Facilitating Transitions: Postmortem Processing of the Dead at the Carrowkeel Passage Tomb Complex, Ireland (3500–3000 cal. B.C.)

Abstract

This study explores the burial practices and secondary funerary rites at the Carrowkeel Neolithic passage tomb complex, located in County Sligo in the northwest of Ireland. An

Between foraging and farming: strategic responses to the Holocene Thermal Maximum in Southeast Asia

“…This is an intriguing idea so far only proposed for other regions of the world, such as Neolithic Orkney in Scotland and Neolithic Ireland (Crozier 2012; Geber et al . 2017). A lack of grave goods is characteristic of most pre-Neolithic cemeteries in Southeast Asia (Oxenham et al .…”

Rites of Passage: Mortuary Practice, Population Dynamics, and Chronology at the Carrowkeel Passage Tomb Complex, Co. Sligo, Ireland

“…At Carrowkeel, however, the dismemberment of unburnt bodies was contemporaneous with the use of cremation. This combination of practices may have represented rites of passage to ‘aid the deceased … in the transition to a state of post-mortem existence’ (Geber et al 2017, 44). Cooney advocates that in an Irish passage tomb context cremation and unburnt burial ‘should not be seen as opposed rites’ (2017, 294).…”

“…The joints affected were the shoulder, elbow, hip, knee, and ankle/foot, and the precision and consistency of the cuts indicate that they were undertaken with particular anatomical knowledge and skill that targeted specific tendons and ligaments (Fig. 5; Geber et al 2017).

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Neolithic Engagements With the Dead: Mortuary Processing on Bengorm Mountain in the North‐west of Ireland

“…This is partly because many core sites were excavated when such techniques were not available. For instance, several reanalyses of bone assemblages recovered from 'old' excavations of passage tombs such as the Mound of the Hostages at Tara, Co. Meath (O'Sullivan 2005), Knowth, Co. Meath (Eogan and Cleary 2017) and Carrowkeel, Co. Sligo (Geber et al 2017) have produced a wealth of new data, but because they had long been removed from their original megalithic contexts, certain techniques such as soil micromorphology simply could not be utilized.…”

“…The evidence from the boulder chamber on Bengorm Mountain is consistent with the general consensus amongst archaeologists that a wide variety of mortuary practices co‐existed in Neolithic Ireland (Cooney 2000; 2017; Dowd 2008; 2015; Beckett 2011; 2014; Geber et al . 2017). We can say with confidence that the dead often underwent a series of complex rituals that took place at different times and places; that multiple practices took place at the same site, sometimes at the same time but also over extended periods; that the same corpse could be subject to multiple different practices; that post‐mortem processing and fragmentation of the physical remains (through natural or artificial means) was a core Neolithic concern; that there was no one regional or chronological ‘norm’ in how the dead were processed; that we still do not fully understand the relationship between cremated and unburnt bone at Neolithic sites and the choices they reflect; that there were on‐going relationships between the living and the remains of the deceased long after death; that natural places in the landscape played an equally important (albeit often distinct) role to monuments and megalithic tombs; and that a battery of scientific analyses is the most reliable manner in which to extract the maximum information from prehistoric funerary sites.…”