This study examines the mortuary practices of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (10,000-7,000 BC) and the early Pottery Neolithic (7,000-6,000) BC. This period saw the transformation of the economy and start of agriculture, and a corresponding explosion of symbolic development of mortuary practices. The book attempts to provide a chronology for changes in burial practices, and situating the symbolism of these practices in the context of wider economic and cultural change, interprets their meaning and function. The analysis owes much to the psychoanalytic techniques of Freud and Lacan.