The goal of this article is to present the first results of research conducted on the Early Chassean site of Crès à Béziers, which was excavated in the context of a preventive operation. Out of the 190 excavated structures discovered, 33 served as receptacles for funerary deposits, representing a population of 49 deceased individuals. This is currently the largest funerary ensemble known for this period in southern France. This strong funerary component, which also shows significant variability and organizational complexity, could respond to recurring questions concerning the funerary practices of this stage of the southern Chassean. In our work, we thus attempted to understand the sequencing of this inhumed population and its representivity through a confrontation of archaeological and physical anthropological data. This first level of interpretation allowed us to address the question of tombs in a habitat context and to show the extreme diversity of the funerary practices that characterize Chassean inhumations, here contemporary and present in the same location. This apparent dichotomy between inhumations in habitat contexts and architectural tombs constituted in a small cemetery is quite remarkable. It could be the resonance of a stratified society in which individuals, regardless of their age or sex, can have distinct and probably hierarchical statuses.
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Loison et al. (2009) studied this question.
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