Linear Pottery Culture - Funerary Customs

Funerary Customs

The early Neolithic in Europe featured burials of women and children under the floors of personal residences. Remains of adult males are missing. It is probably safe to say that Neolithic culture featured sex discrimination in funerary customs, and that women and children were important in ideology concerning the home.

Burials beneath the floors of homes continued until about 4000 BC. However, in the Balkans and central Europe the cemetery also came into use at about 5000 BC. LBK cemeteries contained from 20 to 200 graves arranged in groups that appear to have been based on kinship. Males and females of any age were included. Both cremation and inhumation were practiced. The inhumed were placed in flexed position in pits lined with stones, plaster or clay. Cemeteries were close to, but distinct from, residential areas.

The presence of grave goods indicates both a sex and a dominance discrimination. Male graves included stone celts, flint implements and money or jewelry of spondylus shells. Female graves contained many of the same artifacts as male graves, but also most of the pottery and containers of ochre. The goods have been interpreted as gifts to the departed or personal possessions.

Only about 30% of the graves have goods. This circumstance probably rightly has been interpreted as some sort of distinction in dominance, but the exact nature is not known. If the goods were gifts, then some were more honored than others; if they were possessions, then some were wealthier than others.

These practices are contrasted to mass graves, such as the Talheim Death Pit.