Significance of Neolithic Monuments in Funerary Practices and Perception of Ancestral Links / Dr. Petr Krištuf (Department of Archaeology, University of West Bohemia, Czech Republic)

Death as a social event was never isolated from other dimensions of the social, economic and symbolic life of farming communities. The ceremonial level of funerary events connected to ancestral worship is reflected in the landscape by a variety of monuments and their intra- and extra-territorial relations. The ritual landscape was constructed following a symbolic system of very early pedigree. The cultural landscape of prehistoric farmers was divided and structured in a continuous diachronic development and the archetypes of landscape divisions and monuments (enclosures; hilltop sites; long barrows) as landmarks were part of the cosmological legacy for generations. In this way, some monuments, seemingly isolated, fit into a much wider spatio-temporal structure of prehistoric community areas.

During the lecture, we will show examples of the ritual landscape in Europe between 4500 BC and 3000 BC. At this time, local communities began to build the first monumental ritual structures that referred to their dead ancestors. In addition to iconic monuments such as Stonehenge or the West Kennet long barrow in Great Britain, we will show the results of current research that took place from 2021 in the Czech Republic in Central Europe.