Governed by Grief, Fear and Reverence: Dealing with the Dead and the Buried during the Middle Neolithic on Gotland

Abstract

The Middle Neolithic sites on Gotland are characterized by variety in the handling of human remains. In addition to burials with complete and intact skeletons and package-burials, some contexts contain mutilated bodies, or they contain a few human bones or none. These practices have previously been interpreted as resulting from modern disturbances such as ploughing or pre-depositional treatment of dead bodies. Based on re-examination of the field documentation and C14-dates, I argue that the diverse ways of treating human skeletal remains represent post-depositional practices, and I propose that part of the mortuary practices was to reopen graves and exhume bones. During the Middle Neolithic, death might have been conceptualized as a process, and treatment of the dead and the buried could have been governed by a variety of emotions like grief, fear and reverence.