Approche structurale des nécropoles monumentales du Ve millénaire dans le bassin Seine-Yonne
Authors: Chambon Philippe , Thomas Aline 
Published: May 2017

The identification of the Passy monuments in 1983 completely modified perception of the middle Neolithic period. Although about twenty cemeteries are now known, the Yonne valley and its confluence with the Seine is still the heartland of Passy-type cemeteries. In terms of monument shape, size and numbers, these cemeteries all differ from one another. Whether they are excessively long or not, most monuments only contain one or two single graves on the central axis and these are essentially related to the ‘ Balloy’ type. A higher number is exceptional. Reading of the cemeteries has mainly been hierarchichal : the monuments indicate the emergence of a dominant caste. In order to go beyond this interpretation, which could be applied to any funerary monumentality, we have examined the statuses of the individuals and the underlying ideology, taking as our starting point two results of the 1994 Nemours conference. First, I. Sidéra underlined that the grave-goods contrast strongly with the finds from settlements, with specific objects such as suid canines. She stressed the symbolic value of the grave-goods, exalting hunting and the wild world. Yet the Cerny economy remains totally agricultural. The second result concerned cemetery structure and in particular Balloy, les Réaudins. D. Mordant associated monuments on the basis of their orientations and shapes. We ourselves noted that adults in a monument were the same sex. Thus one saw a series of pairs emerging, each consisting of a female monument and a male monument. By comparing orientation, topography and morphology, we again found these associations at Passy. The paired monuments are not identical : different lengths, distinct layouts etc. Here again we find the principles of association and disassociation discerned at Balloy. The elementary group should be interpreted as the basic module for the monumental cemeteries, for which Gron supplies the prototype. The funerary recruitment varies from one cemetery to another. Passy La Sablonnière has no evidence for age selection. At Balloy there are no children under 1 year. At Passy Richebourg children under 5 and some adults are missing. The male female ratio varies from 4 at La Sablonnière to 0,7 at Richebourg. Two categories of emblematic object, arrowheads and ‘ Eiffel towers’, are reserved for men. The four modules with ‘ Eiffel towers’ are male. The burials are men or children, each time with a person equipped with arrows. The man with the ‘ Eiffel tower’ is the principal character. Only eight examples of this object have been found and its actual use remains unknown. The person so equipped sometimes stands out biologically. At Balloy, he has a double trepanation and is the oldest man. At Gron, he suffers from a pathology that handicaps his right elbow. At Balloy, his grave architecture is unique and the grave-goods are quite particular : a bird of prey talon and a bone tube in a lump of ochre. Graves are clustered around this person. Placed in the centre of the most important alignment, which has nine axial graves and four peripheral graves, the Balloy example is the most convincing. In fact the monumental cemeteries provide us with two organisational models and these sometimes occur together. The basic module, in both cases, associates neighbouring or adjoining monuments, with the same morphology and orientation. The sex of the burials is predetermined by monument. The first model associates a male monument and a female monument. In the second model both monuments are male, associated with four categories of person, in hierarchical order : first the ‘ Eiffel tower’ man, then the «hunter » ; then come the other men and children in the internal area, and lastly the women and children placed on the periphery. The majority of burials only have one or two grave-goods, or none at all. Only ten types of object are present at least twice (excluding ornaments). Arrowheads make up almost half the finds. If one includes the bone and antler artefacts, made from wild species, almost three quarters of the objects ultimately refer to the wild realm. This exacerbation contrasts with the case of the Rhineland Mittelneolithikum, which shares a common filiation with the Cerny. Grave-goods are abundant, yet there are only eleven categories, excluding ornaments and faunal deposits. Five categories are agricultural tools. If one includes the pottery, over 80% of the objects evoke the domestic realm. In both groups, the grave-goods have clearly been selected. If one accepts the assumption of obligatory interaction between the groups, this exacerbation of the wild on one side and of the domestic on the other should be read as a deliberate opposition. At several levels of analysis, a set of structural oppositions thus emerges. The man with the ‘ Eiffel tower’ is distinguished, but associated, with the «hunter » . Men and women are not buried on the central axis of the same monuments. Two models confont one another, one founded on male female complementarity, the other on complementarity between the «Eiffel tower » man and the hunter. The basic modules include two monuments, always distinct. Hunting, in the Cerny domain, opposes agriculture in the Mittelneolithikum…

Dynamic reading of the cemeteries reveals the reproduction of an elementary module : the associated values are also reproduced, including the status of the dead. The monumental cemeteries of the mid-5th millennium constitute a particularly favourable case for the observation of a social structure in Prehistory : in the current state of knowledge, the people who established these cemeteries are the earliest to show diversified and repeated statuses.