Many of the long barrows were used as tombs in which to place the remains of deceased individuals.[1] For this reason, archaeologists like Malone have referred to them as "houses of the dead".[26] Conversely, many of the long barrows do not appear to have been used as tombs; various examples that have been excavated by archaeologists have shown no evidence of having had human remains deposited there.[34] The archaeologists David Lewis-Williams and David Peace, however, noted that these long barrows were more than tombs, also being "religious and social foci", suggesting that they were places where the dead were visited by the living and where people maintained relationships with the deceased.[35]