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Cult of the Dead
Copper Age graves and cemeteries attest to very careful burial of the dead at the time. To ensure that the dead would have a good afterlife, all the necessary utensils as well as status symbols such as jewellery and weapons were placed in the grave with them.
In the southern Alpine region, graves were usually situated below rocky ledges, for example in Nogarole and Moletta Patone in Italy. There were single, double and collective graves and complex burial rites. The living often visited the burial sites to pay homage to the dead.
In northern Italy there were proper graveyards with individual graves in open country. Whereas the dead in Remedello were usually buried in a foetal position, in Spilamberto they were buried stretched out on their backs.
In Switzerland the dead were usually buried in stone crypts. There were also megalith graves (large crypts) that were used over many generations.
Burial sites were often places where ancestral cults were practised in order to establish a link between this world and the next.
