The majority of excavated human remains from Neolithic Britain emanate from monumental sites. However, it is increasingly recognized that multiple funerary practices are often attested within these monuments, and that diverse treatment of the dead is evident contemporaneously at non-monumental sites. In this paper, we highlight such variation in non-monumental funerary practices in Neolithic Britain (c. 4000–2500 bc) through the biographical study of an assemblage from a large post-hole at Bridlington Boulevard, Yorkshire. Through osteological and taphonomic analysis of the human bones and technological and microwear analysis of the accompanying axehead, we infer complex funerary processes, with the expediently manufactured axehead potentially featuring in the funerary rites and subsequent post-raising before being deposited in the feature. Bridlington Boulevard represents one element of a varied funerary complex—cremations in pits and post-holes—at a time when most individuals were not deposited in monuments, or indeed were not deposited at all. Compiling these non-monumental cremations across Britain causes us to look beyond categorizing these assemblages as funerary contexts, and instead suggests important cosmological associations and forces were brought together in pit and post-and-human cremation deposits.

英国新石器时代出土的大部分人类遗骸都来自纪念性遗址。然而，人们越来越认识到，这些纪念碑内经常出现多种丧葬习俗，而且在非纪念碑地点，对死者的不同处理方式也很明显。在本文中，我们通过对约克郡布里德灵顿大道一个大型柱洞组合的传记研究，强调了新石器时代英国（约公元前4000-2500年）非纪念性丧葬实践的这种变化。通过对人体骨骼的骨学和埋藏学分析以及对所附斧头的技术和微磨损分析，我们推断出复杂的丧葬过程，方便制造的斧头可能会出现在葬礼仪式中，并在被存放在该特征中之前进行后续的升起。布里德灵顿大道代表了各种殡葬综合体的一个元素——在坑和后坑中进行火葬——当时大多数人都没有被埋葬在纪念碑中，或者实际上根本没有被埋葬。整理英国各地的这些非纪念性火葬，使我们不再将这些组合归类为葬礼环境，而是表明重要的宇宙学关联和力量在坑和人类火葬后的沉积物中聚集在一起。