Kretuonas: Cut-Marks on Human Bones and their Implications for the Burial Traditions of Early-Middle Neolithic Communities in Lithuania

This paper presents new bioarchaeological data obtained during the re-analysis of human skeletal materials from the Early–Middle Neolithic Kretuonas 1 graves, excavated in 1980. The re-analysis of 6 inhumation burials revealed the earliest-known cases from Lithuanian archaeological material to show signs of perimortem cut-marks left on human bones. An evaluation of the first cases of perimortem human bone cut-marks in the broader European archaeological context allowed us to argue that different burial practices existed in Early–Middle Neolithic communities in the present territory of Lithuania. What is more, we argue that different people received different mortuary practices, and that their cadavers were handled in distinct ways.