Retrieving, Curating and Depositing Skulls at Pitted Ware culture Sites

Abstract

At many Middle Neolithic sites in south-central Scandinavia associated with the hunter-gatherer complex known as the Pitted Ware culture, the skulls of humans and animals seem to have been treated differently from other skeletal elements. This is evident, for example, in inhumation graves lacking crania or entire skulls as well as numerous finds of cranial and mandibular fragments scattered in cultural layers or deposited in hearths and pits. Despite parallels in overall treatment and find contexts, the selective handling of human skulls has generally been regarded as a mortuary practice and thus qualitatively different from the handling of animal skulls. Focusing primarily on the head bones themselves and relating their treatment to the wider use of skeletal remains allows us to consider a more complex system of retrieving, modifying, curating and depositing crania and mandibles. Drawing on the overlapping general treatment of human and animal remains, it is suggested that head bones from both humans and animals were efficacious objects that could be used in depositional acts.