Pratiques funéraires dans le mégalithisme sénégambien : décryptages et révisions

Abstract

Excavations in Wanar offers the opportunity to review, through old documents dealing with physical anthropology, the complexity and diversity of funerary practices in the Senegambian megalithism. Direct and indirect evidence of constructions around some of the bodies can be interpreted as possible ‘houses of the deaths’. In one case at least access could have been maintained long after the first burials. Accompanying deads, according tu the concept defined by A. Testart, are attested in some monuments but it doesn’t seem to be the more common. Elsewhere, ­narrow pits contain several bodies deposited at the same time without any main burial. Secondary deposits in large or silo like pits can also cover the partial rests of primary graves. Such observations lead us to develop new models of practices within these funeral structures.

Keywords

• physical anthropology
• megalithism
• sepulchral pits
• accompanying deads
• houses of the dead