Yorkshire Philosophical Society

Event Information

Deathwork amongst the earliest farmers in Central Europe: investigating invisible funerary rites

Iseabail Wilks, Department of Archaeology, University of York

The first farmers of central Europe are known as the Linearbandkeramik (LBK), a culture which flourished over seven thousand years ago. The LBK spread across a vast expanse in Europe, between Normandy and Ukraine, and the evidence they left behind is crucial to how archaeologists study and understand one of the most important periods in human history: the shift from foraging to farming. Alongside longhouses and pottery, thousands of burials have been discovered at LBK sites. The majority of the dead were buried in single graves at cemeteries, lying on their side, and sometimes accompanied by grave goods, including pottery and stone tools. However, there is also evidence for diversity in how the LBK dealt with their dead. Some were buried in other spaces, such as settlement ditches or refuse pits, whilst others were arranged into different positions, or buried alongside others. Because these burials don’t fit our understanding of normal practice, they are often dismissed as being deviant, or representing marginalised people, and left out of wider discussions about LBK society.

In this talk, I take a new approach to understanding diverse funerary practices in this important period. Using two scientific techniques which allow funerary ritual to be reconstructed, archaeothanatology and histotaphonomy, I explore in detail how the LBK treated their dead. The results show that behaviours which may look unusual to us today could have been meaningful acts of care, attention and emotional expression. To understand this, I use a new theoretical perspective, called ‘Deathwork’, which looks at how these burial practices may have helped the living cope with grief, memory, and the challenges of loss.

Iseabail is a final year PhD candidate based in the Department of Archaeology at the University of York, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, through the White Rose College of Arts and Humanities. Her research interests span archaeological science and theory, and her thesis focuses on developing a new method for understanding complex and diverse mortuary treatments in prehistory.

Please note that this talk will include images of skeletons.

Doors open 7pm for a 7.30pm event start:

We are holding this free Cafe Scientifique session on Wednesday 29th October 2025 from 7pm, talk starting at 7.30pm at City Screen Basement, Coney Street, YO1 9QL   Lift access available. No Booking necessary.

Please buy a drink in the basement bar, take your seats and be ready for a presentation followed by Q and A.

Member’s report:

Iseabail Wilks explained the new research into the funerary arrangements of the “Linearbandkeramik” (LBK) who starting in Hungary spread across central Europe as the first people undertaking farming rather than hunter gathering thousands of years ago. She explained that archaeologists have traditionally researched their funerary rites through the grave goods found as their cemeteries were explored. There is now a new way of looking at the LBK’s burials that considers smaller burials linked to settlements.  These are often linked to women and children and often do not contain any grave goods.  As a result, archaeologists have developed new ways of analysing these burials with a view to understanding more about their culture.

Using techniques of archaeothanatology and histopathology this comprehensive way of considering the burials allows archaeologists to draw new conclusions about the LBK funerary rites.  There had been an assumption that burial goods explained their funerary rites but these new techniques of “Deathwork” look at the great variety of how bodies were placed in graves.  This includes some of the “Niche burials” where an area had been left around the body perhaps to allow access later for another burial.

Iseabail showed us many examples of the variety of burials that have ben re-examined with these new techniques and how this has given archaeologists a much richer picture of how the LBK often more carefully buried their dead than was previously understood.

Catherine Brophy