Excavations at the vicarage yard (prästgården) at the famous Late Iron Age magnate centre of Gamla Uppsala, Sweden, have yielded six Viking Age (c. ad 750–1100) boat burials, several containing the remains of domestic dogs. The present study is an osteological examination of the remains of three of these dogs, one each from three boat graves, with a primary goal of morphological reconstruction and a secondary focus on identifying sex, age, and pathology. Two dogs were large, slender sight hounds, while the third was somewhat smaller and of indeterminate type. The preference for sight hounds in high-status graves is consistent with previous results from the contemporaneous nearby boat cemeteries of Vendel and Valsgärde, adding weight to the hypothesis of a shared funerary culture between these sites in the Late Iron Age.

The burial of multiple individuals within a single funerary monument invites speculation about the relationships between the deceased: were they chosen on the basis of status, gender or relatedness, for example? Here, the authors present the results of aDNA and isotope analyses conducted on seven individuals from an Early Iron Age barrow at Dolge njive, south-eastern Slovenia. All seven individuals are close biological relatives. While the group composition suggests strict adherence to neither patrilineal nor matrilineal structures, the funerary tradition appears highly gendered, and family links through both the male and female lines seem important in structuring of the community. The results have implications for understanding of kinship and funerary practices in late prehistoric Europe.

The megalithic pillar sites found around Lake Turkana, Kenya, are monumental cemeteries built approximately 5000 years ago. Their construction coincides with the spread of pastoralism into the region during a period of profound climate change. Early work at the Jarigole pillar site suggested that these places were secondary burial grounds. Subsequent excavations at other pillar sites, however, have revealed planned mortuary cavities for predominantly primary burials, challenging the idea that all pillar sites belonged to a single ‘Jarigole mortuary tradition’. Here, the authors report new findings from the Jarigole site that resolve long-standing questions about eastern Africa's earliest monuments and provide insight into the social lives, and deaths, of the region's first pastoralists.

Oracle bone inscriptions of the late Shang Dynasty (1250–1046 BC) record the burning of jade as a ceremonial sacrifice, a practice now corroborated archaeologically. The origins of ceremonial jade burning, however, are unclear. Using archaeometric methods and experimental archaeology, the authors examine an assemblage of jade objects from the late Liangzhu-period (2600–2300 BC) cemetery of Sidun. The cause of the jades’ variable surface colours has been long debated. The results presented here demonstrate that the colour changes relate to alterations in chemical composition due to exposure to fire. The evidence from Sidun confirms that the burning of jade in China commenced more than a millennium earlier than previously documented.

Archaeologists have long looked to Homeric epic, which describes the collection of heroes’ ashes in metal vessels for interment, as a comparison to high-status burials found in the Greek world and, beyond, in temperate Europe. Rarely, however, has the phenomenon of aristocratic metal-urn cremation burials across Bronze and Iron Age Europe and the Mediterranean been analysed as a single phenomenon. The author presents a continental-scale study based on a corpus of nearly 600 burials, identifying chronological and geographical patterns. The results emphasise how this elite funerary custom drew on and extended a set of shared aristocratic values and practices across Europe and the Mediterranean in the first millennium BC.

The Beaker phenomenon in Britain is typically represented by a particular form of pottery and its inclusion in graves with flexed or crouched inhumations referred to as Beaker burials. Analysis of the full range of burial evidence, however, reveals a high degree of variability in funerary rites including cremation and skeletal disarticulation. Summed probability distribution analysis of radiocarbon dates provides evidence for continuity of these other, atypical rites from the pre-Beaker Late Neolithic (c. 3000–2450 cal bc) through the Chalcolithic (c. 2450–2200 cal bc) and into the Early Bronze Age (after c. 2200 cal bc). Regional diversity is apparent in Beaker period funerary treatments and grave good provision between these typical and atypical rites, as is differential selection of rites on the basis of age and biological sex. This evidence for within and between community funerary diversity has implications for understanding the large-scale processes of cultural and genomic transformation across this period of major transition in British prehistory.

This article presents the results of an archaeoacoustic analysis conducted inside the three chambers of the fourth-century BC Etruscan painted tomb of Tomba dell'Orco at Tarquinia. Using digital sound samples and an acoustic recording protocol, the study demonstrates how, in some areas of the tomb, low-frequency sounds, such as drumming and chanting, produce lengthy reverberation times. These effects may have been associated with the natural rumble of thunder, which played a significant role in Etruscan society, as indicated in secondary literary sources and material culture. The study provides a more comprehensive understanding of the Etruscan tomb space, while identifying new avenues of research in pre-Roman and other ancient Mediterranean funerary contexts.

Across Europe early medieval archaeologists have long recognised significant numbers of graves displaying evidence for the intentional post-burial disturbance of skeletons and artefacts. The practice of reopening and manipulating graves soon after burial, traditionally described—and dismissed—as ‘robbing’, is documented at cemeteries from Transylvania to southern England. This article presents a synthesis of five recent regional studies to investigate the evidence of and the motivations for the reopening of early medieval graves. From the later sixth century AD, the reopening of individual graves and removal of selected artefact types rapidly became part of the shared treatment of the dead across this wide area.

Recent archaeological investigations in eastern Tigray, Ethiopia, have revealed extensive evidence for medieval Muslim communities. Although the settlement of Muslims near modern Kwiha was previously attested by epigraphic evidence, its exact location remained unknown. Fieldwork, with the support of the ERC project ‘HornEast’, has identified and excavated the cemetery at Bilet—the first excavation of a Muslim cemetery in the Ethiopian Highlands. The results reveal the existence of flourishing cosmopolitanism among Muslim communities in the very heart of the Zagwe Christian kingdom. These Muslim communities developed from both foreign and local populations and were well connected with the wider Islamicate world.

Between the sixth and the eighth centuries AD, the practice of depositing grave goods was almost entirely abandoned across Western Europe. To date, however, explanations for this change have focused on local considerations. By collating data from 237 cemeteries from across Western Europe, this article assesses the spatial and chronological development of this phenomenon. Beginning in the mid sixth century, the process accelerated towards the end of the seventh century, before near complete abandonment across the region by the following century. This widespread and rapid transition is interpreted in light of evidence for trade and connectivity, which facilitated the swift diffusion of this and other cultural practices across the region.

Palaeolithic burials are few and far between, and establishing their chronology is crucial to gaining a broader understanding of the period. A new programme of radiocarbon dating has provided a revised age estimate for the Palaeolithic burial at Kostënki 18 in European Russia (west of the Urals). This study reviews the need for redating the remains, and contextualises the age of the burial in relation to other Upper Palaeolithic funerary sites in Europe and Russia. The new date, obtained using a method that avoided the problems associated with previous samples conditioned with glue or other preservatives, is older than previous estimates, confirming Kostënki 18 as the only plausibly Gravettian burial known in Russia.