Peirières dolmen
The dolmen of Peirières near Villedubert in the Aude department in the south of France is a communal grave from the Copper Age , in which more than 83 people were buried. The dolmen was built towards the end of the Neolithic , but the contents of the grave were then cleared out by those who carried the bell- beaker culture and reused as a new collective grave . In 1995 it was put on the list of archaeological sites of national interest ( French sites archéologiques d'interêt national ) by the French Ministry of Culture . In France, dolmen is the generic term for Neolithic megalithic structures of all kinds (see: French nomenclature ).
Etymology and location
The place name Peirières is derived from the Occitan la peirièra meaning quarry (root la pèira - the stone). This refers to the quarry immediately to the south, which was built towards the end of the 17th century for the construction of the Canal du Midi , which only passes not far to the west. Unfortunately, the new erosion in the rear wall of the demolition has also affected the dolmen.
Geographically, the burial site is 113 meters above sea level on a small hill on the outskirts of Villedubert about 2.5 kilometers northwest of Trèbes . Geologically, the Peyrières dolmen was built directly on the western section of a 40 centimeter thick, alluvial gravel terrace of the Aude .
discovery
The Peirières dolmen was only discovered by Jean Sol in 1972 . On the rise he had noticed a rather large stone slab protruding from a pile of quartz rubble. At first he thought the whole thing was one of the usual agricultural cairns. On closer inspection, however, he discovered a human foot bone and a shell pearl. That's why he called in the archaeologist Jean Guilaine in 1973 . His colleague Henri Duday then began the first exploratory work, which lasted until 2002.
History
The dolmen has been excavated since 1973 under the direction of Henri Duday. At this excavation site, the forensic-archaeological working methods could be significantly more precisely and improved due to meticulous detailed work. More than 133,000 objects, human bones, microfauna and geological finds were registered, numbered and measured in order to obtain an exact picture of the organization and development of the mass grave. This research work, which is closely related to forensic medicine , has fundamentally renewed burial archeology.
description
The excavation work has shown that the Peirières dolmen had been used twice. The original builders from the end of the Neolithic had aligned the gallery grave ( French dolmen à couloir ) with the entrance to the southeast. It consisted of an antechamber and main chamber area measuring approximately 2.10 × 4.0 meters and a corridor. The chamber areas were surrounded by five large orthostats a little over a meter wide , which held a plate cover over the antechamber. The 6-meter-long couloir tapered towards the entrance, with its south side running parallel to the chamber area, but the north side clearly drawing inwards. Very little of the remains of the first occupants has survived, as the dolmen had obviously been completely cleared out by the subsequent occupants.
The subsequent users can be dated to the Stone Age using the archaeological furniture found, such as a potter's comb, a copper and several steatite beads and a hemispherical V-shaped button and belong to the bell-beaker culture, whose pottery decor is characterized by comb or string imprints.
The bell-beaker people took radical action, overturned the orthostats, cleared the burial chamber and destroyed the dolmen. With the remains of the orthostats, they built a platform on which they spread their deceased. They then poured a layer of quartz rubble over it. The original entrance in the southeast was moved to the south and marked with a stepping stone made of conglomerate. The unused stones were stacked in two piles of stones. The bone layer reaches a maximum thickness of 40 centimeters on 8 square meters and contains the bone remnants of over 83 individuals. It is a primary burial. Why the tomb was suddenly abandoned and covered with a layer of rubble is unclear.
See also
literature
- Germain Sicard: Essai sur les monuments mégalithiques du département de l'Aude. In: Bulletin de la Société préhistorique française. Volume 26, No. 9, 1929, pp. 436-454 ( [1] ) ISSN 0249-7638 .
Web links
Coordinates: 43 ° 13 '26.1 " N , 2 ° 25' 0.2" E
Individual evidence
- ↑ Coralie Demangeot: Le dénombrement des défunts dans les ensembles funéraires :problemèmes théoriques, paramètres quantitatifs. Application à la sépulture collective du dolmen des Peirières à Villedubert . 2008 ( ori-oai.u-bordeaux1.fr [PDF] doctoral thesis at the Université Bordeaux I).
- ^ H. Duday: Archéologie funéraire et anthropologie de terrain. Le dolmen des Peirières à Villedubert (Aude) . In: Lettres d'information du Center de Recherches Archéologiques . tape 26 . CNRS Eds., Valbonne, S. 43-48 .