 This cut @-@ marked human bone assemblage represented the largest yet identified from within a Neolithic long barrow in Southern Britain , although similar evidence for dismemberment has been found from a number of other Neolithic British sites , such as West Trump , Eyford , Aldestrop , and Haddenham . There are two possibilities for how this material developed . The first is that the bodies of the dead were excarnated or exposed to the elements , followed by a secondary burial within the tomb . The second is that they were placed in the tomb , where the flesh decomposed , before the bodies were then rearranged within the tomb itself . These practices may have been accompanied by necrophagy , shamanism , or magical practices , direct evidence for which does not survive . 
