mr Paul Werner, Muenchen
THE ORIGIN, DEVELOPMENT AND TYPOLOGY OF GRAVEYARD WALL CONSTRUCTION IN EASTERN BAVARIA COUNTRYSIDE
Man is the only living being that buries or otherwise ritually removes the dead relatives - the use of fire and mortuary rites are the oldest acts in death, typical of mankind. Even in the Neanderthal stage, i.e. approximately 40.000 years ago, man set common or even family burial grounds. In the late Stone Age the dead were buried with food and goods, proof of belief in after-life. In the early Stone Age - mostly in the Near East - the dead were buried in their homes or within the settlement, in order to keep the connection between them and the living. "Even the culturally lower developed peoples used to, or still do, link the burial of the dead with more or less religious acts. Does this accord of all peoples hide a silent recognition of the immortality of the soul due to which we should treat the soulless body with respect?"