During the Early and Middle Neolithic the dead were buried inside their houses or very close to them, at the limits of the settlements they had lived in. According to finds from Nea Nikomedeia, Argissa, Soufli Magoula, Franchthi, the dead were buried in simple pit graves (0,7×1,0 metre), in a contracted (foetal) position. They were usually isolated burials of children or young persons who were interred beneath the floor of their houses.

Group burials have been recorded only in Nea Nikomedeia so far, where the burial of a woman and two children were discovered. The dead were accompanied by grave-goods, such as pottery, stone tools (flint blades) and probably small animals.

Besides primary burials, the custom of collecting bones was also practised and of their internment beneath the floor: at Prodromos in Karditsa, fragments from eleven skulls were discovered, broken thigh bones and ribs, not in their anatomical position, but scattered beneath the house floor, and in three successive layers.


During the Early Neolithic (Protosesklo phase) the custom of cremating the dead was observed for the first time in Greece, a custom established in the Aegean during the Protogeometric and Geometric periods (1000-700 BC). A unique example of this custom is encountered in the cemetery with cremation burials at Soufli Magoula in Thessaly. Inside oval pits, with a diameter of 60-80 and a depth of 10-30 centimetres, charred bones and monochrome vases were discovered, deliberately smashed. Burials were accompanied by offerings of small, roughly made vases, probably charred by the funeral pyre, stone vases and the charred skull of a goat. In an area of 10×5 metres, 14 cremation burials were discovered in all, but also two larger pit graves, with evident traces of a fire and small pieces of charred bones from different individuals, thus forming a crematorium.

From the Middle Neolithic six cremations were also unearthed in a small cave at Prosymna. The custom of cremating the dead continued during the Late É and Final Neolithic as well.