L’hypogée de Saint-Memmie (Marne)
The Saint-Memmie structure is a unique example of recently discovered underground collective burial of hypogeum type, built on loose ground and with a complete plan. The burial’s very good preservation is due to its depth (2m under the current soil surface) and to the collapse of the vault’s summit,...
| Published in: | Archéopages |
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| Main Authors: | , |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | French |
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Institut national de recherche archéologique préventive (Inrap)
2022-01-01
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/archeopages/14147 |
| Summary: | The Saint-Memmie structure is a unique example of recently discovered underground collective burial of hypogeum type, built on loose ground and with a complete plan. The burial’s very good preservation is due to its depth (2m under the current soil surface) and to the collapse of the vault’s summit, which has sealed the chamber over a maximum height of 1.55m and protected the inhumation layer and its grave furnishings. This has enabled archaeologists to completely understand the hypogeum — both its architecture and its mass of bones — despite the site’s substantial erosion, estimated through geomorphological analysis to have been at least a metre above the current level. Grave goods retrieved in the inhumation layer comprise more than 400 items: some sixty flint tools, a bone awl, a handle made of deer bone and some 370 pieces of personal adornment. This assemblage of goods is characteristic of that of hypogea of the Marne attributed to the late Neolithic (3600-2900 BCE). This type of funerary structure has been well-documented in the Marne, but was always built of hard sediment. The Saint-Memmie burial shows that hypogea were also excavated in loose sediment. This has made us reconsider a series of collective burials previously excavated in loose ground, and reassess preventive legal statutes in this particular sedimentary context. |
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| ISSN: | 1622-8545 2269-9872 |