Un nouveau groupe funéraire du Bronze ancien aux Mureaux (Yvelines) : retour sur les pratiques funéraires franciliennes entre 2200 et 1600 av. J.‑C.
Authors: Corona Aloïs , Bossche Benjamin Van Den 
Published: June 2022

Located on the edge of the Seine River, the site of les Herbages in Les Mureaux (Yvelines) was the object of two preventive archaeology operations, in 2013 and 2014, in advance of the extension of industrial infrastructures used by Airbus and its subsidiary, Astrium Space Transportation. The first operation included the partial exploration of a mortuary group that yielded a Butterwick-type copper alloy dagger (Van den Bossche and Blin, 2014), from the initial stage of the Early Bronze Age. The second operation focused on an occupation from the beginning of the Chassean culture. On the edge of this occupation, a new mortuary group was discovered and dated to the Early Bronze Age as well. Both sectors were strongly impacted by earthworks carried out in the 1960s to protect the military installations of the former Étienne Mantoux air base from potential flooding from the Seine. This work naturally affected the highest formations and sometimes reached the Protohistoric levels. It is probably responsible for the generalized leveling of the burial pits and the alterations of the exhumed osseous remains. The two groups each contain three and four individual inhumations. Only one of the tombs contained artifacts. Most of the chronological information is therefore based on AMS radiocarbon dates realized by the University of Groningen (Netherlands) and the Beta Analytic laboratory in Miami, Florida. The dates of the mortuary group excavated in 2014 cover a relatively limited period from the middle of the 22nd century to the end of the 20th century BC. They suggest a short-term use of the mortuary space during the transition from the end of the Bronze A1 and the beginning of the Bronze A2 in Île-de-France and concur with the dates established for the mortuary group studied in 2013 (Van den Bossche and Blin, 2014). Due to the exceptional presence of an artifact type whose production centers are located on the British Isles, isotopic analyses of the three best-preserved burials from the 2014 excavation were also realized, as well as of two inhumations exhumed in 2013. The aim was to confront the 87Sr/ 86Sr signal recorded in the bioapatite of the dental enamel of the individuals in question to obtain information on their geographic origin(s). The interindividual results argue in favor of a homogeneous population for the groups identified in 2013 and 2014. The signature obtained for the neighboring sediments, on the other hand, show much higher values. These significant variations between the human and local sedimentary signals probably indicate residential mobility, though it is not possible to identify the provenance of the inhumed subjects or to determine the period in their life during which this hypothetical migratory episode would have occurred. At the local scale, clear parallels can be observed between the two mortuary groups at les Herbages. These consist of small areas covering a few dozen square meters containing a handful of slightly dispersed tombs. The mortuary practices identified have many points in common. All the burials studied correspond to primary individual inhumations contained in simple, most often large, pits. The bodies, most often in the supine position, are oriented in the east-west axis, with the head most often at east. A significant difference is seen in the artifact, which is found in only one of the burials. Replacing these data within their broader context enables us to review our state of knowledge of the mortuary practices of the Early Bronze Age in Île-de-France. Paradoxically, the few analogies observed at Les Mureaux do not indicate any normalization of the regional mortuary traditions. Even if the available corpus is still small (38 burials distributed among 23 sites), it appears that there was no dominant rule, whether in the treatment of the deceased, the position and orientation of the bodies, the grave goods, the burial method, or the arrangements of the graves. Despite this diversity, there appears to have been a fundamental evolution of behaviors concerning death tending toward a greater focus on the individual and leading to a multiplication of small mortuary units, which is very different from the typical models from the end of the Neolithic Almost all the known trifaces come from southwestern France, but according to the literature, some also exist or may exist in other areas in the South (Chalosse area, Deux-Sèvres, Ardèche and maybe in Alpes-de-Haute-Provence). They also occur in Dordogne in sites attributed to the Southern Acheulean, but they are marginal compared to the other components of lithic assemblages. Indeed, in most of sites, there are only few trifaces. Thus, a definition of the Southern Acheulean based solely on this lithic concept does not seem relevant. Moreover, the absence of the trifacial system in assemblages with similar composition may result from taphonomic processes, site functions or activities. A more in-depth study of several former collections may enhance our understanding of the variability of this concept and links between the techno-complexes of Southern Europe during the final Middle Pleistocene.