Graves

The depositing of the dead in graves is only known from Homo sapiens and Homo Neandertalensis.Graves belong to the earliest and most important testimonies of human culture. But in many recent cultures, burials do not imply as a necessary accompaniment any kind [Page 1109]of grave. The act of burying associated with ritual practices is a universal element of human culture and documents a dimension of human thinking beyond their individual lifespan, an awareness of the afterlife and of the highest social behavior. It manifests the emotional attachment between the living and the dead. Its universality is a strong argument for existing burials in the last common ancestor of all recent human populations. As the dispersal of humans started from the Middle East about 70,000 years ago, it seems plausible that burial practices evolved before that event. This corresponds with the early graves in famous Qafzeh (today's Israel).

Source: Photograph by Pamela Rae Huteson.

Several criteria must be fulfilled to accept a site as a grave. Graves are defined as the deposition of remains of one or several dead clearly indicating an intentional act independent of specific locations. Graves can be situated close to settlements in caves or abri or far from them in the open field. It should always be possible to assign the cranial and postcranial skeletal remains individually. The mortuary practice is identified by the posture of the corpse, its orientation, any kind of decoration (for example, ocher), or burial objects. Stones or flagstones protect the dead against scavengers but also “prevent” them from returning to the living. Unfortunately, former excavations have very often not reported many of these criteria.

Body position is a significant part of the mortuary program in many recent cultures. Corpses are laid down in mainly two types of posture, stretched out mostly in supine position or in crouch, where the degree of flexion may be different. Various interpretations of the crouch exist: It may adopt a posture close to the natural one during sleep, it may be imposed by the surrounding conditions, or it may prevent the dead from returning. The latter assumption is partly based on corpses found in bonds.

The orientation of the body can follow pragmatic reasons such as the topography of the terrain. Although data on grave orientation are scarce, an east-west orientation is often found already in early burials (Qafzeh, La Ferrassie) following the course of the sun. But other sites containing most burials (Skhul, Shanidar) show no grave orientation.

Burial objects comprise adornment, for example, pierced animals' teeth or snail shells, and are supposed [Page 1110]to indicate a group membership and/or a hierarchical position. Other objects are animals' remains, for example, bone or antler tools, or stone tools. Burial objects serve as support or nourishment of the dead in the other world, have magical purposes, or are oblations for the powers that be. Whenever the graves are excavated close to previous settlements, burial objects may also be just simple leftovers. Half of the burials of the Middle Paleolithic contained grave goods, while the vast majority of the Early Upper Paleolithic seems to have already contained such goods.

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