Search publications: Frankrijk

The Pré-des-Forges magdalenian site at Marsangy, established on the lower terrace of the Yonne, is enclosed in flood sediments which cover the valley floor alluviums. The Magdalenians camped on a silt-formed embankment at the edge of the fossil river-bank. Seven hearths were uncovered, only four central structures are the subject to this study. Marsangy's occupants belong to the Ile de France Magdalenian tradition of large open-air encampments, as much due to their life style as to their equipment and their traditional technic.

In Upper Normandy, in the Seine Valley, small communities of Neolithic cultivators and stock farmers constructed the last large funerary vaults in stone or wood. They practiced collective interment in monuments that were largely covered and termed "passage graves". From 1966 to 1993, an exceptional collection of five collective burials were excavated within the very limited territory of the communes of Val-de-Reuil and Porte-Joie (Eure), during exploitation of an aggregates quarry.

The excavations at Saint-Laurent show the evolution of the main burial site of Grenoble since the Antiquity. Among the mausoleums found on the Alps road between the Isere river and the mountain a building with a paved crypt provided with a bench, a niche and one or two fenestellae must have been the memoria of one of the first bishops around 400. Around this holy body are grouped numerous burial places, formae and sarcophagi.