Relationships between sepulchral caves and dolmens during the Neolithic in the Western Pyrenees (France)—abridged version

Abstract

This contribution aims to evaluate the state of our knowledge about Neolithic burials in natural cavities and in stone-built monuments within a geographic area limited to the southern part of the Adour river basin. Particular emphasis was placed on shared concepts of funerary spaces and sanctuaries. This research is mainly based on the excavations and studies carried out over the last 30 years and within the ongoing collective research project dedicated to the investigation of dolmen features and territories in the north-western Pyrenees (PCR “Structures dolméniques et territoires dans les Pyrénées nord-occidentales”). Data from the Early Neolithic period are scarce. Documentation relating to the Middle and Late/Final Neolithic shows that the practices are linked to modalities observed more widely within an Atlantic tradition, but that they were also influenced by traditions in the eastern part of the Pyrenean chain, particularly during the Late/Final Neolithic. Two features turned out to be significant: burial mounds – built as early as the Middle Neolithic period, including or not including megalithic architecture, were real territorial markers still erected in the Bronze Age but also reused up to Antiquity; and, less monumental, sepulchral caves – used and sometimes re-used several decades or centuries later by the same community.