Radiocarbon dates from the chambered tomb at Hazleton (Glos.): a chronology for neolithic collective burial

Abstract

The social organization of prehistoric British societies has been a busy interest recently, with the hypothesis that the Neolithic was characterized by lineage societies, very likely egalitarian in character, whose dead were placed into communal ‘tombs for the ancestors’. But how secure is the evidence for burial in chambered or unchambered long barrows over many generations? Hazleton provides the key example, for it is the first neolithic burial-site to benefit from the full resources of AMS dating and the new calibration.