Variabilité des pratiques funéraires et différenciation sociale dans le Néolithique ancien danubien

Abstract

In the early seventies, results from the Nitra cemetery reinforced the idea that there was little social differentiation in the Bandkeramik. The corpus of published Danubian Early Neolithic funerary data has considerably increased since then. Important series are now available for the whole Bandkeramik sequence and most of the distribution area. Their study shows that the Nitra model is only valid within a limited geographical and chronological framework. The major cemeteries discovered since 1960 from Bavaria to the Meuse reveal a gradual development towards a more complex society, with a higher degree of both horizontal and vertical differentiation. The latest cemeteries are characterized by a small group of very rich graves which stand out clearly from the remainder. Within this group, the recurrent presence of child burials with the same categories of grave-good as the adults strongly suggests hereditary transmission of status. In the second half of the Early Neolithic, this model coexists with the Nitra model which still determines how the large majority of the population was treated. This development towards a marked increase in inequality is corroborated by changes in settlement. As is attested by the considerable evidence for violent death recovered over recent years, the resulting more complex society appears torn by internal contradictions. This takes us far from the bucolic image that still implicitly underlies most overviews of Danubian Early Neolithic society.