ASPECTS OF LBK BURIAL on the organization of Northwestern Danubian cemeteries Pieter van de Velde introdustion The present text will deal with a number of cemeteries from the Northwestern group of the Linearbandkeramik or Danubian culture (“NW-LBK”, for short), living on the loess soils from Central Germany to Central Belgium. Specifically, the Flomborn, Niedermerz and Elsloo cemeteries will be discussed (Richter 1968/69; Dohrn-Ihmig 1983; Brinkman & Modderman 1970; plus secondary publications) –these three graveyards (figs. 1-3) are selected because they belong to one tradition, and because they more or less succeed one another in time. Other NW-LBK cemeteries in the area such as Hollogne-aux-Pierres in the Belgian Hesbaye (Thisse et al. 1953) will add some more data. Unless otherwise stated I shall use the Rhineland system of LBK phases as developed by Modderman (1970: 192-201) and Dohrn-Ihmig (1973) for chronological background: an Older LBK divided into phases 1b-1d, and a Younger LBK running from 2a to 2d.. on social dimensions, a preliminary consideration Archaeological finds do not speak for themselves, their interpretation is predicated upon previous knowledge. Our knowledge about the social arrangements of neolithic society is mainly derived from the ethnography and cultural anthropology of supposedly similar present-day societies. By contrasting the latter with the archaeological record, we seek to advance our understandings of ancient societies as well as society in general. Recurrent theme in the study of recent “neoltihic” societies is that their central organizational principle is kin: leadership and labour, marriage and death are all regulated by and according to kin arrangements (e.g., Gero & Conky 1991; Lévi-Strauss 1958 & 1975, Parkin & Stone, eds., 2004). Central to the working of any society is its economic structure, the way in which labour, work and action are recruited and their products are distributed –in neolithic society all through kin. It is the lineage (larger kin group) which organizes marriage, agriculture, herding and hunting, house building and war 1 . Basic to this institution is the division of labour between women and men (Allen et al., eds., 2008). Lineages recruit their husbands (in matrilocal societies) or wives (in patrilocal societies) from other such lineages. Members of a single lineage, or of a few lineages together constitute villages; yet even then loyalties remain primarily with the lineage. Within a lineage, age is the major ranking principle in this type of society. Lineages may also be ranked, they may or may not constitute a “tribe” –which is generally a fairly loose, even open association of more or less related lineages (Fried 1975). It is these aspects of LBK society that this text is aimed at. on gender identification Fundamental to the division of labour are the notions of gender and age: the roles (habituses) of adult women and men, of children and elders in the production and reproduction of society. The determination of the sex of a buried corpse may seem hardly problematic, at least when the skeleton has survived. In the three cemeteries discussed here, only the Flomborn yard has yielded skeletal material of which 30 have been preserved, in the other two cemeteries the skeletons had dissolved, so no determinations could be made. 1 The word “lineage” is used here with the meaning of “house” in Lévi-Strauss 1975, being a rather more open group than exclusively defined by descent; this to avoid misunderstandings and association with the fairly conspicuous individual LBK houses of archaeology which were only part of the estate of the house group.