metres (east of the Lure mountain whose summit is at 1,826 metres between Cruis and Noyers-sur-Jabron. It once corresponded to a linguistic border between two varieties of Occitan). South of the village is hilly terrain with carved valleys and gullies over 600 metres deep. There are the Redonnette Ravine, the Maurieu Ravine, the Côtes chaudes Ravine, the Trou de Loupe Ravine, and the valley of the Grand Champ successively from north to south along the hills.
Environment The town has 734 hectares of woods and forests.
Transport The commune lies between Forcalquier (south-west), Digne-les-Bains to the east and Gap farther north. Access to the commune is by the A51 autoroute from La Brillanne in the south passing through the east of the commune with Exit 21 in the commune and continuing north. Route nationale N85 comes from Malijai in the south and joins the A51 in the commune. The D4085 comes from Sisteron in the north and joins the N85 in the commune. The D951 comes from Peipin in the north and passes south through the west of the commune and continues to Mallefougasse-Augès in the south-west. Access to the village is by the D503 which branches off the D4085 in the commune and goes south-west to join the D951 in the commune.
The nearest railway station served by the TER (Marseille - Briancon) is located in Sisteron as well as a bus station. Buses provide connections to the Digne-les-Bains - Château-Arnoux - Veynes service as well as the Digne - Avignon service.
The aerodrome of Sisteron-Theze is located twenty kilometres to the north at Vaumeilh.
There is a short hiking trail (equestrian route) passing through the commune from north to south.
Hydrology
The entire eastern border of the commune is formed by the Durance as it flows south to eventually join the Rhône at Avignon. The Durance is both an Alpine and Mediterranean river with very specific morphology. It is called "capricious" and was once feared for its Flash floods (it was called the 3rd scourge of ProvenceProvençale tradition says that the first two are the mistral and the Parliament of Aix) as well as for its low flow. Several intermittent streams trickle down the slopes and the Faillée gorge (east of the Lure mountain), and through the Prieuré forest. They flow into the Riou stream which flows north or to the Ravine de Maurieu, both tributaries of the Durance.
Geology
Related article: Geology of the Alps.
The commune lies on the eastern edge of Lure mountain with Provençal limestone formations of the Upper Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous periods (sedimentary rocks from a former Alpine Ocean), between several major geological formations of the Alps:Maurice Gidon, The secondary mountains of Digne the Lure secondary mountains which are marked by numerous faults oriented north-west to south-east; the Durance fault to the south-east in the valley.
Natural and technological hazards None of the 200 communes of the department are in a no seismic risk zone. The Canton of Volonne to which Aubignosc belongs is zone 1b (low risk) according to the deterministic classification of 1991 which is based on historical seismic activity, and zone 4 (medium risk) according to probabilistic classification EC8 of 2011. Farther south, along the Durance fault, the cantons of Peyruis, Les Mees, Manosque-Nord, Manosque-Sud-Est, Manosque-Sud-Ouest, and Valensole are in Zone 2 (medium risk).Risk of Seismic Activity 26 January 2012
Aubignosc commune is also exposed to three other natural hazards: forest fire, flood (in the valley of the Bléone),Flood Risk 26 January 2012 landslide: the commune has a high risk in a substantial part of its territory.Risk of Avalanche 26 January 2012
Aubignosc is also exposed to technological risks: risk of dam failure (the valley of the Durance would be submerged in case of failure of the Serre-Ponçon dam);Rupture of Barrage Risk document , 26 January 2012 risk of transporting hazardous materials by rail, road, and pipeline. This is from the transport of primary materials to its destination or finished products from the Arkema factory at Saint-Auban. These products are likely to be carried on the A51 autoroute, Route nationale N85, or the Lyon-Marseille via Grenoble railway. Finally the Transalpes and Transéthylène pipelines are used to carry ethylene through the commune.Transport of dangerous materials by road 26 January 2012
The Risk prevention plan for foreseeable natural risks (PPR) does not exist for the commune. A DICRIM does not exist.
The town has been the victim of several natural disasters of floods and mudslides in 1994 and 1998. The earthquake that was felt the most in Aubignosc was the Lambesc earthquake on 11 June 1909
Neighbouring communes and villages
Toponymy
The commune is called Aubinhòsc in classical Provençal and Lou Bignosc in Provençal of the Mistralian norm. The locality appears for the first time in texts from 1040 as de Albinosco. The name is derived from the Roman Gens Albinus with the suffix -osc and became Bignosc in the 16th century.
The toponymy of the commune is influenced by the mountainous character of the region, the Mediterranean climate, and the Occitan culture. The Chemin des Côtes (Path of the hills) which passes over the crest of the Lure, bordering Peipin, is also a path which is used to climb the peaks. Its neighbour, the Chemin de Plaine Longue (Path of the long plain) leads to the high plateau. There is also the Côtes Chaudes (Hot hills), near the Ponchonnière (pointed summit). The Pas des Bœufs indicates a way of passage or a pass in Occitan dialect.
Erosion, aggravated by deforestation, washes pebbles from the mountains that accumulate at the bottom of slopes: this kind of area is called Gravas (near Forest); the Roubines refer to black marl or clay - i.e. robines in French.
The Ravines de la Romigière and of Buis are named after the vegetation: in Occitan romigière is a place where brambles grow.
Human occupation and land use have resulted in several specific names: there are several places called Grand-Champ; Condamine is manorial land, indivisible and exempt from taxation; Forest is a hamlet - not in a forest but an isolated village. Finally, sheepfarming with the Occitan Jas (sheep pen) has provided several names: Jas de Mathieu in Lure, Les Jas, and the hamlet of Jas in the Forest vale.
History
Prehistory During the construction of the A51 autoroute a prehistoric site was excavated at Ponchonnières which was occupied by the Chasséen, then the Neolithic, and finally the Chalcolithic peoples around 3000 B.C. The site was occupied by agro-pastoralists who built huts of about 20 m2 with the top being 4 or 5 m high. Their herds consisted mainly of small ruminants (70-80%) and cattle (about 20%). The consumption of meat from the herd was supplemented by the collection of molluscs (snails but also 18 other species). Anthracological studies have shown that the wood used for fires was oak (green or pubescent) which shows that the forest was still quite widely present at this time.
Gallic and Roman period During Antiquity the territory of Aubignosc belonged to the Sogiontii whose territory extended from south of the Baronnies to the Durance. The Sogiontiques were federated with the Vocontii and, after the Roman conquest, they were attached with them to the Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis. In the 2nd century they are detached from Voconces and form a distinct civitas with its capital at Segustero (Sisteron). An ancient tomb was found in the commune in 1962.
The A51 works also identified Gallo-Roman buildings. These facilities, located at Présidentes, corresponded to a village or a small town. The inhabitants lived on agriculture while there was a large area where a libertus (freedman), Gaius Iulius Thallus, lived on the site of the current village. Thallus, a Roman citizen, is the oldest known inhabitant of Aubignosc. The quality of the construction of the village at Présidentes is fairly average: the walls are made of pebbles and the mortar is simple lime.
The Romans built a temple to Sylvanus whose altar was reused in the church as the base of the font.
Middle Ages While the south-east of Gaul was Burgundian land, the king of the Ostrogoths, Theodoric the Great, conquered the region between the Durance, the Rhône, and Isère in 510. The commune depended briefly on Italy until 526. In order to reconcile with the Burgundian king Godomar III, the Ostrogothic regent Amalasontha gave him the territory.
In the Middle Ages the Aubignosc community was part of the viguerie of Sisteron and the Abbey of Cruis owned a priory. The Aubignosc community had the privilege of not paying queste (similar to Taille) to the Counts of Provence (and their successors, the kings of France) until the French Revolution.
Contemporary period Following a dispute between the priest and his parishioners, a large part of the community embraced Protestant worship en masse.Peter M. Jones, Some elementary forms of religious life in rural France (end of the 18th and the 19th centuries), "Annales, Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations". Volume 42, No. 1, 1987, p. 99.
After the French coup of 1851 of 2 December by Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, the areas around Sisteron, Forcalquier, and Manosque developed a resistance movement to defend the Republic: 15,000 armed men were mobilized. The Resistance took control of the prefecture at Digne and formed a "Departmental Committee of resistance". The army, who rallied to Napoleon III, overcame this movement. After the failure of the insurrection severe repression continued for those who stood to defend the Republic: 8 inhabitants of Aubignosc were brought before the Joint Commission, the most common punishment being deportation to Algeria.Henri Joannet and Jean-Pierre Pinatel, Arrests and condemnations, "1851-Pour mémoire", Les Mées: Les Amis des Mées, 2001, p. 71.
As with many communes in the department Aubignosc had schools well before the Jules Ferry laws: in 1863 it had two - installed in the main village and also in Forest - which provided primary education for boys. No instruction was given to girls: neither the Falloux Act (1851), which required the opening of a girls' school in communes with more than 800 inhabitants nor the first Duruy Law (1867), which lowers the threshold to 500 inhabitants, affected Aubignosc. The town benefited from subsidies from the second Duruy law (1877) to construct new schools to replace the old but it was not until the Ferry laws that girls from the commune had regular schooling.
In many communes the department has had a significant rural exodus from the 1850s. The commune lost half of its population in a little over a hundred years.
The region was also affected by regional or national fatal episodes: epidemics of cholera and the world wars (men died at the front during the First World War). During the Second World War the department was occupied by Italy in 1942-1943 then by Nazi Germany until August 1944. At that time the nearby town of Sisteron was bombed by the Allies as part of the Provence landings. The commune and Digne were liberated on 19 August 1944.