348
Documenta Praehistorica XLVII (2020)
In a settlement in the Danube plains, at Vidra (Gu-
melnita culture), 6500 years ago someone careful-
ly placed an adult individual in a crouched position
in a pit. On their shoulder they placed another skull
and a few ribs, “some displaying cutmarks, and
near their left knee, three vertebrae; in their right
palm and on all the limbs were small red pebbles,
while near the legs were two silex blades” (Rosetti
1934.20,21,38; Comsa 1960.11). Afterwards, life
continued in the community. This extraordinary dis-
covery gives us an insight into the relationship the
community from Vidra had with death and the dead.
It is a telling example of the complexity of Neolithic
and Eneolithic funerary rituals in the Balkan area,
which were intertwined with place-making strategies,
memory, and expressions of individual and commu-
nal identities. At the same time, it brings into view
the challenges in interpreting such multi-layered dis-
Why keep the old dead around|
Bringing together theory and method in the study of
human remains from Balkan (E)Neolithic settlements
Alexandra Ion
Institute of Anthropology ‘Francisc I. Rainer’ of the Romanian Academy, Bucharest, RO
alexandra.ion@antropologia.ro
ABSTRACT – The aim of this article is to focus on the ways in which communities imagined their
relationship with the dead throughout the Balkan area during the Neolithic and Eneolithic (6200–
3800 cal BC). My claim is that we should go beyond seeing the human remains discovered in settle-
ments as unusual/atypical/non-funerary discoveries. Instead, they can be read as traces of complex
funerary practices, which contributed to the creation and manipulation of collective identities. The
dead became part of a place-making strategy, they fixed time and become central to certain kinds of
assemblages, which in turn were meant to create more powerful ancestors who could intervene in
the present.
IZVLE∞EK – V ≠lanku se osredoto≠am na na≠ine, kako so si skupnosti predstavljale svoj odnos do mrt-
vih na obmo≠ju Balkana v ≠asu neolitika in eneolitika (6200–3800 pr. n. ∏t.). Trdim, da bi morali
≠love∏ke ostanke, odkrite v naseljih, obravnavati izven obi≠ajnega stali∏≠a o nenavadnih/netipi≠nih/
ne-pogrebnih odkritjih. Namesto tega jih lahko razlagamo kot sledi zapletenih pogrebnih navad, ki
so pripevale k ustvarjanju in manipulaciji kolektivnih identitet. Mrtvi so tako postali del strategije o
oblikovanju prostora, dolo≠ali so ≠as in postali osrednji del nekaterih zbirov, ti pa naj bi ustvarili
mo≠nej∏e prednike, ki bi lahko posegali v sedanjost.
KEY WORDS – Neolithic; human remains; funerary; assemblage; settlement
KLJU∞NE BESEDE – neolitik; ≠love∏ki ostanki; pogrebni obi≠aj; zbir; naselbina
Zakaj (so)bivati z mrtvimi| Zdru/evanje teorije in metode
pri preu;evanju ;love[kih ostankov v (e)neolitskih naselbinah na Balkanu
DOI> 10.4312\dp.47.19
“The corpse: terrible presence, inconceivable absence”
(Kerner 2018.325).
Why keep the old dead around| Bringing together theory and method in the study of human remains from Balkan (E)Neolithic ...
349
the cross-roads of expressions of individuality ver-
sus collective identities. Here, I will mostly focus on
the second and third questions, which are inter-
linked. My claim is that communal identities are
expressed and reinforced through the manipula-
tion of the dead, both through the sharing of the
space within the settlements, but also the creation
of a relationship between selected dead, some of
whom are the ‘old dead’ in what archaeologists
identified as ossuaries, collective depositions or mul-
tiple graves. Thus, we can see the Neolithic-Eneoli-
thic period as one in which new worldviews emerge,
which are marked by a fluidity of boundaries be-
tween categories: between both the living and dead,
between the mundane and sacred, animals and hu-
mans, between what is visible and unseen. Through
the manipulation of the dead and their integration
in specific assemblages meant to create more pow-
erful ancestors, collective identities were created,
maintained and manipulated.
Ultimately, what this enquiry will bring forth is what
it meant to be dead for these Neolithic societies.
Once we take death out of the modern clinical realm
and into its cultural dimension, then the answer is
certainly not a straightforward one. In his study of
Oceanic practices Roger Ivar Lohmann (2005.190)
points out that: “It is anthropologically useful to
also define death in social terms as a point at
which social interaction with the deceased be-
comes impossible, given prevailing cultural mod-
els of reality.”
Following this framing, one could say that in the
case of the Neolithic dead found in settlements, the
dead are never fully dead, as social interactions
with the living seem to continue over significant pe-
riods of time (along the same lines see Rebay-Salis-
bury et al. 2010; Croucher 2012; Robb et al. 2015;
Katsarou 2017; Kerner 2018). Underlying this is
the fact that through a whole field of cultural be-
liefs and practices the dead are separated from the
living, their bodies undergo modifications (dressing,
washing, exposure or excarnation, inhumation and
so on), and rituals are enacted to enforce the break
between the two worlds. In the process, the dead can
gain new identities, those of body-objects, ancestors,
sacred relics, or they can be relegated to oblivion.
The exploration will start from an evaluation of
available materials, followed by a critical reflection
coveries in the absence of careful taphonomic ob-
servations1 or well-considered theoretical frame-
works.
The aim of this article is twofold. Firstly, it is an ex-
ploration of the strategies for being together with
the dead in the space of settlements throughout
the Balkan area during the Neolithic and Eneolithic
(6200–3800 cal BC). Secondly, it explores the me-
thodological and theoretical toolkit necessary for
the interpretation of such discoveries.
Certain individuals’ whole or fragmentary bodies
seem to have been selected and interred beneath or
between dwellings, in ‘rubbish areas’ or settlement
ditches. They account for the only human remains
discovered from the early Neolithic, and were there-
fore clearly specifically selected individuals. Based
on the evidence presented in this text, my claim is
that we should go beyond seeing the human re-
mains discovered in settlements as unusual/atypi-
cal/non-funerary discoveries. Instead, they should
be read as traces of complex multi-stage funerary
practices, which contributed to the creation and ma-
nipulation of collective identities. As anthropologi-
cal literature points out, the period between an in-
dividual’s death and the ending of the funerary rit-
ual is a liminal time, in which the individuals have
lost their pre-ritual status, but not yet gained their
final status. In the case of these Neolithic and Eneo-
lithic human remains we can infer that this liminal
period was quite long, at least for some individuals.
During this time, they were seen as potent, valuable
ancestors for the community at hand, or, on the con-
trary, as deserving punishment and thus denied the
proper rituals. The dead became part of a place-mak-
ing strategy, in which the temporal distances be-
tween the living and dead gained a new significance
through the presence of the latter in the midst of
daily life. In effect, they fixed time and made the
past manifest in the present.
The study of these human remains falls within three
current debates of prime importance for under-
standing the changes which took place in the Bal-
kan area during this timeframe: (1) the advent of
the so called ‘Neolithic revolution’, and whether the
‘Neolithic’ people where locals or foreigners; (2) me-
mory-building strategies and the citation of the past
among settled-agricultural communities; and (3) the
creation of social identities during the Neolithic, at
1 In the absence of more information, we cannot discard the alternative interpretation that the skull, the vertebrae and the ribs
came from an individual whose resting place had been disturbed – either the initial occupant of that grave pit, or from anoth-
er grave pit.
Alexandra Ion
350
on the limitations of the terminology we use when
interpreting human remains inside settlements, es-
pecially the ‘atypical’/’non-funerary’ labels. Then it
continues with an overview of key practices that
seem to mark specific periods: ‘collective deposits’
as settlement markers in the Early Neolithic, liminal
depositions during the Middle and Late Neolithic,
and ritual assemblages during the Eneolithic.
The corpus of data
Starting with the second half of the 7th millennium,
we see elements associated with the Neolithic ‘pac-
kage’ appearing throughout the Balkans: domestica-
tes, agriculture, long-term settlements, textiles, polish-
ed stone tools and so on. By the middle of the 4th mil-
lennium, major transformations are taking place in
the region, with new waves of peoples, new funerary
practices and material culture. Between these two
chronological markers, worldviews emerge and ex-
press themselves through a limited number of mate-
rials and resources – seeds, animals, plants, clay, ob-
sidian, wood, shells and ochre. Throughout, the dead
seem to play a central role in communal lifeways.
In summary there are to date a minimum of 800 in-
dividuals from burials and scattered bone discove-
ries reported throughout the Balkans, from at least
127 archaeological sites/cultural levels2: 43 from
Romania (155 MNI), 36 from Bulgaria (167 MNI), 28
from Greece (395 MNI), 13 from Serbia (35 MNI), Ko-
sovo (2 MNI), Croatia (3 MNI), and five from Mace-
donia (36 MNI)3. This list is a significant under-repre-
sentation of the real numbers for several reasons: (1)
unpublished data, as many discoveries are lost in
grey literature reports; (2) under-reporting, as many
human remains come from old excavations were
there was selection of material, or the researchers
missed them altogether; and (3) insufficient data,
either due to lack of anthropological analyse – many
human remains have not been analysed – post-exca-
vation loss, or they lack the archaeological context
(Fig. 1). However, this study does not aim to provide
an exhaustive list, but to offer a possible guiding
thread towards their interpretation (see some previ-
ous attempts at cataloguing them by Lichter 2001;
Bă≠varov 2003; Tryantipoulou 2008; Kogălnicea-
nu 2012).
This paper offers a re-evaluation of the role of these
discoveries by placing the remains in their wider ar-
chaeological context, and in a comparative perspec-
tive throughout time and place. On the one hand,
the analysis moves from large-scale patterns to indi-
vidual remains discovered over an area spanning c.
350 000km2 from six modern countries, and over
two and a half millennia (6200–3800 cal BC), to see
the ways in which one data set can inform the other.
On the other hand, along the interpretative path, I
mostly rely on legacy data, by evaluating both osteo-
logical and archaeological reports and publications.
This route has a number of limitations (see also the
summary by Bradbury et al. 2016), but at the same
time finding strategies for working with legacy data
can bring some interesting insights – where data is
absent from one site, information from elsewhere
can shed light on patterns or practices through ana-
logies.
At the same time, this study will move beyond the
divide present in contemporary research between
different kinds of data and scales of analysis, by
bringing together archaeological, osteological, and
taphonomic data. Along the way, I also draw inspi-
ration from a number of impressive and well-resear-
ched studies on remarkable discoveries of human re-
Fig. 1. A mandible from Glina site.
2 Several sites have multiple chronological levels, a fact which places them in several categories.
3 Data was collected from archaeological reports and summaries, among which: Whittle 1996; Bă≠varov 2000; 2006; 2013; Kogăl-
niceanu 2001; 2008; 2012; Perles 2001; Lichter 2001; 2017; Bori≤, Stefanovi≤ 2004; Wahl 2006; 2007; 2008; Naumov 2007; Ion
2008; Ion et al. 2009; Souvatzi 2008; Triantaphyllou 2008; Papathanasiou 2009; Boroneant 2010; Chapman 2010; Stratouli
et al. 2011; Lazăr 2012; 2013; Roodenberg et al. 2013; Chapman et al. 2014; Kogălniceanu et al. 2016; Stratton 2016; Bă≠-
varov et al. 2016.
Why keep the old dead around| Bringing together theory and method in the study of human remains from Balkan (E)Neolithic ...
351
mains (e.g., Bă≠varov 2002;
Chapman 2000; 2010; Lichter
2001; Naumov 2007; Trianta-
phyllou 2008; Bori≤ 2010;
2016).
Drawing chronological and geo-
graphical boundaries around
this topic is to some extent an
arbitrary measure, to ease the
analysis of a large dataset. The
geographical area included has
as a western boundary the
range of the Dinaric Alps moun-
tains, the Hungarian plain and the Carpathian basin,
to the north stops at the Carpathian Mountains and
the Sava river, in the south at the Greek islands,
South Ionian and Mediterranean Seas, and to the
east at the Black and Aegean Seas. If one takes as
comparison the synthetic volume by Agathe Reingru-
ber and colleagues (2017.124), this area is equiva-
lent to their 1–3 and 5–7 zones (Figs. 2–4).
A fine-scale analysis reveals differences even between
settlements attributed to the same cultural complex,
but broadly speaking the communities throughout
the Balkan area show enough similarities and geo-
graphical links along the water routes for a starting
point which can be refined in the future4.
Given that there are also differences in cultural clas-
sification in the area of interest, in general I follow
the periodization shared by several seminal works
(Whittle 1996; Perles 2001; Reingruber et al. 2017),
and group the sites into:
(a) A transition period and Early Neolithic, roughly
between 6500–5800 cal BC;
(b) Middle and Late Neolithic dated between 5800–
4700/4500 cal BC;
(c) Final Neolithic/Eneolithic, 4500–3800 cal BC (see
Tab. 1).
This also solves the problem of different timeframes
in various regions: for example, the Early Neolithic
in Greece starts hundreds of years earlier than north
of the Danube5.
To establish the minimum number of individuals
(MNI) I have followed the guidelines in Christopher
Knüsel and John Robb (2016), and excluded those
sites where the data was incomplete, or lacked se-
cure chronology. As such, the numbers under-repre-
sent the reality in the field.
Are these ‘non-funerary’ discoveries? Bringing
together archaeological method and theory
Before proceeding to the analysis of discoveries, it is
worth discussing the methodological guidelines that
shape our field of study. The importance of this step
will soon become apparent: on the one hand, the
study of these human remains is divided among se-
veral disciplines, and on the other hand the study of
these bodies mostly focuses on describing their post-
mortem trajectory, and less so on an ‘archaeology of
death’.
To start with, research into Neolithic settlements
and their deposits is divided between archaeologists
and osteoarchaeologists, each bringing their own set
of questions. Most often in the dedicated literature,
archaeologists relegate the human remains discov-
ered inside the settlement area to the status of ‘non-
funerary’ discoveries or from ‘non-funerary contexts’
(e.g., Andreescu et al. 2004; Lazăr 2010; Lazăr et
al. 2013; Vintila 2013), sometimes even ‘deviant’.
The fact that the number of dead individuals is small
has made archaeologists qualify their occurrence in-
side settlements as exceptions (both Perles 2001.
274, and Kotsakis 2014).
Periodisation Time frame No. of Archaeological cultures
sites
Transition period 6500–5800 54 Early Star;evo-Cris, Karanovo I-II,
& Early Neolithic cal BC Early Sesklo, Kremikovci, Grade[nica-
Carcea, Anzabegovo-Vr[nik I, Velu[i-
na-Porodin, West Bulgarian painted
pottery group
Middle and Late 5800–4700\ 35 Hamangia, Vadastra, Boian, Maritsa,
Neolithic 4500 cal BC Dimini, Vin;a A-C, Sesklo, Usoe
Final Neolithic\ 4700–4500\ 38 Gumelnita-Kodzadermen-Karanovo
Chalcolithic 3800 cal BC VI, Vin;a D, Sitagroi III
Tab. 1. Periodisation of the settlements included in the analysis.
4 Star≠evo–Körös–Cris Early Neolithic culture covered an area that included most of present-day Serbia and Montenegro, parts of
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Republic of Macedonia and Romania. Separately, similarities have been noted
among the Boian-Marica-Karanovo V culture that covered areas from southern Romania to Thrace, while the Eneolithic Gumel-
nita-Kodjadermen-Karanovo VI culture extended from southern Romania to northern Greece.
5 Ideally, I would have preferred to be able to disregard artificial chronologic categories and instead see if any classifications emerge
based on the discoveries themselves. However, this is difficult to achieve when data is incomplete, incongruent and the discoveries
seem to be at the same time diverse inside the same timeframe and similar across long stretches of time.
Alexandra Ion
352
Some researchers saw these discoveries as disturbed
monuments (Comsa 1960). The more fragmented
and ‘out of place’ they were, the more exotic the
reasons for their existence, such as cannibalism
(drawing on research from the American South-West,
e.g., Villa et al. 1986; White 1992), sacrifice (Popo-
vici, Rialland 1996; Kogălniceanu 2001; Voinea
2001), and even rubbish disposal (see a critique in
Dragoman, Oant ă-Marghitu 2007). They have been
subjected to analysis by means of drawing ethnogra-
phic parallels, e.g., the so-called ‘skull cult’ that would
have dominated the region (Marinescu-Bîlcu 2001).
In recent years the paradigm is slowly starting to
change – from wonderful texts on regional bodies
which link them to memory strategies (Croucher
2012; Bori≤, Griffiths 2015) to new perspectives fo-
cused on the fragmentary bodies, and the division of
parts-whole of the body as a social cohesion strate-
gy (Chapman 2000; Fowler 2001), or to issues of
body representation (Bailey 2005; 2018). For other
researchers the disposal of the dead within the set-
tlement area was either connected to ‘communal so-
cial relationships’ (Nanoglou 2008a; Tryantypolou
2008) or with the emergence of expressions of indi-
viduality, but without exploring this thesis further.
While each of these interpretations has shed light on
a piece of the story, some topics still need to be dis-
cussed, while others, such as the ‘non-funerary’ la-
bel, can be safely challenged.
On the other hand, osteoarchaeologists and tapho-
nomy specialists have focused on the chaîne opéra-
toire of the cadaver, and its spatial deposition. In
order to understand these discoveries, osteologists
have devised a specialized language to describe and
explain why the deposits look as they do: primary/
secondary/tertiary burials, deviant/non-funerary (see
Tab. 2). Some even went further and combined ta-
phonomic insights with ethnographic parallels in
order to understand the treatment of the corpse in
both its social and biological components, by employ-
ing archaeothanatology/anthropologie de terrain
methods (Boulestin, Duday 2006; Duday 2009;
Kerner 2018). While these concepts are very help-
ful towards understanding the multi-stage process-
es we see, the interpretation of the deposits needs
to further explain the results in the wider archaeo-
logical context.
Beside the fact that terms are not always consistent,
what this terminology does is to break down and
label the post-mortem process of decomposition and
disarticulation of a body. Therefore, simply labelling
the discoveries as ‘primary’, ‘secondary’ or ‘tertiary’,
based on the stage of the manipulation of the body,
while an indispensable step, does not take us too far
in terms of understanding these discoveries (see
also Ion forthcoming). Therefore, the analysis of
human remains inside settlements needs to develop
in two dimensions: (1) one focused on the human
remains per se, namely dealing with the transforma-
tion of a fleshed body into a skeleton (and then a
fragmentary one), part of a specific process of sep-
aration, and breaking down of the body; and (2) a
historical and cultural dimension – managing to cap-
ture the role of these bodies as part of their cultural
context, bodies which can have in turn the status of
body-objects, ancestors, relics or ‘debris’.
The first step is to embrace an anthropological view
which adapts the definition of funerary discoveries
to the conceptual universe of the population we
study: what do we consider an intentional deposi-
tion of human remains? Christopher Knüsel and
John Robb (2016.1) rightly point out that for a long
time archaeologists have lacked specific historical
answers to this question, as they “responded un-
imaginatively and ethnocentrically by forcing our
primary deposition “the original placement of the corpse, often inferred when bones are in anatomical articulation, mo-
dified only by the processes of decomposition in situ” (Knüsel, Robb 2016.658,Tab. 1)
secondary deposition “A subsequent placement of human remains, following movement from their primary location< often
inferred when persistent articulations are disarticulated, particularly when they are placed or re-depo-
sited in a patterned way” (Knüsel, Robb 2016.658, Tab. 1)
“secondary mortuary rites, ∂…] those instances when remains have been moved from the place of pri-
mary deposition but replaced in the same feature (cf. Haddow et al. 2015).” (Knüsel, Robb 2016.659)
tertiary deposition “i.e., non-burial) contexts can be divided into three main categories> those found in (1) middens, (2)
post-abandonment building infill, and (3) building construction layers. (Haddow, 62)”. (Haddow,
Knüsel 2017.61)
“Joachim Wahl (2008, cited on p.53) uses it when it is impossible to ‘demonstrate the intentional
character of a deposit in secondary position’ or the final stage in the deposition” (Kerner 2018.58).
commingled remains “are those in which remains from multiple individuals are mixed together, and often with other remains
such as animal bones or artefacts.” (Knüsel, Robb 2016.659)
Tab. 2. Terminological classifications of human remains depositions.
Why keep the old dead around| Bringing together theory and method in the study of human remains from Balkan (E)Neolithic ...
353
interpretations into a few simple, familiar catego-
ries such as ‘burial’ and ‘cremation’”. There are
numerous documented cases from around the world
of multi-stage burial processes or alternative mani-
pulations, such as exposure on platforms, water bu-
rials, smoking, mummification, and keeping the dead
in the house. Here I share Jennifer Kerner’s conclu-
sion that to limit the definition of a grave to a mate-
rial trace, to one funerary gesture – the primary de-
position in a grave – is limiting:
“… to consider a deposit containing human re-
mains as a ‘burial’: ‘it is to consider the thought
that underlies the gesture’ (Boulestine, Duday 2005.
33) and to recognise this thought as being ‘funer-
ary’ in nature. ... And by doing this to accept all
the nuances implied by the term” (Kerner 2018.
44).
This does not advocate for a relativism of definitions
with no clear set boundaries. Instead, by ‘funerary’
it simply designates a deposition meant to honour
the dead, an act structured by ‘a positive intention’
(Kerner 2018.45). This is opposed to those acts that
reflect a negative intention, such as refusing funer-
als, or neutral intentions, like rejecting ordinary
corpses (see also Kerner 2018). While identifying
a positive intention might not be that straightfor-
ward, finding a body in an especially dug pit, iden-
tifying an intentional post-mortem treatment of the
corpse (e.g., wrapping, mummification), the position
of the body in the pit, or the integration in a speci-
fic assemblage in the case of fragmentary remains,
can all constitute signs of intention. In our aid can
also come analogies between sites – repeated occur-
rences of the same kind of discovery – or between
archaeological traces and ethnographic examples.
Once we have set ourselves some minimal criteria
for the identification of a funerary context, we
should then dismiss another modern preconcep-
tion – that death is an event. Rather, as both Liv
Nilsson Stutz (2016) and John Robb (2013) rightly
point out, death is a process which calls for the need
of an ‘archaeology of death’. Consequently, we can
view the study of human remains at the cross-roads
of archaeological, taphonomic and osteological data.
By taking this route, when confronted with human
remains in settlements we can ask: when was an in-
dividual dead for this society? (see also Kerner 2018.
18). And in what way? In this way, we can start de-
ciphering the multi-stage processing of bodies with-
in a cultural framework. For example, John Robb
and colleagues convincingly put forward a case for
the multi-stage processing of bodies at the Italian
Neolithic Grota Scalloria, through which the dead
gradually became ‘completely dead’. The processing
of the dead body started with a cadaver and ended
with defleshed and bare white bones, which were
then tossed away among everyday debris: 
“Careful taphonomic analysis has demonstrated
the practice of carefully defleshing and casually
discarding the remains of the dead, and contex-
tual discussion has outlined a possible framework
for this practice in the final termination of a pro-
longed, intimate interaction between living and
dead: the end to mourning. [..] Remains brought
to the site from further away may have arrived as
selected elements rather than complete bodies.
They were then defleshed [...] The completely dis-
articulated, cleaned bones were then strewn upon
the cave floor, mixed casually with faunal remains,
broken pots and stone tools.” (Robb et al. 2015.49)
Another example is given by Ioanna Moutafi and So-
fia Voutsaki (2016.782), who proposed in the case
of Mycenaean Greek commingled remains that they
should be seen as part of a process of: “... gradual
transformation from dead body to ancestor in
which they are both ‘subjects of their own identi-
ties and lived experiences (cf. ‘osteobiographies’:
Robb, 2002; Boutin, 2012), and objects to be mani-
pulated by the living, who are interacting with
them.”
Du∏an Bori≤ (2010.64) interprets the integration of
the old dead in new burials at Vlasac as anchoring
‘ancestral powers’ and citing of the past. What all
these examples are meant to do is highlight the
need for taking the terminology we have a step fur-
ther, towards an anthropological understanding.
They can only gain meaning when placed in the con-
text of wider social practices and as part of a cultu-
ral framing of the role of the dead in the lives of
communities.
As we delve into our interpretation further, we
should bring together archaeological method and
theory. As already mentioned, discoveries of prima-
ry, secondary and tertiary human remains are all
traces of multi-stage rites of passage, and it is our
task to explore the various ways in which these past
communities dealt with and imagined the liminal pe-
riod of funerary rituals and its various stages. The
challenging aspect is identifying and documenting
the traces of these past engagements. It is important
in this context to ask:
Alexandra Ion
354
(a) What performances might have been built
around/from these human remains?
(b) Do all the human remains represent deliberate
depositions?
(c) If the deposits do indeed represent the deliber-
ate selection of individuals or body parts, then
how might such practices relate to the deposi-
tion of other categories of archaeological mate-
rials, such as anthropomorphic representations,
waste deposits and so on? Objects and dead peo-
ple alike had complex biographies: they were
curated, broken up, and reinterred/spread within
the settlement area (see also Perles 2001.263).
In this respect, there are several studies which can
offer some valuable guidelines.
Concerning the taphonomic study and ritual trans-
formations of cadavers from a cultural perspective,
there are the studies by Liv Nilsson Stutz on Mesoli-
thic bodies (1998; 2006; 2008), those by Scott Had-
dow, Christopher Knüsel and their colleagues for
the Neolithic Çatalhöyük depositions (Haddow, Knu-
sel 2017; Haddow et al. 2020), by Rita Peyroteo
Stjerna (2016) and Jennifer Kerner (2018), texts by
Martin Smith and Megan Brickley on the people of
the British Neolithic barrows (2009), and by Re-
becca Crozier (2018) on Neolithic Orkney remains.
The detailed observations in these studies offer gui-
delines for reconstructions: whether the bodies have
been cut, defleshed, exposed, wrapped, or moved
around. Then there are histological studies which
have been able to prove the mummification of bod-
ies in prehistory (Booth et al. 2015; Booth 2016;
Smith et al. 2016). Furthermore, there have been
numerous studies regarding the remains from the
Levant and Near East, on the secondary treatment of
bodies, heads, plastered skulls, coping with death,
or curation strategies (e.g., Croucher 2012; 2018).
The liminal nature of some of the depositions can
also extend to topography: the placement of the
dead in the wider landscape matters. In the Balkan
Neolithic we find a diverse landscape of death, with
human remains in settlements near waters, marshes,
or remains on tells, inside burnt down dwellings, or
within the foundations of new living spaces. This is
a topic which can be explored in more detail by
future research.
Lastly, we should think about the sensory and emo-
tional aspects of coping with death and manipulat-
ing cadavers and remains – the cultural significance
of flesh (see Pearson et al. 2015), decaying bodies,
mourning and memorialisation. What would it have
entailed to live among the dead? Karina Croucher
(2010) writes about the sensory experiences that
probably accompanied engaging with the dead in
these Neolithic communities. We need to imagine
that some bodies were partly defleshed, others were
intentionally broken down and fragmented, some
were decapitated, while others were curated as ske-
letal fragments. When we encounter whole bodies
deposited under the floors of dwellings, how did the
household members feel about a rotting corpse just
a dozen centimetres under their feet? Did they have
to leave the house for a while, and then reoccupy it?
How would it have been for someone to gaze to-
wards their hearth and see two skulls there, gazing
back at them from the past, as is the case of an en-
counter at the Căscioarele-Ostrovel site in Romania
(Ion forthcoming)? At Pietrele-Gorgana (Romania),
a head placed on a large deposit of shells still had
the first vertebrae attached (Cronica 2010), which
points to it having been decapitated first and thrown
there while still fleshed. The remains from Cârcea-
La Viaduct (Ion et al. 2009) had their flesh, muscles
and some bones removed, before people threw them
into a ditch. In multiple cases, skulls are found with-
out their mandibles (e.g., at Prodromos in Greece),
or mandibles are found deposited on their own (14
sites with such finds) near pots, hearths or in other
contexts. Bodies are also bent and bound, or covered
in various substances, such as ochre (e.g., at Bălăne-
sti, Ostrovul Corbului, Cavdar or Rakitovo sites) or
ash. All of these actions required an intimate enga-
gement with the decaying body, its fluids and ma-
teriality. It is possible that the substance of the de-
cayed body, in terms of its white colour, also played
a role in these instances, alongside the colours red
or yellow of ochre and the black of the ash. This
took place in a world that valued the potency of co-
lour, brilliance and design, as shown by John Chap-
man (2015.160) in relation to pottery and figurines.
Moreover, this is only the beginning of a story in
which the dead become part of strategies of nego-
tiating identity – the ways in which communities in-
teracted with their kin, with the Same (members of
the same group, but from other communities in the
landscape), and with the Other (‘foreigners’).
Early Neolithic: collective discoveries
Let us start from the beginning, with the earliest pre-
sence of the dead amongst the ‘Neolithic’ communi-
ties. The period between roughly 6500–5800 is a
one of change throughout the Balkans: a cooling cli-
Why keep the old dead around| Bringing together theory and method in the study of human remains from Balkan (E)Neolithic ...
355
matic event and flooding of river valleys around
6340–6100 (8200 BP) (Weninger et al. 2006) over-
laps with the introduction of new ways of life and
death, traditionally associated with the Neolithic.6
New architectural, subsistence and ritual practices
appear in Macedonia and Crete after 7000 cal BC, in
Thessaly around 6500 cal BC, in Bulgaria around
6000 cal BC, and north of the Danube around the
mid-6th millennium cal BC (Whittle 1996; Reingru-
ber et al. 2017). There is a variety in ways of orga-
nizing the lived space, from low density settlements
with poorly defined pit-dwellings, such as the Star-
≠evo-Çris ones, to larger tells revisited for longer pe-
riods in central and south Bulgaria and Thessaly,
like Karanovo or Sesklo (Whittle 1996.99; Perles
2001.40); the latter are also areas which have a high
concentration of settlements.
Researchers have long debated the potential causes
which lead to the dispersal of these new cultural
and social phenomena, with recent aDNA narratives
(Hervella et al. 2015) weighing in on the debate
and arguing for the incoming of new populations
as explanations for the Neolithic archaeological re-
cord. However, a high-resolution analysis of the ma-
terial record throughout south-east Europe highlights
both the complexities of this transition period (see
Thissen 2005), and the variability in traits associ-
ated with Neolithic ways of life. The second half of
the 7th millennium is a dynamic period in which
communities referencing or linking in some way to
past Mesolithic lifeways or deathways (Bori≤, Price
2013; Bori≤, Griffiths 2015) co-exist with communi-
ties which settle for the first time.
In his latest paper, John Barrett (2019.46) proposes
an explanation of how we might imagine differences
between communities, especially between hunter-ga-
therers and agriculturalists:
“Different kinds of people might therefore have
been represented by the land over which they held
rights, the work that they did, the food and the
drink that they were served and that they con-
sumed, and the places that they could occupy.”
(Barrett 2019.46)
In this model, the funerary record can be seen as
part of a particular worldview and way of becoming
a member of a community – it spoke about who you
were and what your place in the world was. It is
quite possible that for some communities the depo-
sitions of the dead held the memory of practices
from their places of origin in faraway lands, bring-
ing with them a sense of place and group identity.
For other communities, the manipulation of the dead
could disrupt the practices they encountered in the
places where they settled, or it could construct a
continuity by citing them (see Vlasac and Lepenski
Vir). Most of the dead of this period remain un-
known to us – their funerary practices left no archa-
eological trace. However, some of the dead are pre-
sent inside settlements, and they become important
markers of a community’s identity in the landscape.
Their treatment takes several forms, which will con-
tinue throughout the Neolithic:
(1) ‘ossuaries’ or collective deposits of bodies and
body parts (pointing to their retrieval and reten-
tion);
(2) whole bodies deposited in reused pits or espe-
cially dug pits;
(3) regional patterns, e.g., cremation in Greece, or
children in jars in Bulgaria and Macedonia.
Discoveries of human remains come from at least 54
sites (Fig. 2)7. A very conservative count places the
minimum number of individuals at 283, out of which
at least 77 are children (excluding from this count
a couple of hundred individuals from several sites,
such as those from the Danube Gorges, Franchti, Pa-
ralia, Cuina Turcului, for which either the precise dat-
ing or anthropological analysis is lacking). Scattered
bones in the hundreds are also reported. The burials
are usually under floors, in pits, or in the occupation
levels of settlements between houses, and less fre-
quently in abandoned buildings. Some are associat-
ed with material culture, but this is quite rare.
What is noticeable is that a significant number of
sites throughout the area have multiple individuals
discovered inside the settlement area: in almost half
of the sites there are more than five deposits or in-
dividuals, while in some cases the numbers go be-
yond 30. It is also not uncommon to discover seve-
ral kinds of deposits, both primary and secondary,
at the same site, an occurrence in at least 24 of the
sites. Thus, we can see that the first ‘agricultural’ set-
6 In cultural-historical terminology, these communities belonged to the Proto Sesklo complex (Greece), Anzabegovo-Vr∏nik and
Velu∏ina Porodin (Macedonia), Star≠evo culture (Serbia), West Bulgarian painted pottery group and Karanovo I-II (Bulgaria),
Cris (Romania) and others.
7 There are three different points at the site of Gornea.
Fig. 2. Early Neolithic sites in-
cluded in the analysis: 1 Aj-
mana; 2 Amzabegovo; 3 Ar-
gissa; 4 Azmak; 5 Balgar≠e-
vo; 6 Blagotin; 7 Bukova≠ka
Cesta; 8 Cavdar; 9 Cuina Tur-
cului; 10 Devetaki; 11 Divos-
tin; 12 Donja Branjevina;
13 Dzuljunica-Smărde∏; 14
Franchthi; 15 Golokut; 16
Gornea; 17 Gradesnica-Malo
Pole; 18 Grivac; 19 Grn≠ari-
ca; 20 Karanovo; 21 Kazan-
lak; 22 Kefalovryso; 23 Kova-
≠evo; 24 Kremikovci; 25 Le-
penski Vir; 26 Lerna; 27 Mă-
gura; 28 Malak Preslavets;
29 Mavropigi Kozanis; 30
Nea Nikomedeia; 31 Ostrovul
Corbului; 32 Padina; 33 Pa-
ralia; 34 Pecinci-Bara Alici-
ja; 35 Pontokomi; 36 Rakito-
vo; 37 Revenia Korinou; 38 Rudnik Kosovski; 39 Saraorci; 40 Schela Cladovei; 41 Sesklo; 42 Slatina-So-
fia; 43 Soufli Magoula; 44 Te≠i≤; 45 Tsiganova-Dositeevo; 46 Tumba Mad∫ari; 47 Vaksevo; 48 Velesnica;
49 Vlasac; 50 Xirolimni; 51 Yabalkovo. Base Map Google Earth.
Alexandra Ion
356
tlements are marked by the presence of the dead and
the multi-stage curation of bodies in death – indica-
tive of a long-term perspective on death.
One of the most well-studied Early Neolithic (EN)
sites is Nea Nikomedeia (6400–6000 cal BC; This-
sen, Reingruber 2017.134) in Greece. In prehistory
the site found itself near a shallow lake or inlet, in
a landscape of Mediterranean maquis (Rodden et al.
1962) where agriculture was practiced. The commu-
nity cultivated wheat, barley and lentils, and had
sheep and goats, but also cattle and pigs (Rodden
1965). The landscape was occupied for a limited pe-
riod, maybe a couple of decades (Weninger et al.
2006), with a break between. The excavations unco-
vered only a small part of the settlement, which had
been affected by modern agricultural works. In the
first layer, there were seven individual rectangular
houses with mud walls. A seventh building suggests
it might have been a communal ritual place (Rodden
1965.85). Throughout the settlement the prehistoric
communities interred 35 individuals in pits associat-
ed with dwellings (near or inside abandoned ones).
Both sexes were present, and all ages, with 22 in-
fants and juveniles. In two instances there were mul-
tiple individuals: an adult female and two children
deposited in a former storage pit, and three children
in a separate context (Rodden 1965.90). There were
no grave offerings. One interesting discovery is a
skeleton on its back with bent legs and with “a large
pebble thrust between its jaws” (idem). Spread
throughout the settlement were also “pelvic frag-
ments, sacral elements, vertebrae and metatar-
sals” (idem).
There seems to be an array of practices documented
in the same place: an individual who probably went
through a burial meant to prevent him from coming
back (the position on his back with bent knees, the
rock in his mouth), then collective deposits pointing
to the expression of kinship relationships in death,
and also small bone fragments whose presence is
usually interpreted from taphonomic studies as left-
overs, representing the cleaning of graves. This sug-
gests that either some of the bodies were interred in
a primary position in the settlement, and after de-
cay they were moved elsewhere and these small ele-
ments were left behind, or that the bodies were in-
terred somewhere else, then their graves opened
and reinterred and the bones which were left behind
for some reason where brought into the settlement
space. However, this latter interpretation makes less
sense, based on ethnographic parallels, current ce-
metery practices and also the rest of the Neolithic
contexts; the hand/foot bones and axial fragments
are not usually kept/selected as important anatomi-
cal elements.
A similar context is at Amzabegovo, one of the ear-
liest Neolithic sites in Macedonia, where more than
30 individuals found themselves interred through-
out the settlement, some only represented by frag-
Why keep the old dead around| Bringing together theory and method in the study of human remains from Balkan (E)Neolithic ...
357
mentary bodies and body parts. In particular, a new-
born buried in a jar and two female individuals (Ne-
meskéri, Lengyel 1976) stand out. The liminal posi-
tion of the site itself is also interesting, near a mar-
shy area (Naumov 2018.52). In this respect, the ob-
servation by Goce Naumov (2018.49) that “the tell
societies should be observed also as wetland soci-
eties as majority of their resources was associated
with marshes from flooding rivers and lakes” is
useful. But this is a topic for a future study which
can look at the placement of these dead in a wider
ecological and cultural landscape.
Thus, a preliminary observation is that the transfor-
mation of the living person into a dead body involv-
ed a multi-stage process, with bodies interred and
then retrieved to be re-interred within the settlement
space, or alongside whole bodies. A second observa-
tion is that within these early, more permanent set-
tlements, it seems to be important to mark a commu-
nity’s presence through interring the dead in that
space over a longer time span – we can assume that
the 35 individuals at Nea Nikomedeia did not all die
at the same time. So, either after the abandonment
of the settlement this becomes a cemetery, or even
during its occupation. Like the communal building
at Nea Nikomedeia, was it possible that these dead
were kept as markers of community identity?
On the other hand, the double/triple burials might
also point to individual voices and sub-group iden-
tities: they might have been part of a larger commu-
nal effort to honour the dead, but the internment of
a woman with children, or children together, point
in both the case of Nea Nikomedeia and Amzabego-
vo to kinship relations (which need not be biologi-
cal).
Along the same lines, and challenging our defini-
tions, are the collective burials, commingled depo-
sits, and ossuaries. In one third of Early Neolithic
sites, skeletal remains of multiple individuals have
been found in pits, some between dwellings, or dug
under dwellings. In these deposits it is not uncom-
mon to have adults alongside infants and juveniles,
of both sexes, or whole bodies alongside secondary
burials. For example, at Ajmana a pit 2.5x1.8m in
diameter contained at different depths:
“... five adults (three males and two females) and
twelve children, some of them in a crouched posi-
tion; other individuals were represented by heaps
of human bones or single human bones.” (Lichter
2017.117)
Prodromos is an exceptional site both due to its long-
term year-round occupation (Halstead 1984 apud
Perles 2001.153), with 10 successive Early Neolithic
layers (Hourmouziadis 1971 apud Perles 2001.
175), but also its rich body imagery – more than 200
figurines (Hourmouziadis 1973 in Nanoglou 2006.
160). Here, under the floor of a large dwelling exca-
vators found “eleven skulls and other human bones
in three successive deposits, but had not been ar-
ranged in an orderly fashion”. They were alongside
coloured sherds and silica tools (Lichter 2017.116;
Perles 2001.279). No further information is available,
but it is clear that this ossuary was revisited over a
longer period of time.
At Velesnica in Serbia were found three graves, one
of which:
“Grave 2 was a pit containing five complete skele-
tons and parts of perhaps two other skeletons. All
were in the flexed position, placed one above the
other, so that the bones were mixed [..] The pit was
more or less circular in shape, with a diameter of
c. 1.20 metres. [..] In the burial pit, especially its
upper part, were found fragments of several Star-
≠evo vessels (Fig. 15), lumps of red fired clay, shells
and some animal bones, which may indicate cer-
tain burial rituals.” (Vasi≤ 2008.232–33)
Based on the material culture, the position of the
skeletons, and “the fact that there are no finds un-
derneath skeleton 2G”, the archaeologist concluded
that “this was a grave pit, and not a pit for waste
that was used secondarily for interment” (Vasi≤
2008.232–33). Furthermore, even though it was
hard to apply a proper archaeothanatological analy-
sis as these were old materials, the anthropologist
Mirjana Roksandi≤ (2008) estimates that “it seems
that decomposition of 2G had already taken place
before individual 2D was placed in the grave, and
therefore a diachronous burial with subsequent
interments is most likely.”
Lastly, at the Karanovo site (Bulgaria), one of the
most important Neolithic sites in the region, in its
earliest layers one pit under a dwelling contained
“skulls and long bones of a large number of chil-
dren not in anatomical order” (Bă≠varov 2000.
137).
How can we interpret these collective deposits?
Where the individuals brought together in one sin-
gle episode or close in time? Did they die close in
time? Why did the community single these individu-
Alexandra Ion
358
als out? Their interpretation relies on several fac-
tors which are sometimes hard to infer based on
fragmented documentation, but several things point
to the fact that these are intentional deposits. First-
ly, the care taken when depositing the bodies – they
are not simply thrown in a pit, but the bodies are
placed seemingly neatly, with care given to the indi-
vidual, suggesting deliberate action. They are laid on
their right/left, usually in a crouched position, some-
times in a ‘Turkish’ position. There also seems to be
a pattern regarding the position of the whole skele-
tons-crouched and, in some cases, extremely flexed
(hocker). In these later instances, where the degree
of the flexion of articulations could not have been
achieved on fleshed bodies, we can postulate a treat-
ment of the body such as mummification, bounding,
or smoking. However, detailed histological analyses
need to be performed in order to have a secure in-
terpretation. While based on old materials it is diffi-
cult (and usually impossible) to reconstitute sequen-
ces of deposition or identify the presence of additio-
nal materials, such as body wrapping or containers,
this is something that future excavations should bear
in mind (to observe the position of skeleton’s articu-
lations, the position of bones, the distance between
them, depth, etc.).
Secondly, the secondary depositions are mostly com-
prised of skulls and long bones. This suggests an in-
tentional selection and retention of body parts. In
the particular case of ‘ossuaries’, such as the skull pit
at Prodromos, such pits were revisited over time and
new individuals added.
The post-mortem biography of these individuals is
a most intriguing aspect, as there seems to be a dif-
ferent temporal dimension depending on each indi-
vidual. Some individuals’ bodies are placed in a pit,
and alongside them, at the same time or later, are
added other human remains. These come from other
individuals who were interred or left to decompose,
the community then collected some of their bones,
such as skulls and sometimes long bones. Thus, in
the mixed deposits we might infer that the secon-
dary body parts pre-date the whole individuals –
they are the old dead8. Therefore, these funerary
sites were active over longer time intervals. These
cases show that as much care is given to such depo-
sits as to single deposits, and I would suggest that
they all represent mortuary deposits.
But were the pits dug especially for these bodies?
Krum Bă≠varov (2006) discusses re-used pits at Aj-
mana and Nea Nikomedeia (possible silos). In other
cases, the pits are interpreted as dwellings, or archa-
eologists conclude that they were especially dug for
the dead – see Velesnica. In reference to this ques-
tion, in his latest book, Douglas Bailey (2018) picks
up an older debate in archaeology about the purpose
of pits in these early settlements, aiming to show that
understanding these contexts is interlinked with de-
ciphering the relationship between the living and
some of the dead. He cites John Chapman, who chose
to focus on the materials found in these pits, and
talked about their “life cycle, ancestors and depo-
sition” (Bailey 2018.25), or Julian Thomas who fo-
cused on an orderly structuring of the materials they
contain, which is part of a wider ‘economy of sub-
stances’ (Thomas 2013). Thus, their ambiguous
meaning can tell us something about place-making
strategies, memory, ancestors and communities.
With the dead (literally) laying the foundations of
lived space, or marking its ending, what does this
tell us about the beginning of the Neolithic? What is
the purpose of these pits, and why deposit individu-
als together? On the one hand, the expression of
collective identities in death seems to be an impor-
tant aspect of these first settlements. Some of the
isolated skeletons found beneath dwellings might
function as foundation deposits, while others were
interred after the settlement was abandoned – see
the ones in disused buildings (Nea Nikomedeia). But
the collective depositions, and the mix of types of
deposits – bodies and body parts – point to complex
multi-stage post-mortem manipulations which can
be imagined as community graves (or special ances-
tors), having a similar function to passage tombs in
British Neolithic. Or maybe they even gathered the
remains from several communities in the territory?9
There is no geographic pattern, as these are found
in Northern Greece, central Bulgaria right south of
Balkan Mountains, Central Serbia and Danube Gor-
ges alike.
8 It is also possible that they were the first occupants in the pits, after which at a later date, new individuals were added.
9 Further analysis needs to be done to prove/disprove this point. However, we should bear in mind that year-round occupation of
a site has been proven in few places, like in Prodromos (see discussion in Perles 2001.153), and it is likely that the same commu-
nity moved in a wider area and occupied several points in time. We should also think of ways in which we can apply the concept
of kinship to the Neolithic realities – who was deemed a foreigner and who was a local, both in cultural terms, but also in terms
of pragmatic distances. From a study by Bori≤ and Price (2013.3301–3302), out of the 12 tested EN individuals from Ajmana, three
had nonlocal values. Similar discoveries come from Lepenski Vir (idem).
Why keep the old dead around| Bringing together theory and method in the study of human remains from Balkan (E)Neolithic ...
359
Other elements which support the idea of the im-
portance of collective identity at this point in time
is the discovery of the ‘communal ‘shrine’ at Nea Ni-
komedeia (Perles 2001.271–72). A similar space was
at Blagotin, where:
“In the center of the Early Neolithic settlement, a
large pit feature (ZM7) was excavated [..] The
southern zone was where the entrance of the fea-
ture was found. It featured a thick daub platform,
with two large (30 cm high) female figurines and
small altars were found (fig. 11–13). [...] Beneath
the daub floor in the southern zone of ZM 7, there
was a thick ash deposit which contained the re-
mains of a human infant, only a few weeks old
(fig. 14). A small pit was found beneath the thick
ash deposit. The remains from the pit included a
thick deposit of animal bones that were probably
deposited in a single episode.” (Greenfield, Green-
field 2014.8–10)
But ultimately one must ask why these individuals?
And why keep the old dead? For a select number
of sites, like Lepenski Vir and Vlasac, Du∏an Bori≤
and colleagues (Bori≤ 2003; Bori≤, Stefanovi≤ 2004)
have proposed that the use of cremated bones or
secondary burials within new graves is a form of
‘bricolage’ in which the past is cited, and thus a me-
mory strategy. In this context, it is not only that the
dead help create and maintain community ties, but
there is also a link between generations. The argu-
ments in support of this are the reuse of old funer-
ary spots, and that the “exact reference to specific
individuals might not have been of paramount im-
portance. The use of the same location and the re-
petition of identical burial rites might have been
attempts to reference the potency of the past as
such” (Bori≤ 2010; Bori≤, Griffiths 2015.361).
Also pointing to a focus on collective-abstract iden-
tities are anthropomorphic figurines of the period.
In the Early Neolithic we find abstract figures which
also speak of “an ontological principle of generic
identity” (Nanoglou 2008b.1; see also Naumov
2010).
Middle and Late Neolithic: the dead as bound-
ary markers
Between 5800–4900/4700 cal BC, we see a spread
of Neolithic settlements and a diversity in cultural
expressions (Fig. 3). What is interesting for the fo-
cus of this article is the evidence of a different kind
of communal effort: collective depositions of the
dead are marking boundaries. During the Middle
Neolithic, the largest deposits show an interesting
association between ditches (boundaries), human
remains and animal remains (feasts). We see such
deposits at sites in Greece – at Makrygialos, Toumba
Kremastis-Koiladas, Profitis-Ilias-Mandras and Paliam-
bela-Kolindrou – and in Bulgaria at Nova Nadezhda,
Yabalkovo and Mandra, and at Cârcea in South-East
Romania. These discoveries offer us a glimpse into
the ways in which communities might have negoti-
ated relations of inclusion, or, on the contrary, the
banishment and punishment of kin or strangers.
Makrygialos (or Makriyalos) is a flat settlement co-
vering an area over 60 hectares, with dwellings
which do not seem to have been lived in for long:
“most of the time, they are nothing more than sim-
ple pits dug in the natural bedrock, occasionally
groups of interconnected pits” (Kotsakis 2014.57).
However, a number of discoveries link the presence
of the dead in these contexts to expressions of col-
lective identities. Among these are the deposition of
the dead in a number of ditches and large pits whose
construction required communal effort, alongside
deposits which point to collective feasts. The excava-
tions in the layers of the first phase (5500/5400–
5000 cal BC) of Makriyalos revealed the remains of
more than 70 individuals, whole and fragmentary
bodies. Most of these remains came from three di-
tches, two of which (Ditches A and B) enclosed “clus-
ters of habitation pits what may tentatively be la-
belled ‘households” (Pappa et al. 2013), while the
third probably subdivided the settlement. The depo-
sition of human remains, alongside a significant
number of animal bones and ecofacts in pits inside
the enclosed area, point to an interesting communal
practice.
Most of the human remains were found in Ditch A –
12 articulated bodies, seven partially articulated bo-
dies, and secondary depositions from another 38 in-
dividuals – while the rest of the remains were in the
other ditches and also in a large pit in the settlement
area (Tryantipoulou 2008.142–146). All ages (ex-
cept neonates) and sexes were present. At the same
time, taphonomic analysis did not reveal any indica-
tion that the bones were at any time exposed to na-
tural elements or trampled. Thus, the osteologist in-
ferred that they were part of a multi-stage process
which might have taken up to three to four years
(Rodriguez, Bass 1985 apud Tryantipoulou 2008.
146). The post-mortem biography of these individu-
als, as recreated by the specialists, tells a story of bo-
dies first deposited elsewhere and then moved into
Fig. 3. Middle and Late Neo-
lithic sites included in the
analysis: 1 Alepotrypa; 2 Al-
maaajelu; 3 Basarabi; 4 Câr-
cea (la Hanuri & la Viaduct);
5 Ceamurlia de Jos; 6 Cerna-
vodă (Columbia & Coada Ză-
voiului); 7 Chaironeia; 8 Co-
tatcu; 9 Crusovu; 10 Dimini;
11 Ezero; 12 Glina; 13 Govr-
levo; 14 Grădinile; 15 Izvo-
arele; 16 Karanovo; 17 Ka-
zanlak; 18 Lerna; 19 Makri-
yalos; 20 Malak Preslavets;
21 Obre; 22 Ov≠arovo-Gora-
ta; 23 Paliambela-Kolindrou;
24 Plovdiv; 25 Profitis Ilias;
26 Prosymna; 27 Rachmani;
28 Samovodene; 29 Skoteini;
30 Stara Zagora; 31 Stavra-
pouli; 32 Toumba Kremastis-
Koiladas; 33 Tsangli. Base
Map Google Earth.
Alexandra Ion
360
ditches, or deposited here from the start. Other in-
dividuals from the ditch were dug up, and some
bones collected and deposited elsewhere, such as
in the settlement pit which had a higher number of
long bones, pointing to the intentional selection and
retrieval of anatomical elements. To support this is
the fact that all anatomical parts were present in
ditch A, but there is an under-representation of long
bones. This also led the specialists to conclude that
there seemed to be a continuous digging and re-dig-
ging of Ditch A, pointing to an ongoing practice
which required a communal effort, while at the
same placing the dead on the settlement’s boundary
(see Tryantipoulou 2008). Kostas Kotsakis also
writes that the ditches were maintained for a long
time, calling them “monuments of communality”
(Kotsakis 2014.57).
In pit 212, found within the settlement, there was a
large number of pottery sherds and animal bones
originating from a few tons of meat having been con-
sumed, not deposited elsewhere first (Pappa et al.
2004.34). This was interpreted by the archaeologists
as the remains of a feast involving the whole com-
munity, with “conspicuous consumption of meat
involving commensality on a community and pro-
bably region wide scale” (Kotsakis 2014.57; see
also Halstead 2012.29–30).
The remains also point to the expression of indivi-
dual identity versus collective identity, which is mir-
rored by the relationship between a material culture
designed for communal consumption, versus the ex-
pression of individual identities: the standardized
serving vessels (Kotsakis 2014.57) versus the cups
which were mostly found only in the pit and which
“were highly individualized both technologically
and stylistically, exhibiting an endless variability
in form, decoration and technology” (Kotsakis
2014.58).
In northern Greece, we see similar occurrences at
other open-air sites, at Toumba Kremastis-Koiladas
and Paliambela-Kolindrou. At Toumba Kremastis-
Koiladas (Triantaphyllou 2008.144) there are 400
pits with mixed assemblages, among which are hu-
man remains. There seems to be a preference for
the retention of particular anatomical elements, es-
pecially long bones. In the ditches of the settlement
were found several individuals, among whom were
two neonates and two children.
Paliambela-Kolindrou (Triantaphyllou 2008.144–6),
a Middle Neolithic site of 2.4ha close to Makriyalos,
was surrounded by a system of ditches and it slowly
evolved into a tell (Kotsakis 2014.58). In these di-
tches were found both skulls which “seem to be ga-
thered in groups, and deposited” (idem), but also
postcranial remains of a neonate and an adult and
three bodies (infant, juvenile, adult).
Lastly, and towards the final part of this interval, at
Late Neolithic Alepotrypa, we find human remains
deposited in a context which marks a different kind
of boundary, a cave. Among these, in ossuary II (Pa-
pathanasiou 2009), were 14 skulls and numerous
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361
other cranial and post-cranial bones of both adults
and children from a total of 19 individuals. Accord-
ing to the specialists:
“All skulls appeared to lack mandibles and many
were carefully and deliberately placed. Almost all
were upright, positioned next to one another and
occasionally encircled by stones. One skull was
purposely set in the bottom of a broken pithos. Ca-
vanagh and Mee (1998.120) further observe that,
in general, the ‘awe-inspiring setting, the large
number of humans suggest ritual which reached
beyond the local community’.” (Talalay 2004.148)
Going north, we also find human remains in ditches,
but this time they speak of different treatments of
the cadaver. These are found at the sites Nova Nade-
zhda, Yabalkovo, Mandra and Cârcea. All of these are
dated between 5900–4900/4700 cal BC.
At Cârcea-La Viaduct, the archaeologist identified a
Star≠evo-Cris III ditch which “after a short existence
it was filled with yellow compact soil, with ceramic
fragments and human skulls” (Nica 1976; 1977). It
should be noted that the stratigraphic context is in-
secure, as in the same area later complexes have
been identified and it is difficult to make a secure at-
tribution to a specific context. What is interesting
about these human remains is that they display pe-
rimortem interventions, which include a cut-out
‘face’, the back of a skull, and a skull broken in half
(Ion et al. 2009). A young woman’s skull had a tre-
phination with signs of healing (Ion et al. 2009.55),
while several other individuals bore signs of peri-
mortem violence – these combined can point to the
fact that the individuals in the ditch might have been
seen as “others”, deserving punishment, or had an
illness that killed them. As such, it is possible that
by being placed in the liminal space they could be
seen by those coming from the outside, while also
being removed from those inside the boundary.
A post-mortem biography suggests that three of the
individuals discovered at Carcea:
“... have lesions that are very likely to be linked to
a violent death, namely two cases of blunt force
trauma to the parietal and one case in which seve-
ral lesions were caused by a blow to the face that
broke the nose and cracked the teeth. Apart from
these lesions, a large number of bones have been
broken while still fresh. Through anthropomorphic
actions. [...] For individuals 1, 2a, 3a, 3b, 5d, 6, 7,
9 the skull was separated from the body, the man-
dible was removed and probably the face was also
separated from the rest (completely or just par-
tially) through several blows. The morphology of
the breaks suggest that they were made while the
bones were still fresh, a fact that involves the re-
moval of the covering soft tissue. For this, either
the body was left to skeletonise or the overlying
skin and muscles were removed by humans. The
human skeletal representation bias (crania and
long bones) is more consistent with a deliberate
selection, than as a consequence of animal scav-
enging and random preservation [..] bones were
processed just after death – decapitated at least, if
not also skinned and defleshed (brain removed)
(the broken masseteric region of the zygomatic
bone can support the hypothesis of muscle remo-
val) and then “cut” in some desired shapes – a
face (6), a cup-like [piece] (5d), pieces of skull cut
out (3a). Either way, the process happened soon
after death, a couple of months the latest.” (Ion et
al. 2009.57–58)
Here we witness a transformation of personhood,
from complete bodies to dismemberment and frag-
mentation, followed by deposition among commin-
gled animal bones and ceramic fragments, in a ditch
or pits. Whatever the reason for their retention,
after the manipulation of bodies they were placed
on the boundary of the community space. Is it pos-
sible that they were ‘thrown’ or placed – on a plat-
form, or on poles10 – as punishment or precaution
in a liminal space?
At Yabalkovo, we find a similar situation: three adult
bodies were found in the ditches, in the later parts
of their backfill, two of these looking as if they had
been thrown in – the individuals were on their backs
with the legs bent in a 90 degree angle, or on their
fronts (Roodenberg et al. 2013). Two of these were
females, and one male. Interestingly, the skull of the
male, along with another cranial fragment from a
different individual which was found close-by, show-
ed marks of perimortem interventions with a sharp
instrument, maybe an axe. This skeleton also had
his legs bound. This made the researchers infer a
possible execution. Another of the bodies had “a
large part of the skull missing post mortem” (Ro-
odenberg et al. 2013).
10 A 10–14 year-old individual’s cranium displays lateral gaps which could have allowed for its display (though without further ana-
lysis this is simply a speculation).
Alexandra Ion
362
Thus, during the Middle and Late Neolithic, human
remains seem to be a recurrent discovery in con-
texts which can be interpreted as liminal, as mark-
ing a boundary. Interestingly, they seem to be caught
in a duality of practices: some of inclusion, and oth-
ers of exclusion. At Paliambela, Makryalos and Ale-
potrypa, we see deposits which were probably the
result of communal rituals – maybe those expressing
kinship ties – and their deposition in ditches or caves
marks the creation of ‘communal monuments’. In
the case of Yabalkovo and Cârcea, the individuals in
the ditch seemed to have been outcasts, thrown
away and punished in some way, excluded from the
settlement.
Final Neolithic and Eneolithic: powerful ances-
tors and a cycle of renewal
As time went by, new technologies emerged, like the
processing of copper, economic networks spread
over wide areas, new pottery styles appeared and
changes in social organization and ways of inhabit-
ing the landscape. Tells appear in southern Romania
and provide rich deposits and elaborate material
culture. Life in tells continues south of the Danube,
while in Greece discoveries are scarcer for this time
period, with very little funerary evidence. For the
purpose of this article, I will focus on two important
aspects for this time interval which overlaps with the
end of the Boian-Marica culture and the Gumelnita-
Kodzadermen-Karanovo VI complex and Vin≠a D:
(1) the appearance of a new way of marking death
in the landscape – extra-mural cemeteries – and
how this changes the relationships of communi-
ties with their dead;
(2) documenting beliefs in a cycle of renewal which
linked burnt dwellings, tells and human remains.
After 5500 cal BC, cemeteries separated from settle-
ments slowly start to emerge (see Stratton et al.
2018). Some of the best known and largest cemete-
ries, like Durankulak, Varna, Cernica, Vărăsti, or Cer-
navodă, included hundreds of buried individuals,
were in use for decades and their inventory points
to a display of wealth in death (interpreted as so-
cial inequality) – as seen with the presence of gold
in graves, marble or bone figurines, and pots. But
the presence of the dead among the living contin-
ues: bodies are still interred inside the settlement
space (Fig. 4), and traces of the living (building struc-
tures) are found inside some cemeteries. Further-
more, inside cemeteries, archaeologists have found
fragmentary human remains, usually interpreted as
reinhumations, grave openings or tertiary deposits
(‘cleaning’ depositions) (Lazăr 2012.114–115; Con-
stantinescu, Culea 2014; Kogălniceanu et al. 2016).
Who then is kept inside settlements, who is reburied
in cemeteries, and what roles do they play in the
life of communities? We can propose the existence
of a link maintained between cemeteries and set-
tlements through the circulation of dead bodies
between the two. On the one hand, archaeologists
have documented that at some point after the de-
composition of bodies, a group/the community open-
ed some graves in the cemeteries and selected the
cranium/skull, and sometimes other anatomical ele-
ments (see Chapman 2010; Kogălniceanu et al.
2016; Kogălniceanu, Simalcsik 2018). There is also
evidence of redepositions of such fragments in the
cemetery area, in new deposits either as careful
‘packages’, or in groups of individuals. This raises
the question as to whether some of the retrieved
body parts were taken to the settlement and depo-
sited there, or after a time they were reburied in the
cemetery. It also possible that the dead from the
settlements and the ones in the cemeteries did not
cross paths. What is certain is that research so far
has not found all the missing body parts, or links
between the redeposits and the reopened graves.
But to document these one needs careful stratigra-
phic observations (retrieval pits), taphonomic ana-
lysis – so that the missing elements are not due to
preservation issues or post-depositional natural di-
sturbances – and also studies to establish if the re-
deposited bones had been kept out into the open,
or immediately buried.
At the same time, the FN and Eneolithic are times
when the dead are part of a wider worldview which
sees the manipulation of materialities – human
bones, clay, animal bones – in a cycle of destruc-
tion and renewal: from the breaking down of bod-
ies, to the intentional burning down of houses and
fragmentation of material culture (see Stevanovi≤
1997; Chapman 2000; Dragoman, Oantă-Marghi-
tu 2007). In a preliminary study on the human re-
mains discovered in settlements in southern Roma-
nia, it became apparent that half were associated
with a dwelling, a quarter with ‘waste areas’, and
the rest were scattered throughout or in pits (Ion
2008).
As an example, we can look at the discoveries in tells
from southern Romania, in the wider area of the
late Boian-Gumelnita tells. Tells are artificial mounds,
the result of successive layers of occupation, inten-
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363
tional discard, and accumulation,
which are as much a monument of
the dead and of death as they are of
the living, comprised of dead bod-
ies, intentionally killed houses (see
Ruth Tringham’s seminal work), and
hearths, as well as a specially depo-
sited material culture, thus collaps-
ing the distinction between the ar-
chaeology of settlements and funer-
ary archaeology, between sacred and
mundane. We find some of the dead
under dwellings or in pits, but also
some unusual cases, deposited either
in buildings before they were burnt
down, or in what has been interpret-
ed as rubbish areas (Ion 2008).
In a previous study (Ion forthcom-
ing) on three skulls found at the
Eneolithic tell at Căscioarele-Ostro-
vel, I have proposed that through
their integration in specific assem-
blages they became containers (War-
nier 2006; Dragoman 2016). The
human remains were buried next to
hearths and placed alongside horned
figurines and deer antlers, gathering
the wild resources which were sur-
rounding the tell. Based on ethno-
graphic parallels, we might infer that
the community turned the dead into
powerful ancestors who could act
either as protection or mediums that
could harness specific vital substan-
ces.
The site of Pietrele-Gorgana offers
another interesting case study. This
is a site in the Lower Danube plains,
a tell mound within a wider flat set-
tlement, with multiple levels of oc-
cupation spanning 5200–4250 cal
BC (Hansen 2015) (the Boian and
Gumelnita cultures, in terms of traditional chronol-
ogy). The mound itself revealed rich material both
in terms of quantity and quality, such as burnt and
unburnt houses – what Ian Hodder (2010) has
called ‘history houses’ – a rich inventory of pottery,
fishing and hunting tools, gold and hundreds of cop-
per objects, 12 000 silex artefacts, “535 anthropo-
morphic and 109 zoomorphic statuettes”, “100 ar-
chitectural and 80 furniture models” (Hansen
2015.277–278).
In the northern part of the tell two main dwellings
(B-West and B-East) were uncovered, between which
was an area 2m wide with deposits of ash, green
soil, shells, and animal bones. In the SW area of the
tell archaeologists found other dwellings in the F
area, separated by similar “waste areas”. Human re-
mains were found in all of these contexts: on surface
F were nine individuals in a burnt dwelling with the
remains from 10 other individuals outside it; and on
surface B, remains from 23 individuals were outside
Fig. 4a-b. Final Neolithic and Eneolithic sites included in the ana-
lysis: 1 Aibunar; 2 Aldeni; 3 Alunisu; 4 Bălănesti; 5 Bordusani; 6
Bucsani; 7 Căscioarele; 8 Cheia; 9 Chitila; 10 Cunesti; 11 Curmătu-
ra; 12 Drăganesti-Olt; 13 Gumelnita; 14 Hârsova; 15 Hotnitsa; 16
Însurătei; 17 Kameni≠ki Potok; 18 Kitsos; 19 Kodjadermen; 20
Kubrat; 21 Liscoteanca; 22 Luncavita; 23 Makrychori; 24 Măriu-
ta; 25 Năvodari; 26 Palioskala; 27 Pietrele Gorgana; 28. Prodro-
mos; 29 Racheva Mogila-Yambol; 30 Radovanu; 31 Ruse; 32 Salma-
novo-Deneva Mogila; 33 Stoenesti-Tangîru; 34 Suceveni; 35 Sulta-
na; 36 Vidra; 37 Yasatepe; 38 Yunatsite. Base Map Google Earth.
Alexandra Ion
364
dwellings, with one individual in each dwelling
(Wahl 2006; 2007; 2008). All anatomical elements
were present, but the high percentage of coxal
bones, axial skeleton, and hand and foot bones, as
well as a few cranial fragments, point to interesting
taphonomic observations.
Firstly, the human remains were not deposited to-
gether, as Alexandru Dragoman and Sorin Oantă-
Marghitu were the first to notice (2007.117): in the
case of a young individual (possibly female) repre-
sented by fragments of a femur and humerus, some
of the remains were in the debris of the dwelling
B-West, while the other fragments were outside it,
in the ‘waste area’; the fragments match each other.
A similar situation is the case of a silex blade de-
posited with other blades in a pot in a dwelling in
the B-East section, which refits with a blade frag-
ment found under another pot found in the B-west
dwelling, and “there are 12m between the two con-
texts” (Dragoman, Oantă-Marghitu 2007.118). This
links to Chapman’s (2000) thesis about fragmenta-
tion practices as enchainment practices during the
Neolithic, in which broken bodies, pots and blades
are shared and circulated for the maintenance of
social relations.
Another observation which points to intentional ma-
nipulation and deposition of human remains be-
tween the debris of burnt dwellings is that not all
human remains found among the debris of burnt
buildings show signs of contact with fire (Wahl 2006;
2007; 2008; Dragoman, Oantă-Marghitu 2007). A
similar situation is encountered for the archaeologi-
cal material (idem): for the B-West construction
“only 12% of the 1618 pottery fragments are sec-
ondarily burnt (S. Hansen et al. 2004.16/Abb. 13)”
(Dragoman, Oantă-Marghitu 2007.117). This sug-
gests that after the houses were intentionally de-
stroyed, care was taken and human remains, pots
and other materials were deposited among the de-
bris, possibly creating a ritual assemblage which
closed off an episode in the life of the community.
In the words of Maxime Brami (2014.161): “a ‘clo-
sure’ at the end of their use-lives”.
Another interesting situation is the case of nine in-
dividuals found in the central dwelling of the sur-
face, dated 4450–4330 cal BC. The osteological ana-
lysis identified 200 human remains belonging to
nine individuals (Wahl 2008; 2010). The bones went
through DNA testing, which revealed that they were
related. The archaeologist interpreted the context
“as people who met their death in the conflagra-
tion of the house” (Hansen, Toderas 2007.13).
What is particularly interesting is the relationship
of the bodies to the construction they were part of.
In this case, there are several remarkable aspects: a
striking lack of cranial and leg bones, not all hu-
man remains display heat marks from the presumed
fire, some bones were found outside the dwelling
with gnawing marks, and a chisel made of a human
bone was found among the remains (Wahl 2010).
The lack of the long bones of the legs, which are
some of the most robust elements, might point to
the intentional selection of body parts post fire.
Thus, what slowly emerges is a picture where a func-
tionalist description of the context – nine individu-
als caught by fire – might actually be a more com-
plex form of funerary deposition. An alternative
scenario would be that in the case of the F-dwelling,
the nine individuals died together and at around the
same time (maybe even under a house collapse),
and their bodies were placed in a house which was
intentionally burnt down – it was symbolically killed.
Then, some of the body parts were selected and cir-
culated in other areas of the tell, and one even went
through a complete transformation into an artifact
(Wahl 2007). Thus, we witness acts of ‘de-persona-
lization’ (unmaking of personhood), with these in-
dividuals becoming generic ancestors – embedded
in the makeup of the tell. Their treatment also mir-
rors the treatment of certain categories of material
culture. Together they become part of mixed assem-
blages, active places in which substances were con-
tained, and as such made potent, which in turn lead
to a fluid boundary between settlement, funerary,
and ‘sacred’ spaces. Other discoveries of multiple in-
dividuals’ bodies among the debris of dwellings
were made at Yunatsite, Hotnitsa and Ruse tell in
Bulgaria (Chernakov 2010). However, in those cases
there might be different explanations. The large
number of skeletons discovered at Yunatsite and
Ruse, and the position in which some were found,
might suggest that the sites were abandoned as liv-
ing spaces and left to the dead after a possibly vio-
lent episode(s). Other sites with skeletons reported
with blunt force trauma are at Kodjadermen, Salma-
novo-Denev and Kubrat (Bobov 2003; Georgieva,
Russeva 2016).
Besides these ritual assemblages, most of the disco-
veries during this time are nondescript primary bu-
rials or secondary depositions spread throughout
the settlements. But there are also a number of cases
of skulls/long bones which display trauma marks,
and perimortem processing. In some cases, these
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365
were interpreted as cannibalism – a number of fe-
murs from Căscioarele-Ostrovel (Lazăr, Soficaru
2005), and others from Kodjadermen. In other cases,
researchers found bones turned into artefacts: a hu-
merus and a femur turned into chisels at Pietrele-
Gorgana (Wahl 2007; 2008) and skull roundels (in-
terpreted as amulets) and a skull turned into a bowl
at Kozareva Mogila (Georgieva, Russeva 2016).
These situations remind us of the Grota Scalloria
case: on the one hand, we witness a stripping away
of individuality until an individual becomes a body-
artefact. On the other hand, after it is processed as
such, the bone seems to become potent – either it
now represents ‘the ancestor’, a fact which confers
the roundels with some magical qualities, or the
bone substance can be used to achieve protection/
another desired outcome.
Death, liminality and collective identities in the
Balkan (E)Neolithic
Based on the evidence presented in this text, my
claim is that we should go beyond seeing the hu-
man remains discovered in settlements as unusu-
al/atypical/non-funerary discoveries. Instead, they
can be read as traces of complex multi-stage funer-
ary practices, which contributed to the creation and
manipulation of collective identities. When it comes
to the interpretation of the findings there is always
a challenge. What is clear is that for this time inter-
val most of the dead remain hidden from our view.
But if we were to follow the argument that their low
number and presence in settlements places them
outside the normal funerary customs it would be a
mistake. If we enter an Orthodox church, most of
the representations we see would be of angels and
saints – and yet they are not the most important
ones. Similarly, most of our material possession, ‘the
stuff’ that surrounds us, gets thrown away, discard-
ed. However, the few treasured heirlooms that we
have from our ancestors usually escape the passage
of time, and are kept and passed on.
For several reasons, some of the dead were selected,
curated, and then kept around. In some cases, we can
document the care given to their internment, with
the addition of grave offerings or grouping of indivi-
duals. In other cases, we might imagine that what we
find are outcasts, interred in the boundary of the set-
tlements as a social act of exclusion, or victims of
violent acts who are left abandoned in the houses.
During the Early Neolithic we see examples where
multiple individuals come together in death, maybe
in a form of collective tombs of community/kin
which mark their presence in the landscape, but de-
void of the elaborate architectural expressions as
we see for Western Europe. Between 5800–4700 cal
BC we see several depositions of bodies in settle-
ments’ ditches, playing with the duality of exclusion-
inclusion. Some of these ditches probably became
communal monuments, while others were places for
the symbolic banishment of individuals. Lastly, for
the Eneolithic period, the dead seem to be integrat-
ed in mixed and potent assemblages which com-
prised architecture, figurines, and animal bones, in
a cycle of life, destruction, and renewal.
Even so, throughout the millennia we find both
adults and children, young and old individuals, non-
descript primary burials or secondary and tertiary
discoveries. Some sites have a few human remains,
while others have dozens of individuals. Some types
of discoveries occur throughout the focal time peri-
od, while others are only present at some sites.
Upon reviewing the hundreds of entries in the data-
base it has been a challenge to sort through them
in order to find a connecting thread. This was partly
due to the wealth of contextual data available, and
also due to the lack of vital information pertaining
to most of these discoveries – anthropological and
taphonomic analyses, absolute dating or anthropo-
logie de terrain observations. In their absence it is
difficult to draw a finer grained picture. Therefore,
with this text I aimed to bring into view the available
data, alongside methodological and theoretical con-
siderations. This might help us better navigate future
research projects, and open us towards more refined
and wider questions regarding the remains found in-
side settlements.
The Neolithic and Eneolithic periods were times of
mobility of plants and people, of local and long-dis-
tance networks to supply the raw materials needed,
to obtain marriage partners and to sustain transhu-
mance. It was also a period in which the relation-
ships between individuals and communities took
specific forms, in a continuous negotiation. It would
be interesting to explore in the future how (and if)
we can adapt anthropological terminology to a more
refined interpretation of the past: Who was kin?
Who was local/foreigner? If we look at the materi-
al culture, the design of pots and figurines changes
throughout the period, from “an ontological princi-
ple of generic identity” in the Early Neolithic (Na-
noglou 2008b.1) to individualized figurines; the re-
mains of the feasts at Makryalos suggest the expres-
sion of individual voices in the collectivity, as do the
Alexandra Ion
366
graves from the Varna cemetery. Thus, what is the
role of the dead in these tensions among individu-
als, groups and communities? This is an issue to be
further explored.
Even so, and as a preliminary conclusion, from the
earliest Neolithic contexts to the advent of new tra-
ditions starting with the early centuries of the 4th
millennium BC, the presence of the dead within the
living spaces of communities seems to remain con-
stant. Moreover, these dead had dynamic afterlives
in which their bodies underwent transformations
and moved through space. As Fredrik Fahlander
writes:
“The decaying body is in a constant state of change,
from corpse to bones to ultimately disappearance
of any visual traces. [..] Is there a boundary when
a corpse no longer represents the buried person?
[..] is there a stage when a grave is no longer seen
as a proper human burial (Kümmel 2005)?” (Fah-
lander 2018.59)
It is thus important to move beyond simply labelling
the remains inside settlements as non-funerary or
deviant discoveries, and to attempt to interpret
them in the context of the wider social practices
which contributed to the creation and maintenance
of identities. The manipulation of the dead cannot
be fully understood without linking them to prac-
tices of material culture depositions, and the imag-
ining of place, while the concept of settlements can-
not be understood without including the presence
of the dead. Dwellings and settlements had dynamic
biographies, and so did the bodies and body parts
which circulated, were deposited or curated, even
discarded, and in the process, they linked genera-
tions and places, in a cycle of birth-death-renewal.
Throughout the Neolithic and Eneolithic we witness
a fluidity between categories that is also expressed
through material culture: miniature clay objects could
represent altars-ovens-female bodies (see Naumov
2010), an ambiguity between animal and human
forms – e.g., the case of ‘frog’ figurines which could
also represent women giving birth in other contexts
(Perles 2001.267) or mixed animal/human figurines
and pots. In this universe, the boundary between
life and death was also a fluid one, and some of the
dead made it manifest in the space of the settle-
ments.
In essence, based on a general review of the evi-
dence, one could say that what happened with these
dead individuals fulfilled a number of roles in the
continued life of the communities and groups – it
was necessary to keep some of the dead around.
Central to these beliefs was probably the manipu-
lation and memorialization of powerful ancestors in
the space of the living. While it is difficult to escape
modern ways of thinking when writing about these
remains, we should try and escape the need for
clear cut definitions, as it is possible that we deal
with opposing motivations: it is quite possible that
while some of the individuals were selected and re-
tained inside settlements as a sign of appreciation,
others were discarded and denied proper burial (see
the discussion on some of the bodies found in di-
tches, some of the examples of remains in ‘rubbish
areas’, or bodies-artefacts). Of course, it is also pos-
sible that some individuals/remains were useful for
some time, after which they were ‘discarded’/depo-
sited in waste areas, ditches, etc. On a case by case
basis we can try and narrow our interpretation. Even
so, I think we should be open to speculation and to
proposing alternative scenarios – a way in which we
can take the study of these remains further.
Regardless of the reasons for keeping the dead close,
each time the living passed by them they might have
thought of the words of Mary Elizabeth Frye: “Do
not stand at my grave and cry; I am not there. I
did not die.”
I am grateful to Laerke Recht, Iulia Nitescu, Marian
Coman, Ionut Epurescu-Pascovici, Radu Dipratu and
Ioanna Moutafi for their comments on previous
drafts of this text. I also thank Liv Nilsson Stutz and
Goce Naumov for their valuable suggestions and cor-
rections. All of these have made this a much better
text. I am grateful to John Robb for agreeing to su-
pervise me during my Marie Sklodowska-Curie fellow-
ship, and to Krum Bă≠varov for helping me in a mo-
ment of need. The research for this article took place
during a project which has received funding from the
European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and inno-
vation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Cu-
rie grant agreement No. 701230.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
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