The seashells from the Mesolithic necropolis of La Vergne (Saint-Jean-d’Angély, Charente-Maritime, France): from collection to staging human corpses

Abstract

The Mesolithic burials of La Vergne delivered 3,297 marine shells, mostly from marine environments and collected on a foreshore located at less than 30 kilometers away. Most of the shells are pierced, through an anthropic action when nature had not already done its work. Traces of wear, as well as for many other detailed observations, were compared with the place of each item in the grave. These data, for example, make it possible to identify many perishable objects and some elements of body adornment that participated in the staging of the funeral. After describing both, the search for the shells on the beach, their use and their deposition with the mortal remains, the exceptional nature of this discovery is discussed in a broader context, geographically on a Western European scale, and chronologically by comparing them locally to some of the graves of the region’s first farmers, who delivered many pieces of adornment made from this same raw material.