Neolithic Cave Burials

This book provides the first synthetic overview of Neolithic cave burial and demonstrates its importance in understanding the period. It makes a substantial contribution to debates about collective burial in the Neolithic, adding data which is currently little known and not easily accessible to the discussion. -- .

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This is the first book-length treatment of Neolithic burial in Britain to focus primarily on cave evidence. It interprets human remains from forty-eight caves and compares them to what we know of Neolithic collective burial elsewhere in Britain and Europe. It reviews the archaeology of these cave burials and treats them as important evidence for the study of mortuary practice. Drawing on evidence from archaeology, anthropology, osteology and cave science, the book demonstrates that cave burial was one of the earliest elements of the British Neolithic. It also shows that Early Neolithic cave-burial practice was highly varied, with many similarities to other burial rites. However, by the Middle Neolithic, a funerary practice which was specific to caves had developed. -- .