Organizzazione sociale e paesaggi rituali nella preistoria e protostoria del Vicino Oriente

The article proposes a synthesis of data on funerary practices in prehistoric and protohistoric societies of Western Asia, spanning from the Neolithic (10th millennium BCE) to the Late Chalcolithic period (4th millennium BCE). The scarcity of known cemeteries across the region in all chronological phases makes it extremely challenging to analyze demographic composition, social organization, and rituals. Most information must be derived from intramural burials, which we cannot consider representative of the norm in funerary customs. Nonetheless, we demonstrate how ritual and burial practices played a crucial role in social and identity construction throughout prehistory. In later phases, these practices also contributed to the creation and maintenance of unequal power relations.