Details
This overview and analysis takes a novel approach to the long-term development of human mortuary activity - the various ways we deal with the dead and with dead bodies. The core chapters of the book survey the mortuary activities of early hominins, archaic members of the genus Homo, early Homo sapiens, the Neanderthals, the Early and Mid Upper Palaeolithic, and the Late Upper Palaeolithic world. It addresses questions such as: When did symbolic aspects of mortuary ritual evolve?; When did the dead themselves become symbols?, and offers an engaging contribution to the debate on modern human origins.