| Popis: |
The European Neolithic is characterized by a variety of practices for dealing with human remains. In Central European Neolithic studies, the archaeological discourse on humans, bodies and death has traditionally dealt with finds of inhumations. This is not least due to dominant Western conceptions of death involving the deposition of the intact body at one, often delimited, place. Recently, focus has been drawn to the depositions of fragmented and even manipulated human remains, not least through an increasing amount of new archaeological evidence, which challenges traditional archaeological terms, concepts and research practices. The present volume integrates theoretical perspectives on the meaning of the human body and the perception of the transformation from life to death in as much as they can be studied from archaeological finds such as burials and depositions of human remains, with a special focus on Neolithic Central Europe. The collection of papers, the result of a session at a conference in Würzburg 2019, brings together articles with theoretical approaches, as well as contributions which deal with different areas and Neolithic sub-periods, such as the Linear Pottery culture, the Funnel Beaker Culture and the sub-alpine Late Neolithic, and includes prominent find complexes. These are framed by essays that critically examine archaeological research on the handling of death and the dead, and a summary overview of the contributions to the volume. |
