Among other objectives, this collection of papers investigates the role that settlements surrounding necropolises have played in the evolution of megalithic and hypogean graves and their relationship to the development of collective burial ritual through consideration of collective burial ritual as a means of masking social differences. The intention here is to explore the relationship between collectivism and concealment in relation to other forms of non-funerary ritualism. Contents: 1) Links between megalithism and hypogeism in Western Mediterranean Europe: an approach (Jose Andres Afonso Marrero, Juan Antonio Camara Serrano and Liliana Spanedda); 2) Different forms for the same symbol a theoretical reflection on monumental graves in IV-III millennia B.C. Through an ideological analysis of their architecture (Maria Aguado Molina); 3) Hypogea: concealed caves or constructed temples? The hypogea of Malta and their significance (Simon Stoddart and Caroline Malone); 4) Visibility and monumentality in western Granada's late prehistoric graves (Antonio Manuel Montufo Martin, Juan Antonio Camara Serrano, Jose Andres Afonso Marrero and Fernando Molina Gonzalez); 5) Megaliths and rock-cut tombs in northeastern Sardinia: from spatial consecration to the demarcation of territorial boundaries (Liliana Spanedda); 6) Building for the dead. Rock-cut tombs and passage graves in the Lisbon peninsula. Some previous readings (Victor S. Goncalves); 7) Incontro fra ipogeismo e megalitismo nel territorio del Barigadu (Sardegna, Italia) (Cinzia Loi); 8) Un particolare caso di megalitismo associato ad aspetti ipogeici nell'isola di La Maddalena (Sardegna) (Tomaso Di Fraia); 9) Burials in Sardinian bell beaker culture (Claudia Pau); 10) Conclusions. Monumentality between strategies of concealment and exhibition (Juan Antonio Camara Serrano and Jose Andres Afonso Marrero).

Based on a project carried out from 1985-1992 investigating the history of Bronze Age communitities in the Upper Guadalquivir Valley of Jaen, this report explores the archaeological evidence for social hierarchies in the Bronze Age (2100-1100 BC) and, in particular, at the fortified site of Penalosa. The authors discuss the aims and background of the project, the local environment, and evidence for subsistence, technology, social relations and funerary customs at the site. Spanish text.

Through an analysis of burials and funerary practices in southern Iberia, Camara explores the wider issues of social, territorial, political and organisational change from the Neolithic through to the Bronze Age. A number of sites are investigated in southern and southeast Spain and this evidence is then used to interpret different types of funerary ritual, ideologies, the development of permanent settlement and hierarchies, and the use of megaliths in the south and as part of a much broader phenomenon. Spanish text, with short English summary.