Small white pebbles

Did you know that some archaeological objects travel? Some of these objects can take us back in time.

As part of the temporary exhibition Des choses which runs until January 9, 2022 at the Laténium (Neuchâtel), two small archaeological finds from the Canton of Vaud are presented to the public. They left the Canton of Vaud for a time, in whose soil they were preciously preserved for dozens of centuries, before being unearthed during archaeological digs carried out under the aegis of cantonal institutions. Preserved at the Musée cantonal d’archéologie et d’histoire in Lausanne’s Palais de Rumine, they are showcased in the museum’s permanent exhibition.

At the Laténium, you’ll be able to (re)find, among other things, objects discovered in funerary contexts at Saint-Sulpice and Lausanne-Vidy: a pair of small glass masks of Phoenician origin from the Iron Age, and a ceramic beaker with enigmatic and moving contents from the Neolithic period, which will be discussed in the text below. This note is taken from the catalog accompanying the exhibition Des choses.

It’s also worth noting that the Vidy site, a stone’s throw from the Unithèque, is one of the archaeological sites excavated and studied by the University of Lausanne’sInstitute of Archaeology and Sciences of Antiquity.

EBC, Academic Collections

The tomb of “Little Thumb” and the place of children in Neolithic burial practices

Closed sets

In prehistoric research, the study of burial sites is of vital importance in understanding ancient populations. Unlike settlement sites, which are usually made up of a palimpsest of successive occupations, a veritable skein that is difficult, if not impossible, to untangle, burials constitute, for the archaeologist, “closed ensembles”. This is a privileged configuration in which the spatial distribution of remains truly reflects the intentions of those involved in the past. In burials, the position of skeletons and the nature and arrangement of buried remains faithfully testify to well-defined gestures performed at a specific moment in time. Sometimes, however, the situation is more complex: the grave may be reopened, once or several times, and other gestures are made to modify the initial layout, for example, to allow the addition of a deceased person and accompanying objects. Meticulous excavation enables us to reconstruct in detail the succession of events leading up to the final state of the burial, the state in which the archaeologist finds it.

A personal account

For the Neolithic period, excavations at numerous necropolises have enabled us to draw up a very complete picture of funerary practices, which were both codified and extremely diversified. However, while the gestures performed are increasingly well known, their meaning and content, whether symbolic or cultic, largely elude us. Regardless of the interpretation of the data, from a strictly scientific and historical point of view, we can then freely weave the fabric of our own subjective and personal account of events, in the knowledge that the keys to understanding the facts observed have been lost and are no longer accessible. Just as Paleolithic cave paintings in the caves of Lascaux (Dordogne, France) or Chauvet-Pont d’Arc (Ardèche, France) are perfectly capable of dialoguing with our^21st-century sensibilities, beyond the millennia, funerary practices revealed during archaeological excavations are likely to question and touch us. They resonate with our own relationship with death, and with the rituals and gestures that accompany it today.

Infant mortality in the Neolithic period

While data on the place of children in Neolithic societies gathered from excavations of settlements is limited, the examination of burials is more telling. Based on historical examples, we know that infant mortality was very high in these early agro-pastoral societies: a quarter of infants died before the end of their first year, and only one child in two reached puberty. Consequently, the proportion of children in Neolithic necropolises should be high. This appears to have been the case, most of the time, with the exception of newborns and very young children, who may have been buried directly in the domestic space or in the immediate vicinity. It’s as if these little ones remained attached to the family sphere and were not yet fully part of the village community. Irrespective of their number and proportion, we note above all that the care given to children is equivalent to that given to adults, whether in the architecture of the grave, the arrangement of the body, the presence of ornaments, prestige goods or other objects associated with the deceased.

Three major necropolises on Lake Geneva

At the invitation of the exhibition curators Things, we present here a tomb from Lausanne-Vidy (Vaud, Switzerland), one of the vast Lake Geneva necropolises which, like those of Pully-Chamblandes (Vaud, Switzerland) and Thonon-Genevray (Haute-Savoie, France), enables us to evoke the place of children in funerary practices in the Neolithic period, between 4,700 and 3,900 BC(Beyneix 2018). These three necropolises are characterized by burials in small stone slab caissons, buried in the ground, with only the cover slab exposed, known as “Chamblandes-type cists”(Moinat & Chambon 2007). The eponymous Pully site includes only cist tombs. These are predominant in the other two necropolises, where they coexist with wooden box tombs and, rarely, with other forms of funerary architecture. In all cases, the deceased lie in a folded position, on their left side. Individual graves are in the majority, but they can be multiple, accommodating between two and four individuals, rarely more, buried simultaneously or successively.

At first glance, children appear to be well represented at all three sites in the Lake Geneva region, although we do not yet have exhaustive anthropological studies. At Thonon, the presence of very young children, aged under one year, is well attested, and the spatial distribution of burials even suggests a sector reserved for children. Among the particular rituals associated with young children, Patrick Moinat, author of excavations and meticulous analyses of numerous tombs in Vidy and Chamblandes, has identified, among others, three very similar cases where a young child, between two and six years old, is buried with an adult, with the head resting between the latter’s hands(Moinat 2003).

The tomb of the “Little Thumb” at Lausanne-Vidy

The Lausanne-Vidy child’s burial we’re talking about here stands out from the rest and deserves special attention. Grave 89 is a “Chamblandes-type cist”, carefully arranged and adapted to accommodate a young child of two or three years of age, boy or girl. According to tradition, the child lies on his left side, with his head facing southwest rather than east. The child wears a precious necklace made of discoid beads – forty-eight in jet and five in shell – and perforated teeth, three dog canines and three stag crooks (see figure above). This type of ornament is sometimes found in the graves of children or young adults. We can assume that it is not simply a necklace, a personal object of the young deceased, but that its presence in a funerary context has a special meaning. A modest flint tool, a drill, and a small piece of red ochre are also found in the grave. What is the significance of the flint drill, a utilitarian object more likely to be found in the hands of an adult? Red ochre, which is regularly found in “Chamblandes” tombs and other funerary contexts, must obviously have carried a well-defined symbolic charge. Finally, the toddler held a small ceramic vessel filled with 76 white quartz pebbles (see figure above). The deposit accompanying the child, unique to our knowledge, is highly enigmatic. Clearly, these are not rare or precious objects: their value and significance are of a different order. The container could be a familiar object, a cup that the child used every day, or, on the contrary, it could have been fashioned for the occasion. The same is true of the contents: familiar objects, perhaps collected by the child himself, little treasures close to his heart, or symbolic objects, charged with a precise meaning in the minds of his family and community? What is the meaning of these simple, commonplace pebbles, obviously chosen for their small size, material and color? The archaeologist is at a loss to understand this deposit, and the mystery remains unsolved. In principle, he leaves it at that…

An affectionate name

During archaeological digs, it sometimes happens that an anonymous skeleton is given a name, and this posthumous identity is recognized beyond the circle of excavators. This is the case of the famous Lucy, alias A.L.288-1, a young Australopithecus discovered in 1974 in Hadar (Ethiopia), whom Ethiopians prefer to call Dinqnesh, meaning “You are marvelous” in Amharic.

When was the child from tomb 89 at Lausanne-Vidy called “Little Tom Thumb”? On the dig, perhaps, in 1991, or later, in 1997, when the tomb was chosen to feature in the new permanent exhibition at the Musée cantonal d’archéologie et d’histoire in Lausanne? I couldn’t say. I do know, however, that the name, familiar and affectionate, was immediately obvious, even if the links with the character from Perrault’s fairy tale are tenuous and, as they should be, anachronistic. The white pebbles immediately conjure up images of “Petit Poucet” in our imaginations. The fact that it was precisely these pebbles that helped the child find his way back to the world of the living suggests that they may also play this role in the world of the dead. The reference to “Le Petit Poucet” redirects the emotion we may feel in front of this child’s grave towards an imaginary world perceived as benevolent. Indeed, in children’s stories, the character of “Petit Poucet” is a very reassuring figure, in the midst of disquieting worlds populated by ogres and monsters. He escapes a fate foretold as cruel and implacable, a premature death: starved or devoured. Like many other stories and myths, his story celebrates the triumph of cunning and malice over brutal, blind force.

Let’s leave the final word to Charles Perrault, himself the youngest of seven children, who concludes the story of “Le Petit Poucet” by pointing out that, although the weakest sibling may be the victim of mockery or scorn, “sometimes, however, it is this little marmot who will bring happiness to the whole family”.

Pierre Crotti, archaeologist

• in our collections: the exhibition catalog Des choses.
• To visit: the restitution of tomb 89 at the Musée cantonal d’archéologie et d’histoire (MCAHL), Salle Troyon sur la préhistoire.
• from a distance: an interactive tour of the MCAHL.