Invisible death rites in Prehistory: a new tool kit for revealing complex treatment after death in the European Neolithic.

Before death was dealt with by medical or funeral specialists, mourners would have closely engaged with dead bodies. Yet, for prehistory, immediate inhumation after death is often assumed, with the grave interpreted as representing a static identity for the dead. Two scientific methodologies, archaeothanatology and bone histology, have the potential to reveal how the dead were treated and suggest more drawn out engagements with the dead. This study will be the first to combine and apply these methods to the earliest farmers of central Europe, revealing new understandings of deathwork during one of the transformative periods in human history.