Pattern and diversity in the Early Neolithic mortuary practices of Britain and Ireland: Contextualising the treatment of the dead

Documenta Praehistorica

Volumn 37, Issue 1, 2010, Pages 1-22

  Fowler, Chris ^a  

^a NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Bodies; Collective burial; Cremation; Excarnation; Mortuary practice; Neolithic Britain and Ireland; Successive burial

Indexed keywords

EID: 84861780677     PISSN: 1408967X     EISSN: 18542492     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.4312/dp.37.1     Document Type: Article

References (92)

1. ASHBEE P. 1970. The earthen long barrow in Britain. Dent. London.
2. BARBER M., FIELD D. and TOPPING P. 1999. The Neolithic flint mines of England. English Heritage. Swindon.
3. BARNATT J. and COLLIS J. 1996. Barrows in the Peak District. Collis Publications. Sheffield.
4. BARNATT J. and EDMONDS M. 2002. Places apart? Caves and monuments in Neolithic and earlier Bronze Age Britain. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 12(1): 113-29.
5. BARRAUD C., DE COPPET D., ITEANU A. and JAMOUS R. 1994. Of Relations and the Dead: Four Societies Viewed from the Angle of their Exchanges. Berg. Oxford.
6. BARRETT J. 1988. The living, the dead and the ancestors: Neolithic and early Bronze Age mortuary practices. In J. Barrett and I. Kinnes (eds.), The Archaeology of Context in the Neolithic and Bronze Age. Department of Prehistory and Archaeology, Sheffield: 30-41.
7. BATTAGLIA D. 1990. On the Bones of the Serpent: Person, Memory and Mortality in Sabarl Society. Chicago University Press. Chicago.
8. BAYLISS A., WHITTLE A. and WYSOCKI M. 2007. Talking about my generation: the date of the West Kennet long barrow. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 17: 85-101.
9. BECKETT J. and ROBB J. 2006. Neolithic burial taphonomy, ritual and interpretation in Britain and Ireland: a review. In R. Gowland and C. Knüsel (eds.), Social Archaeology of Funerary Remains. Oxbow, Oxford: 57-80.
10. BLOCH M. 1982. Death, women and power. In M. Bloch and J. Parry (eds.), Death and the Regeneration of Life. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 211-30.
11. BRADLEY R. 2007. Houses, bodies and tombs. In A. Whittle and V. Cummings (eds.), Going Over: the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in north-west Europe. Proceedings of the British Academy 144: 347-355.
12. BUNTING G., VERITY D. and CORNWAL I. 1959. Appendix II: Report on the human remains from Nutbane. In F. Morgan (ed.), The excavation of a long barrow at Nutbane, Hampshire. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 15: 15-51.
13. CARSTEN J. 2004. After Kinship. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge.
14. CLIFFORD E. and DANIEL G. 1940. The Rodmarton and Avening portholes. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 6: 133-65.
15. COLES J. and SIMPSON D. 1965. The excavation of a Neolithic round barrow at Pitnacree, Perthshire, Scotland. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 31: 34-57.
16. COLES S., FORD S. and TAYLOR A. 2008. An Early Neolithic grave and occupation, and an Early Bronze Age hearth on the Thames foreshore at Yabsley Street, Blackwall, London. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 74: 215-233.
17. COONEY G. 2000. Landscapes of Neolithic Ireland. Routledge. London.
18. CUMMINGS V., JONES A. and WATSON A. 2002. In between places: axial symmetry and divided space in the monuments of the Black Mountains, south-east Wales. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 12: 57-70.
19. CURWEN E. 1929. Excavations at the Trundle, Goodwood, 1928. Sussex Archaeological Collections 70: 33-85.
20. 1934. Excavations at Whitehawk Camp, Brighton, 1932-3. Antiquaries Journal 14: 99-133.
21. DARVILL T. 2004. Long Barrows of the Cotswolds and Surrounding Areas. Tempus. Stroud.
22. DAVIDSON J. and HENSHALL A. 1991. The chambered cairns of Caithness. Edinburgh University Press. Edinburgh.
23. DOWD M. 2008. The use of caves for funerary and ritual practices in Neolithic Ireland. Antiquity 82: 305-17.
24. DREWETT P. 1977. The excavation of a Neolithic causewayed enclosure at Offham Hill, East Sussex. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 42: 201-41.
25. 1986. The excavation of a Neolithic oval barrow at North Marden, West Sussex, 1982. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 43: 201-41.
26. DUNNING G. 1966. Neolithic occupation sites in east Kent. Antiquaries Journal 46: 1-25.
27. EDMONDS M. 1993. Interpreting causewayed enclosures in the past and present. In C. Tilley (ed.), Interpretative Archaeology. Berg, Oxford: 99-142.
28. EDMONDS M. 1999. Ancestral Geographies of the Neolithic: Landscapes, Monuments and Memory. Routledge. London.
29. EDMONDS M. 2006. The axe and the mound. In C. Evans and I. Hodder (ed.), A Woodland Archaeology: Neolithic sites at Haddenham. McDonald Institute Monographs, Oxbow, Oxford: 352-3.
30. EVANS C. and HODDER I. 2006. A Woodland Archaeology: Neolithic sites at Haddenham. McDonald Institute Monographs. Oxbow. Oxford.
31. EVANS J. and SIMPSON D. 1991. Giants' Hills 2 long barrow, Skendleby, Lincolnshire. Archaeologia 109: 1-45.
32. FOWLER C. 2001. Personhood and social relations in the British Neolithic, with a study from the Isle of Man. Journal of Material Culture 6: 137-163.
33. 2003. Rates of (ex)change: Decay and growth, memory and the transformation of the dead in early Neolithic southern Britain. In H. Williams (ed.), Archaeologies of Remembrance-Death and Memory in Past Societies. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Press, New York: 45-63.
34. 2004a. The Archaeology of Personhood: An Anthropological Approach. Routledge. London.
35. 2004b. In touch with the past? Bodies, monuments and the sacred in the Manx Neolithic. In V. Cummings and C. Fowler (eds.), The Neolithic of the Irish Sea: materiality and traditions of practice. Oxbow Books, Oxford: 91-102.
36. 2008a. Fractal bodies in the past and present. In D. Borić and J. Robb (eds.), Past Bodies: Body-Centered Research in Archaeology. Oxbow Press, Oxford: 47-57.
37. 2008b. Landscape and Personhood. In B. David and J. Thomas (eds.), Handbook of Landscape Archaeology. Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, CA.: 291-9.
38. FOWLER C. and CUMMINGS V. 2003. Places of transformation: building monuments from water and stone in the Neolithic of the Irish Sea. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 9: 1-20.
39. FOWLER C. and SCARRE S. Forthcoming. Mortuary practices, bodies and persons in north-western Europe. In C. Fowler, J. Harding and D. Hofmann (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
40. GALER D. 2006. The human remains. In D. Benson and A. Whittle (eds.), Building Memories: the Neolithic Cotswold long barrow at Ascott-Under-Wychwood. Oxfordshire. Oxbow, Oxford: 189-220.
41. GIBSON A. and BAYLISS A. 2010 Recent Research at Duggleby Howe, North Yorkshire. Archaeological Journal. In press.
42. GOTTLIEB A. 2004. The Afterlife is Where We Come From: The Culture of Infancy in West Africa. Chicago University Press. Chicago.
43. HARDING J., JOHNSON B., CHATTERTON R., HEALY F., GROVES S. and MAY S. forthcoming. Triple-ditched round barrow. In prep. In J. Harding (ed.), Cult Centres, Religion and Pilgrimage: the Neolithic and Bronze Age Monument Complex of Thornborough, North Yorkshire. Council for British Archaeology, York.
44. HARMAN M. and EVANS J. 1991. The burial deposit. Archaeologia 109: 1-45.
45. HARRIS O. 2006. Identity, memory and emotion in Neolithic Dorset. Unpublished PhD Thesis, Cardiff University.
46. Forthcoming. Embodied violence: materially affective practices in the British Neolithic. In D. Bori ć and O. Harris (eds.), Body Histories. McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge.
47. HEALY F. 2004. Hambledon Hill and its implications. In R. Cleal and J. Pollard (eds.), Monuments and Material Culture: papers in honour of an Avebury archaeologist: Isobel Smith. Hobknob Press. East Knoyle: 15-38.
48. HERITY M. 1987. The finds from Irish court tombs. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 87: 103-281.
49. JONES A. 1999. Local colour: megalithic architecture and colour symbolism in Neolithic Britain. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 18(4): 339-350.
50. KEILLER A. and PIGGOTT S. 1938. Excavation of an untouched chamber in the Lanhill long barrow. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 4: 122-50.
51. KERMODE P. 1927. Long barrow in the Isle of Man. Antiquaries Journal 7: 191-2.
52. KINNES I. 1992. Non-megalithic long barrows and allied structures in the British Neolithic. British Museum, London.
53. KINNES I., SCHADLA-HALL T., CHADWICK P. and DEAN P. 1983. Duggleby Howe reconsidered. Archaeological Journal 83: 83-108.
54. LEACH S. 2008. Odd one out? Earlier Neolithic deposition of human remains in caves and rock shelters in the Yorkshire Dales. In E. Murphy (ed.), Deviant burial in the archaeological record. Oxbow, Oxford: 35-56.
55. LEE F. 2006. Human skeletal remains. In C. Evans and I. Hodder (eds.), A Woodland Archaeology: Neolithic sites at Haddenham. McDonald Institute Monographs, Oxbow, Oxford: 140-153.
56. MANBY T. 1963. The excavation of the Willerby Wold long barrow, East Riding of Yorkshire. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 29: 173-205.
57. MASTERS L. 1973. The Lochhill long cairn. Antiquity 74 (186): 96-100.
58. MCFADYEN L., BENSON D. and WHITTLE A. 2006. The long barrow. In D. Benson and A. Whittle (eds.), Building Memories: the Neolithic Cotswold long barrow at Ascott-Under-Wychwood, Oxfordshire. Oxbow, Oxford: 79-136.
59. MCKINLEY J. 2008. The human remains. In R. Mercer and F. Healy (eds.), Hambledon Hill, Dorset, England: Excavation and survey of a Neolithic monument complex and its surrounding landscape. English Heritage, Swindon: 477-521.
60. MERCER R. and HEALY F. 2008. Hambledon Hill, Dorset, England: Excavation and survey of a Neolithic monument complex and its surrounding landscape. English Heritage. Swindon.
61. MORGAN F. 1959. The excavation of a long barrow at Nutbane, Hampshire. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 15: 15-51.
62. NAIRN C. and STRATHERN A. 1974. The Kawelka: Ongka's Big Moka. Television programme: Disappearing World Series.
63. NOBLE G. 2006. Neolithic Scotland: timber, stone, earth and fire. Edinburgh University Press. Edinburgh.
64. PHILLIPS C. 1936. The excavation of the Giants' Hills long barrow, Skendleby, Lincolnshire. Archaeologia 85: 37-106.
65. PIGGOTT S. 1929. Neolithic pottery and other remains from Pangbourne, Berkshire and Caversham, Oxfordshire. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia 6: 30-9.
66. POLLARD J. 2001. An aesthetics of depositional practice. World Archaeology 33(2): 315-333.
67. PRYOR F. 1998. Etton: excavations at a Neolithic causewayed enclosure near Maxey, Cambridgeshire, 1982-7. English Heritage. London.
68. RAY K. and THOMAS J. 2003. In the kinship of cows: the social centrality of cattle in the earlier Neolithic of Southern Britain. In M. Parker Pearson (ed.), Food, Culture and Identity in the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age. BAR International Series 1117, Oxford: 45-51.
69. REILLY S. 2003. Processing the dead in Neolithic Orkney. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 22(2): 133-54.
70. RICHARDS C. 1988. Altered images: a re-examination of Neolithic mortuary practices in Orkney. In J. Barrett and I. Kinnes (eds.), The Archaeology of Context in the Neolithic and Bronze Age: Recent Trends. Sheffield University Press. Sheffield: 42-56.
71. ROSALDO R. 1984. Grief and a headhunter's rage: on the cultural force of emotions. In E. Bruner and S. Plattner (eds.), Text, play and story: the construction and reconstruction of self and society. American Ethnological Society, Washington: 178-95.
72. SCARRE C., ARIAS P., BURENHULT G., FANO M., OOSTERBEEK L., SCHULTING R., SHERIDAN A. and WHITTLE A. 2003. Megalithic chronologies. In G. Burenhult and S. Westergaard (eds.), Stone and Bones: Formal disposal of the dead in Atlantic Europe during the Mesolithic-Neolithic interface 6000-3000 BC. BAR International Series 1201, Oxford: 65-111.
73. SCHULTING R. and WYSOCKI M. 2005. 'In this chambered tumulus were found cleft skulls.': an assessment of the evidence for cranial trauma in the British Neolithic. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 71: 107-138.
74. SCOTT J. 1992. Mortuary structures and megaliths. In N. Sharples and A. Sheridan (eds.), Vessels for the ancestors: essays in honour of Audrey Henshall. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh: 104-19.
75. SHERIDAN A., SCHULTING S., QUINNELL H. and TAYLOR R. 2008. Revisiting a small passage tomb at Broadsands, Devon. Proceedings of the Devon Archaeological Society 66: 1-26.
76. SMITH M. 2006. Bones chewed by canids as evidence for human excarnation: a British case study. Antiquity 80: 671-685.
77. SMITH M. and BRICKLEY M. 2004. Analysis and interpretation of flint toolmarks on bones from West Tump long barrow, Gloucestershire. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 14: 18-33.
78. 2006. The date and sequence of use of Neolithic funerary monuments: new AMS dating evidence from the Cotswold-Severn region. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 25: 335-55.
79. 2009. People of the Long Barrows: Life, Death and Burial in the Earlier Neolithic. History Press. Stroud.
80. SMYTH J. 2006. The role of the house in early Neolithic Ireland. European Journal of Archaeology 9: 229-57.
81. THOMAS J. 1998. An economy of substances in earlier Neolithic Britain. In J. Robb (ed.), Material Symbols: Cul ture and Economy in Prehistory. Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale: 70-89.
82. 1999. Understanding the Neolithic. Routledge, London.
83. 2006. On the origins and development of cursus monuments in Britain. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 72: 229-242.
84. VYNER B. 1984. The excavation of a Neolithic cairn at Street House, Lofus, Cleveland. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 50: 151-95.
85. WHITTLE A. 1991. Wayland's Smithy, Oxfordshire: excavations at the Neolithic tomb in 1962-3 by R. J. C. Atkinson and S. Piggott. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 57(2): 61-101.
86. WHITTLE A. and WYSOCKI M. 1998. Parc le Breos Cwm transcepted long cairn, Gower, West Glamorgan: date, contents, and context. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 64: 139-182.
87. WHITTLE A., POLLARD J. and GRIGSON C. 1999. The Harmony of Symbols: The Windmill Hill Causewayed Enclosure. Oxbow Books. Oxford.
88. WHITTLE A., BARCLAY A., MCFADYEN L., BENSON D. and GALER D. 2006. Place and time: building and remembrance. In D. Benson and A. Whittle (eds.), Building Memories: the Neolithic Cotswold long barrow at Ascott-Under-Wychwood, Oxfordshire. Oxbow, Oxford: 327-64.
89. WHITTLE A., BAYLISS A. and WYSOCKI M. 2007. Once in a lifetime: the date of the Wayland's Smithy long barrow. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 17: 103-21.
90. WYSOCKI M., BAYLISS A. and WHITTLE A. 2007. Serious mortality: the date of the Fussell's Lodge long barrow. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 17: 65-84.
91. WYSOCKI M. and WHITTLE A. 2000. Diversity, lifestyles and rites: new biological and archaeological evidence from British earlier Neolithic mortuary assemblages. Antiquity 74: 591-601.
92. YOUNG R. 1985. The Copt Hill, Houghton Le Spring, round cairn: a reassessment. Archaeologia Aeliana (5th Series) 13: 7-17.