Animals in LBK society: Identity and gender markers

Abstract

Thanks to archaeological work undertaken in the Paris Basin (France), a large volume of high quality faunal remains data was obtained from settlement and funerary contexts from the first Neolithic societies, the Linear Pottery Culture “LBK” (sixth millennium BC). It allowed us to carry out extensive analyses: first, we were able to develop a novel interpretation of the LBK settlement organisation. It integrates subsistence autonomy and social reciprocity between houses. Second, we analyzed the faunal remains from the ceremonial enclosure at the site of Menneville and graves containing human associated with faunal remains resulting from different practices and depositions. We use both the settlement model and the analysis of the burials to identify one of the essential dimensions of the LBK society, namely a social organization with a true duality between domestication and hunting. Society is structured around bovines, caprines, wild-boar, aurochs and red-deer, found systematically in the houses, in the village space and in the funeral structures. The interpretation that we provide to hypothesize a social framework from these archaeozoological data in both profane and sacred domains is their presence as markers. We think of these markers as indicating the identity of units such as clans, in this case breeders of cattle, sheep breeders, and possibly pig breeders. But also gender markers: males with wild boar and pig, and possibly females with red deer. And finally age markers, with a link between sheep and children.