The Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe

by Chris Fowler

  Whilst the general accessibility of chambers facilitated repeated use of the interior, the different patterns of deposition of human remains within the megalithic chambers demonstrate different ways of dealing with the dead. In northern Europe there was an initial emphasis on individual burials within timber chambers and early dolmens, accompanied by a stereotypical set of grave goods such as collared and/or lugged flasks, flint blades, and axes (for example the single individuals found at Kellerød or Ølstykke on Zealand; P.O. Nielsen 1984). Similar patterns have been suggested for the Atlantic façade, with individual interments in the early Breton monuments (Boujot 1996; Boujout et al. 1998), although evidence from further south already suggests a practice of multiple inhumations having undergone a partial process of skeletal reduction (for example the cist graves at La Goumoizière: Scarre 2011, 180).

  With time there developed greater concern with the dead in their ancestral capacity and the original deposits within open chambers often involved selected fragments of human remains, although complete individuals continued to be also deposited. The latter are well documented from the passage graves in Falbygden (Sjögren, this volume) and in some chambers in Germany. The presence of a six-month-old foetus (in utero) found at Rheine in Westfalen, suggests that at least one of the six females there must have been buried as a complete individual (Eckert 1999). Intact individual burials laid out side by side are also found in burial chambers in Normandy, notably at Condé-sur-Iffs, though different practices may have been carried out contemporaneously at other tombs in the region (Fowler and Scarre, this volume).

  The frequently encountered masses of largely disarticulated human remains do however, reflect different practices. Sometimes this is a result of disintegrated complete bodies having been either pushed aside or rearranged to make room for new arrivals (for example at Hazleton North; Saville 1990), whilst elsewhere such depositions clearly reflect secondary burials of fragmentary human remains brought into chambers from elsewhere (for example in the passage grave at Liepen in Mecklenburg; Midgley 2008, 126, fig. 4.11). Periodic visitations involved entering the chambers, not necessarily on occasions of further burials, and the dead became an important symbolic resource; their bones were sorted and rearranged, skulls and other body parts manipulated into piles or even removed from chambers to other locations. In this sense the idea of removing the individual identity of the deceased or of a transformation from a living person to an ancestor became part of the rites of passage (Thomas 2000).

  Communication with the dead was an important aspect of social life in the Neolithic and it could have variously involved a small group of kin or a much larger group of participants. That people came to the tombs at times other than burials is shown by the intentional deposits of pottery, stone, and flint tools placed outside the chambers, along the kerb stones or within the forecourts. Goods were deposited either at the foot of the stone kerbs, in niches or on stone shelves either side of the entrance or in pits dug on such occasions. Sometimes tools and pots, which may have contained food offerings, were destroyed at the end of such ceremonies. The bones of the dead resting within the chambers—especially the skulls—may have been brought out in awesome displays, and ritual scenarios may have included festivals of the dead, vigils for the ancestors and supernatural deities; there may have been dancing, singing, feasting, recounting of myths and heroic ancestral exploits, initiations, and other activities. Moreover, such ceremonies may have provided occasions for the living to renegotiate their place in the world alongside the dead, and consider the identities of the living and the dead (Fowler 2004).

  Chambered tombs and landscape

  There has been a long-standing interest in the chambered tombs of north-west Europe, both in terms of their specific architectural and depositional sequences and of their wider distribution. As soon as archaeologists started creating distribution maps of chambered tombs, it was obvious that these monuments are not found in all areas of the landscape. There are notable blanks, whilst in other areas considerable numbers of chambered tombs were constructed. Early scholars thought this may be representative of the places that incoming agricultural populations settled (e.g. Piggott 1954), but subsequent considerations have addressed other possibilities. Colin Renfrew’s 1973 argument that chambered tombs were the centres of territories of family groups was, and still is, an extremely influential interpretation of the reason why some parts of the landscape saw chambered tomb construction, whilst others did not.

  Christopher Tilley’s A phenomenology of landscape renewed the debate concerning the relationship between chambered tombs and the landscape (Tilley 1994). It has always been clear that monuments were part of a network of locales in the landscape, where people dwelt, made a living and commemorated their dead. What made Tilley’s (1994) approach unique was his suggestion that the landscape itself, the mountains, seas, rivers, and pathways linking places, was an important component of people’s belief systems. For Tilley, these landscape features were imbued with significance, tied to mythology and ancestors, and hence people built their chambered tombs in relation to these features, as illustrated by the way the monuments of south Wales were carefully positioned in relation to specific mountains, rivers, and outcrops, likely places redolent with myth and memory and with strong connections with the past (Tilley 1994, 109). The landscape was not just a backdrop to activity, but as important a part of the monument as the stones of the chambers. Tilley’s early work was confined to British examples, but subsequently there have been considerations of the landscape setting of sites beyond Britain (e.g. Bergh 1995; Lopez Romero 2008; Tilley 2004).

  In many areas of north-west Europe, people built their chambered tombs in very specific parts of the landscape. What this actually means, however, remains highly contested (e.g. Fleming 2005). We need to think about the relationship between these locations and earlier sites, including Mesolithic and early Neolithic occupation sites. Were people inscribing the landscape in new ways in new places, or were there strong connections with the people and places of the past? If monuments are located in specific parts of the landscape, what can those landscapes tell us about how people thought about the world? Did people have particularly strong connections with specific landscapes or places, critical for their identity? These are all important questions which can help us elicit an understanding of the connections between people and places in specific regional contexts.

  CONCLUSION

  Despite several centuries of enquiry, chambered tombs remain a key focus of research into the Neolithic communities of north-west Europe. New sites continue to be discovered. One may note, for example, the quite breath-taking arrangement of about 20 dolmens, aligned along a ceremonial route delimited by timber palisades and rows of standing stones, that was discovered and excavated between 2006 and 2008 at Döserygg, in south-west Scania; it is so far unique within the north European context and requires a reappraisal of the north European tombs as solitary monuments (Andersson and Wallebom, personal communication). Another example is provided by discoveries of monumental longbarrows: some have been lost since the early decades of the nineteenth century and are now re-emerging from the depth of the forests in Western Pomerania (Matuszewska, personal communication), whilst others are being discovered in the traditionally ‘non-monumental’ territories of the loess plateaux of central Germany and southern Poland (Schwarz 2003; Libera and Tunia 2006), forcing revisions of both the extent of the province and the concept of monumentality.

  The coming decades will doubtless provide additional insights through new avenues of research which are opening up. These include the application of new scientific techniques, such as dating methods that can be applied both to the structures themselves and to the human remains that they contain. Chronological precision—achieved by systematic use of AMS dates coupled with Bayesian analysis—has already demonstrated its potential in recent studies of southern British long mounds. Wider application of the same methodology will no doubt yield valuable insights in ot
her regions. Other scientific techniques, with considerable potential for elucidating patterns of use of the tombs as burial places, are analyses of stable isotopes and ancient DNA. The former have already revealed how a significant proportion of the population buried in tombs in Sweden had come from a distance. It is possible that levels of Neolithic mobility have been systematically underestimated by archaeologists in the past and that wider application of stable isotope analysis will demonstrate a fluid pattern of movement, whether by individuals or groups, that will show that some tombs did far more than serve only their local community. Analysis of ancient DNA (which is gradually becoming more widely applicable) will also throw light on the composition and origin of the buried population, and may be able to identify corporate kin groups among the buried individuals.

  Alongside further study of the chambered tombs themselves, better contextualization will remain a key priority. It is frequently observed that in the regions where they are common, megalithic tombs usually far outnumber settlement sites, and the character of the settlements that housed those communities who built and used the tombs demands further enquiry. Contextualization should extend also to the relationship between stone-built structures and contemporary earthen and timber constructions as well as other, often undervalued, burial practices such as those of flat graves within settlements, or adjacent cemeteries, and other unimposing contexts. The implications here for the understanding of the role of megaliths in the creation of collective identities, the social structures, and their dynamics are significant. Finally there remains the issue of the original character of the landscapes in which these chambered tombs were situated, and whether those landscapes were forested or open, cleared and cultivated, or boulder-strewn. The popular tendency to romanticize these structures in their current condition and appearance must not cloud our awareness of the profoundly different settings in which they once stood.

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