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International audience; Excavated in the middle of the 1960’ by M. Sechter, the site of Mougins – Bréguières, in Southeastern France, appears of a huge patrimonial and scientific interest, due to the exceptional abundance and preservation of human bones, the singularity of associated material, and the specificity of the place, a fault, where the corpses were left. In the frame of the ETICALP project, direct dating of bone collagen has been run in order to define the chronological and cultural context of human deposits. Among twelve analyses, a consistent set of eleven dates situates the site’s use as a burial at the end of the 6th and the beginning of the 5th millennium BCE, and justifies that detailed anthropological studies have been run. The latter have demonstrated that the human bone assemblage presents all the characters of a collective burial which then appears as one of the oldest within the Western Mediterranean Neolithic, in a social context marked by deep changes in symbolic paradigms through the whole Western Europe. The biological analysis indicates that the individuals composing this assemblage did cover a large range of ageing clusters, with the exception of perinatal. A first set of isotopic analyses highlights the huge potential of these series for understanding the diet variability among the individuals and during their own life.; Fouillé au milieu des années 1960 par M. Sechter, le site des Bréguières à Mougins présente un intérêt patrimonial et scientifique primordial en raison de l’abondance et de la conservation exceptionnelle des restes humains qui y furent découverts, de la singularité des mobiliers archéologiques qui y étaient associés et de la spécificité du lieu, une faille, où ils ont été déposés. Dans le cadre du Projet collectif de recherche ETICALP, des datations directes sur collagène osseux ont été entreprises afin de préciser le contexte chrono-culturel de ces dépôts. Onze des douze dates ainsi obtenues placent l’utilisation du site comme sépulcre à la fin du VIe et au début du Ve millénaire BCE, justifiant la mise en œuvre d’une analyse anthropologique détaillée. Cette dernière a conclu à un assemblage présentant tous les aspects d’une sépulture collective qui s’avère de fait comme étant l’une des plus anciennes du Néolithique ouest-méditerranéen, dans un contexte social caractérisé par un profond renouvellement des paradigmes symboliques à l’échelle de l’Europe occidentale. L’analyse biologique indique que les 61 individus qui composent cet assemblage appartiennent à toutes les classes d’âge, exception faite des périnataux. Les premières analyses isotopiques mettent en valeur le potentiel considérable de cette série pour aborder la variabilité des régimes alimentaires au sein de la population et au cours de la vie des individus.

Excavated in the middle of the 1960’ by M. Sechter, the site of Mougins – Breguieres, in Southeastern France, appears of a huge patrimonial and scientific interest, due to the exceptional abundance and preservation of human bones, the singularity of associated material, and the specificity of the place, a fault, where the corpses were left. In the frame of the ETICALP project, direct dating of bone collagen has been run in order to define the chronological and cultural context of human deposits. Among twelve analyses, a consistent set of eleven dates situates the site’s use as a burial at the end of the 6th and the beginning of the 5th millennium BCE, and justifies that detailed anthropological studies have been run. The latter have demonstrated that the human bone assemblage presents all the characters of a collective burial which then appears as one of the oldest within the Western Mediterranean Neolithic, in a social context marked by deep changes in symbolic paradigms through the whole Western Europe. The biological analysis indicates that the individuals composing this assemblage did cover a large range of ageing clusters, with the exception of perinatal. A first set of isotopic analyses highlights the huge potential of these series for understanding the diet variability among the individuals and during their own life.