Cemeteries of the Early Neolithic Linearbandkeramik culture (LBK, 5500–4900 BC) evoke a sense of emerging permanence of place as agricultural subsistence spread westward through Central Europe. Yet assumptions about the sequence of senescence and longevity of cemetery use are based on limited data. Here, the authors challenge the view that cemetery burial was a long-lasting Neolithic practice, modelling 50 new radiocarbon dates from the cemetery of Schwetzingen alongside published dates from eight other LBK mortuary contexts. The results, they argue, indicate a short-lived, largely contemporaneous cemetery horizon across Central Europe, forcing a re-evaluation of Early Neolithic social history.
