5 - Pathways to Ancestral Worlds: Mortuary Practice in the Irish Neolithic

Summary

Introduction: bodies of evidence

In an important contribution to Neolithic studies in Scotland, Gordon Barclay (2003: 132) argued that our understanding of Neolithic society is based on interpretations of burial and ceremonial structures and the changes in practices associated with them. While we have to temper this view with the stunning increase and diversity of settlement-related information arising from recent development-led excavation (e.g., Smyth 2014; Whitehouse et al. 2014), it is still largely the case in relation to our understanding of Neolithic people and the treatment of the dead by the living. I wish to address this key issue in the context of the Irish Neolithic. In recent discussion, cremation has been seen as the main mortuary rite during this period (e.g., Malone 2001: 138–40, 163; Jones 2008: 190). By contrast, a number of recent contributions have emphasised the role of inhumation both within particular monumental traditions, such as court tombs and in particular areas, for example, the limestone uplands of the Burren, Co. Clare (Beckett 2011; Schulting et al. 2012). The most striking addition to this strand of the literature has been the publication of the Early Neolithic portal tomb of Poulnabrone, also on the Burren, where the unburnt remains of at least thirty-five individuals were recovered (Lynch 2014). It seems an appropriate time then to consider the character of mortuary practice during the Neolithic (3800–2500 cal. bc) in Ireland and to contribute to the discussion about the relationship between the practices of cremation and inhumation (see Schulting et al. 2012: 36–9). A related paper focuses particularly on the role of cremation (Cooney 2014); for a focus on inhumation and cremation practice in Britain, see Chapter 4, this volume.

Exploring the ‘cremation-dominant’ view of mortuary practice during the Irish Neolithic in more detail also indicates the way in which cremation and inhumation have been seen as opposed practices. Bradley (2007a: 60–1, 2007b), in presenting an interpretation of the wider social significance of earlier Neolithic (3800–3600 cal. bc) mortuary practice, contrasted the dominance of cremation as the rite in burial monuments in Ireland and western Scotland with southern Britain, where the human remains indicated that inhumation was the primary mortuary rite in comparable mortuary monuments. Bradley sees this contrast as having a wider interpretive value, showing links between the worlds of the living and the dead.