In this book, Tobias Hofstetter aims to analyse two La Tène C–D2 (280–10 bc) cemeteries in Randogne in Switzerland: Randogne Bluche 2000 and Sion Espace des Remparts. The study of the deceased and burials follows a twofold approach, combining paleoanthropological and archaeological analyses. The two cemeteries are in the Valais region in south-western Switzerland. This area was an essential axis of communication across the Alps in prehistoric times. For instance, in the fifth millennium bc, jadeite axes from the Alps and the upper Po Valley passed through this region and were found in several tumuli and dolmens of northern and western France (Pétrequin et al., Reference Pétrequin, Errera, Cassen, Billand, Colas, Maréchal and Prodeo2005). Later, as Hofstetter notes (p. 2), Roman authors, such as Caesar, Pliny the Elder, Strabo, and Livy refer to the presence in the area of a ‘Celtic’ people named Seduni.
According to Hofstetter (p. 2), this book comes within the purview of Philippe Curdy's overview of La Tène funerary rituals in the Sion area (Curdy et al., Reference Curdy, Mariéthoz, Pernet and Rast-Eicher2009). It supplements it with burials discovered over the last decade and complements it with an in-depth regional study of mortuary practices of the later Iron Age. The book under review consists of seven parts: an introduction (Part I); Part II explains the methodology used for bioanthropological analyses and data treatment; Part III deals with research history in the Valais, as well as the chronological and geographical context of the two cemeteries; Part IV reports on Randogne-Bluche and Part V on Sion-Parking des Remparts; Part VI compares the two cemeteries and others in the region; and Part VII is the conclusion with recommendations for further research. The book also includes five appendices (a methodological evaluation, non-metric observations, non-metric records of teeth from each site, summary tables). It is abundantly illustrated (153 figures within the text and twenty-six illustrations, tables, or diagrams in the appendices).
The largest part of the book is taken up by the catalogue of burials: pp. 18–74 for Randogne-Bluche, and pp. 103–46 for Sion-Parking des Remparts. For each cemetery, Hofstetter follows the form that is usual for monographs reporting on cemeteries: a section describing the state of preservation of the bones, a description of each grave, a paleoanthropological study, an analysis of the spatial organization of the burials, a study of the funerary architecture of the graves, an analysis of the body position of the deceased, and a study of the distribution of the grave goods.
Hoftstetter is currently working as a bioanthropologist at the University of Geneva. It is therefore not surprising that a large part of the book is dedicated to paleoanthropological studies as the work stems from his dissertation, part of his Master's degree in bioanthropology and prehistoric archaeology, awarded by the University of Geneva in 2016. His analyses are largely based on the works of the French anthropologists Eric Crubézy (Crubézy et al., Reference Crubézy, Masset, Lorans, Perrin and Tranoy2000), professor in the University of Toulouse, and Henri Duday, research director at the CNRS, University of Bordeaux. At the end of the 1990s, the latter especially developed the concept of ‘archaeothanatology’ with the anthropologist Bruno Boulestin. It refers to analyses of the biological, social, and taphonomic mechanisms of death in ancient societies, highlighting the essential role that observation during fieldwork plays in the study of burials (Duday, Reference Duday2009). As indicated by Hoftstetter, his approach is both ‘archaeothanatological’ and paleoanthropological, his intention being to better understand ‘the world of the living through material effects of mortuary rituals and practices’ (p. 2).
Paleoanthropology plays a major role in this book, as is apparent from the title, compared to the sparser treatment of the archaeological data. In particular, Hoftstetter sets out several bioanthropological methods to evaluate the sex of the deceased used on the assemblage of human bones (pp. 3–5). DNA analyses were not conducted, possibly for financial reasons.
Hoftstetter is very cautious about using old methods to determine the sex of individuals, such as Acsádi and Nemeskéri's (Reference Acsádi and Nemeskéri1970) visual method, being fully aware of their limitations (pp. 4–5). However (and unfortunately), they are the most commonly used on this collection because of its poor state of preservation. The probabilistic sexual diagnosis (Murail et al., Reference Murail, Bruzek, Houët and Cunha2005), the method most frequently employed in France and Switzerland and considered the most reliable, apparently could not be used on most of the remains (p. 76, fig. 63; p. 148, fig. 124).
The main problem for Hofstetter's meticulous work and ambitious initial project is that the number of burials is small. It is limited to twenty-five burials in all, thirteen in the cemetery of Randogne-Bluche and twelve in the cemetery of Sion-Parking des Remparts. In terms of bone preservation, the picture is also fairly bleak: the sex of fifty-three per cent of individuals, and the age-at-death of seventy-six per cent of the deceased could not be estimated at Randogne–Bluche. In Sion-Parking des Remparts, the figures for unidentified sex are forty-six per cent and forty per cent for undetermined age-at-death.
Unavoidably, Hofstetter's conclusions are somewhat frustrating, both for the author and the reader. For instance, as Hofstetter states for the cemetery of Randogne-Bluche, it is impossible to shed more light on the population from which deceased originated (p. 77), on skeletal abnormalities (p. 81), on the chronological and spatial organisation of the burial ground (p. 87), on burial architecture (p. 88), on the body positions in the graves (pp. 93–94), and on the distribution of the grave goods in each burial (p. 98).
Hofstetter's initial intentions are however original in some respects. He tries to include an estimate of the stature of the deceased, following Curdy's work. This perspective is not necessarily very well developed in recent studies of cemeteries, perhaps because the methods used are quite outdated: for long bone measurement, various anthropological methods are employed (e.g. Steele, Reference Steele and Stewart1970). As noted above, only a small number of the deceased could be studied from this perspective (p. 79, fig. 67; p. 152, fig. 128). The author established a typology of thirteen body positions for the deceased of the Valais in the later Iron Age, based on his collection and Curdy's (pp. 88–91). In a synthesis, he points out that there is no chronological difference in body positions. Most of the time, differences in body positions could be explained by the presence of wooden coffins.
Hofstetter emphasizes one particular male burial (grave PR06-T12) in the cemetery of Sion-Parking des Remparts. This man suffered from a rare pathology, probably mucopolysaccharidosis, which leads to enzymatic deficits resulting in accumulations of mucopolysaccharides on different internal organ tissues, which can produce bone dysplasia or dwarfism (p. 111). The man was between twenty and forty-nine years old when he died and was thus probably disabled. Yet, despite his pathology, he was buried in the same cemetery as his community (pp. 161–84). Nevertheless, it may be necessary to qualify Hofstetter's statement about how this man was treated, i.e. that he was not interred like the other men in the burial ground, but in the same way as the children (p. 161). His grave is located near a woman's burial dated to La Tène C1–C2, and two other graves of adults without any gave goods and thus of indeterminate date (fig. 137). No artefact was buried with the disabled man. Yet the children at Sion-Parking des Remparts were buried with at least three fibulae, sometimes with a blue glass bracelet and pottery (pp. 168–69).
Another burial of a disabled individual, a woman, is known from the cemetery of Sion-Sous-le-Scex, also in the Valais (p. 184). Her skeleton showed symptoms of upper limb dysplasia and a form of dwarfism. These two individuals enrich the data and knowledge concerning people with disabilities in ancient societies, and their care in death. The topic of ‘Archaeology of Disability’ has greatly developed over the last fifteen years at least, with reference works published by Jane Hubert (Reference Hubert2000), William Southwell-Wright (Reference Southwell-Wright, Arndt and Wappett2013), and Valérie Delattre in France (Delattre, Reference Delattre2018). It provides new perspectives on the relationships between members of the same community and often highlights the attention paid to persons with disabilities and demonstrates the solidarity of ancient groups towards them, an aspect that we did not necessarily assume existed in past societies.
To conclude, Hofstetter's book presents two Swiss La Tène cemeteries with great precision and rigour. It follows in the footsteps of Curdy's works, as Hofstetter states, but also complements other monographs of cemeteries and sites in the Valais. This region is indeed one of the ‘richest’ European areas in terms of prehistoric mortuary evidence and ritual sites, including the famous Neolithic to Early Bronze Age site of Sion Petit Chasseur.
The present volume provides a paleoanthropological reading of two cemeteries, although the poor state of preservation of the bone assemblage limits the scope of a valuable contribution. The paleoanthropological and archaeothanalogical approach is precious because it adds substantially to what is known from the many La Tène cemeteries in western Switzerland that were excavated in the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century.
