Operation: Preventive Excavation
Excavation period: 3rd September 2007 – 15th February 2008
Excavation directed by: Anne-Sophie VIGOT
Developer:Logiparc

This excavation campaign took place on an Antique site, the ‘Parc à Fourrage’, near Poitiers. In 2006, during an archaeological diagnosis, INRAP (Institut National de Recherches Archéologiques Préventives, or French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research) discovered an unknown part of the ‘Necropolis of the Dunes’, 130 years after the site was first, although partially, excavated, under the supervision of Commandant Rothmann and later of Father De La Croix. Following this find Eveha carried out a preventive excavation campaign involving 10 excavators for a 6 month period, as commissioned by the Service Régional de l'Archéologie (Regional Archaeological Department).
Throughout this campaign, some 230 structures were discovered. Most of these were funerary buildings, cremation and interment burial sites with cremation areas and circulation levels. On this particularly complex site, various notable occupation phases were detected which enabled the study of numerous funerary practices.

The Necropolis of the Dunes was one of Poitiers’ five main burial sites during the Antiquity. All were situated outside the town and along roads leading to and from urban areas.

Circulation levels

At the very beginning of the site occupational history, a road predating the necropolis was constructed across the site. This process entailed major quantities of sediment being transported to and spread across the site to reduce the degree of the slope before being covered with a layer of gravel. Fourteen rut marks were found on a 10m large area. Towards the south there is evidence of a ditch marking the site of the road.

Various funerary practices

During the excavation campaign some 150 burials were found, 50 inhumation and 90 cremation burials. 20 burials had already been found during the 19th century excavations. These numerous cremation burials are a particularly important find due to the fact that hardly were found during the previous excavation campaigns.

Cremation burials
During the Early Empire (1st–3rd c. AD), cremation became the most frequently used Gallo-Roman burial practice. A huge area at the east of the site seems to have been dedicated exclusively to cremation burial practices and several sites of cremation were detected within it. Nine rounded or ovaloid grave-pits with rubified walls were also found.
Following cremation, the corpse might be buried at the site of cremation (called a primary cremation). The remains would also be collected and placed in another grave-pit or in a funerary urn: usually either a limestone box, a ceramic/glass vase or a wooden casket (called a secondary cremation).

Artifacts were often left with human remains and burnt along with the corpse during cremation. Most of the artifacts found were either samian ware or ordinary pottery (tumblers, cups, bowls, jugs), glass urns, coins, nails or casket hinges. Among the more remarkable finds is a small gold ring found in a cremation burial. Most of the artifacts found date from 3rd century AD.
In Gaul, the incineration practice became increasingly less frequent from the 3rd century AD onwards and became progressively replaced by inhumation practices.

Inhumation
Most grave-pits found in the necropolis were dug deeply into calcareous rock (about 90cm deep). Corpses were most often dressed before being laid in coffins. Most burials were individual. A preliminary onsite anthropological analysis based upon the local population indicated that the majority were women. Several child burial remains (mostly newborn babies) and very few men were also identified.
Three burials differ from the rest. One was reused several times and contains the remains of at least 3 people and the other two are stone constructed burial chambers with a pitched roof.

In most cases objects were found lying next to the corpse, generally outside the coffin. We collected a number of highly interesting finds, including a small table service (a dish, bowl and jug), remarkable grape shaped glass artifacts forming a toiletry set, game counters (found in a child’s grave), clothing fasteners and shoe tacks. Some nails found in the same area seem to indicate where wooden coffins were placed. Many corpses were buried with an obolus in the mouth. Like those found in cremation burials these objects date from 3rd century AD.
Study of the inhumation burials’ layout has not indicated any preference for a particular spatial orientation of the graves. Some have been truncated by more recent funerary buildings while others seem to have been placed around buildings according to an organized layout. The main building is at the center of the excavation site and burials seem to have been placed according to that central feature.

Funerary buildings

Five funerary buildings of the Antique necropolis have already been excavated. Three of them seem to be small buildings although only the foundation walls remain. The biggest one is a square-shaped, 5m-large construction with four buttresses on the eastern and western sides.
A forth building has now almost entirely disappeared with its only visible remains being the trace of the excavation for its foundations. The function of the building is yet to be determined.
The last constructed feature is a vast, rectangular building measuring 11.50m x 10.50m. Many burials are concentrated around it. Its function could not be determined either but this is obviously a large monument linked to the necropolis. Once it was abandoned it seems to have been reused as a stone cutting workshop. Some sarcophagi found on the site appear to have been cut in this very workshop.