Eneolithic long barrows in Bohemia and reconstruction of the ritual landscape around the hill of Říp

Project is implemented in cooperation with the Faculty of Arts, University of West Bohemia in Pilsen and with the Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague.

The project focuses on the key theme of European prehistory: the beginnings of burial mounds and manifestations of monumentality. Long barrows, burial monument of the Proto-/Early Eneolithic in Central/Northwestern Europe are representing the earliest manifestation of funerary monumentality of the European farming communities, following tradition of Neolithic longhouses. Their systematic research in Bohemia did not develop for long time. Aerial prospection in recent decades has identified several sites with the probable occurrence of these monuments. Their concentration in the Říp hill region enables the study of their landscape context. The research methodology is based on extensive geophysical prospection and a combination of archaeological and scientific methods. We aim to clarify the origin, development and purpose of these hitherto unknown monuments using spatially limited excavation and pedological sampling of 3 sites and thus contribute to the discussion of the origin of burial mounds in the Central European Neolithic & Eneolithic and their significance in the ritual landscape.