Symbolic Burials and Grief : Coping with Trauma in the Carpathian Basin’s Neolithic and Copper Age

In the Late Neolithic and Copper Age of the Carpathian Basin, we can find several examples of burials without bodies – symbolic burials. One of the main goals of their creation may have been to give a focal point to funerary rites in cases when a member of the community could not have been laid to rest properly. Thus, we can assume they played a key role in coping with bereavement and trauma. In some cases, the analysis of the finds of symbolic burials provides an opportunity to reconstruct the identities associated with them to a certain degree.