Funerary Practices of the Late Pleistocene-Middle Holocene in Wallacea: A Review of Current Evidence

Delta Bayu Murti1*, Fakhri2, Pratiwi Yuwono3, and Toetik Koesbardiati1

Burial data can be a key to understanding human ways of life, such as how people dealt with dying and death. Unfortunately, there is a tendency to simplify the data, making a range of funerary practices in archaeological research invisible and cutting off an opportunity to investigate the wide variety of human deathways. This study aims to survey burial evidence in Wallacea and analyse current data to understand funerary practices and population dynamics. We are using an archaeothanatological approach to reconstruct death-related behavior and to explain funerary practices from several archaeological sites in Wallacea, spanning the Late Pleistocene to the Middle Holocene. The results show primary burial with a flexed position was the most common, with several variations.: lying on the lateral side, lying on the back side, tilted, and/or seated/squatted. We also found similarities in burial architecture across four burials dated to the Middle Holocene, namely the placement of large rocks/cobbles as grave cuts. This finding raises the possibility that this model was practiced at least since the Holocene period in Wallacea. However, it does not rule out the possibility that the use of large rocks/cobbles as grave cuts was also carried out during the late Pleistocene, considering that currently burial data from that period is still limited. These findings indicate that the six sites from the Late Pleistocene-Middle Holocene in Wallacea shared a belief system.