Unusual Corded Ware Culture burial discovered in Germany.

Archaeologists from the State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology in Saxony-Anhalt, working on sites ahead of the planned construction of a power line project, have uncovered a burial associated with the Chalcolithic (Copper Age) Corded Ware Culture near Gerstewitz in Burgenland district, according to a press release issued on 15 June 2026.

The burial, that of a man of about 25, was typical of the Corded Ware Culture in that he was placed in a crouched position lying on his left hand side and facing to the south (everyone was buried in this position and facing the same way, although women were always placed on their right sides while men were always placed on their left). 

The remains of a male individual excavated from a Chacolithic Corded Ware Culture burial near Gerstewitz in Saxony-Anhalt State, Germany. Christian Pabst/State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology.

However, unlike other burials from the period, he was buried within a former kiln-pit, rather than beaneath a burial mound, as was typical of the Corded Ware Culture. Furthermore, his body seems to have slipped slightly from the original position in which he was placed, possibly due to his being placed on a layer of organic material which has since decayed.

This has led to suspicions that there may have been something irregular about the burial. The man appeared to have died as a result of damage to his skull, something which could indicate that he was a murder victim, or had been killed in battle (a group of chalcolithic tribesmen, having lost a battle, might conceivably feel the need to leave the area, leading to a burial being carried out in a hurry). 

There is also another possibility. While Human remains have never been found associated with a Corded Ware Culture kiln pit in the past, the remains of Horses and Dogs have been found in these settings. The assumption in those cases was that the Animals had been ritually sacrificed before being buried, raising the question as to whether the man buried in the Gerstewitz kiln pit had met the same fate.

An archaeologist examines the Gerstewitz kiln pit burial. Deutsche Presse-Agentur.

The Corded Ware Culture gains its name from the distinctive pottery which it produced, in which rope cords were used to mark the surface of pots. The Culture first appeared in Eastern Europe around 3000 BC, and may have migrated there from the Eurasian Steppes. Genetic studies of Corded Ware individuals have concluded that they were closely related to, if not directly descended from the Yamnaya people of that area. The Corded Ware people are thought to have been one of the first Indo-European groups to move into Europe, and at there peak they occupied much of north, central, and eastern Europe, as well as parts of Scandinavia and northern Italy, as well as parts of the Caucasus and Iran. 

Corded Ware pottery in the collection of the Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte in Berlin. Einsamer Schütze/Wikimedia Commons.

Like the Yamnaya people, the Corded Ware people kept both horses and cattle, consumed dairy products, and used wheeled vehicles, the first people in Europe to have done so. However, they were in many was culturally contiguous with the peoples who had lived in the area before, suggesting that they spread by intermixing with the local population as they introduced new technologies, rather than by conquest and driving the former occupants off the land.  The Corded Ware people were never really a single culture, but a series of linked cultures spread across a wide area. Over time these linked cultures evolved in different directions, and by about 2300 BC, had become distinctive enough that they are no longer referred to as Corded Ware Culture by archaeologists. 

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Skeleton of Neolithic child uncovered in Tamil Nadu, India.

Archaeologists from the Department of Ancient History and Archaeology at the University of Madras, have uncovered the skeleton of a child thought to be 9-11 years old, based upon the presence of a deciduous first molar in the mandible, at a Neolithic site in the village of Chettimedu near Chengalpattu in Tamil Nadu. The body was orientated north-south with the head to the north, and facing to the west, a practice which began in the Neolithic and persisted into the Early Historic Period.  It is thought to date to between 3000 BC and 2500 BC and was buried alongside a broken pot in the Burnished Grey Ware style, which is typical of the Late Neolithic in southern India. 

The pot beside the skeleton is typical of neolithic period. Many shreds of burnished red ware and burnished grey ware belonging to the same period were also found at the burial site. New Indian Express.

While typical of the southern Indian Neolithic, Burnished Grey Ware is actually rare in Tamil Nadu State, having been found only at the Chettimedu site and at Valasai in Vellore District, 370 km to the southwest. As well as the Burnished Grey Ware, examples of Burnished Red Ware, Black and Red Ware, All-black Ware, Red Slipped Ware, Red Ware and Coarse Red Ware have been found in different layers at the site, with pottert from the uppermost layers having some writing upon it, implying a sequence of occupation lasting through the Neolithic and Iron Age into the Early Historic Period. Some bricks also thought to date to the early historic period were also found. 

The site at Chettimedu was first identified in 2019, by construction workers digging foundations for a new project. The initial material uncovered included incised potsherds, earrings made of baked clay, and iron arrowheads, associated with the Iron Age-to-Early Historic Period Sangam Culture, which lasted from about 600 BC to about 300 AD. Subsequent excavations have uncovered material from a succession of earlier periods, including some pottery which may be associated with the Chalcolithic Malwa Culture of central India.

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Understanding the relationship between adults and children in shared Bell Beaker Culture graves in England and Luxembourg.

In the modern world, the death of a child is considered a traumatic event, usually marked by a private family burial, and wider public engagement only in the case of particularly tragic circumstances. How prehistoric cultures, which are thought to have suffered much higher rates of infant mortality, viewed such matters is unclear, although funerary practices may shed some light upon this. One notable practice, which dates back to at least the Mesolithic, is the practice of burying children alongside adults, which may represent an emotional kinship, but also be a way of emphasising family relationships.

However, such burials also raise a number of questions. In cases where the bodies appear to have been buried together as intertwined, fully-fleshed bodies, then why the adult and child came to die at the same time, or nearly the same time requires an explanation. Victorian antiquarians in Britain tended to see such burials as evidence of Human sacrifice, while their contemporaries in Germany concluded that in societies where infants were unlikely to survive the death of their mothers, the two were buried together even if the infant was still alive. Today, such stories are seen as rather fanciful, but shared burials are often described by archaeologists as containing the victims of raids or epidemics, assumptions which have little more evidence to back them than those of their Victorian predecessors. 

In a paper published in the journal Scientific Reports on 31 October 2023, Nicoletta Zedda of the Palaeogenetics Group at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, and the Department of Environmental and Prevention Sciences at the University of Ferrara, Katie Meheux of the Institute of Archaeology Library at University College London, Jens Blöcher and Yoan Diekmann, also of the Palaeogenetics Group at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Alexander Gorelik, Martin Kalle, and Kevin Klein of Arbeitsbereich Vor- und Frühgeschichtliche Archäologie at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Anna‑Lena Titze and Laura Winkelbach, again of the Palaeogenetics Group at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz,  Elise Naish of the Luton Culture Trust, Laurent Brou, François Valotteau, and Foni  Le Brun‑Ricalens of the Luxembourg Institut National de Recherches Archéologiques, and  Joachim Burger and Maxime Brami, once again of the Palaeogenetics Group at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, present the results of a study of two adult-and-child double burials from the Bell Beaker Culture of Western Europe (Latest Neolithic to Early Bronze Age), one from Altwies in Luxembourg, and the other from Dunstable Down in southern England.

Around the turn of the third millennium BC, many European societies switched from the communal burials which had predominated in the Neolithic to a system of individual graves which would predominate through the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age. In these societies combined burials, including those of children with adults, were an exception rather than a rule. Identification of such burials can be difficult, as remains can become combined when multiple burials occur at the same spot, or when multiple skeletons are cleared from a site and re-deposited for some reason.

The change from communal to individual burials has been linked to an influx of pastoralists from the Pontic-Caspian steppes, who moved westward through Europe, intermixing with local Neolithic populations, reaching Britain by around 2500 BC. These people, known as the Bell Beaker Culture, from the style of their ceramics, have widely been portrayed as violent and disruptive invaders, although it is unclear to what extent this is true. They were clearly capable of travelling long distances, as shown by examples such as the Amesbury Archer who was buried near Stonehenge in southwest England, but who has been shown to have originated from somewhere in the western Alps of continental Europe.

The Altwies and Dunstable Down graves were remarkably similar in their organisation, down to similar arrangements of stones around the bodies buried within them. This similarity implies a strong cultural link between the two sites, making a genetic study of the individuals involved an ideal way to assess the way in which the relationships between the individuals involved, and therefore how family relationships were perceived by the culture from which they came.

Adult–child graves sampled for this study, Bell Beaker period. (A) Altwies ‘Op dem Boesch’, Luxembourg; (B) Dunstable Downs, Southern Bedfordshire, United Kingdom.  Zedda et al. (2023).

The 'Op dem Boesch' burials at Altwies comprise two graves discovered during a highway construction project in 2000. The graves were located on the slope of a Jurassic plateau, giving a panoramic view over the Moselle Valley. This plateau is known to have been densely occupied during the Early Neolithic, but no other remains associated with the Bell Beaker Culture have been found nearby. The wider region between the Saar and the Moselle rivers has produced about 100 Bell Beaker Culture sites, the nearest of which are about 10 km from Altweis, at Sehndorf in Saarland, Germany, and Montenach in Moselle, France. A pair of otherwise isolated graves is not particularly unusual for the Bell Beaker Culture, where clusters of two-to-four burials being typical, and larger groupings much rarer.

Isotope dating of the Altweis graves has suggested that they originate from the second half of the third millennium BC. The first grave contained a single set of remains, thought to have been a young adult male, as well as retouched fake, the tip of a stone point and a fint strike-a-light. The state of the remains was poor, and an attempt to obtain DNA failed. The second grave was about 25 m upslope of the first, and comprised a oval pit in which a fire had been build prior to the burial, giving the interior a cracked reddish floor and burned walls, and contained two skeletons, surrounded by a ring of fossil shells, and accompanied by a largely complete maritime-style Beaker, none of which showed any sign of burning.

The skeletons are interpretted as a three-to-four-year-old child and a woman aged 25-35. The two skeletons were facing one-another, with the child's head lying on the woman's hand. The skeletons may have been disturbed after their burial, possibly implying that the grave was not infilled straight away, but left open, possibly covered by a rigid timber frame.

The burial on Dunstable Downs, known as the 'Echinoid burial', was excavated in 1887 during work to level a damaged barrow. After Human remains were discovered, local antiquary and naturalist Worthington George Smith investigated the site, reporting finding a crouched girl and child in a shallow grave beneath the eastern part of the barrow. 

The barrow was located on the summit of the Downs ('downs' is an English word for hill), a 244 m high plateau with a panoramic view over the Vale of Aylesbury, and close to the source of the River Ouzel. It is thought to have been linked to the cluster of seven barrows at Five Knolls, 400 m to the northwest. The original barrow was 3 m high and 14 m in diameter, and appears to have been used as multi-phase burial site. A large central grave had been robbed and emptied. This was surrounded by six or seven peripheral graves; the others being empty, contaning only very fragmentary remains, or in one case cremated remains in a funerary urn.

The grave contained a woman aged 18 to 25 years, lying on her left side facing to the north holding a four-to-eight-year-old child, who was facing towards her. There were two broken pots near her head, and a hammerstone and a white quartze pebble near her right hand. The grave also contained two further hammerstones, two flint scrapers, a flint arrowhead, some flint flakes, numerous fragments of Aurochs skeletons, and fragments of pottery in at least two styles. Notably, the two skeletons were found to be surrounded by a large number of fossil Echinoids (Sea Urchins). This discovery was thought to be highly unlikely for a long time, causing questions to be cast upon the veracity of Smith's reporting, but is consistent with other Bell Beaker Culture burials in the UK and on the continent, where remains have been found surrounded, by shells, fossils, or distinctive rocks.

Smith reported that the bones were soft and fragmentary when found, but they were preserved by cleaning and drying them and soaking them in hot gelatine and drying them again. They were then glued together to form a diorama recreating the way in which they were found. When Smith died, the remains were left to local naturalist Jannion Steele Elliot, who donated them to the Pritchard Memorial Museum at Bedford Modern School, where they were displayed for a number of years. They are today held in the collection of the Luton Culture Trust.

Radioisotope dates for the Dunstable Down skeletons suggest they date from the middle of the second millennium BC, although Zedda et al. treat this with some caution, as this would be anomalously young for a Bell Beaker Culture burial. Based upon dates obtained from similar burials in England, they suggest that the remains date from between 2150 and 1800 BC, with the younger isotope date probably due to contamination caused by the use of Animal geletine in the preservation process. 

Despite this apparent contamination, it was possible to obtain full genome sequences from both individuals at Dunstable Down, as well as both individuals at Altweis. All four individuals showed a high proportion of genetic material originating from the Pontic-Caspian steppes, although with an admixture of older Western European genes, consistent with a Bell Beaker expansion from the steppes into northern Europe. There was also a strong genetic similarity between the individuals at Altweis and Dunstable Down, as well as to other Bell Beaker individuals from England, the Netherlands, Germany, Bohemia and Poland, in particular to sites in Bohemia associated with the Corded Ware, the Bell Beaker and the Únětice cultures. 

Location of Altwies 'Op dem Boesch' (red dot) and Dunstable Downs (blue dot). Archaeological sites, in which individuals were found to share at least one identical by descent of more than 16 centimorgans with the newly reported genomes are shown in the same colour. Sharing patterns are further highlighted by a vector line. Relevant third- and second-millennium BC adult–child graves are represented by grey dots. Adult–child graves from the Eurasian steppe belt are not depicted. Zedda et al. (2023).

The genetic analysis revealed that the Altweis child was male, and that the woman was his biological mother. Both individuals mitochondrial haplogroup H, which is common in Europe today and which is thought to have originated on the steppes of southwest Asia before the Last Glacial Maximum. Because mitochondrial DNA is found in the mitochondria, organelles outside the cell nucleus, it is passed directly from mother to child without being sexually recombined each generation, enabling precise estimations of when individuals shared common ancestors, at least through the female line; this is known as the female haplogroup. It is also possible to trace direct ancestry through the male line, using DNA from the Y chromosome, which is passed directly from father to son without sexual recombination; this is known as the male haplogroup. Since everyone has mitochondria, it is possible to determine the female haplogroup of all Humans, but generally only males have a Y chromosome and can be assigned to a male haplogroup. The Altweis child belonged to Y haplogroup R1b, which is very common in males associated with the Bell Beaker Culture, although this haplotype is found throughout Europe, Western and Central Asia, North Africa, and the Sahel.

In continental Bell Beaker burials, women were typically placed on their right side with their head to the south, while men were placed on their left side with their heads to the north, so that both sexes faced to the east. The woman in the Altweis grave breaks this pattern, being buried on her right side, with her head to the north, so that she faces to the west. The child is placed in the conventional orientation for a male of the period, with the woman apparently placed out of the traditional alignment so that she could face the child.

The grave of Altwies, left: the bones of the mother and child highlighted; right: hypothetical reconstruction of the grave based on phenotypic traits partly inferred from the ancient genomes. Zedda et al. (2023).

At Dunstable Down, both the child and adult were female, although they belonged to different mitochondrial haplogroups, ruling out the possibility of their being mother and daughter; the child belonged to haplogroup K1c, common in Western Europe, while the adult belonged to haplogroup N1b, which is found across the Middle East, the Caucasus region, and Europe. The degree of relatedness of the two individuals makes it most likely that the woman was the child's maternal aunt.

The orientation of the individuals in the Dunstable Down burial is less clear, though Smith recorded that the child had its head to the north. The orientation of individuals in Bell Beaker Culture burials in England was less rigid, with women and girls typically buried either on the left side with the head to the north, or on the right side with the head to the east.

Adult and child burials are known from almost all cultures across western Eurasia in the third millennium BC, including the Bell Beaker, Corded Ware, and Yamnaya cultures. This is despite a tendency towards single burials during the period, and a general paucity of child burials. Infant mortality is thought to have been high in the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, with many children apparently not receiving formal burials. This makes the practice of double burials particularly intriguing.

As with other cultures of the period, the graves of Bell Beaker children are rare. Some of the burials that are known appear to have been miniature versions of adult burials, complete with miniature vessels, weapons, and items of personal adornment. A number of double burials are known from Bell Beaker Culture cemeteries in France, with infants buried either facing or back-to-back with adult women, or in one case an adult man. In the Bell Beaker Culture in the UK, shared graves were much more common, with single burials generally reserved for men. Here women and children were often buried in groups, though graves containing children typically also contain at least one adult, generally a woman.

In Corded Ware cemeteries in Central Europe, two separate burial customs for children appear to have been present, with some cemeteries containing individual burials for children and others having children buried in communal graves, again commonly with adults also present. Genetic studies have shown that individuals in shared graves tend to be close relatives. In the Únětice Culture of Central Europe, which overlaps the range of the Bell Beaker and Corded Ware cultures, shared burials are again common, with genetic studies having found several cases of parents buried with children.

Exactly where the practice of burying children with adults originated is unclear. The Altwies and Dunstable Downs individuals all have high proportions of genetic material from the steppes of Southwest Asia, and burials of this type are also known among the Yamnaya people of the Pontic-Caspian steppes. Similar burials are also known among the Afanasievo people of Central Asia, who are thought to have originated on the Eurasian steppes and migrated eastwards towards Mongolia.

The appearance of these graves may mark an increase in the importance of children within culture around the end of the Neolithic, possibly related to a more conscious concept of a family unit, containing biologically related and unrelated individuals. A greater diversity of burial practices also appears around this time, with a mixture of individual and small communal graves, and an increasing amount of grave goods. It has been suggested that, in this context, children may themselves have been a form of grave goods, rather than valued individuals in their own right, serving as symbols of the status or fertility of the adults involved, possibly stored after their own deaths for internment in the grave of an adult.

Zedda et al.'s study demonstrates for the first time that the Bell Beaker people of Northwest Europe buried children with their mothers and other close biological relatives, something which apparently ties in with the wider practice of adult and child burials across the Bell Beaker world. However, at the Camino de las Yeseras Bell Beaker cemetery in Spain, a woman and child buried together were shown to be unrelated, with the woman showing genetic affinity to older Iberian populations, while the child showed a high proportion of steppe ancestry. Zedda et al. suggest that this might be a result of different customs prevailing in the southern part of the Bell Beaker range, where megalithic tombs and mass burials were still common, but possibly also a concept of the family which included non-biologically related individuals.

The limited genetic data available may tell us something about how kinship was viewed in the third millennium BC. The burial of a child with a paternal aunt at Dunstable Down suggests that patralinial lines were important, with a paternal aunt able to act as a substitute mother  The orientation of the grave at Altweis matches the gender of the male child rather than the adult woman, possibly indicating that males were seen as more important, regardless of age. In Corded Ware burials in Central Europe containing adults and children, the adults were always buried in the 'correct' orientation, with the children fitting around this, suggesting that for these people age was more important than gender. 

Corded Ware burials have also been shown to contain children alongside unrelated adults, again possibly showing a view of kinship that could contain non biologically related individuals. This may indicate that children could be buried with step-parents, or possibly even that fostering was an accepted custom by these people. One burial at Baden-Württemberg in Germany contains a 'family' of a man, a woman, and two children, none of whom are related to one-another, possibly indicating that while it was preferable for children to be buried with relatives, being accompanied by an adult was the important part, and non-relatives were acceptable if no relatives were available.

It was not possible to establish the cause of death for any of the individuals at Altweis or Dunstable Down, but the large number of adult and child burials from this time across Europe does raise some questions about how the people in these burials died. In most cases, the children involved are not new-borns, which rules out birth complications as a cause of death. Therefore, the widespread near simultaneous deaths of children and parents over wide areas of Europe. Yersinia pestis, the causative agent of the Bubonic Plague, is known to have been widespread in Europe during the Bronze Age, which would certainly be able to kill multiple family members in rapid succession, but it is unclear if this was present in the third millennium BC. 

The burial of mothers and children together could also be suggestive of violent deaths. Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age Europe is known to have been a violent place, with women and children in no way spared this. Several child burials from Early Bronze Age Europe show signs of fatal blunt force trauma, and a woman in an adult and child burial at Eulau in  Germany is thought to have been killed by an arrow wound.

Worthington George Smith believed that the child in the Dunstable Downs burial had been buried alive with her mother, although he was able to cite no evidence for this. The belief that early people carried out Human sacrifice with great regularity was prevalent among nineteenth century antiquarians, and is not absent from modern archaeological literature. This is at least in part due to the writings of Greek and Roman scholars, who tended to sensationalise the savagery of peoples outside the classical world. This does not, however, mean that such Human sacrifice did not occur at all in prehistoric Europe.

What is clear is that nor all adult and child burials were the same, and that it is quite likely that how family relationships were perceived probably varied considerably across the physical and temporal range of these sites. Bell Beaker Culture burials appear to have involved considerable preparation, including the preparation of grave goods, such as beakers and other high-status items. The burning of the burial pit at Altweis before the deceased and accompanying grave goods were placed within implies that the funerary rights there took at least two days. This makes the interpretation of all such burials as having occurred in the aftermath of raids difficult (although some certainly did, at the Eulau cemetery there are thirteen skeletons in four pits, with five individuals showing signs of recent violent injury).

Possibly, however, the most significant aspect of the adult and child burials at Altwies and Dunstable Down is the symbolic way in which they were arranged, with the child lying in the adults arms. This seems to have begun in the Corded Ware Culture, and persisted into the later Bell Beaker Culture. The posture appears to denote that both individuals in the grave were important to the society that buried them, and suggests a strong emotional element to the funerary rituals, albeit one that we are not fully able to decipher today.

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Changing burial practices across the Neolithic/Iron Age boundary at the MARP-79 Cemetary in Karnataka State, southern India.

Between 2010 and 2018 the Maski Archaeological Research Project (MARP) searched for further signs of Neolithic activity around the Maski Neolithic settlement, which had been excavated in the nineteenth century. One of the most important finds of this survey was the MARP-79 Cemetery, a large funerary complex beneath an elongated prominence in the southern Deccan region, which appears to have been used for more than a thousand years, from the middle Neolithic into the early Iron Age, showing patterns of both continuity and change across this time interval.

In a paper published in the journal Antiquity on 27 June 2023, Peter Johansen of the Department of Anthropology at McGill University, and Andrew Bauer of the Department of Anthropology at Stanford University present new radiocarbon dates for a number of graves at the MARP-79 Cemetery, and discuss the implications of these for our understanding of the Neolithic/Iron Age cultural transition in southern India.

Map showing the location of the MARP-79 Cemetery and related archaeological sites. Johansen & Bauer (2023).

Archaeologists studying the prehistory of southern India have built up a picture in which the Neolithic/Iron Age transition is an abrupt boundary, probably with an imigrant population or culture completely supplanting the previous one. However, at MARP-79 a more gradual transition can be perceived, with a long-standing Neolithic culture adopting new cultural and technological practices in a more gradual way.

A range of different mortuary practices appear at the MARP-79 Cemetery by the beginging of the second millennium BC, probably indicating social distinctions within the community. These innovations include the nature if grave goods, with ceramic vessels with slip-coatings and polished surfaces appearing and then being replaced by first copper and then iron items, differing materials being used to construct coffins, notably terracotta and burnt organic material, a mixture of singular and shared graves, and different forms of stone grave markings.

The Neolithic of southern India has been studied since the nineteenth century. Initial studies found a wide range of ground and pecked stone tools across the southern Deccan region, which became known as the Stone Axe Culture. As well as Neolithic stone tools, this culture also produced a variety of course, handmade ceramics, notably the Burnished Grey and Dull Red Ware traditions. Studies at sites such as  Brahmagiri and Piklihal enabled archaeologists to build up a picture of changing ceramic styles and settlement patterns over the span of the southern Indian Neolithic, which was later refined by the addition of radiocarbon dating and the study of macrobotanical remains.

This Neolithic culture appears to have farmed domesticated Sheep and Goats, along with a number of locally domesticated crops known as the South Indian Crop Package, which includes a selection of pulses and millets. By the beginging of the second millennium BC, northern Indian crops such as Wheat and Barley begin to appear, and become increasingly important over time, and from about 1600 BC, African crop Plants begin to appear. These crop introductions coincide with the appearance of new types of ceramics, notably necked jars. 

This appearance of crops Plants which were domesticated in other regions are indicative of this culture being part of an expanding exchange network, which makes it highly likely that they were also exchanging cultural ideas with other areas. This is further supported by the appearance of materials such as carnelian and lapis lazuli, neither of which occur in the region. These changes coincide with the decline and abandonment of the cities of the Indus Valley Civilization in northern India, the adoption of the earliest copper technologies, and the importation of some funrrary practices from the northern Deccan region.

Settlements in the southern Deccan region during the Neolithic typically comprised small villages or camps made up of circular wattle and daub houses, with sites outside the boundary of the settlement used for stone tool preparation, butchery, and the holding of Animals. Some of these settlements had distinctive ash mounds, large piles of ash and vitrified Cattle dung, which may have been associated with periodic feasting.

The area covered by the Maski Archaeological Research Project covers an area of 64 km², and contains four Neolithic settlements. These are the original Maski settlement (MARP-97), a multi-period site 1.5 km to the north of the cemetery, which was first excavated in the 1950s, MARP-64, a newly discovered small settlement running across several adjacent hill terraces which lies 6 km to the northwest of MARP-79,  and MARP-155 and MARP-203, which are both interpreted as small hilltop herding camps, which have produced scatterings of stone tools and ceramic fragments, and which lie to the north and south of MARP-79.

Map of the MARP study area, illustrating the relationship of MARP-79 with Neolithic settlements. Areas in black outline represent survey blocks; the site area at MARP-97 represents the surface area of the multi-component site and not the extent of Neolithic settlement, which is unknown. Johansen & Bauer (2023).

The Neolithic burial practices of the southern Deccan region include a number of infant urn burials, and adult pit graves, found both within and outside settlements. The most common of these are infants and sub adults buried in urns withing settlements, although some of these are buried in simple pits without urns. Urn burials typically contain a single individual, although sometimes two individuals are found within the same urn. Burial goods are extremely rare. The form of the urns varies considerably.

Where sites can be established to have gone through several phases of settlement, then burial practices can be shown to have changed over time. Most adults are buried in extended pits, with ceramic grave goods including examples of Burnished Grey Ware and plain terracotta. There is limited variation between these sites, although the orientation of the body can differ, both primary and secondary burials have been found (secondary burials occur when a body is buried, then dug up and buried again), the covering of part or all of the grave with stones, and the presence and variety of grave goods, which can include ceramic vessels, with bowls and spouted jars being the most common, as well as chipped and ground stone tools. 

At the Tekkalakota and Ramapuram, where a succession of burial styles can be seen, later graves can be observed to contain a greater quantity of grave goods, including polished ceramics with slip coatings, conforming to the Black-and-Red Ware, Slipped and Polished Black Ware, and Slipped and Polished Red Ware styles, which are otherwise associated with Iron Age Megalithic burials. At Ramapuram later burials comprise stone cairns and cists, and use burned organic material coffins. Here grave goods from these late burials include up to 29 vessels, made from a mixture of styles including Burnished Grey Ware and Black-and-Red Ware, and in some cases copper and iron artefacts. Burned organic coffins and a mixture of ceramic styles were also found during the Maski excavations in the 1950s, as well as Neolithic and Iron Age settlement phases.

However, all of this is based upon a very small number of burials in and around settlements; the known number of burials in the area has long been observed to be much lower than would be expected given the other archaeological remains found, leading to speculation that burials were occurring at other, undiscovered sites. One possible solution to this was presented by the discovery of a possible Neolithic cemetery at Nagarjunakonda in Andhra Pradesh, although this site, which included remains dating from the Lower Palaeolithic to the sixteenth century, including a significant Buddhist temple complex, was flooded by the construction of a dam in the early 1960s, preventing any further investigations.

The MARP-79 Cemetery was discovered in 2012 during a foot-survey of the area by archaeologists from the Maski Archaeological Research Project. A number of burial sites had been exposed by gravel quarrying activities, with graves visible in plan and section within gravel pits. A total of 21 partially exposed burials were found, and it is believed that hundreds more may have been lost due to the quarrying activities, while others may lie undisturbed in other portions of the site. The exposed graves were carefully photographed and drawn, and surface materials were collected. Three graves were excavated in 2018-19.

Map of MARP-79, with the location of recorded burial. Johansen & Bauer (2023).

Thirteen pieces of charcoal, obtained from seven of the graves, yielded radiocarbon dates of between 2472-2335 BC and 1222–1117 BC, enabling Johansen and Bauer to track changes in mortuary practices within the cemetery for over a thousand years. The oldest grave, Burial 12, dates from the Neolithic IB stage, and is a simple pit burial with modest furnishings, including broken micaceous dark grey ceramic fragments, observed in section (from the side).

MARP-79 Burials 1, 2, 3 and 12 exposed in section. Johansen & Bauer (2023).

Simple pit burials like this persist past the turn of the second millennium BC, with examples such as Burial 7, which is dated to between 1895 and 1756 BC, and which is another simple pit burial observed in section, containing fragments of slipped and unpolished ceramic. However, by this time other types of burial are also being practiced, including terracotta sarcophagus burials, such as Burial 8, which has been dated to between 1934 and 1700 BC, which in addition had grave goods including Black-and-Red Ware slipped and polished serving vessels and a dolerite ground stone axe. Also present by this stage are burials in which coffins made of combusted organic material contain defleshed coffins, such as Burial 11, which also had grave goods, including five short-necked, globular, red slipped ware jars and seven slipped and polished Black-and-Red Ware serving vessels. Both of these burial types are common in the Iron Age of southern India, and have previously been taken as evidence of a separate, Iron Age culture with more sophisticated burial customs, which was thought to have abruptly replaced the simpler Neolithic culture.

Burial 11 excavated, with burned organic coffin exposed in plan. Johansen & Bauer (2023).

A number of further combusted coffin burials (burials 1, 6, and 19) were dated to the e fifteenth and twelfth centuries BC, apparently continuing the funeral tradition first seen in Burial 11 some centuries previously. Again, the remains within the coffins have been defleshed prior to burial, and the grave goods include slipped and polished serving vessels and globular slipped jars, although Burial 6 also contains four carnelian beads and a copper bangle, and Burial 19 contains a bladed iron tool and some Animal remains (Sheep and/or Goat), and was covered by stone slabs. Similar graves to this have been found at Thapar and Maski, and have been interpreted as evidence of a funerary feasting tradition at the Neolithic/Iron Age transition.

Burial 19: unexcavated burned organic coffin, with overlying capstones (A); partially excavated coffin, with excarnated skeletal remains exposed (B). Johansen & Bauer (2023).

Simple pit burials, and terracotta sarcophagus burials also persist into later phases at MARP-79. For example, Burial 2, which has not been directly dated, contains a terracotta sarcophagus covered by stone slabs, with grave goods including a slipped and polished ware serving vessels and an iron blade, indicating that it must be of Iron Age origin. Iron artefacts and evidence of iron working are known in southern India from at least the fourteenth century BC, while terracotta sarcophagi, including variants with legs and other embellishments are known from elsewhere in the Deccan region, and in wider southern India, with examples dating to as late as the Early Historic Period (300 BC-500 AD). 

Chronological chart documenting the development of burial practices and grave inclusions at MARP-79. Johansen & Bauer (2023).

The use of stone slabs appears to be a progressive development, eventually developing into the megalithic graves of the southern Indian Iron Age. Such slabs are seen in conjunction with a variety of burial types, for example, Burial 3, an otherwise simple pit burial, which has not been dated but which contained a single slipped and polished red ware bowl, was covered by a layer of granite boulders. Burial 20 is an undated pit burial where the pit has been capped with two granite slabs, and these have in turn been covered by a circular cairn of boulders and cobbles, a style reminiscent of Iron Age and Early Historic Period burials elsewhere in southern India, although the grave goods consist only of a copper bracelet and a bone pendant. A similar burial was found at Terdal, with an apparently Iron Age burial containing typically Neolithic ceramics and a copper bangle. This suggests that instead of an abrupt replacement of Neolithic simple pit burials with Iron Age stone circles, cairns, and dolmens, these structures evolved from the pit burials, starting with the capping of the graves with stone slabs.

Burial 20: partially exposed in section prior to excavation (above), bone pendants in situ (left below), exposed skeletal remains (below centre) and excavated copper bracelet (below right). Johansen & Bauer (2023).

The MARP-79 Cemetery provides a record of changing funerary practices in the southern Deccan region dating back to at least the Neolithic IIB stage (defined as approximately 2000-1800 BC in southern India), showing that the dead were commemorated in a variety of ways within a single cemetery setting.  The site provides the earliest known examples of slipped and polished fine ware serving vessels and terracotta sarcophagi, with later burials also incorporating copper and iron objects. As well as greatly expanding our knowledge of Neolithic burial customs in the region, this is informative about the society carrying out these burials, with more sophisticated burial customs suggesting a larger population, with more people able to put resources into, and participate in a more elaborate burial, and evidence of funerary feasting, which again suggests a larger number of participants, and a population with sufficient resources to arange commemorative ceremonies, probably including feasting. The variety of different burial styles emerging from the Neolithic IIB onwards also suggests a more stratified society, with an uneven distribution of resources.

Notably, these findings challenge the perception that the Iron Age was notably different from the Neolithic in the southern Deccan region, and that this might reflect an incoming, more advanced, society displacing the Neolithic residents of the area, and introducing a new megalithic tomb-building style, at around 1200 BC. Johansen and Bauer's findings suggest a more gradual change-over between the two burial styles, and, importantly, provides radiocarbon dating evidence to support this. The MARP-79 Cemetery also provides the oldest known examples of slipped and polished fine ware serving vessels, dating from several centuries earlier than previously documented examples, further undermining the idea of an Iron Age, megalithic culture invading the area, and bringing this ceramic style with it. Instead this type of pottery appeared at MARP-79 in the Neolithic and persisted for hundreds of years into the Iron Age.

Early slipped and polished serving vessels from Burials 11 (above) and 8 (below). Johansen & Bauer (2023).

Terracotta sarcophagi, burned organic coffins, stone capped, burials, and cairns, all generally associated with Iron Age and Early Historic Period burials in southern India, appear in the Neolithic at MARP-79, with some of these elements also present at the undated Ramapuram and Tekkalakota burials. This sequential appearance of 'Iron Age' elements in Neolithic burials at MARP-79 runs against the previous interpretation of a static Neolithic culture being replaced by a very different Iron Age culture in southern India. Instead, the picture emerging from MARP-79 is one of a gradually changing culture adopting new technologies sequentially, including metal-working. 

MARP-79 records burial customs over a period of about 1500 years, from the Neolithic IIB stage into the early Iron Age. This site is the first Neolithic cemetery in southern India to have yeilded radiocarbn dates. The sequence begins with simple pit burials, later diversifying to include two different burial styles, intact remains being buried within terracotta sarcophagi, and defleshed skeletons placed within burned organic coffins. This suggests a degree of social partitioning within the living community, with different political or social groups with different funurary customs living in the same community. The radiocarbon ages obtained show that these different customs developed in parallel, through the Late Neolithic and into the Early Iron Age. Without the radiocarbon data, this progression would probably not have been identified, with the differing burials more likely to have been identified as coming from different periods. Johansen and Bauer observe that this demonstrates the danger of placing archaeological remains into broad cultural boxes, such as 'Neolithic' or 'Iron Age', which can hide more subtle, gradual changes.

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Cattle in the rock art of Wadi Bajdha, Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia covers an area of about 2 million km² with rock art known from every area of the country. A comprehensive survey of the rock art of Saudi Arabia begun in 1981 took over 15 years to complete, and recorded over 2000 sites with pre-Arabic and early Arabic inscriptions, as well as thousands of petroglyphs (images made by inscribing into a rock surface).

In a paper published in the Journal of Historical Archaeology and Anthropological Sciences on 3 July 2023, Majeed Khan and Faisal Al-Jabrin of the Antiquities Sector of the Saudi Ministry of Culture, describe a newly discovered rock art site at Wadi Bajdha in the Tabuk Region of Saudi Arabia, and discuss the implications of the images discovered there.

The art is located in a deep valley surrounded by mountains to the northwest of the city of Tabuk, where water collected during the rainy season. The site has historically been visited seasonally by Bedouin herders, and may have, at times, hosted permanent settlements.

The rock art is located on a vertical rock face on the side of a hill, which appears to contain images from different periods. The oldest figures on this panel appear to be a group of Cattle with short horns and flat humps. These Cows appear to be different from both the long-horned Oxen depicted at the Neolithic sites of Jubbah and Shuwaymis, and the high-humped Indian Zebu-like Cattle depicted in the Najran area of southern Saudi Arabia. Khan and Al-Jabrin suggest that this art represents the second phase of Cattle domestication in Saudi Arabia, following the Neolithic long-horned Oxen phase.

The rock art gallery at Wadi Bajdha in the Tabuk Region, in north of Saudi Arabia. Khan & Al-Jabrin (2023).

The rock art of Saudi Arabia is highly diverse, and appears to have been produced in a range of contexts with different purposes and meanings. Neolithic images appear to show Oxen as both Animals hunted as prey, and as sacred or possibly Divine Animals. Chalcolithic images have been interpreted to show Oxen as mythical creatures, deities, and sacrificial Animals. With this in mind, Khan and Al-Jabrin are careful to compare the Wadi Bajdha rock art to rock art from other locations, before drawing any conclusions about its meaning.

An open air temple, where Cows are depicted with idoliform images possibly deities or gods, located in Wadi Damm northwest of Tabuk. Believed to be evidence of Cow worship in Arabia. Khan & Al-Jabrin (2023).

Archaeological evidence and rock art depictions both suggest that Wild Cattle, Bos primigenius, were present in Arabia as both wild and domestic Animals during the Neolithic. At sites such as Shuwaymis, Jubbah, Hanakiya, large numbers of Oxen are depicted, with flat backs and exaggerated horns. These resemble European Wild Cattle, Bos primigenius, an Animal not known after the Neolithic climate shift, which occurred about 7900 years ago in northern Arabia, and led to a shift from a cool, humid climate to a hot, arid one.

Long-horned flat-back Oxen from the  Neolithic Shuwaymis site in the north of Saudi Arabia. Evidence of the presence of Wild Oxen in Arabia. Khan & Al-Jabrin (2023).

Petroglyphs of Cattle in Saudi Arabia represent at least three separate climatic phases, which each phase associated with images of different sizes, styles, and execution techniques, which has enabled the development of a chronology for such art, which links Animal type to climate shifts.

Earliest known image of Long-horned Cow, Bos primigenius, from Saudi Arabia dated to about 9000 BC. This image located at the Neolithic Jubbah, site in the north of the country. Superimposed on the Cow is a Camel figure of much later period. There is a difference of several thousand years between the two Animals; representing two climatic phases; cool and humid (Cow) and hot and dry conditions (Camel). Khan & Al-Jabrin (2023).

The style of the rock petroglyphs at Wadi Bajdha suggests that the art dates from the Chalcolithic Period, about 3500 BC. At this time people in the area had domesticated Cows and Goats, and engaged in small-scale hunting along with the hunting of Ibex. Camels did not appear in Arabia until the Bronze Age (along with Date Palms), and are absent from the Wadi Bajdha art. 

A pregnant Cow. A small baby can be seen inside the mother Cow, a firm indication of a domesticated Cow. Domesticated small horned and flat back Cattle are found on several sites in northern and southern Arabia representing the middle phase of Chalcolithic domesticated Cows, around 3500 BC. Khan & Al-Jabrin (2023).

The left corner of the Wadi Bajdha panel depicts a number of large, Chalcolithic-style Cows, as well as several Ibex, and some Horse riders with lances. These appear to have been made by artists from different periods, who took care not to overlap the art, as well as some tribal symbols. Battles between riders armed with lances was common among Bedouin tribes into the recent past.

The third phase in the art gallery represented by Camel and pre-Arabic Thamudic inscriptions in addition to Horse riders with long lances in fighting attitude drawn by the people representing the last phase of rock art in this gallery. Khan & Al-Jabrin (2023).

The Wadi Bajdha art shows apparently domesticated Cattle, including a pregnant female with a baby inside, but no images of Camels, suggesting that this art is Chalcolithic in origin. The site is likely to have has good living conditions during this interval, supporting a permanent or semi-permanent population, who presumably left as the climate continued to get hotter and drier. Many other rock art sites in Saudi Arabia show similar combinations of Human and Animal figures, and appear to have been abandoned after short periods of occupation. This suggests that the population of Saudi Arabia has been largely nomadic for much of its history, inhabited by groups who moved regularly depending on the availability of water. 

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