L’infanticide féminin en question chez les Gaulois du Midi : l’apport des analyses ADN sur les nouveau-nés enterrés dans les habitats de l’âge du Fer

Abstract

Though undeniably numerous among ancient or traditional, pre-Jennerian societies, before the advent of modern hygiene and medicine, juveniles who died during the perinatal period are remarkably absent from the cemeteries of indigenous populations for the Final Bronze and Iron Ages of southern France. Furthermore, infants of several months of age, for whom the mortality rate is also very high, are also very rare in these assemblages. This lack is not observable for the necropolises belonging to Phocaean colonies of this same region. However, since the last quarter of the 20th c., the discoveries of burials containing perinatal human remains have multiplied in many Gallic settlements in the south of France thanks to the improvement of excavation methods and the development of a specific technique applied the study of human remains in the field. For the Iron Age, this method was introduced within the highlands habitat of the Plan de la Tour site, in Gailhan (Gard) and then applied to various sites, notably the oppidum of Puech de Mus, in Sainte-Eulalie-de-Cernon (Aveyron). Currently, more than 150 individuals, mainly foetuses and perinatal individuals, as well as a few, very rare, young infants, all under six months of age, are attested to and come from approximately 30 habitats in southern France, ranging from the extreme end of the Bronze Age to the end of the Iron Age. These perinatal burials in houses and their immediate surroundings, do not, however, appear to fill the gap represented by the overall absence of deceased persons from this age group within the necropolises of the region at this time. The significantly variable density of these findings, depending on the site, as well as the nearly total absence of infants of a few months of age, in both the houses and necropolises, suggest that other solutions must have existed, located both outside village limits, as well as outside of the cemeteries. The issue then becomes that of determining the identity of these perinatal or neonatal individuals buried within the domestic sphere. To try to explain their presence within the houses or within their immediate vicinity, a paleogenetic study to determine the sex was performed on 15 of these individuals, discovered at Plan de la Tour and Puech de Mus, two sites located about 80 km apart from one another and which were inhabited during the middle of the Iron Age. The results are particularly revealing since 14 of the deceased individuals are female newborns, full term babies or only very slightly premature. The only male individual was very premature, and would have been born at the beginning of the sixth month of pregnancy and therefore was not viable. Of course, the nearly exclusive presence of female neonates or perinatal individuals among the deceased does not necessarily imply an intentional killing, but it does highlight a significant difference in treatment. Though this difference may not necessarily equate to the practice of killing baby girls among Gallic populations of the Midi, it does make it possible to consider, in a documented and supported manner, the hypothesis of female infanticide at birth. This practice is well known in many traditional societies, most often for economic reasons. It is also attested to by ancient texts, notably in Greece and Rome, as well as within the considered region during late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. It will of course be necessary to extend paleogenetic analyses to other assemblages of perinatal subjects to confirm or refute this hypothesis, and to determine whether this very particular “recruitment” according to sex is the result of a widespread phenomenon, whether from a geographical or chronological point of view, or whether it is specific to a few sites, perhaps related to a localized occurrence of economic or social crisis. Whatever the case, whether infanticide or natural death, the repetition of these burials belonging to baby girls who died during the perinatal period, at Plan de la Tour, as well as at Puech de Mus, indicates a relatively common practice in these two mid-Iron Age settlements. Even if the exact reasoning behind the desire to keep the corpses of these children, who represent only a fraction of the total number of newborns for these two protohistoric societies, within the very heart of the household, remains completely beyond our grasp.