Neolithic burial rites
Finds of red ochre sprinkled on old stone age human remains (such as the famously missnamed Red Lady of Paviland Cave) tell us that the early humans were emotionally affected by death and had introduced rites associated with burial. By the time of the neolithic cultures, ritualised acts had become been the norm.
What can we learn by looking more closely at Neolithic Burials?
There is a surprisingly large ammount of information in even the meanest burial.
We can look at the direction of burial, the grave goods,or lack of them, how the body was placed in the grave, its depth and what later happended to the site. All these points can help to lead us to conclusions about what Neolithic peoples thought about death. All of this before even looking at the human remains themselves.
The direction of burial is a great starting point. If all graves in a particular area are found with the head pointing in the same direction we would be confident in saying that there is a tradition at play here. Unfortunately, the current evidence for a tradition of grave orientation really doesn't come in to play until the late Roman period, and even then, it is not in any way a global phenomenon.
This is an important point to pick up. When we talk about 'neolithic practices' we are starting from a point of seeing the peoples of that time as a single coherent culture. When we look at grave goods, it is easy to be seduced by this idea. The 'beaker' culture seems to have been a europe-wide ritual act of burial with a particularly styled beaker.