ABSTRACT

While the changes in constructing and perceiving the built and natural environments were gradual developments linked, in some places, to previous patterns, abrupt changes in the character of material culture and its deposition mark the fifth millennium BC. The most striking of these novelties were the use of new (and existing) materials to make novel visually expressive objects and the deposition of the deceased in extra-mural cemeteries. As with the trans-regional patterns in constructing the built environment, people practised distinct local traditions of material expression and extramural inhumation.