Crémations et monument funéraire campaniformes à Genlis « le Nicolot » (Côte-d’Or, France)
Authors: Christin Lucie , Ducreux Franck , Fossurier Carole , Sordoillet Dominique , Cattin Florence , Cambou David , Dufraisse Alexa 
Published: June 2024

The building of the high-speed rail track linking the Rhine to the Rhone led to the discovery of two Bell Beaker burials in an Iron Age cemetery located in the plain to the east of Dijon. The Tilles plain is an alluvial environment, shaped by the valleys of the Tille and the Ouche and populated since Late Prehistory, particularly during the Bell Beaker and Early Bronze periods, which have yielded settlements located on the rivers. These burials are the first funerary features discovered in the area. The two Bell Beaker cremation burials excavated at Genlis “ le Nicolot” are remarkable, as still too little is known of the funerary practices of the period in the east of France and in particular in Burgundy. Few Bell Beaker cremation burials are documented in Western Europe, whereas this practice is well known in Central Europe and the Genlis burials underline the strong cultural links with this area. The Genlis cremations are unprecedented in an area where until now only individual inhumations have been found. One of the burials has a remarkable funerary monument, with a complex layout of corner posts connected by shallow side pits. This architecture delimits a quadrangular space 1.4 m long and 1.2 m wide. The remains of a cremation, certainly originally located in the middle of the monument, were found scattered in the fill of the features that delimit it. The cremation contained two beakers with corded decoration and the remains of an ox skull. The painstaking excavation of this funerary monument and the micro-morphological analyses carried out on the ditch fill provide new data, which has contributed to precise reconstructions of the architecture and the funerary space. The detailed analysis of the bone material in the fill of the post holes and the monument''s boundary pits, has also identified unburnt animal offerings, including a bovid skull, which again refers to funerary practices attested from the Final Neolithic and Bell Beaker graves in Central Europe or in the Rhine area as well as in Britain. This cremation has yielded two beakers with corded motifs and a set of animal bones that may have been offerings. Goblets with corded decor are rare in Burgundy and bear witness to an early Bell Beaker phase that is still difficult to define from a chrono-cultural point of view, but for which corded influences seem more than likely. This early Bell Beaker phase has also been highlighted in the area of Genlis with typical features identified at the sites of Labergement-Foigney, “ les Côtes-Robin” and Genlis, “ la Moussenière”. These features represent the first stages of an occupation that develops during the second half of the Bell Beaker phase and the Early Bronze Age. The other burial is located in a shallow square pit interpreted as a small wooden chest. The pit housed the cremated remains, which were contained in a perishable envelope and the accompanying grave goods. These are similar to the typical Bell Beaker funerary sets containing a vessel with a Burgundian-Jurassian comb decoration, an archer''s cuff made of schist, a small copper dagger and a flint tool, which was probably a lighter. The dagger with its relatively atypical shape is without doubt the oldest metal object found in a funerary context in Burgundy. Unfortunately, the metallographic analyses carried out on this object have not pinpointed the origin of the ore used in its manufacture. These two burials provide important new information on Bell Beaker funerary practices within a regional chronocultural framework, in establishing links between central Eastern France and Central Europe. Funerary monuments, which are delimited by corner posts remain rare in France and show connections with Central Europe where this type of architecture built to house cremation burials, is more frequent. The cultural links between Central and Eastern France and Central Europe are only part of the story, as there are other probable links with northern Europe, but also the Netherlands and Britain, where funerary practices similar to those at Genlis have also been identified. These burials have shed new light on the role of Burgundy within the Bell Beaker group. They have also contributed to clarifying the place of Burgundy in the Bell Beaker network, as it transpires that this area played an important role as a buffer zone between the eastern Bell Beaker group influenced by Central and, to a lesser extent, Northern Europe, and the Atlantic Bell Beaker group, for which the cultural links are less obvious. In fact, the so-called Maritime pottery types are not found in the region. This paper provides detailed analysis of two exceptional and unprecedented Western European Bell Beaker tombs, which also raise the question of the longevity of certain funerary sites used from the beginning of the Bronze Age to the end of the Iron Age, as attested by other local necropolises.