The fifth millennium cal bc in northern France is framed by the arrival of farming at the end of the sixth millennium and its move northwards at the start of the fourth millennium. This does not mean, however, that the fifth millennium was a period of stasis. Indeed, it is a period busy with successive and overlapping cultural and social changes. Contributing to unravelling some of this complexity, this volume presents the results of twenty-five years of excavations and post-excavation analysis at an early and middle Neolithic site in the east of the Paris Basin. The site of Vignely ‘La Porte aux Berges’ provides a window on two periods of cultural succession; between the end of the Linearbandkeramik (LBK; known in France as the Rubané) and the first phase of the Blicquy/Villeneuve-Saint-Germain (BVSG), and subsequently between the BVSG and the Middle Neolithic, primarily the Cerny culture. It is also notable for a Middle Neolithic (Neolithique Moyen II) funerary monument constructed on the site of a former early Neolithic (BVSG) longhouse. In addition to bringing the excavations to publication, the volume aims to situate the site within its cultural and chronological regional context, as well as to reflect on the nature of the site's reuse.

The book is divided into four main chapters, covering in turn: the excavation and environmental setting of the site, the Early Neolithic settlement and burials, the Middle Neolithic cemetery, and a concluding chapter summarising the main findings of the study. The opening chapter presents an account of the successive phases of excavation and, in the middle of the chapter, the archaeological context is presented, alongside the overall aims for the analysis (Section 1.3). The chapter then focuses on the analysis of a pollen core (from which, unfortunately, the Early and Middle Neolithic phases are missing), and surveys the available environmental data from the wider area.

Chapter 2 presents the Early Neolithic features of the site and the seven certain, and three probable, longhouses identified during excavation. The area excavated is likely to represent only part of the original Neolithic site, its limits only being confirmed to the north. Thus, the original settlement is likely to have been larger. Where the preservation of the postholes permit, the houses are attributed typologically to the BVSG style. A number of more unusual features are explored, such as the storage pits inside House Ten, and open hearth in House 150, though these are not without parallels elsewhere. Well-preserved House Ten was chosen to be reconstructed at a regional ‘archeosite’. The text records the discussion between the architects and archaeologists of how to recreate the house and is instructive of the technical knowledge the Neolithic communities brought to the construction of these longhouses.

The second half of the chapter is dedicated to the post-excavation finds analysis. A rich material culture is represented, including the pottery, lithics, grinding stones, bone and antler tools, and personal ornaments. In each case, raw material, typology, manufacturing techniques, and the spatial distribution of the finds are presented, and compared to those of the wider Paris Basin region. Typologically, the pot decorations place the site from its earliest occupation at the transition from the final phase of the RFBS (Rubané Final de BASSIN Seine, the regional group of the LBK) to the latter phases of the BVSG. The site thus appears to be long lived. Radiocarbon dates provide a span of about 300 years for the culture, c. 5000/4950–4700/4650 cal bc (Dubouloz, Reference Dubouloz2003), suggesting that Vignely represents several centuries of occupation. This is an unusual chronology in comparison to other BVSG sites found to date in the Marne valley, most of which appear more short-lived.

Raw materials for the most part suggest a local focus, drawn from up to 20–25 km away, but the site also has a higher diversity of raw material when compared to the local region. The lithic assemblage, however, differs from this pattern. The principal raw material found is Cretaceous flint, rather than the local Bartonian (Tertiary) flint, which dominates at other nearby sites. Together with the species used for perforated shells, it is proposed that Vignely produced objects circulated to the local region, receiving blades made of the local Tertiary flint in return. This may also represent spatial patterning at the site, as the main raw material sources vary between different longhouses, in a manner which recalls the organisation of the Rubané site of Cuiry-lès-Chaudardes (Gomart et al., Reference Gomart, Hachem, Hamon, Giligny and Ilett2015). The possibility that the excavated area represents a particular group set within a wider community continues with the animal bone evidence: in comparison to the usual increase in the significance of pig at expense of sheep/goat across the BVSG (Bedault, Reference Bedault2012), at Vignely the proportion of both animals remains similar, with sheep/goat increasing in the later phases. Such features may speak to the site having strong links to its Rubané heritage. Tentatively, the hypothesis is proposed that Vignely was a central site, possibly a founder settlement for the valley.

Alongside the two inhumation burials dating to the early Neolithic, there is a detailed consideration of the BVSG disarticulated remains. Single disarticulated human bones always appear in the house pits where there is greater concentration of finds. The intentionality of these deposits is cautiously argued for, based on the reoccurrence of similar patterns at other BVSG sites. A more curious case is the disarticulated burial in lateral Pit 151, where the major bones were not recovered. It is proposed that the burial was placed in the pit, covered in some manner, and the main bones retrieved at a later point. Does this, perhaps, explain the occurrence of disarticulated remains at LBK and BVSG sites more widely?

Chapter 3 presents the Middle Neolithic funerary remains from the site. The Middle Neolithic is represented by two phases of use for burial: a Cerny culture (Neolithique Moyen I) cemetery, and a Neolithique Moyen II funerary enclosure. The Cerny cemetery is interspersed among the Early Neolithic longhouses, though it does not appear to make any direct reference to the houses themselves. With few instances of ceramic grave goods, the date was confirmed by radiocarbon dating, which places the cemetery early in the Cerny sequence, and most likely before the forty-sixth century cal bc. The Cerny burials are systematically compared to the wider cultural group (Thomas, Reference Thomas2011). Elsewhere in the distribution of the Cerny culture, funerary monuments of the Passy-style are known, such as those at the site of Balloy (Mordant, Reference Mordant and Jeunesse1997). At such sites, long earthern mounds were constructed directly over early Neolithic longhouses, but this is by no means a feature of all Cerny burial sites. Use of anthropologie de terrain allows the manner of decay of the skeleton to be considered, alongside the placing of the grave goods, whether burials were placed bound or wrapped, or within rigid structures. Re-opening of graves for reuse (in the form of graves ‘with storeys’/‘à étages’) is identified in a number of cases. Alongside the complex and varied set of practices associated with the burial of the deceased, the grave goods represent a rich material culture. One burial (Grave 180) has a so-called ‘Eiffel tower’ bone point, typical of the Cerny culture, the use of which remains uncertain. More unusually, in Grave 257, a dog or wolf vertebra was found, shaped and carved like a bird and likely to have been worn as pendant alongside red deer canines. The animal bones used to make grave goods are mostly wild and the tools do not appear to have been used for everyday activities. The grave goods thus do not appear to represent ‘everyday’ life, but rather a form of symbolic system. With young children receiving as rich grave good assemblages as adults, the authors suggest a system of inherited status.

The funerary enclosure, attributed to the Neolithique Moyen II, is more unusual for the Paris basin. It is a ditched, linear enclosure, with two burials in the interior space. There are two comparable post-Cerny features in the Paris Basin, at Beaurieuz and Saint-Julien-du-Sault, and a further post-built structure showing a similar ground plan at Passy-Veron. Although perhaps superficially echoing the Passy-style monument to a certain extent, the dating is uncertain and the example from Vignley dates to the start of the fourth millennium cal bc, and therefore sometime after the Cerny use of the site. The authors argue that to propose these as a new form of monument is premature. The enclosure is also of interest because of its location over an earlier BVSG longhouse. The two features do not share exactly the same alignment, but certainly the same plan. Such instances of direct relationships between Early Neolithic houses and Middle Neolithic features are rare, but often thought significant (Midgley, Reference Midgley2005). Here, the authors downplay the symbolic significance—pointing to the infrequence with which such relationships are found—and argue that the Vignely Early Neolithic village merely provided an open and clear location close to the river for the cemetery. I was left wondering if the focus on reuse of ‘longhouse’ as a distinct architectural space has led to us missing other ways in which Cerny burials reference the past or have intersected with the material remains of the Rubané or BVSG.

While this volume is an excavation report of a large Neolithic site in the Marne valley, the thorough comparison of the analytical results to the wider region in the Early and Middle Neolithic means it will be of interest to those who are not regional specialists. Key contributions include the nature of the succession between the Rubané and BVSG, which contrasts to regions further east where there may well be a hiatus or period of depopulation at the end of the sixth millennium cal bc (Denaire et al., Reference Denaire, Lefranc, Wahl, Bronk Ramsey, Dunbar, Goslar, Bayliss, Beavan, Bickle and Whittle2017); and the nature of funerary practice in the Middle Neolithic. During the latter half of the fifth millennium and early fourth millennium cal bc, burial evidence comes to dominate the archaeological record of the Paris Basin. It is this evidence from which we have to reconstruct the farmers who again pushed forward the practice of agriculture to the north at the start of the fourth millennium cal bc, and this volume contributes to our better understanding of the diversity of the fifth millennium cal bc which preceded them.