This paper focuses on a significant increase in the ratio of the funeral system of the secondary inhumation in the mid-Bronze Age, during which dolmens were built, and examines the background of this increase in connection with changes of the funeral system in Chuncheon area. According to the results, dolmens in Chuncheon area were constructed intensively in the latter half of the Bronze Age, in particular, in Jungdo site they were continuously built from the second half of the Bronze Age, in which the large-scale settlements, were dismantled to the Clay-stripe Pottery period.
The dolmens are divided into four types based on the location of the central part of the burial : ground, semi-underground, underground, and deep underground. While the more the central part of the landfill gets exposed, the larger the tomb facility and the central part of the grave gets, the more the central part goes down, the fewer the tomb facility is set up; even if the facility is set up, the size of it and the central part of the burial are small. These structural differences reflect time sequence: the size of dolmens gets low as the location of the central part of the grave changing in order of ground → semi-underground → underground and deep underground. The change also indicates a significant decrease in the labor force to be applied to the construction of dolmens.
Changes in the structure and scale of the dolmens are reflected in the formation of dolmen groups in Cheonjeon-RI and Jungdo sites. In these sites, it exhibits the rapid process of undergroundization and miniaturization of the central part of the burial; in this process, the secondary inhumation has become generalized. Besides, these changes are closely related to the process of large-scale settlements being dismantled and converted into mixed-economic systems in accordance with the adaptive strategy to cope with overpopulation since the second half of the Bronze Age.