Des sépultures aux sociétés : Inégalités économiques et hiérarchies dans la plaine d’Alsace au Néolithique ancien et moyen (5 300 à 4 000 av. n. è.)

Des sépultures aux sociétés offers a renewed approach of the funerary practices of the Neolithic cultures that settled in the Alsace plain between 5,300 and 4,000 BC. Drawing upon a corpus of burials expanded by preventive archaeology operations carried out during the last decades, this work employs a comparative method based on recent advances in social anthropology. The exhaustive analysis of the various parameters of the funerary sphere is coupled with the application of a method that places the quality of funerary goods at its heart. This approach has made it possible to question the traditional interpretation of “egalitarianism” in early agricultural societies. On the other hand, it has demonstrated the deposition of standardized “precious” objects in a limited number of burials until the beginning of the Middle Neolithic period in the region. This intra-necropolis variability is matched by an inter-necropolis variability, expressed by the presence of two to three levels of wealth, depending on site and period. The use of the ethnological frame of reference allows us to consider the existence of “segmented” groups characterized by social competition of varying intensity between equal units (e.g. clans, lineages), and within which economic power is in the hands of men.