House of the dead, Skull building, wells…: diversity and specificities of collective burials during the pre-pottery Neolithic period in the Near East

Françoise Le Mort (1) , Bérénice Chamel (1) , Yasemin Yilmaz (2)

1 Archéorient - ARCHEORIENT - Environnements et sociétés de l'Orient ancien
2 University of Düzce - Archaeology Department, Turkey

The first stages of the Neolithization process in the Near East are accompanied by a progressive diversification of the mortuary practices. During the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period (8800 – 6900 BC), a series of innovations, among which the gathering of a more or less large number of deceased either in funeral buildings as it is the case at Cayönü in Turkey or at Dja'de el Mughara in Syria or in wells as at Shillourokambos in Cyprus, can be observed. The composition of the groups of individuals deposited in these structures as well as the existence of contemporary burials of other types on the same sites seem to indicate, at least in certain cases, a possible selection. Links between the appearance of these new ways for gathering the dead and the deep changes occuring in the prehistoric Near Eastern societies at the time of the Neolithization can be established.

Domaines: Archéologie et Préhistoire; Anthropologie biologique

Françoise Le Mort, Bérénice Chamel, Yasemin Yilmaz. House of the dead, Skull building, wells…: diversity and specificities of collective burials during the pre-pottery Neolithic period in the Near East. Gathered in Death. Archaeological and Ethnological perspectives on Collective Burial and Social Organization, Dec 2016, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. ⟨hal-01819239⟩