Anthropologie最新文献

The funeral monuments are well known for a long time in the Sahara and the Maghreb. Their shape is diversified and leads us to hint different types according to the regions and during the periods they were built. Nonetheless, very few were studied and they are only known through short notes of prospecting. The software Google Earth, furnishing satellite photography, allows to distinguish the very morphologies of these monuments, without any necessity to move on the ground. More than 2000 monuments from the South of Morocco are inventoried and classed by type in the present note. They are studied in the general context of the Sahara and the Maghreb.

Knowledge of the burial customs of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) in the Near East is increasing. Particularly, lately a large number of burials and skeletal remains have been unearthed in the Upper Tigris Basin, thanks to a number of new excavation projects in recent years. The newly revealed findings indicate that PPNA burial customs varied considerably in the region from site to site. However, the 10th millennium BCE burial ÇH 2019/05 at Çemka Höyük shows as well that there are also different burial practices with in settlements. ÇH 2019/05 belongs to a female individual, accompanied by animal skeletal elements, who appears to may have been a shaman or at least had been buried by someone practicing ways associated with what we understand nowadays as animism or shamanism. Hence, the burial may represent one of the earliest known examples of its kind in an Anatolian Neolithic context.

The funerary monuments and cult constructions of the central Sahara are numerous and varied. They have been the subject of several studies and attempts at classification. The latter allowed us to better understand and identify these architectures. In this work, we try to use a critical analysis of the different classifications associated with our field experiences in order to carry out a classification and elaborate an adequate and more simplified nomenclature to better address the issues raised by the study of such structures and their relationship to the other archaeological features with which they interact.

Here is the case of a U-shaped type of single notch practiced on two lower incisors belonging to two individuals who had been deposited in the megalithic chamber of the A1 dolmen of the Neolithic necropolis of Chenon (Charente, France). ESEM surface analyses show that the two points of each tooth were achieved by percussion, occlusal from top to bottom and vestibular from front to back, followed by filing and polishing of the upper parts of the mesial and distal surfaces of the tooth and the basal part of the notch. These practices, carried out as soon as the Neolithic period on corpses that were probably in lying position, required a certain technical skill and the use of lithic tools such as a chisel, which should be sought during the excavation and identified at the time of the typological study of the collected tools. The reasons for this dental sharpening will probably remain unknown for a long time. A systematic non-exhaustive review of world literature published up to now reports this type of ritual modification, and this from prehistoric times to more recent times. Few cases have been studied in Western Europe.

The concept of grief, the metamorphosis of the deceased into the departed, a subject recreated and rethought by the psyche, is crucial for understanding the significance of the grave and funeral rites. We can divide the funeral rites into three phases: seeing the dead person presented socialized, hiding him to begin the mourning process, and finally metamorphosing him into the deceased. Moreover, these three phases typically require the involvement of several community members, some of whom may be less affected by sorrow — a factor that hinders action — compared to close relatives. Considering these factors, it becomes apparent that grief and, consequently, the tomb are more fundamentally social phenomena than cultural ones. The cultural aspect is an overlay, as beliefs and religions facilitate the mourning process by providing guidelines for conduct and contemplation. An evolutionary perspective on the recognition of death and griefs considers these definitions, cognitive developments during human growth, and the cognitive evolution of hominids. Recognizing another's death without integrating the concept of one's mortality could have emerged early in human evolution and been a factor in developing consciousness in a feedback loop. Moreover, the funerary rites and tombs are probably older than is commonly accepted by many researchers to date.

Currently, more than 280 Mesolithic burial sites with the skeletal remains of about 2400 individuals are known in 25 European countries. This contribution reviews the various graves and mortuary practices between ca. 9700 and 3800 cal BC, when the period ended in Northern Europe. Cultural traditions, regional differences and chronological developments are summarised. The diversity of individual treatments concerning sex, age, status and circumstances of the death of the deceased is examined to obtain information about the social structures of the early postglacial hunter-fisher-gatherer communities.

The Middle Paleolithic of Western Asia is one of the more composite time periods in human evolution as it hosted at least two hominin species – early Homo sapiens and Neandertals. The early Homo sapiens originated from Africa whereas Neandertals arrived from Europe. In the Levant, these populations explored the same geographical niches, utilized similar resources, and may even inhabited the same caves. While the biological and morphological evidence discriminate between the two hominin populations, the material culture does not. Middle Paleolithic Neandertals and Homo sapiens used the same knapping methods to make their formal stone tools (i.e., Levallois core technology). This unique scenario hypothetically proposes that the two species shared one material culture. In the current research, we examine this hypothesis through studying the burial practices of these two distinct populations and comparing biological and cultural data from primary grave contexts. Examined anthropological and cultural variables show similar behavior in some respects such as body position, gender, age at death or burial offerings/goods, but also exhibit differences in location of burials within the caves, choice of different grave goods, and special positional markers. The analyzed data propose the two populations share some cultural behavior from the origin territory (Europe, Africa). Nevertheless, Middle Paleolithic Levantine burials are earlier than Neandertal burials in Europe and from Homo sapiens burials in Africa. Accordingly, we conclude the custom of human burials was innovated in the Levant from where it spread to the Neandertal territorial range in Europe. The arrival of Homo sapiens and Neandertal populations to the Levant between MIS 5 and MIS 3 likely influenced territorial dynamics. A compelling indicator of land ownership is evident in the widespread practice of burials by both populations. We hypothesize that the growing frequency of burials by these two populations in Western Asia is linked to the intensified competition for resources and space resulting from the arrival of these populations.

Faced with the inevitable absurdity of near nothingness, human societies have developed metaphysical protections, made “true” by a traditional consensus ensuring the solidarity of the living. These social explanations have become the guarantee, both for rules of existence as for those of death: therefore, they are intangible. In terms archaeological studies, we observe both universal evolutionary trends and traditional features. Structurally, the relationships between life and death have constant analogies, specific to the human mind and in all circumstances, as if it there was only one view of the disappearance of life. Rituals express these two tendencies: general and particular, focused on the continuous axis of time.

A new excavation zone – numbered 139 – set back from the cave porch, was opened in 2019 at the foot of the north wall in the Rond du Barry cave. Beneath the pottery levels, a layer over one meter thick has delivered a lithic assemblage with lamellar and small laminar components, associated with evidence of large-scale wildlife consumption and antler and bone artefacts. It evokes the Mesolithic but has been dated on bone and charcoal to the very Early Neolithic. While earlier excavations eliminated any direct stratigraphic relationship between Zone 139 and the area where a human fossil was found in 1986, then considered Magdalenian I (Badegoulian) in age but since reattributed to the Mesolithic, another human remains found earlier in Layer D shows a similar Mesolithic age. These new elements call into question the reality of the “secondary” burial identified in 1986, raise the question of the greater presence of post-glacial occupations inside the cavity, and enrich the archaeo-sequence of this emblematic site of prehistoric Velay.