The international conference “RAW EARTH IN FUNERARY CONTEXT. Formal, typological and technical developments during the Neolithic and the Bronze Age” will be held the 8 th and 9 th March 2023 in Montpellier, France. (info: https://terrecruefun23.sciencesconf.org).
The objective of this conference is to highlight the place of raw earth in the funerary sphere during the Neolithic and the Bronze Age, to understand its formal complexity and the variability of techniques. These topics will be addressed from a comparative perspective on a large geographic scale. If today the earthen materials constitute a privileged focus of study for the Neolithic and the Bronze Age periods, its use in funerary contexts remains poorly known and therefore rarely investigated. Recent archaeological discoveries in the Mediterranean area demonstrate the importance of an approach on a larger geographical scale, inducing complementarity between different fields of research (in funerary archaeology, building archaeology, geoarchaeology, ethnology).
Several lines of analysis will be considered: the role of raw earth and its different formal variations within the funerary space, its technical specificities as an architectural element or an architectural system, its role in funerary semantics.
The conference will be organized around three sessions:
- RAW EARTH BETWEEN TWO WORLDS: REPLICATING, REUSING, INTERFERING ;
- RAW EARTH IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE FUNERAL LANDSCAPE ;
- RAW EARTH IN THE CONTEXT OF FUNERARY PRACTICES AND GESTURES: FUNERAL ARRANGEMENTS AND FURNITURE.
Registration is available on the conference website: https://terrecruefun23.sciencesconf.org/ (reduced fees until the 1st February 2023).
Contacts: Emilie LEAL (emilie.leal@inrap.fr);
Alessandro PEINETTI (alessandro.peinetti2@unibo.it);
Bérengère PERELLO (berengere.perello@cnrs.fr);
Yaramila TCHEREMISSINOFF (yaramila.tcheremissinoff@inrap.fr);
Julia WATTEZ (julia.wattez@inrap.fr).
