From Long Barrows to Ancestral Shrines: Bell Beaker Monuments and Cosmology in Central Europe

Abstract

After development over two millennia of Neolithic monumental architecture (enclosures & long barrows) in Central Europe, the 3rd Millennium BC seems to bring a hiatus in the creation of such monuments. The cult and worship moved to natural shrines (Corded Ware) and became invisible in the archaeological record. However, in the last decade, some new forms of Bell Beaker ritual constructions were discovered in Bohemia and Moravia. Two such features were discovered during large scale excavations at Hostivice, west of Prague in 2011 and 2013. The first consisted of a rectangular setting of large postholes with a large internal pit containing scatters of cremated (animal?) bones and fragments of decorated beakers. The second structure consisted of large circular postholes surrounding a pit which contained a votive offering of four stone wristguards carefully set in a square arrangement. In 2015, unprecedented evidence of a Bell Beaker ritual site was discovered at Brodek in Central Moravia. An unusual long rectangular passage structure defined by alignments of postholes and a ‘shrine’ consisting of four grave-like pits containing a variety of votive offerings, but no visible indications of human burial, were discovered. The sacrificial deposits were probably inserted into the features during a series of successive offering events. These previously unknown types of monument suggest a greater complexity of funerary and ritual construction in the region of non-megalithic territory.