This long awaited monograph presents the results of the excavation of a major Neolithic burial site in Provence, southern France. The dolmen of l'Ubac, located on the bank of the river Calavon in the Vaucluse département, was incidentally uncovered in 1994 after a flood had cut away a portion of its southern bank in which the monument was buried, resulting in a dramatic natural section across the chamber and mound of the dolmen. Although the site was partly damaged during the event, most of the chamber and its burial content were remarkably well preserved. Unlike most of Provence's dolmen sites, which are located on fairly eroded high ground, l'Ubac was built in a lower valley floor and was sealed under the silt sediments brought naturally by the river. The site, under threat after the flood and requiring rescue excavation, offered a rare opportunity to investigate an exceptionally well preserved Final Neolithic tomb architecture with multi-phased collective burials. The subsequent long-term excavation project (seven seasons from 1996 to 2009) reported in this volume has undoubtedly succeeded in making the most out of this opportunity.

The quality of the monograph results in large part from the fruitful collaboration of two researchers with different yet complimentary backgrounds and expertise. Gérard Sauzade has a long experience of excavating Neolithic burial sites in Provence and is particularly interested in the chronology of megalithic tombs in the region through the study of their architecture and associated material culture. Bruno Bizot is a bioarchaeologist trained with the French anthropologie de terrain school (see below) and an expert in the excavation and taphonomic analysis of complex Neolithic and Medieval burials. Various specialists also participated in the excavation and post-excavation works and contribute to some sections of the monograph.

The volume by Sauzade and Bizot—with contributions by an additional eight authors—is organized in three main parts. Part One (‘Historique, état des connaissances des ensembles funéraires provençaux et perspectives’, pp. 23‒34), authored by Sauzade, introduces the reader to the historical, bibliographical, and archaeological context of the dolmen of l'Ubac. The extensive list of past excavations of Neolithic burial sites (caves, dolmens, rock-cut tombs) in Provence is presented chronologically. Sauzade emphasizes the major changes in the field represented by the first application of radiocarbon dating (1960 at the dolmen of Bouissières) and the first detailed three-dimensional excavation and recording of collective burials (1966 at the Roaix rock-cut tomb): methods that later developed into the anthropologie de terrain or archaeothanatology (Duday, Reference Duday2009)―a method of recording the in situ position of the body―during the 1980‒1990s. More recently, the PhD thesis of Philippe Chambon (Reference Chambon2003) has revealed the diversity and complexity of body depositions and treatments in French collective burials, and Sauzade summarizes the main contributions of this study for the sites located in Provence. A special section (pp. 32‒33) is devoted to the recently excavated site of Château Blanc in Ventabren (Bouches-du-Rhône) which provides the only evidence in Provence of a transition from primary burial structures to open collective chambered tombs. Part one concludes with a presentation of the two main types of dolmens found in Provence: the dolmens à chambre longue (into which l'Ubac falls) and the dolmens à chambre carrée.

Part Two (‘Le site de l'Ubac’, pp. 37‒186) is the core part of the volume. After a brief presentation of the site's discovery and landscape setting (Chs 2‒4, Sauzade), and a summary of each fieldwork season (Section 5.2, Sauzade), the objectives, methods, and results of the project are presented in detail in Sections 5.1 and 5.3 (Bizot) and Chapters 6‒9 (with contributions by Sauzade, Bizot, Buisson-Catil, Brochier, Martin, Magnin, Lambert, Ardagna, Fourvel, and Doray). Core sampling around the site and soil samples from the site's stratigraphy are analysed in order to reconstruct the environmental history of l'Ubac (Ch. 6, Buisson-Catil & Bizot, with contributions by Brochier, Martin, and Magnin). Interestingly, the results show that even though the area was significantly modified during the Neolithic, the immediate surroundings of the dolmen were not deforested and cultivated.

A first major objective of the study is the reconstruction of the sequence of construction, use, and closure of the tomb (Ch. 8, Sauzade, Bizot & Buisson-Catil, with contributions by Lambert and Ardagna). Architecturally, l'Ubac is a typical Provence-type dolmen, with the use of dry-stone walling for the short passage and side walls of the single rectangular burial chamber. Orthostats are used for the back wall and the entrance wall of the chamber, which is covered by three large capstones and enclosed in a circular sand-clay mound of twelve meters’ diameter. More atypical is the double circle of continuous low kerbstones enclosing the mound and the layer of flagstones on top of it. The excavation has gathered evidence of frequentation during the Middle Neolithic under the mound (Ch. 7, Sauzade), but the construction of the chamber and its first use is firmly dated in the regional Final Neolithic (c. 3350‒2900 cal bc). A foundation deposit (a jadeite axe and two cattle mandibles) was discovered at the base of the mound and a small amount of grave goods was found in the older burial deposition layers (arrowheads, a flint blade, and seven beads). Burials were deposited inside the chamber over more than 500 years before the final closure of the chamber at c. 2500 bc.

The largest section is devoted to the excavation and analysis of the burials (Section 8.4, Bizot, pp. 90‒186). These were found mixed with clay sediments creating compact, well preserved layers inside the chamber, which were thoroughly excavated and examined in a remarkable manner by Bizot and his team. The approach is deliberately descriptive and the interpretations left for the final part of the volume. As a result, it is sometimes difficult for the non-specialist to identify the most important information within this significant amount of data and details. One objective is to map and reconstruct the complex sequences of deposition and movement of human bones by using accurate field recording data compiled in a Geographic Information System (GIS). This reminds this reviewer of a similar work previously carried out in western Ireland (Beckett, Reference Beckett2011). From the paved floor up to the ceiling of the chamber, three main stratigraphic layers were identified at l'Ubac, corresponding to three main phases of use clearly separated in some areas by a course of flagstones. The distribution of the bones, their relationships and association with grave goods are described extensively and in detail for each phase. The description is supported by excellent colour plans showing the sequence of deposition across the three phases, the distribution of the different individuals within each layer, and the few parts of articulated skeletons that have survived taphonomically. Individual partly-articulated burials are also shown in separate line drawings, revealing a majority of crouched positions. A fourth, final phase of burial is represented by three inhumations deposited over the capstones of the chamber.

Post-excavation osteological examinations include the now standard (Knüsel & Robb, Reference Knüsel and Robb2016) package of analyses such as Minimum Number of Individuals (twenty-five adults and seventeen infants), age and sex profile, and bone census, the latter allowing an assessment of the proportion of primary vs. secondary burials. Interestingly, Bizot compares their results with osteological datasets from historic and ethnographic contexts for which burial choices and practices were also recorded. At l'Ubac, several bodies were deposited in states of advanced decomposition with missing members, especially hands and feet. Bizot excludes the possibility that clean isolated bones were brought to the chamber from other contexts but he argues that specific bones (in particular crania and long bones) were taken away from the tomb. Taphonomic analyses also show that ‘fresh’ cadavers were deposited and naturally decomposed inside the chamber. Absence of cut-marks on the bones suggests that pre-depositional defleshing and active dismemberment (evidenced in other Neolithic contexts in Europe, cf. Knüsel & Robb, Reference Knüsel and Robb2016) were not practiced at l'Ubac.

Part Three (‘L'Ubac, entre singularité et appartenance’, pp. 189‒214), with contributions by Sauzade and Bizot, discusses some of the most significant results of the excavation in comparison with other regional sites, and presents the authors’ ideas and interpretations on various aspects. Sauzade (Ch. 11) discusses one of the most intriguing features of the monument, the so-called ‘steles’: two small (forty centimetres high) triangular flagstones with worked surfaces, deliberately broken at one end, which were discovered on the old ground level below the mound. Similar ‘steles’ covered with red pigments were found in the early contexts at Chateau-Blanc in association with Late Neolithic (single burial) graves. At the dolmen of Le Pouget (Hérault), a small triangular, worked ‘stele’ was reused in the construction of the Final Neolithic dolmen. According to Sauzade's interesting theory, these steles were the symbols of status of individuals associated with single burials. When, after 3400/3300 bc, collective burial became the norm in Provence, these steles became redundant and were deliberately broken, reused, or hidden in the new types of burial construction (dolmens). In 2009, the mound and chamber of l'Ubac were entirely dismantled and no evidence of an older tomb was found near the location of the ‘steles’, but the latter may have been brought there from a single grave nearby.

After a discussion of the grave goods (Section 11.2, Sauzade) and the proposition of a new chrono-cultural subdivision of the first phase of the Final Neolithic in Provence (Ch. 12, Bizot & Sauzade), which may appeal to local specialists only, Bizot & Sauzade (Ch. 13) summarize and discuss the main patterns resulting from the taphonomic study. The diversity in age and sex profile and the small number of individuals suggest that the tomb was used restrictively by a small community, perhaps a single family. Another interesting pattern is the great diversity of decomposition state of the bodies at the time of deposition (from ‘fresh’ and complete to decomposed incomplete cadavers), suggesting the time separating physical death and deposition was not subject to strong norms. This also suggests that the integrity of the bodies was not required for deposition. The authors discuss the possibility of a two-stage process of deposition, with an initial exposure of the bodies elsewhere (e.g. in a cave) for excarnation. Based on the taphonomic analyses, this would represent ten to thirty per cent of the burials during the first two phases at l'Ubac. During the third phase, most of the bodies were deposited in an advanced state of decomposition.

Changing patterns in the use of the small (three square meters) space of the chamber across the three phases are also discussed and illustrated. The final chapters tackle some classic themes in Neolithic burial ritual, such as the special attention given to crania or the meaning of the crouched position as an analogy for foetal position and rebirth. The ‘symbolic’ nature of non-structural features of the tomb is discussed. Most of the ideas here will not surprise the reader (e.g. stone passage and chamber sill-stone symbolising the transition into the community of the dead), but references to relevant social anthropologists and sociologists (e.g. R. Hertz, A. Van Gennep, E. Frazer, E. Morin, and L.-V. Thomas) in order to substantialize a discussion of the social dimension of death are all the more welcome since they are not so usual in the French archaeological literature.

The volume is very well illustrated throughout, with a large number of useful colour photographs, plans and sections of the monument, topographic maps, and conventional plates of artefacts. Ten appendices (Annexes 1‒10) provide additional tables and diagrams of key data from the project. A more general map showing the location of the site in France and in the Provence region would have been appreciated for the non-local readership. This absence reflects the generally local and regional focus of the study; sites’ comparisons and discussions rarely venture outside Provence and Languedoc while one would expect the authors to assess and discuss the international significance of the site in the context of Late/Final Neolithic death ritual and monumentality in Europe, and the emergence of collective burial traditions on the Continent. The book is entirely written in French and for a French audience, but a three-page long English abstract can be found on pp. 243‒45. Nevertheless, the exceptional nature of the site and the quality of the multi-disciplinary study of the site (in particular the taphonomic analyses) make this volume relevant to a wider, European readership.