Constructing seascapes and social memory: Coastal burials in Neolithic Korea

Abstract

Abstract

In this paper, I explore how Incipient and Early Neolithic communities in coastal Korea used mortuary practices to make the sea socially meaningful—and how those practices were closely tied to marine adaptation and emerging subsistence strategies. Using a comparative dataset of coastal and island burial sites, I examine where burials were placed and how burial grounds were organized, including cemetery size, burial structure and interment method, body orientation, grave goods, and ritual features associated with funerary ceremonies. The analysis suggests that burial grounds were not simply by-products of social structure. Instead, they were actively used to anchor new marine-oriented lifeways. Many burial places were deliberately positioned near the shoreline and, in large cemeteries, along key maritime routes. Bodies were commonly oriented toward the sea, and repeated burial events and associated rituals helped turn these locales into enduring reference points in the coastal landscape. In this sense, burial grounds functioned as repositories of social memory and as monuments in practice—stabilizing residential patterns and reinforcing community continuity during a period when coastal subsistence and mobility systems were being established. By linking mortuary behavior to the social production of seascapes, this study contributes an East Asian perspective to broader debates in island and coastal archaeology on maritime adaptation, ritual landscapes, and collective memory in small-scale societies.