Prehistoric Burials from New Caledonia (Southern Melanesia): A Review

Abstract

The diversity of the burial places and the variety of the body and bones treatments are the main qualities of burials related to the nearly 3000 years of prehistory of New Caledonia, from the Lapita cultural complex to the traditional Kanak cultural complex. The oldest burials known at present are interments dated from the very end of first phase of settlement of New Caledonia archipelago and discovered in the site of Lapita at Foue (Kone). The inhumation is also a funerary treatment used during the following two millennia, besides other practices such as the deposit of the deceased on the soil surface or in canoe in caves. The inhumation was definitive or temporary, as indicated by secondary deposits or by remains of exhumation identified from the beginning of the second millennium A.D., date of the emergence of the Kanak cultural complex. The body was not systematically eliminated. Its integrity was sometimes preserved through artificial mummification processes. The paper reviews the existing archaeological documentation following a chronological framework and draws on cultural and social significances and changes over time of the treatment of the deceased.