The funeral site of Void-Vacon's final Bronze "le Ve" (Meuse, Lorraine)

The rescue excavation conducted in 2003 at the locality of Ve (Void-Vacon, Meuse - Lorraine) unearthed a funerary site dated to the beginning of the Late Bronze Age. The funerary site was composed of a kidney-shaped enclosure of 340 m(2) and two circular pits of about one metre in diameter. One of the pits contained a human skeleton. The study of this grave revealed that the deceased was buried in a sitting or crouching position, presumably in a "box" made of perishable material. The grave contained a ceramic vessel, a pin and a bronze spiral. An early reopening of this grave and the removal of some of the bones reveal funerary rites which may be connected to the practice of secondary burial. The second pit was similar to the first, but did not contain any human remains. These pits were situated some metres to the north of a fenced enclosure. The latter was probably surrounded by an embankment and access was through a narrow covered passage. At present this type of funerary site does not have any equivalent in the Lorraine region, but seems to resemble certain sites in the eastern part of the Paris Basin.