ABSTRACT
Archaeologists have long realised that a preoccupation with death, marked out in the archaeological record by burial, amongst other mortuary practices, indicates a burgeoning concern with both identity and the afterlife amongst our ancestors. This concern is not restricted just to human beings: for example, the interred remains of dogs appear in the archaeological record as early as the Early and Middle Archaic periods at Danger Cave in Utah, United States. Palaeolithic archaeology is the archaeology of human becoming and the problematic of this work is the Palaeolithic origins and developments of 'human mortality' as this can be elicited from a discussion of mortuary practice. This chapter draws some phenomenological conclusions from the archaeological record that might illuminate the structure of the experiences and behaviours that produced that record. The point at which traces of can be detected in the archaeological record will provide a new take on archaeological approaches to questions about the origins of 'cognitive modernity' partly.
