Défunts, bûchers et céramiques : la nécropole de Lausanne-Vidy (VD) et les pratiques funéraires sur le Plateau suisse du XIe au VIIIe s. av. J.-C.

Thirty cremation burials were excavated between 1958 and 1993 on the shore of the Lake Geneva in Lausanne-Vidy (canton of Vaud, Switzerland). They shed light on the burial practices of the Late Bronze Age between 1060 and 800 BC. Personal objects and funerary offerings are arranged carefully in a chest or a room made of wood, sometimes covered with stone slabs. This architecture can be located inside a circular enclosure or covered by a tumulus. Lausanne-based results are paradigm at the regional level, because they allow a better understanding of funerary practices on the Swiss Plateau. The notion of 'service', which corresponds to a series of ceramic containers of same forms set down in specific numbers in the grave, occurs during this period. Identical sets of furniture characterize the basin of the Lake Geneva as well as Southern Germany or the Zurich area. Architectures can also be compared on a large European scale and reported by a specific provision of the objects inside the grave. Great coherence appears to dictate funeral practices at the end of the Late Bronze Age, even if in some cases, the profusion and variety of furnishings are reminiscent of a very individualistic conception of death