Le monde des morts au Néolithique en Aquitaine : essai de synthèse

Abstract

This paper proposes to define the main characteristics of the burials and the evolution of funeral behaviours during the Neolithic times, between about 5500 and 2300/2200 B.C., in the present territory of Aquitaine. For the moment, no burial was found for early Neolithic. During the middle Neolithic, about 4500 B.C., appear the first megalithic graves, passage graves (Angoumoisin type) and barrow cists, as well as burial caves. Late Neolithic, between 3700 and 2300/2200 B.C. is the great period of megalithic graves. Single quadrangular dolmen (Caussenard type) were built in Dordogne and in the Entre-deux-Mers in Gironde, gallery graves, the “allées d’Aquitaine” as to the “allées girondines” extended in the centre of the Aquitaine country while in the western Pyrénées the single quadrangular dolmen increased. In return, caves and rock shelter were, it seems to me, less prized by the people during the end of Neolithic times to leave the dead.