Promoting group identity and equality by merging the Dead : increasing complexity in mortuary practices from Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age in the Oman Peninsula and its social implications

In the Oman peninsula, the transition from the Late Neolithic (5th-4th mill. BC) to the Early Bronze Age (3100-2000 BCE) is characterized by an increasing social complexity accompanied by dramatic changes in burial practices. In terms of mortuary features the transition was marked by the passing from mostly individual graves to increasingly monumental collective tombs. Data from recent excavations, osteological studies and a literature review, highlight recurring practices in the management of the collective tombs from the second half of the 3rd millennium: handling and removal of human remains and artefacts in adjacent pits, cremation and occasionally, defleshing of the remains. The coincidence of a range of complex actions in many sites suggests they were codified and they participated in the funerary ideology across a large area. Collective tombs were likely intended to strengthen social cohesion in the living community through an extended process of disposal of the dead that merged individuals with the community of the “ancestors”.