The only evidence for funerary practices during this period consists of cremated remains from three sites: a pit at Stoneyfield, Raigmore, Inverness (MHG54911; Simpson 1996a; Case Study Raigmore (Stoneyfield) Cairn); a pit at Culduthel, Inverness (MHG51630; probably, but not definitely human Hatherley forthcoming); and a pit just outside a dismantled circle, originally of posts and then of stone orthostats, at Armadale Pier on Skye (MHG60879; Peteranna 2011b; Krus and Peteranna 2016, 696, table 1). The finds from Raigmore and Culduthel were associated with sherds of Grooved Ware pottery.
As part of Copper’s (et al 2018, 223) Tracing the Lines project, a radiocarbon date of 3090–2907 cal BC was obtained at Raigmore, calcined human bone in Pit 20, in the vicinity of a timber house-like structure. The cremated remains comprised small amounts of calcined bone fragments, totalling just 40 g, from three individuals – an adult, a child aged 10–12 and a child or infant less than 4 years (Wilkinson 1996a). Sherds of three Grooved Ware pots were present in the pit; none of the pots was complete. Seven other pits with Grooved Ware sherds at Raigmore also contained calcined human bone, mostly in similarly small amounts (Pits 21, 39, 41, 42, 45, 49 and 50), but in one of these (Pit 50), the human remains turned out to be intrusive, from a Late Bronze Age episode of burial (Copper et al 2018, 224). Without dating all of the other pits, it is impossible to tell whether those remains date to the Late Neolithic or the Late Bronze Age – or indeed to the Early Bronze Age. Also present in the vicinity was a pit (30) that contained a child’s cremated remains buried in a Cordoned Urn. These remains have been radiocarbon dated to 1741–1518 cal BC (Sheridan 2003, Datashet 2.1). The only deposits from the pits with Grooved Ware that contain enough bone to justify obtaining a radiocarbon date are those from Pits 39 and 49; the others contain bones that weigh 4 g or less. Since a radiocarbon sample has to be at least 1.3g, the amount of material lost in those other cases would be too great.
The evidence from Pit 20 at Raigmore suggests it was unlikely there was the formal deposition of the cremated remains of entire bodies, but rather the deposition of ‘token’ amounts. Even if all the calcined remains from the pits above are also Late Neolithic, these would not constitute the expected amount of bone for a whole single individual. It is not known where the rest of the remains were placed, or whether the remains were from the inhabitants of the house-like structure.
At Culduthel, a fragment of unidentifiable calcined bone found associated with sherds from two Grooved Ware pots in a pit (pit [808]) has been dated to 2900–2680 cal BC (Sheridan 2010b, Pots 40 and 41; Hatherley forthcoming). Even though it was not possible to determine whether the bone was human or animal, the fact that the pit was part of a circle of pits containing charcoal and burnt stone, with further pits inside that circle containing ‘abundant’ calcined bone, points towards this being a funerary deposition of human remains and not a set of pits for disposing of domestic waste (Hatherley forthcoming). It is impossible to tell whether the calcined bone from the pits inside the pit circle are from the same individual/s, as with the 50g of calcined bone from pit [808], but once again it appears likely that we are dealing with the distributed remains of the dead, and not with straightforward deposition of one or more individual’s cremated remains in a single grave. The sherds from two pots found in pit [808] do not constitute complete pots; they were arranged on the base and around the side of the pit. Several pieces of flint some burned and including two retouched pieces, one a fragment of an arrowhead were also present in the pit.

The pit at Armadale (Feature 26) contained a deposit of cremated human remains that were found arranged in a shape resembling an upturned pot, although no pottery was present in the pit (Peteranna 2011b, 15). Three unburnt flint flakes were present at the bottom of the pit. A sample of the calcined bone produced a radiocarbon date of 2880–2570 cal BC (Krus and Peteranna 2016, Table 1). The pit lay immediately outside a ring ditch that had previously held a stone circle and, before that, a timber circle. There is a strong possibility that the pit with the Late Neolithic calcined bone was either contemporary with, or slightly post-dated, these circles.