The genesis of megaliths: Monumentality, ethnicity and social complexity in Neolithic north‐west Europe

Abstract

The ways of dealing with the dead and the relationship the living had with death are one of the key elements constituting every culture. The present article is inspired by the terror management theory and it attempts to adapt it to the conditions of the Middle Neolithic Kuyavia. The area was inhabited by societies which fundamentally followed different sepulchral patterns. The author of the paper aims to outline the position of funerary behaviours in the rhythm of cultural transformations of that time.