The Integration of the Children’s Grave in the Adults’ Funeral Space in Roman Africa

International audienceSince about twenty years, the study of ancient populations and of funerary practices made considerable progress bound essentially to the simultaneous consideration of the biological and cultural dimensions of the archaeological funerary human remains. Whether it is on the scale of the grave or of the cemetery, human remains occupy henceforth a specific place as witnesses of the history, in particular as regards the analysis of the funerary behaviour.In the Roman world, the variety of the observed funerary practices puts with a quite particular acuteness the questions of identity. Indeed, for this chronological period the funerary spaces are particularly diversified because of the context (rural or periurban), of the organization of graves (grouped together or scattered) and gestures around the cadaver (e.g. incineration or inhumation, individual or plural deposit, position of the body, treatment of the human remains…).New data from recent excavations of antique funerary sites from several research teams (High and Late Empire) discovered in France, in North Africa and in Italy, bring vestiges quantitatively and qualitatively exceptional. The searches led on these sites illustrate well the methodological development and the integration of transdisciplinary studies.This session aims to provide new data and to discuss searches from several roman sites in the western Mediterranean Sea. Integrating an archaeological and biological approach, the presentations will concern two levels: the treatment of the body in the grave and, more widely, the integration of the grave in the funeral space