Quand l'individu témoigne... Un portrait de la société néolithique en Suisse occidentale

The sequence of funerary practices between fifth and third millennium BC is relatively complete and well documented in western Switzerland. An assessment of studies in bioanthropology on peopling history in this area during the Neolithic period is presented here. These researches permit to suggest the evolution of the society during the Neolithic period. The results support the idea of stability of peopling between Middle and Late Neolithic. As a matter of fact, populations in the lemanic area and the High Valley of Rhone appear stable and homogeneous. The various samples are close to the contemporaneous neighbouring populations. Moreover, they do not seem to have received important external contributions. Finally, if the term of « rupture » during the Neolithic period of western Switzerland needs to be evoked, it is most probably during the Bell Beaker Culture period. It is, indeed, during this period that the variations between populations become more marked