Around the Petit-Chasseur Site in Sion (Valais, Switzerland) and New Approaches to the Bell Beaker Culture

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.

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.

Preface: 1961 - 2011: fifty years of discoveries and scientific studies around the site of Petit-Chasseur at Sion (Marie Besse, Philippe Curdy, Jocelyne Desideri, Alain Gallay, and Francois Wible) ;
I. The Petit-Chasseur Site in Sion (Valais, Switzerland) and the End of the Neolithic in the Alps The Chronology of the Petit-Chasseur cemetery (Sion, Valais): a reply to Richard Harrison and Volker Heyd (Alain Gallay) ;
Some facts and ideas about the stelae stemming from the sites of Sion, Petit-Chasseur and Aosta, Saint-Martin de Corleans (Sebastien Favre) ;
Is it possible to estimate the size of the social group from which the individuals buried in dolmen M XII at the "Petit-Chasseur" site (Sion, Valais) stem? (Genevieve Perreard Lopreno) ;
Lithic raw materials from the Petit-Chasseur site (Jehanne Affolter) ;
The copper-based artefacts from Sion/Petit-Chasseur (Valais, Switzerland) during the Late Neolithic, the Bell Beaker period and the Early Bronze Age (3200 - 1550 BC) (Florence Cattin, Philippe Curdy, Barbara Guenette-Beck, Adrian Wichser, Andrea Ulrich, Vera Hubert, Katja Hunger, Marie Worle, Kathrin Hametner, Detlef Gunter, Carmela Chateau-Smith, Igor M. Villa and Marie Besse) ;
The exploitation of animal resources in the Final Neolithic settlement of Bramois, Immeuble Pranoe D (Valais, Switzerland). A global approach (Nicole Reynaud Savioz and Francois-Xavier Chauviere) ;
Third millennium BC ritual and burial practices in Lombardy (Marco Baioni and Raffaella Poggiani Keller) ;
Les Oullas: an image bearing rockshelter on a Neolithic Alpine path? (Claudia Defrasne and Maxence Bailly) ;
II. The Final Neolithic and the Bell Beaker Culture in Europe and beyond Sion, Petit-Chasseur: a taste of Europe, and beyond (Alain Gallay) ;
Architectural organisation of the Final Neolithic lakeside villages of Concise (Vaud, Switzerland) (Ariane Winiger) ;
The Final Neolithic pottery of Concise (Vaud, Switzerland) - or what do with unattractive material? (Elena Burri-Wyser) ;
The Bell-Beaker Culture in the Canton of Fribourg (Switzerland): Current State of Research (Michel Mauvilly, Julien Spielmann and Marie Besse) ;
Bell Beaker herding and hunting in south-eastern France: an interdisciplinary approach with technological, historical and social implications (Emilie Blaise, Daniel Helmer, Fabien Convertini, Robin Furestier and Olivier Lemercier) ;
Bell Beakers in Eastern France and the Rhone-Saone-Rhine axis question (Olivier Lemercier) ;
Bell Beaker in Eastern Emilia (Northern Italy) (Nicola Dal Santo, Alessandro Ferrari, Gabriella Morico and Giuliana Steffè) [Open Access: Download] Symbolic arenas for social display: the dynamics of power from the Middle-Late Neolithic to the Copper Age (c. 4000-2000 cal BC) in the Ambrona Valley (Soria, Spain) (Manuel Angel Rojo-Guerra, Rafael Garrido-Pena and Ana Mercedes Herrero-Corral) ;
From Evora to Monsaraz: brief presentation of an uncharted group of engraved Neolithic stelae from the Alentejo Central region (Portugal) (Ana Lucia Ferraz and Pascal Tramoni) ;
Study of the Chalcolithic Burial 2 and 3 of Ifri n'Amr ou Moussa (Morocco) (Abdelouahed Ben-Ncer, Youssef Bokbot, Fethi Amani and Mostafa Ouachi) ;
Effects of cultural contacts on the burial rites of the Bell Beaker - Csepel Group (Anna Endrodi) ;
The archaeobotanical evidence of burial rites of the Bell Beaker - Csepel Group (Ferenc Gyulai) ;
Social and symbolic foundations of the Beaker Phenomenon (Jan Turek) ;
The Kichary Nowe necropolis (Little Poland) and its funerary rituals, from the Middle Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age (Hanna Kowalewska-Marszalek and Henri Duday) ;
Cremation graves of the Bell Beaker Culture from the Netherlands: social, spatial and temporal aspects (Erik Drenth) ;
III. Societies and Megaliths Megaliths of Easter Island (Nicolas Cauwe) ;
Anthropology of the Megalith-Erecting Societies (Alain Testart)