Marie Besse – författare

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the megalithic necropolis of Petit- Chasseur in Sion (Valais, Switzerland), an international conference was organised from the 27th to the 29th of October 2011 in Sion. This book constitutes the conference proceedings. The necropolis of Petit-Chasseur still remains a key reference for the understanding of the Final Neolithic period, not only in the Alpine countries, but also throughout Europe. The scientific meeting therefore focused on the end of the Neolithic period in Valais and in the adjacent regions, on the Bell Beaker phenomenon in general, on the funerary rites of this period, and on the anthropology of megalithic societies. The conference was attended by nearly two hundred people, students, junior and senior scholars from many countries including Austria, Belgium, Spain, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Morocco, the Netherlands, Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland. The present publication includes twenty-five papers referring to the periods represented at the Petit-Chasseur necropolis, namely the end of the Neolithic, the Bell Beaker period and the beginning of the Early Bronze Age. In addition to a preface, a first group of papers – eight in total – deal directly with the Petit Chasseur Site in Sion and the end of the Neolithic in the Alps. A second group of articles constitute the section titled “The Final Neolithic and the Bell Beaker Culture in Europe and beyond”. This section is composed of fifteen articles presenting the results of archaeological, anthropological, botanical, and zooarchaeological analyses of Europe and Northern Africa. The conclusion drawn from the analysis is invariably the same. It is only possible to back our explicative constructions if we establish a serious dialogue with the field of cultural anthropology and if we construct a real science of the human facts, which is far from being achieved currently. The third part of this publication, which consists of two papers and is titled “Societies and Megaliths”, offers a discussion on megalith building societies that reflects on and develops this conclusion. All papers in English; abstracts for each paper in English and French.

Scholars who will study the historiography of the European Neolithic, more particularly with regards to the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, will observe a progressive change in the core understanding of this period. For several decades the concept of ‘culture’ has been privileged and the adopted approach aimed to highlight the most significant markers likely to emphasise the character of a given culture and to stress its specificities, the foundations of its identity. In short, earlier research aimed primarily to highlight the differences between cultures by stressing the most distinctive features of each of them. The tendency was to differentiate, single out, and identify cultural boundaries. However, over the last few years this perspective has been universally challenged. Although regional originality and particularisms are still a focus of study, the research community is now interested in widely diffused markers, in medium-scale or large-scale circulation, and in interactions that make it possible to go beyond the traditional notion of ‘archaeological culture’. The networks related to raw materials or finished products are currently leading us to re-think the history of Neolithic populations on a more general and more global scale. The aim is no longer to stress differences, but on the contrary to identify what links cultures together, what reaches beyond regionalism in order to try to uncover the underlying transcultural phenomena. From culturalism, we have moved on to its deconstruction. This is indeed a complete change in perspective. This new approach certainly owes a great deal to all kinds of methods, petrographic, metal, chemical and other analyses, combined with effective tools such as the GIS systems that provide a more accurate picture of the sources, exchanges or relays used by these groups. It is also true that behind the facts observed there are social organisations involving prospectors, extractors, craftsmen, distributors, sponsors, users, and recyclers. We therefore found it appropriate to organise a session on the theme ‘Materials, productions, exchange networks and their impact on the societies of Neolithic Europe’. How is it possible to identify the circulation of materials or of finished objects in Neolithic Europe, as well as the social networks involved? Several approaches exist for the researcher, and the present volume provides some examples.

Neolithic and Bronze Age Studies in Europe: from material culture to territories presents eight papers from the 2018 UISPP Congress. Topics include the neolithisation process in the Iberian Peninsula; faunal exploitation in early Neolithic Italy; the economic and symbolic role of animals in eastern Germany; Copper Age human remains in central Italy; animal figurines; spatula-idols; territories and schematic art in the Iberian Neolithic; and finally Bronze age hoards at a European scale. The diversity of the papers reflects contemporary approaches and questions in those periods.