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This article presents the first results of the planned archaeological excavations led by Prof. Marie Besse, head of the Laboratory of prehistoric archaeology and anthropology of the Department F.-A. Forel for environmental and aquatic sciences of the University of Geneva, at the Eremita Cave site between 2012 and 2015. The Eremita Cave is located in the North Italian region of Piedmont, in the heart the calcareous massif of Monte Fenera, near Borgosesia (Vercelli). The Monte Fenera is already well known for its numerous caves, many of which contain archaeological remains chronologically spanning from the Palaeolithic to the Middle Ages. This particular situation can be explained by two elements: the uniqueness of the massif from a geological perspective when compared to the rest of the area, and its strategic localisation on the southern alpine foothills, that made it a possible stopover for the people transitioning the Alps

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the megalithic necropolis of Petit-Chasseur in Sion (Valais, Switzerland), an international conference was organised from the 27th to the 29th of October 2011 in Sion. This book constitutes the conference proceedings. The necropolis of Petit-Chasseur still remains a key reference for the understanding of the Final Neolithic period, not only in the Alpine countries, but also throughout Europe. The scientific meeting therefore focused on the end of the Neolithic period in Valais and in the adjacent regions, on the Bell Beaker phenomenon in general, on the funerary rites of this period, and on the anthropology of megalithic societies. The conference was attended by nearly two hundred people, students, junior and senior scholars from many countries including Austria, Belgium, Spain, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Morocco, the Netherlands, Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland. The present publication includes twenty-five papers referring to the periods represented at the Petit-Chasseur necropolis, namely the end of the Neolithic, the Bell Beaker period and the beginning of the Early Bronze Age. In addition to a preface, a first group of papers – eight in total – deal directly with the Petit Chasseur Site in Sion and the end of the Neolithic in the Alps. A second group of articles constitute the section titled "The Final Neolithic and the Bell Beaker Culture in Europe and beyond". This section is composed of fifteen articles presenting the results of archaeological, anthropological, botanical, and zooarchaeological analyses of Europe and Northern Africa. The conclusion drawn from the analysis is invariably the same. It is only possible to back our explicative constructions if we establish a serious dialogue with the field of cultural anthropology and if we construct a real science of the human facts, which is far from being achieved currently, even by ethnologists. The third part of this publication, which consists of two papers and is titled "Societies and Megaliths", offers a discussion on megalith building societies that reflects on and develops this conclusion.

Developed in the late 1980s, the periodisations of the Chassey culture proposed separately by A. Beeching and J. Vaquer were the first to deal with the evolution of this archaeological culture and not only with the last traces of the Cardial culture or the first signs of the Late Neolithic. For the new generation of researchers that emerged from the mid-1990s onward, these two periodisations thus constituted important references. The two periodisations were very different in the structure that they suggested for the period, not only in terms of the geographical distance between them, but also in the methodology employed. This heterogeneity also characterises these new periodisations. This is explained mainly by the variety of the archaeological contexts exploited (stratigraphies vs. assemblages without stratigraphic links), which imposes appropriate and different methodologies, leading to dissimilar views of continuities and discontinuities between recognised stages. This contrast has improved our comprehension of the middle Neolithic in southern France and of the processes at work in the constitution of the Chassey culture. We now have solid bases from which to discuss the interactions between contemporary styles and to decipher the genesis of the Chassean cultural system., Elaborées à la fin des années 1980, les périodisations du Chasséen proposées par A. Beeching et J. Vaquer sont lespremières à s’intéresser à l’évolution même du Chasséen et pas seulement aux perdurations cardiales ou aux prémisses Néolithique final au sein d’assemblages, qui pourraient de ce fait constituer des transitions avec les périodes antérieure et postérieure. Pour la nouvelle génération de chercheurs qui émerge à partir du milieu des années 1990, elles ont ainsi constitué des références importantes. Ces deux périodisations étaient très différentes dans la structuration qu’elles proposaient pour la période, et ce non par l’éloignement géographique qui les sépare, mais surtout par la méthodologie employée. Cette hétérogénéité caractérise aussi ces nouvelles périodisations. Cela s’explique d’abord par la variété des contextes archéologiques exploités (remplissages stratifiés vs. assemblages sans liens stratigraphiques), qui imposent des méthodologies adaptées mais s’opposent par l’accent qu’ils mettent sur les continuités ou au contraire sur les discontinuités entre les phases. La compréhension du Néolithique moyen méridional, des processus qui sont à l’oeuvre dans la mise en place du Chasséen et dans la réflexion sur ce que peut être le Chasséen, a bénéficié de cette confrontation constante. Il est désormais possible de discuter sur des bases solides des synchronies entre styles différents et surtout de commencer à percevoir la genèse du système culturel qu’est le Chasséen.