Re-thinking a Sacred Space: The evolution of burial practices as seen from a Bronze Age tumulus from Karlstrup, Denmark

In this paper, we use a cultural evolution framework and methods to explore how continuity and change can be observed in a relatively small, enclosed space – a single prehistoric burial mound, from Karlstrup, Denmark, with a long and complex history of re-use. This burial mound was extensively used and re-used across the Late Neolithic ‘Dagger Period’ and Early Nordic Bronze Age. Although archaeologists have long acknowledged the burial traditions of these two periods as quite distinct from each other, there is still much to be explored regarding what – if any – cultural evolutionary relationships there may be between societies across these periods (i.e., whether Nordic Bronze Age uses of sacred spaces, such as burial grounds, can be shown to have evolved from pre-existing Neolithic uses). By mapping a series of 41 cultural traits across the many funerary entities within burial Mound 4 at Karlstrup, we trace the degree of change, continuity, and coherence (i.e. cultural evolution) between Late Neolithic and Early Nordic Bronze Age burial traditions across time. We then relate these findings back to contemporaneous changes in notions of identity and social status in later European prehistory.