Stabilité et évolution des pratiques funéraires néolithiques à Mehrgarh (Période I : ca. 7000-5800 B.C.)

The rules that regulated the funerary practices of Mehrgarh at about 6000 B.C. seem to result both from a heritage of continuing prescription and from innovation with respect to the funerary rules that dictated the form of the burials that preceded them. While the changes observed seem to reflect evolution in both the socio-economic and cultural domains (changes in tomb structure and in the kind and division of grave goods), the features that remain constant relate principally to the cultural domain alone. Continuing traditions of orientation, mode of inhumation, and position of the skeleton plausibly translate adherence to institutions and beliefs of the past.