France

At its inception, French anthropology primarily focused on the study of the biology and evolution of the human species. Research of skeletal remains takes its roots from the school of naturalism in Western Europe at the beginning of the 19th century. The publication of Recherche sur les ossements fossiles by Georges Cuvier (1820), was followed by the work of the Belgian researcher Philippe-Charles Schmerling with Description des ossements fossiles à l’état pathologique provenant des cavernes de Lièges (1835) and the German Philipp Franz Von Walther with Ueber das Alterthum der Knochenkrankheiten (1825). Both Schmerling and Von Walther proposed a scientific classification of human bones and identification of pathological lesions. However, an explicit definition of the discipline had not yet materialized, with additional branches of research, such as morphology, physiology and evolutionary theory adding to the confusion. Nevertheless, physical anthropology would be led by two major schools of thought, the French school supervised by Broca, and the English school by Virchow. The Society of Anthropology of Paris (Societé d’Anthropologie de Paris) has been the tem-

plate of the development of physical anthropology in France. This organization was created in 1855 by Paul Broca, surgeon and neurologist, who gathered together the leading experts of anthropology, ethnology, medicine, archaeology and other disciplines. Human skeletons were coming from different places: archaeological excavations in Paris (Baron Haussman’s building work policies); in the rest of France following nationalist policies inspired by Napoleon III with the myth of Nos ancêtres les Gaulois (‘Our Gaul Ancestors’) where the Gauls are portrayed as strong warriors united to fight the Roman invaders; and in the colonies (Algeria, Antilles, Guyana, Cochinchina, Melanesia, New Caledonia, etc.). However, at this time only the skulls were studied and the rest of the skeleton was often barely analysed. It was believed that the skulls presented all the racial, physiological, psychological and pathological stigmas of the individual. The theory was backed by many metric indices (the cephalic index in particular). Another area of considerable interest at the time was the identification of trepanation (sometimes under the influence of Broca himself), or the association of skeletal abnormalities with contemporary illnesses (mainly syphilis and tuberculosis). The French physical anthropology school got rid of these racial stereotypes only at the end of the 1970s, when people such as Robert P. Charles

stopped practising (Charlier 2006; 2008a). In parallel, anthropology evolved towards archaeological anthropology with the excavation of many prehistoric sites, such as the excavation of the Hypogeum II of Mournouards by André Leroi-Gouran in the 1950s, which publication brought the basis for interpretation of burial contexts in France (Leroi-Gourhan et al. 1962). Burial anthropology or field anthropology (anthropologie de terrain) emerged only in the

1970s under the leadership of Jean Leclerc, Claude Masset and Henri Duday (Duday and Masset 1987), and with the development of rescue archaeology in the 1980s. The anthropologists took into account taphonomic changes, and even used these alterations in order to recreate the burial context for the purpose of dating the remains and to understand the funerary practices. Since the mid-1990s, field anthropology or burial archaeology evolved towards a multi-disciplinary approach, including studies on ancient DNA, isotopes, entomological and parasitological remains, palynology, carpology or anthracology in cremation burials. Several anthropological laboratories direct their research in these new disciplines, but with

different focus. The Bordeaux school, which was at the origin of the development of burial archaeology with Henri Duday, directed its work towards human evolution, although more recently towards palaeogenetic studies. At the end of the 1980s, they studied burnt and cremated remains. The Marseilles school was originated at the end of the 1990s with Olivier Dutour, who is particularly interested in the palaeopathological study of past populations. More recently with Michel Signoli, the Marseilles school also focuses its work now on mass graves (sépultures de catastrophe) in the context of plague epidemics and armed conflicts. The Toulouse school managed by Eric Crubézy ran significant works on the analysis of non-metric traits. The laboratory now specializes in palaeogenetics. The Nice school, thanks to the joint effort of Luc Buchet and Isabelle Séguy, focuses its effort on palaeodemography, following the methodology developed by Claude Masset and Jean-Pierre Bocquet-Appel.