1The Champagne region has a long history with the antiques dealers who were active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They were particularly interested in the region’s tombs as they contained significant deposits no matter the period (Chossenot 2004). In Reims, it is estimated that they explored around 5,000 ancient tombs in some 20 years (Chevalier 2005). These discoveries were only sufficient to form a rough topographical plan of the large funerary complexes, which were located, following a fairly standard pattern, on the immediate outskirts of the town, on either side of the “Augustan” town enclosure, and along the seven major routes leading to the town. The areas concerned often display continuity of use throughout Antiquity, with gradual encroachment on the town ditch (fig. 2).

Fig. 2. Plan of funerary contexts discovered in the north-east quarter of the ancient town.

2Preventive archaeology has since revealed an aspect of funerary practice that was specific to Late Antiquity, with the discovery of small funerary groups scattered outside these large complexes or within the limits of the ancient town (fig. 1; Sindonino et al. 2016), even though it was previously thought that the dead could not transgress these boundaries (Cicero 450–451 BCE).

Fig. 1. Plan of the Late Antiquity funerary discoveries (in black) in the area between the two enclosures.

3Over the course of 30 years, more than 60 tombs have been discovered in these atypical contexts. Hypotheses have emerged: were these individuals, most of whom are male, labourers who came to work on the town’s major construction projects, particularly the building of the town enclosure in the late 3rd and early 4th centuries? Were they excluded from the peri-urban necropolises because they did not belong to the community? Or are we witnessing an evolution of funerary practices allowing tombs to be placed in wasteland areas within the space of the living?

4To investigate each of these theories, the contextual archaeological data were re-examined and an anthropological study of the deceased carried out. A major radiocarbon dating project was also undertaken, revealing a chronologically coherent group from the second third of the 2nd century CE to the first third of the 5th century CE. We can reduce this period to between the middle of the 3rd century and the first third of the 4th century thanks to the stratigraphic data and the dating of the associated grave goods (Bayesian statistics using the ChronoModel software).

5Finally, the analysis was supplemented by a study of dietary practices based on isotopic markers (δ¹³C, δ¹⁵N) and a study of the geographical origins and genetic affinities of the deceased based on ancient DNA (paleogenetic and paleogenomic approaches).

6This article focuses on 47 individuals found in wasteland contexts within the High Roman Empire town. Forty-four were sampled for isotopic analysis and 29 underwent paleogenomic analysis. In parallel, 61 individuals from the same period who were buried in the peri-urban necropolises were re-studied, with 38 isotopic samples and 17 paleogenomic tests. The isotopic results from the rue Maucroix (Rollet, Florent, Jouhet 2009) and Place d’Erlon (Rollet, Balmelle 1994) sites, both of which are part of the first group, are described here in more detail.

7A preliminary comparison of these two large groups reveals a lack of juveniles and an overrepresentation of men (three sites contained exclusively male individuals) outside the community necropolises. However, there was a considerable amount of overlap between the funerary practices of the two contexts (enchytrism, the widespread use of nailed coffins). The grave goods were still limited, but sometimes more diverse than in the community burial sites.

8The two groups are distinguished by different dietary practices, which appear to have been much more varied among the individuals buried within the town walls. This finding is based on the proteins they consumed, which were identified by carbon (δ¹³C) and nitrogen (δ¹⁵N) isotope-ratio analysis of the organic fraction of bone tissue. Using local isotopic reference materials comprising animal resources, these ratios are used to assess the relationships between the various actors in a food chain and to identify the preferential contribution of a particular food source to the human diet (mostly herbivorous, carnivorous, consumption of marine resources, etc.).

9The paleogenomic analysis carried out at the same time supplemented the sex attributions and revealed that there was no kinship relationship between the tested individuals. It also made it possible to test the hypothesis of an exogenous population buried at sites within the town during a time of major building works. Against expectations, while all the individuals at the rue Maucroix site seem to be of exogenous origin (common origin, primarily a mixture of Roman and North African populations), the situation is very different at the Place d’Erlon site, where most of the individuals can be defined as of “local” origin. Two of them may have stronger genetic affinity to the population of Occitania, suggesting a Mediterranean origin (southern France or the Iberian Peninsula). Finally, a single individual at the Place d’Erlon site was clearly exogenous, probably from the Eastern Mediterranean or the far east of the Roman Empire.

10Comparative analysis of the isotopic and paleogenomic data from the Place d’Erlon site reveals greater cultural affinities, presumably related to their common origin, for individuals who are already distinguished by their topography at the site. At the rue Maucroix site, the four male individuals tested by both types of analysis have an identical origin in the Eastern Mediterranean and share lower δ¹³C values; two of them also have similar δ¹⁵N values. This finding, although partial, suggests either first-generation migrants with the environmental characteristics of their place of origin, or the descendants of migrants who had retained identical dietary practices, indicative of preferences for similar resources and/or dietary and culinary habits.

11The multidisciplinary analysis of these tombs casts a new light on the place reserved for the dead at the end of Antiquity in Reims. While older discoveries had left us with a fossilized image of peri-urban necropolises respecting a strict separation between the world of the dead and that of the living, the new studies reveal that very early on, perhaps from the end of the 1st century BC (Thomann, Péchart 2013), tombs were encroaching on the area inside the town walls. Is this evidence that the initial limits of the town extended too far and were therefore only respected for a short time? Despite this shift on either side of the town limits, the tombs have a clustered distribution.

12From the end of the 3rd century and the beginning of the 4th, new practices emerged although these funerary clusters remained in use. The area around the decumanus maximus became especially attractive, and large necropolises arranged in rows were built, particularly in the north-east quarter of the town and gradually closer to the centre. At the same time, in the High Empire districts, by this time abandoned and used as a source of all sorts of materials, small funerary clusters appeared, non-permanent and probably also fairly inconspicuous.

13It was thought that the individuals buried in these small groups of tombs, some of which are exclusively male, were workers collecting materials for the construction of the Late Antique town wall. However, the radiocarbon dates show that this burial practice at least partly antedates the construction of the wall. At the same time, the first results of the biomolecular analysis show that these individuals displayed greater dietary opportunism and, in some cases, a distant geographic origin. Based on these preliminary results, we speculated that they were excluded from the peri-urban necropolises because of their origin or their traditions. But against expectations, investigation of the Place d’Erlon site revealed the undifferentiated presence at the same site, and sometimes in the same wall recovery trench, of autochthonous and exogenous individuals. This finding makes it necessary to re-evaluate the development of funerary practices at the end of Antiquity in Reims. Far from being pejorative or revealing exclusion, this phenomenon may reflect the reappropriation of the new limits of the town, which was being extensively rebuilt, by a multicultural society. It is also an indication of the influence and attractiveness of Reims in the 3rd and 4th centuries.