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Germania : Anzeiger der Römisch-Germanischen Kommission des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Bd. 92 2014(2015)

Germania : Anzeiger der Römisch-Germanischen Kommission des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Bd. 86 Nr. 1 2008(2009)

Nous proposons ici un modèle polythétique basé sur les mondes sociaux de Strauss et les communautés de pratique de Wenger en tant qu’alternative à la pratique traditionnelle de l’histoire culturelle qui met en œuvre une classification monothétique des vestiges matériels en créant des « cultures archéologiques ». Celui-ci permet de mieux représenter les données archéologiques du IIIe millénaire en Europe centrale. Les modèles de migration actuels élaborés pour le IIIe millénaire en relation avec des données aDNA sont réévalués sur la base de cette approche. Nous soutenons que l’emploi de « cultures archéologiques » en tant que modèle explicatif induit en erreur notre compréhension des mouvements de population. L’ascendance steppique, représentée par des migrants ou leurs descendants, n’est pas essentiellement connectée à des « cultures » spécifiques comme le Cordé ou le Campaniforme mais plutôt à un monde social spécifique, un nouvel ensemble de pratiques funéraires qui correspond au complexe des sépultures individuelles à différenciation sexuelle du Néolithique final avec des règles d’orientation strictes. Le processus de migration correspond précisément à cette forte expression d’une vision cosmologique nouvelle, d’un nouvel ensemble spécifique de pratiques funéraires, plutôt que la diffusion de styles céramiques particuliers, d’armes ou de types d’outils spécifiques. En incluant différents modèles de culture matérielle aux interprétations archéologiques, divers scénarios de mélanges de populations et de changements sociaux sont proposés. As an alternative to the traditional practice of cultural history using a monothetic classification of material, creating ‘archaeological cultures’, a polythetic culture model based on Strauss´s social worlds and Wenger´s communities of practice is proposed, which better represents the archaeological record dated to the 3rd millennium BC in Central Europe. Based on this approach current migration models elaborated for the 3rd millennium in connection with aDNA evidence are re-evaluated. It is argued that the use of “archaeological cultures” misleads our understanding of population movements. Steppe ancestry, as representing migrants or their descendants, is not primarily connected to specific ‘cultures’ such as the Corded Ware or the Bell Beaker, but rather to a specific social world, a new set of burial practices, i.e. the Late Neolithic complex of individual, gender-specific burials with strict rules of orientation. A strong expression of a new cosmological understanding, a specific set of values is the migration process, rather than specific pottery styles, specific weapons or specific tool types. Including the differential patterns of material culture in the archaeological record results in suggestions of different scenarios of population mixing and social change.

Der vorliegende Aufsatz präsentiert selektive Ergebnisse der Grabungskampagne 2016 in der südöstlichen der drei bandkeramischen Siedlungen von Vráble/Südwestslowakei . Auf einer Fläche von insgesamt 2283 m² wurden fünf band- keramische Langhäuser mit ihren charakteristischen Pfostenreihen und hausbegleitenden Längsgruben ganz oder teilweise aufgedeckt, dazu vier Vorratsgruben und ein mögliches Grubenhaus . Zahlreiche 14C-Daten sowie stratigraphische Überlagerungen zeigen, dass die ausgegrabenen Häuser nicht, wie ursprünglich vermutet, zeitgleich in Benutzung waren, sondern eine Zeittiefe von bis zu 200 Jahren repräsentieren . Das Fundspektrum umfasst typische Artefakte der Linearbandkeramik wie Keramik, geschlagene Steingeräte, Felsgesteingeräte und Knochengeräte, wobei zwischen den Häusern durchaus Unterschiede in der Fundzusammensetzung bestehen . Artefakte aus Obsidian sowie einige Scherben der sogenannten „Bükker Keramik“ verweisen auf Fernkontakte in die Ostslowakei . Als herausragender Fund wurde aus einem der Pfostenlöcher ein Kern aus Obsidian gebor- gen, der dort bei Anlage oder Abbruch des Hauses deponiert worden sein muss . In einer Längsgrube fand sich ein weitgehend vollständiges menschliches Skelett . Das männli- che, 20–35jährige Individuum lag offensichtlich längere Zeit offen, wie Dislokationen der Knochen zeigen . Die insgesamt schlecht erhaltenen archäobotanischen Überreste sind dominiert von Einkorn, Emmer kommt wesentlich seltener vor . Der Aufsatz schließt mit Überlegungen zu den sozialen Beziehungen zwischen den drei weitgehend gleichzeitigen Siedlungen von Vráble, die sich bei allen Ähnlichkeiten offenbar auch bewusst gegenein- ander abgrenzten . Besonders deutlich wird dies am Grabenwerk um die südwestliche Sied- lung, das zu den beiden anderen Siedlungen keine Eingänge aufweist . Dies könnte die Reaktion auf „fission-and-fusion“-Prozesse sein, bei denen soziale Spannungen durch die konstante Neuarrangierung der sozialen Beziehungen aufgelöst oder abgemildert werden . Zugehörige Forschungsdaten finden Sie hier., Bericht der Römisch-Germanischen Kommission, Bd. 97 2016(2020): Bericht der Römisch-Germanischen Kommission

As an alternative to the traditional practice of cultural history using a monothetic classification of material, creating “archaeological cultures”, a polythetic culture model based on Strauss´s social worlds and Wenger´s communities of practice is proposed, which better represents the archaeological record dated to the 3rd millennium BC in Central Europe. Based on this approach current migration models elaborated for the 3rd millennium in connection with aDNA evidence are re-evaluated. It is argued that the use of “archaeological cultures” misleads our understanding of population movements. Steppe ancestry, as representing migrants or their descendants, is not primarily connected to specific “cultures” such as the Corded Ware or the Bell Beaker, but rather to a specific social world, a new set of burial practices, i.e. the Late Neolithic complex of individual, gender-specific burials with strict rules of orientation. A strong expression of a new cosmological understanding, a specific set of values is the migration process, rather than specific pottery styles, specific weapons or specific tool types. Including the differential patterns of material culture in the archaeological record results in suggestions of different scenarios of population mixing and social change. Nous proposons ici un modèle polythétique basé sur les mondes sociaux de Strauss et les communautés de pratique de Wenger en tant qu’alternative à la pratique traditionnelle de l’histoire culturelle qui met en œuvre une classification monothétique des vestiges matériels en créant des « cultures archéologiques ». Celui-ci permet de mieux représenter les données archéologiques du IIIe millénaire en Europe centrale. Les modèles de migration actuels élaborés pour le IIIe millénaire en relation avec des données aDNA sont réévalués sur la base de cette approche. Nous soutenons que l’emploi de « cultures archéologiques » en tant que modèle explicatif induit en erreur notre compréhension des mouvements de population. L’ascendance steppique, représentée par des migrants ou leurs descendants, n’est pas essentiellement connectée à des « cultures » spécifiques comme le Cordé ou le Campaniforme mais plutôt à un monde social spécifique, un nouvel ensemble de pratiques funéraires qui correspond au complexe des sépultures individuelles à différenciation sexuelle du Néolithique final avec des règles d’orientation strictes. Le processus de migration correspond précisément à cette forte expression d’une vision cosmologique nouvelle, d’un nouvel ensemble spécifique de pratiques funéraires, plutôt que la diffusion de styles céramiques particuliers, d’armes ou de types d’outils spécifiques. En incluant différents modèles de culture matérielle aux interprétations archéologiques, divers scénarios de mélanges de populations et de changements sociaux sont proposés.

Rezension zu: Rune Iversen, The Transformation of Neolithic Societies. An Eastern Danish Perspective on the 3rd Millennium BC. Jutland Archaeological Society Publications Band 88. Jutland Archaeological Society, Højbjerg 2015. ISBN 978-87-88415-99-5. 228 Seiten mit 93 Abbildungen und 1 Tabelle, Germania : Anzeiger der Römisch-Germanischen Kommission des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Bd. 96 2018(2019)

Supplemental material, supplementary_information for Temporal dynamics of Linearbandkeramik houses and settlements, and their implications for detecting the environmental impact of early farming by John Meadows, Nils Müller-Scheeßel, Ivan Cheben, Helene Agerskov Rose and Martin Furholt in The Holocene

Supplemental material, Supplemental_material_B for Monuments and economies: What drove their variability in the middle-Holocene Neolithic? by Jan Piet Brozio, Johannes Müller, Martin Furholt, Wiebke Kirleis, Stefan Dreibrodt, Ingo Feeser, Walter Dörfler, Mara Weinelt, Hendrik Raese and Annalena Bock in The Holocene

This volume presents a selection of papers delivered at the Archéologie et Gobelets Bell Beaker workshop “Tink global, act local”, held between the 17th and the 21st of May 2017 at Kiel University, Germany. The Archeologie et Gobelets is a research community and network of archaeological specialists from all across Europe who meet every few years, discussing new findings and research concerning the Bell Beaker phenomenon and the wider 3rd millennium BC in Europe. On the conference itself, ca. 70 people attended and 27 papers were presented. Out of these, 9 papers made it to this volume. The papers range spatially from Portugal to Denmark, assessing both funerary and settlement archaeology. They reflect the many different approaches and many fruitful discussions such an environment brings., Journal of Neolithic Archaeology, 2018 (Special Issue 4): Think global, act local! Bell Beakers in Europe

Rezension zu: Sandra M. Beckerman, Corded Ware in Coastal Communities. Using Ceramic Analysis to Reconstruct Third Millennium BC Societies in the Netherlands. Sidestone Press, Leiden 2015. ISBN 978-90-8890-318-2. 311 Seiten mit 38 Abbildungen, 30 Tabellen und 2 Appendizes, Germania : Anzeiger der Römisch-Germanischen Kommission des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Bd. 95 (2017)

Since 2009, a Priority Program of the German Research Foundation (DFG) deals with the Funnel Beaker Period in Northern Germany, focussing, in a holistic approach, on the conjunction of social structures and the erection of monuments. To this end, evidence for subsistence patterns, social organisation, communication and networks are considered in a diachronic perspective. Spatial structures and chronologies are re-evaluated and adjusted in the light of new excavation results, scientific data and statistical analysis, environmental and economic data are presented and discussed. Several new fieldwork projects are introduced, and their results are combined into the frame of an overall picture of Funnel Beaker societies which are to be described as a complex mosaic of regionally diverse patterns, different sequences of temporal change and distinct spheres of social interaction. Finally, a discussion of the role of monuments in social reproduction together with considerations towards demographic trends leads to a model of social change reaching from cooperative actions to collective dictions of individual social roles and a rise of social inequalities.

The Neolithic and Bronze Age burial ground of Flintbek provides a well-documented case study of a monumental landscape, whose shaping and development through ritual practices of monument building can be studied over the course of centuries. The minute excavation and data analyses (Mischka 2011a) enable a discussion of the interrelations between collective social practices of monument building and modification as well as the practical effects those individual monumental features – and the monumental landscapes as a whole – would have had on those social collectives. We want to explore pragmatic theory as a tool to better understand the dialectic between the creation and recreation of landscapes and the reproduction of social organization in the course of social practices. This paper aims to highlight how an inquiry into prehistoric social practices based on semiotic pragmatism, as was formulated by Charles Sanders Peirce, provides a theory on how meanings and social relations are created and recreated in the course of social practices, a model explaining how these practices as material and spatially situated phenomena can be used to explore the interrelation of social practices and their material outcomes, which have practical consequences for subsequent practices and social relations. We exemplify this by the reconstruction of building activities on the megalithic long barrow Flintbek LA3, Northern Germany, 3500‐3400 BCE. Here, it can be demonstrated how construction activities over the course of a century are both shaped by and actively shape social relations. New developments can be explained by a creative recombination of already existing singular components. A process of complexification and enlargement of building activities is set into motion, including inter-group competition. This development is terminated around 3400 BCE, whereafter grave construction activities are re-directed towards a smaller number of collectively used passage graves, which further enhance the level of complexity of design, but dispense with the unequal, competitive component. This represents a process of social collectivisation paralleled with the establishment of first larger villages in the region.

The Neolithic and Bronze Age burial ground of Flintbek provides a well-documented case study of a monumental landscape, whose shaping and development through ritual practices of monument building can be studied over the course of centuries. The minute excavation and data analyses (Mischka 2011a) enable a discussion of the interrelations between collective social practices of monument building and modification as well as the practical effects those individual monumental features – and the monumental landscapes as a whole – would have had on those social collectives. We want to explore pragmatic theory as a tool to better understand the dialectic between the creation and recreation of landscapes and the reproduction of social organization in the course of social practices. This paper aims to highlight how an inquiry into prehistoric social practices based on semiotic pragmatism, as was formulated by Charles Sanders Peirce, provides a theory on how meanings and social relations are created and recreated in the course of social practices, a model explaining how these practices as material and spatially situated phenomena can be used to explore the interrelation of social practices and their material outcomes, which have practical consequences for subsequent practices and social relations. We exemplify this by the reconstruction of building activities on the megalithic long barrow Flintbek LA3, Northern Germany, 3500‐3400 BCE. Here, it can be demonstrated how construction activities over the course of a century are both shaped by and actively shape social relations. New developments can be explained by a creative recombination of already existing singular components. A process of complexification and enlargement of building activities is set into motion, including inter-group competition. This development is terminated around 3400 BCE, whereafter grave construction activities are re-directed towards a smaller number of collectively used passage graves, which further ...

Between 2009 and 2014, a research project was carried out by several research institutes and commercial companies in order to study and publish three settlement sites of the Single Grave Culture located in the Western Netherlands. These sites were excavated more than twenty years ago, but unfortunately the results were only scarcely published, and mostly in Dutch. This research project provided an excellent opportunity to unlock the high quality archaeological information. The presence of organic remains and numerous artefacts in cultural layers and the thorough excavation of these layers have produced a wealth of data regarding Late Neolithic behavioural variability in a dynamic wetland landscape. In this article, a summary of the results of this project will be presented.

"Landscape, Histories and Societies in the Northern European Neolithic" presents papers from two sessions of the conference of the European Association of Archaeologists held in 2011 in Olso. The papers of this volume describe new research on the relationships between landscape, history and society in the northern European Neolithic. They focus on the Funnel Beaker complex and related Neolithic contexts, with case studies extending from Poland and the Czech Republic to Norway and Scotland. Several case studies examine the significance of enclosures – from early causewayed enclosures in the north associated with the very beginnings of the Neolithic to the significance of palisade enclosures constructed towards the end of the Neolithic in Scotland and Sweden. The volume also includes new studies on the origin, significance and interpretation of Neolithic burial and megalithic architecture found in a range of landscapes across northern Europe. Importantly, the volume also outlines the significance of other kinds of places that were not monumentalised in the same way, such as fens, the seashore and the wider environment, in the construction of Neolithic worldview. Finally, it concludes with a series of articles that consider the significance of particular forms of material culture – axes, grinding stones, pottery and food – in social reproduction in the Neolithic of northern Europe. Overall, the volume presents an important body of new data and international perspectives concerning Neolithic societies, histories and landscapes in northern Europe.

In order to understand the dynamics of cultural phenomena, scientific dating in archaeology is an increasingly indispensable tool. Only by dating independently of typology is it possible to understand typological development itself (Müller 2004). Here radiometric dating methods, especially those based on carbon isotopy, still play the most important role. For evaluations exceeding the intra-site level, it is particularly important that such data is collected in large numbers and that the dates are easily accessible. Also, new statistical analyses, such as sequential calibration based on Bayesian methods, do not require single dates, but rather demand a greater number. By their combination significantly more elaborate results can be achieved compared to the results from conventional evaluation (e. g. Whittle et al. 2011). A second premise of RADON is that of „Open Access“. This approach continues to be applied in the international research community, which we welcome as a highly positive development. The radiocarbon database RADON has been committed to this principle for more than 12 years. In this database 14C data – primarily of the Neolithic of Central Europe and Southern Scandinavia – is collected and successively augmented.

In March 2011 the Graduate School “Human Development in Landscapes” of the Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel held their second open workshop, “Socio-environmental Dynamics Over the Last 12,000 Years: The Creation of Landscapes II”. This internationally acknowledged event with participants from 22 countries gathered expertise in Kiel by offering a forum through which to advance research on landscape archaeology and social space. This volume is concerned with one session of the workshop. The session title “As time goes by” refers to the temporal perspective of monuments. The main idea was to change focus from the notion of durability that is commonly emphasised when discussing monuments in the historical and archaeological disciplines towards a perspective highlighting biographies and histories of monuments, their changing shapes, associations and forms of uses within the dynamic social landscapes they are part of.

In March 2011 the Graduate School “Human Development in Landscapes” of the Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel held their second open workshop, “Socio-environmental Dynamics Over the Last 12,000 Years: The Creation of Landscapes II”. This internationally acknowledged event with participants from 22 countries gathered expertise in Kiel by offering a forum through which to advance research on landscape archaeology and social space. This volume is concerned with one session of the workshop. The session title “As time goes by” refers to the temporal perspective of monuments. The main idea was to change focus from the notion of durability that is commonly emphasised when discussing monuments in the historical and archaeological disciplines towards a perspective highlighting biographies and histories of monuments, their changing shapes, associations and forms of uses within the dynamic social landscapes they are part of.

In March 2011 the Graduate School “Human Development in Landscapes” of the Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel held their second open workshop, “Socio-environmental Dynamics Over the Last 12,000 Years: The Creation of Landscapes II”. This internationally acknowledged event with participants from 22 countries gathered expertise in Kiel by offering a forum through which to advance research on landscape archaeology and social space. This volume is concerned with one session of the workshop. The session title “As time goes by” refers to the temporal perspective of monuments. The main idea was to change focus from the notion of durability that is commonly emphasised when discussing monuments in the historical and archaeological disciplines towards a perspective highlighting biographies and histories of monuments, their changing shapes, associations and forms of uses within the dynamic social landscapes they are part of. This is the introductory chapter to that volume.

Besides the economic, technical and social innovations most Neolithic societies of the old world are separated from Pre-Neolithic societies by a new stage of the manipulation of material objects and structures as media of symbolic communication. Since the Neolithic, the proportion of intentional production and use of material symbols clearly rises compared to unintentional symbol production. Particularly the extensive symbolism on utilitarian, everyday artefacts like pottery is much more elaborated. Proceeding from these observations, the early Neolithic period in northern Central Europe / Southern Scandinavia, that is the time from 4100 to 3500 BC, is more or less a time of continuation of Pre-Neolithic behavioural patterns. At this time Neolithic innovations are known and implemented, but not yet in a quantity that would practically change cultural behaviour and thus identity towards what has been defined as Neolithic above. It is probably not earlier than 3500 BC that a real “Neolithic Package” consisting of large-scale monumental buildings storing cultural memories, an extensive and genuine variability in material culture symbolism, especially pottery and stone tool production, appear together with an increase of economic impact and supra-regional contacts. Thus it is possible to speak of a “Virtual Neolithic” preceding the “Realised Neolithic” since 3500 BC., Journal of Neolithic Archaeology, 2010: Megaliths and Identities

The earliest pottery of the Central Balkans (Starčevo culture), characterized by organic inclusions, round, spherical shapes, and oxidized firing conditions, usually lacking traces of use, is usually seen as pottery typical for partly mobile communities. On the other hand, late Neolithic (Vinča) pottery features (mineral inclusions, and reduced firing atmosphere, among others) indicate major changes in manufacturing sequence, conditioned by more elaborate technical knowledge, suggesting the different needs of the consumers, which also affected changes in pottery demand. In this paper, innovation in Neolithic pottery production is considered through several distinct aspects of technology: the standardisation analyses which may reveal social innovation (almost random in the early vs. partly specialized production in the late Neolithic), the shift from organic to mineral inclusions in ceramic paste, as a consequence of changed needs for particular performance of pottery, and the change in the chaîne opératoire in the manufacture of vessels with roughened surfaces, an innovation that led to the adoption of less time-consuming manufacturing procedure. The processes that led to transformation of pottery technology and craft organisation from the early to the late Neolithic are still unknown. They may be traced during the early to late Neolithic transitional period, and may be explained by contact between two different technological traditions, changes in knowledge transmission mechanisms, and lack of social pressure in the practicing of the craft, leading to the emergence of specialized artisans.

Dendrochronological studies demonstrate a highly dynamic settlement system in prehistoric wetland sites of the northern European forelands. In this work, an agent-based simulation model of the human-environment system is developed to better understand possible causes of these dynamics. Therefore, we formulate a generic quantitative model of land use and calorie supply in Neolithic wetland sites. Keywords Central Europe · Crop husbandry methods · Wetland archaeology · Pile dwellings · Agent-based Modelling

A long-term process of promoting individualisation, gender differentiation, warrior ideals and internationalisation unfolds from the mid-fourth and throughout the third millennium BC that changes for ever the social and economic foundations for the inhabitants on the European Continent. In the archaeological records we observe it first and foremost in the emergence of so-called cultural phenomena, hence super-regional and integrative, ideologically driven expansionist systems, that incorporate with huge distribution areas region after region of the Central and northern parts, and then the west and the edges of the European continent. Their representatives are peoples and populations forming and using the emblematic, widely unified pottery we call Globular Amphoras (north and northeast of the Carpathian bow and in Central Europe; c. 3300-2700 BC), Corded Wares (from the Volga to the Rhine river, from the Alps to Norway and Finland; from c. 2800 BC) and Bell Beakers (from Central-eastern Europe to Portugal, from Scotland to northern Africa; from c. 27/2600 BC). However already the precedent Cernavodă III-/Boleráz (c. 37/3600 to 3300 BC) and the Baden sequence (contemporary to Globular Amphoras; c. 3300-2700 BC) in southeast Europe and the Carpathian basin, with outliers in Central Europe, also need to be seen in the same context.We can only approach the reasons why prehistoric peoples and populations from regions across Europe, which were no more than marginally in touch before, join in for the same pottery, new drinking habits, similar burials customs, same ostentatious display of weapons and other paraphernalia, and thus common symbols and values. Certainly factors like mobility and migration; advanced social and economic strategies involving mobility, such as exogamy and transhumance; generally higher levels of communication; rising connectivity of existing networks; and enhanced exchange play a significant role in these unification processes. Here, I will particularly argue for the importance of the Pontic steppes and a 2000 Years lasting interaction between the regions north and west of it, and of infiltrating Suvorovo-Novodanilovka (mid-fifth to early fourth), Nizhnimikhailovka-Kvityana (2nd half of the fourth) and Yamnaya (1st half of third millennium BC) peoples and populations with their more sedentary contemporaries in southeast Europe, northeast of the Carpathian bow and in the Carpathian basin.A crucial part of this interaction – besides others, and likely in combination with adaptations to a changing climate and environment – is the forwarding of innovations in the sphere of economy and subsistence. We see this archaeologically in a further importance of animal husbandry, with much larger herds, specialised breeding and new forms of herding management in particular for cattle. This cattle-isation obviously sets in motion a substantial rise in general mobility patterns, connectivity and of communication networks. More than this; such a profoundly transformed human-animal relationship, beyond Andrew Sherratt’s ’Secondary Products Revolution’, must have had an impact on the whole settlement and social organisation, on what peoples predominantly eat, how they life, and how they look like. In consequence this is fundamentally affecting the basics of societies and must have thus challenged the whole system of ideas, imaginations, morale, symbols, terms and even language – a new world-view. In turn, it creates the wider framework for the emergence and expansion of the super-regional ideologies that puzzle us in the archaeological records since decades.

The 3rd millennium BC in South Scandinavia was characterised by a sizable cultural heterogeneity covering differences in the use of material culture, burial practices and subsistence economic strategies. In the first half of the 3rd millennium BC, four archaeologically-defined cultural groups coexisted for at least a couple of hundred years: the late Funnel Beaker culture (TRB), the forager-oriented Pitted Ware culture and the Single Grave and Battle Axe cultures, the last two belonging to the overall Corded Ware complex. As the Funnel Beaker culture ceased, East Denmark entered an insignificant and culturally blurred period usually ascribed to the so-called ‘East Danish Single Grave culture’. However, this paper argues for a renewed and balanced understanding of the cultural conditions in East Denmark and questions the presence of the Single Grave culture in the area. Instead, it is argued that new material elements were obtained and fitted into existing Funnel Beakertraditions forming a heterogeneous cultural expression.

The burial and gathering site Almhov was discovered as a result of large-scale archaeological excavations in southern Sweden revealing the remains of five long barrows, two dolmens and a large number of pits, rich in finds. Given the multitude of activities performed at the site including, for example, monument-building, pit-digging, burying, feasting and axe-manufacturing, the site can serve as an example ofthe complexity of large Early Neolithic gathering places. The activities, as well as the physical monuments and pits, can be interpreted as an expression of how Early Neolithic man made sense of the changing world brought about by the Neolithization. Different perspectives as well as archaeological remains of various kinds offer different narratives of this on-going process. Artefacts interpreted as polishing and grinding stones were by far the most common type of ground stone artefacts found at Almhov, and the interesting contexts in which they were discovered,as well as their sheer number, poses a variety of questions about their presence at Almhov. How can we, for example, make these artefacts tell us something about the people in the area and the Neolithic way of life? This article focuses on the grinding and polishing stones found in two of the long barrows on Almhov, and uses them as the basis of a case study of how a biographical approach can be utilized as a method of categorizing and interpreting ground stone artefacts. Why, for example, were pieces of grinding stones placed in connection with the façade of one of the long barrows? Why were grinding stones, broken in half, put into graves? This paper suggests that the tools represented the novelty of making monuments and that putting them together with the dead could have been a way of mediating new practices with reference to the past.

What is the significance of a place at the seashore? What kind of a sense of place does a place by the seashore constitute in the absence of any kind of monumental structures? Today, it is obvious within the archaeological domain that archaeological material culture is not only functional, but also acts as a metaphor for people’s self-perception. In this article, my assumption is that the different archaeo- logical cultural groups in southern Sweden during the Neolithic represent different social identities and lifestyles. As a result of this, both rival and syncretic cultural encounters existed in the past. Different cultural identities are dependent on scale, very local or regional in Scandinavia, as in other parts of Europe. Undoubtedly, processes of creoli- zation occurred between groups of people and can perhaps be understood in terms of processes of domination and competition. The character of the archaeological material culture indicates a highly power-structured mentality in the Neolithic. In the case study outlined here, the location of the Pitted Ware sites at Jonstorp in the north-western part of Scania in southern Sweden far away from the monumental landscape further south in Scania is the starting point for a discussion of Neolithic coastal sites and seashores.

It is reasonable to consider that those who arranged the material accoutrements of mortuary practices, i.e. the burial, were making a more or less conscious statement about cultural identity. At least we archaeologists usually assume this to be so. An interesting case can be found in the mortuary practices ascribed to the Battle Axe culture from the later Middle Neolithic1 (2800–2350 cal BC) in southern Scandinavia. When we look at burials which we archaeologists ascribe to the Battle Axe culture we can identify several variations: flexed inhumation of a single individual in a stone-lined pit (referred to as flat-earth burial), flexed inhuma- tion of multiple individuals in a stone-lined pit, and cremation burial. Additionally, we often interpret the presence of Battle Axe artefacts and/or radi- ocarbon dates falling within this period in mega- lithic tombs as evidence that burial in such tombs was also part of the Battle Axe mortuary repertoire.