This volume provides a comprehensive study of the burial mound phenomenon which emerged in large parts of Europe during the Copper and Bronze Ages, with a major focus on the Mediterranean and eastern European regions.
Fifty-one papers are grouped into broad sections dealing with the symbolism of burial mounds, the relationship between landscapes, landmarks and cultural identity, burial customs as rituals and a new look at theories on diffusionism. They define the natural and cultural contexts in which tumulus burial architecture first appeared in these parts of the world and attempt to explain the ideological, social and ritual meaning of burial mounds as community monuments. Most contributions include new evidence from excavations and surface surveys, some provide a welcome re‑examination of old data, including skeletal remains.
The subjects discussed concern not only funerary practices and beliefs but also further archaeological issues such as landscapes and land use, early exploitation of metal resources, the organization of long‑distance exchange, interaction networks, and the emergence of complexity in human societies.
Preface and acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Keynote lecture
Anthony Harding
The Tumulus in European Prehistory: Covering the Body, Housing the Soul
Burial mounds: symbolics and myth
Blagoje Govedarica
Die sakrale Symbolik des Kreises: Gedanken zum verborgenen Sinnbild der Hügelbestattungen
Giulio Palumbi
The Arslantepe Royal Tomb and the "Manipulation" of the Kurgan Ideology in Eastern Anatolia at the Beginning of the Third Millennium
Philippe Della Casa
Mythical Voyages and Ancestral Monuments: Tales on Knowledge and Leadership in Prehistoric Europe
Landscapes, landmarks and cultural identity
Julio Bendezu-Sarmiento
Réflexion sur l'espace funéraire et la notion de territoire en Asie centrale steppique aux périodes protohistoriques (IIe‑Ie millénaires av. J.-C.)
Jozef Bátora
Bestattungen unter Hügeln im Gebiet der mittleren Donau seit Ende des Äneolithikums bis zum Beginn der mittleren Bronzezeit
Mateusz Jaeger, Łukasz Pospieszny
Tumulus Culture Barrows in the Polish Lowlands. The Case of the Cemetery in Smoszew
Jan Turek, Jaroslav Peška, Andrea Matějíčková
Visible and Invisible Monuments. Late Eneolithic Burial Mounds in Forested Areas of Central Moravia
Ladislav Šmejda
Burial Mounds in West Bohemia: the Current State of Research
Claudia Sachsse
Burial Mounds in the Baden Culture: Aspects of Local Developments and Outer Impacts
Marko Porčić
Interpreting the Vertical Distribution of Bronze Age Tumuli in the Central Balkans
Vedran Barbarić
Tumulus or Cairn? The Case of the Central Dalmatian Islands
Giulia Codacci-Terlević
La scoperta della sepoltura a tumulo di Barbariga (Istria, Croazia). Novità e riscontri in relazione ai tumuli dell'età del bronzo rinvenuti nella penisola istriana e nell'Italia nord-orientale
Biba Teržan, Bernhard Hänsel
A Specific Type of Tholos in the northern Adriatic
Hrvoje Potrebica
Burial Mounds in Croatia: Landscapes of Continuity and Transformation
Stavros Oikonomidis, Aristeides Papayiannis, Akis Tsonos
The Emergence and the Architectural Development of the Tumulus Burial Custom in NW Greece (Epirus and the Ionian Islands) and Albania and its Connections to Settlement Organization
Christina Merkouri, Maria Kouli
The Spatial Distribution and Location of Bronze Age Tumuli in Greece
Yannis Galanakis
Mnemonic Landscapes and Monuments of the Past: Tumuli, Tholos tombs and Landscape Associations in Late Middle Bronze Age and Early Late Bronze Age Messenia (Greece)
Lucia Sarti, Pino Fenu, Valentina Leonini, Fabio Martini, Sara Perusi
The Bell Beaker Tumulus of Via Bruschi in Sesto Fiorentino (Florence, Italy): New Research
Serena Vitri, Alberto Balasso, Giulio Simeoni
Tumuli e strutture abitative presso Flaibano nell’alta pianura friulana (Italia, Friuli-Venezia Giulia): vecchi e nuovi dati
Armando D’Agnolo, Silvia Pettarin, Giovanni Tasca
I tumuli del Friuli occidentale: un aggiornamento delle conoscenze
Paola Càssola Guida
The Early Bronze Age in North Eastern Italy: the Making of a Monumental Landscape
Elisabetta Borgna
Individual Burial and Communal Rites: the Manifold Uses of Monumental Architecture in the North Adriatic Bronze Age
Burial practices, rituals and people
Yuri Yakovlevič Rassamakin
Eneolithic Burial Mounds in the Black Sea Steppe: from the First Burial Symbols to Monumental Ritual Architecture
Stefan Alexandrov
Prehistoric Barrow Graves between the Danube and the Balkan Range: Stratigraphy and Relative Chronology
Janusz Czebreszuk, Marzena Szmyt
Tumuli with Circular Ditch and the Ritual Scenario among Corded Ware Culture Societies on the North European Plain
Frank Falkenstein
The Development of Burial Rites from the Tumulus to the Urnfield Culture in Southern Central Europe
Carol Kacsó, Carola Metzner-Nebelsick, Louis D. Nebelsick
New Work at the Late Bronze Age Tumulus Cemetery of Lăpuş in Romania
Martin Hristov
The Early Bronze Age Ritual Structures and Necropolis from near the Village of Dubene, Karlovo Region
Kristina Mihovilić, Bernhard Hänsel, Damir Matošević, Biba Teržan
Burial Mounds of the Bronze Age at Mušego near Monkodonja. Results of the Excavations 2006-2007
Mile Baković
The Princely Tumulus Gruda Boljevića Podgorica, Montenegro
Sofia Asouhidou
The Early Bronze Age Burial Mound at Kriaritsi – Sykia (Central Macedonia, Greece)
Maria-Photini Papakonstantinou
Bronze Age Tumuli and Grave Circles in Central Greece: the Current State of Research
Vassilis Aravantinos, Kyriaki Psaraki
Mounds over Dwellings: The Transformation of Domestic Spaces into Community Monuments in EH II Thebes, Greece
Sylvie Müller Celka
Burial Mounds and "Ritual Tumuli" of the Aegean Early Bronze Age
Oliver Dickinson
Why Grave Circles A and B at Mycenae are Very Unlikely to be Burial Tumuli
Kalliopi Sarri, Sofia Voutsaki
The Argos "Tumuli": a Re-examination
Sofia Voutsaki, Anne Ingvarsson-Sundström, Søren Dietz
Tumuli and Social Status: a Re-examination of the Asine Tumulus
Jörg Rambach
Die Ausgrabung von zwei Mittelhelladisch I-zeitlichen Grabtumuli in der Flur Kastroulia bei Ellinika (Alt-Thouria) in Messenien
Giulia Recchia
Burial Mounds and "specchie" in Apulia during the Bronze Age: Local Developments and Transadriatic Connections
Francesca Radina
Un impianto dell’età del bronzo nell’Alta Murgia pugliese: il recinto e il tumulo del sito di Le Chianche (Minervino Murge, Bari)
Elisabetta Onnis
The Torre S. Sabina Tumulus (Brindisi, Italy) in the Context of Transmarine Relations during the 14th c. B.C.
Elodia Bianchin Citton, Claudio Balista
I tumuli funerari dell’età del Rame di Sovizzo-località S. Daniele (Vicenza): aspetti costruttivi, cronologici e cultuali
Lorenza Endrizzi, Elisabetta Mottes, Franco Nicolis, Nicola Degasperi
New Evidence of Ancestral Landscape in Trentino in the Copper and Bronze Ages: the Ritual Sites of Cles-Campi Neri and La Vela di Trento
Elisabetta Mottes, Michele Bassetti, Elena Silvestri
The Bronze Age Tumuli of Gardolo di Mezzo (Trento, Italy) in the Adige Valley
Diffusionism under examination
Volker Heyd
Yamnaya Groups and Tumuli west of the Black Sea
Janusz Czebreszuk, Łukasz Pospieszny
The Oldest Round Barrows of the European Lowlands
Krassimir Leshtakov
Bronze Age Mortuary Practices in Thrace: A prelude to Studying the Long-term Tradition
Fanouria Dakoronia
The Marmara Tumuli: their Contribution to Greek Protohistory
Georgios Styl. Korres
Middle Helladic Tumuli in Messenia. Ethnological Conclusions
Alberto Cazzella
The (Possible) Tursi Tumulus Burial near Matera and the Relationships between Southern Italy and the Aegean-Balkan Area in the First Half of the 3rd Millennium B.C.
La 
