One hundred and sixty hypogea have been discovered in the Paris Basin, concentrated in the south-west part of the Marne department. Radiocarbon dates and archaeological artefacts indicate their construction and use were a phenomenon limited to the Late Neolithic 2, currently estimated as 3350–3000 cal BC. Re-examination of the human skeletal remains, notably those from Les Mournouards II, enables us to improve our understanding of the practices involved in these collective burials, particularly aspects of individual selection and distribution. Age, sex, and social status determined the burial location between and within the artificial caves. Burial positions characterized two groups of hypogea. However, in both groups, most female individuals were buried along the left wall of the monuments, on the same side as the collective grave goods and carved female figures sometimes discovered in the anterooms. The nature and distribution of personal material reflect the existence of particular statuses for some individuals. The burial principles reveal a relative conservatism guaranteeing distinction between individuals of different lifetime statuses. Several competing strategies sought to preserve, in death, this social order. The mortuary practices, then, reflect a codified social organization for a Paris Basin group of the later fourth millennium BC and a burial practice that was less ‘collective’ than might have been imagined.

This paper assesses the applicability of modern notions of gender identity and individuality, and examines ‘relationality’ as a key dimension structuring social identity during the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Early Iron Age in western Iberia through a focus on funerary practices and stelae- and statue-menhir-making. It is argued that these practices were involved in the recollection of genealogical and mythical pasts. They entailed the creation of the dead and the ancestors as relational entities through the explicit inscription of graphic and spatial relations. Ultimately, these practices were structured by, and structured, shared understandings of the self and the roles of the deceased and the ancestors in social life—understandings in which ‘relationality’ played a seminal role.

In this paper, osteological and archaeological data are brought together to further our understanding of childhood in the early Neolithic Linearbandkeramik culture (LBK; c. 5500–5000 cal BC). In many characterizations of LBK society, fixed representations of sex or identities based on subsistence strategies pervade, with children rarely considered and then only as a specialized and separate topic of study. As a challenge to this view, a summary of the current models of childhood in the LBK culture is presented and debated with reference to the burial rites of children. A period of ‘middle’ childhood is proposed for the LBK culture. The osteological evidence suggests that childhood could be a time of dietary stress, perhaps with sex-based differences from childhood, and examples of the diseases and traumas suffered are discussed. Finally, the possibility that the children were actively contributing to acts of personal violence is raised. While the recognition of identity making as a continuous process remains a powerful exploratory route to investigating prehistoric societies, we argue that this should not discourage us from seeing identity as formed over the entire lifecourse.

The article focuses on problems in making generalizations about the character of Stone Age sites and the difficulties of separating sacred and secular remains. Like many other Pitted Ware sites, the middle Neolithic site of Jettböle on the Åland Islands has been characterized as a settlement site despite finds of a ritual character. This study investigates the spatial relationships and depositional patterns of different find categories, with a special focus on human remains, including DNA analysis and the ornamentation of pottery from one of the larger excavation units from the site. The character and meaning of the site seem to be more complex than previously considered. The results of the study stress the need for careful investigation of the contextual circumstances of finds before making general interpretations.