La sépulture paléolithique de l’enfant du Figuier (Ardèche, France)

Abstract

The child burial of the Figuier Cave provides not only one of the very few human specimens known in the Rhône valley for the whole Upper Paleolithic, but moreover, at a larger scale, a rare example of grave for the early Upper Paleolithic. It has been excavated by Maurice Veyrier in 1947 and briefly published in 1953. A technological and traceological analysis of the lithic assemblage found in the grave, crossed with the data from the personal documentation of Maurice Veyrier, shows the combination of opposite elements which could be linked on one side to the funerary symbolism and on the other side to the social identity of the decedent.