The Materiality of Death - mikroarkeologi.se

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Figure 4: Pencraig Hill: Distribution of Cremated Bone on Pyre Fig. 5: Dunure Road: Cemetery Phase 1 and Table of Cremation Weights. 74
Wider Traditions By the late fourth millennium BC, ceremonial sites such as Pencraig Hill were no longer used in the same manner: the timber components having been burnt down and / or sealed beneath cairns or mounds (Kinnes 1991; Scott 1992). The tradition of transformation, manipulation and deposition of fragmentary and partial bodies and body parts clearly continues, however, into the first half of the third millennium BC. For example, at the post-defined enclosure of Meldon Bridge (Speak & Burgess 1999, 26), a large pit surrounded by six stakes, dated to 2900-2100 BC, had held successive posts, a stake and an upright stone; the partial cremated remains of an eight year old child had been scattered in it. In another case, selected cremated human bone was put into a pit that was set in a circle of 11 stakes. Such traditions were not limited to the interior of such ceremonial enclosures. At Pencraig Wood, people had deposited small quantities of burnt human bone in pits during the third quarter of the third millennium BC (MacGregor & Stuart forthcoming). The second half of the third millennium BC is traditionally seen to mark an apparent shift in practices with an increasing preference for cist inhumations. These are typically represented by the classic ‘Beaker Burial’ where anatomically correct crouched inhumations of individuals in cists, a form of practice which has dominated many of the models of the period. These traditions are characterised by inhumation of intact bodies, a focus which has led to social models and experimental practice that stress the ideological role of individualisation in mortuary and funerary rites (cf Thomas 1999) in all funerary practices across the period. However, increasing evidence for a wider range of mortuary and funerary practices during the period from Scotland, clearly indicates such models simplify the nature and inter-relationships of a suite of contemporary practices, and that use of fragmentary and partial body parts continues to be clearly observable in the archaeological record. More complex deposits of human bone from this period, include multiple inhumations (e.g. Stevenson 1940; Dalland 1991), inhumations with moved and removed body parts (Ritchie 1958; Close-Brooks 1979; Parker Pearson et al 2005), partial cremations (e.g. Jobey 1980), cremated bone associated with inhumation (e.g. Clarke and Hamilton 1999) and similar variations can be witnessed with the tradition generally characterised by articulated crouched inhumations of individuals in cists associated with Food Vessels (Sheridan 2004). Such variations are perhaps encapsulated most clearly at Linlithgow. Here a cist had deposits of partial, disarticulated and mixed, unburnt and burnt bones of at least one adult, possibly male, four children aged about nine years and one child aged about five years which were deposited at the end of the third millennium BC (Cook 2000). At Sand Fjold, Orkney a similar succession of disarticulated unburnt bones and cremated bone were deposited in a single cist from the early third millennium BC to the early first millennium BC (Dalland 1999), potentially reinforcing the more widespread nature of such traditions in Scotland. Exploring this hypothesis further, additional evidence worthy of consideration can perhaps be seen in the recently excavated cist cemetery at Dunure Road, Ayrshire, This late third millennium cremation ceremony (Fig. 5), typical of sites which mark an apparent shift in practice at the beginning of late third millennium BC, (Sheridan 2007), produced evidence which indicates that cremation assemblage weights are up to 40 % less than would be expected for the numbers of individuals represented within the assemblages (Fig 5) (Duffy forthcoming). This pattern has commonly been recorded elsewhere, but is generally attributed to selective collection from the pyre (McKinlay 2006), or more recently to the complete combustion and/or natural scattering (i.e. by wind action etc) of the hard tissue. (A. Sheridan, pers. comm.). Again, however, such explanations rest on an implicit assumption that complete individuals are being cremated. Yet the scarcity of excavated pyre sites, or evidence for alternative arenas of disposal for the ‘outstanding’ portions of such cremations significantly fails to balance this taphonomic equation. We would suggest instead that this evidence can potentially be seen to illustrate a selective, if not discriminatory, attitude towards deposition of cremated human bone, in which, as before, parts rather than the whole are stressed. It may be that alternative, archaeologically invisible forums of disposal explain the absence of this missing material (Bruck 2006; McKinlay 2006). More critically, current evidence fails to support the generally held view that this selection is exclusively a post cremation occurrence. What is salient in light of our hypothesis is that such methods and arenas of burial practice represent a visible continuation of a tradition involving the conscious selection and disposal of partial and fragmentary sets of human remains, selections which have been demonstrated to occur elsewhere prior to disposal. As cremation rites develop into the mid Bronze Age this phenomenon potentially becomes increasingly visible. In the later second millennium features at Dunure Road, for example, collections of partial sets of human remains (exclusively skull and long bone) occurred within an isolated pit, in front of a standing stone, and within the fill of the pit for the standing stone (Duffy forthcoming). Such patterning is reflected in contemporary examples from elsewhere, such as Park of Tongland, Dumfries and Galloway (Russell-White et al. 1992). Such deposits appear to become more visibly selective, often consisting almost entirely of skull and long bone elements, an assemblage characteristic reminiscent of the contents of chambered cairns from some two millennia earlier. Again, this selection is uncritically assumed to occur post-cremation, but we would suggest that, on the basis of present evidence, a continuing structuring principle 75
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The Materiality of Death Bodies, bu
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Contents Chapter 1. The Materiality
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Fig. 1. Pieter Bruegel, The Triumph
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ather one has to emphasise the mate
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dead are often regarded as unfriend
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Fig 3. The old man Tei Tetuna by hi
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The Materiality of Social Change: H
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The Materiality of Eternity - The A
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FAHLANDER, F. & OESTIGAARD, T. 2004
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Susanne Kuechler-Fogden, Webb Keane
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Chapter 2 More than Metaphor: Appro
Page 25 and 26:
discuss death and the treatment of
Page 27 and 28: had to deal with. This is not to sa
Page 29 and 30: hide that could be removed to expos
Page 31 and 32: pp111-123. Philadelphia: University
Page 33 and 34: Chapter 3 A Piece of the Mesolithic
Page 35 and 36: The main point is that the division
Page 37 and 38: A Piece of the Mesolithic: Skatehol
Page 39 and 40: question we need to construct some
Page 41 and 42: Fig. 4. Skateholm I (above) and Ska
Page 43 and 44: visible many years after the origin
Page 45 and 46: Phase Area Properties Interpretatio
Page 47 and 48: phase of one site with a contempora
Page 49: MILNER, N. & WOODMAN, P. 2005. Meso
Page 52 and 53: with dead people belonging to other
Page 54 and 55: Fig. 2. Due to the extraordinaire c
Page 56 and 57: As with all cremations in Hinduism,
Page 58 and 59: Based on the amount of scattered bo
Page 60 and 61: To have an ethical approach involve
Page 63 and 64: Chapter 5 From Corpse to Ancestor:
Page 65 and 66: Figure 2. Isola Sacra, Tomb 100. Ph
Page 67 and 68: Figure 4. Isola Sacra, Tomb 87. Pho
Page 73: 69 Burials
Page 76 and 77: through careful recording of the or
Page 80 and 81: focussed on use of partial sets of
Page 83 and 84: Chapter 7 Ritual and Remembrance at
Page 85 and 86: urial (tomba a doppio loculo tipo M
Page 87 and 88: ‘original’ walls of the tomb. L
Page 89 and 90: chambers cut into two earlier trenc
Page 91: Madison: Prehistory Press, Monograp
Page 94 and 95: Well-organized cemeteries or messy
Page 96 and 97: influenced who was buried inside th
Page 98 and 99: it was quite short, which could ind
Page 100 and 101: References ARTELIUS, TORE 2004. Min
Page 103 and 104: Chapter 9 Life and Death in the Bro
Page 105 and 106: Fig. 5.1. Cremation necropolis at P
Page 107 and 108: place. These burials were very simp
Page 109 and 110: Chapter 10 Norwegian Face-Urns: Loc
Page 111 and 112: The recurring themes in the debate
Page 113 and 114: The local context of the Norwegian
Page 115 and 116: Death is the inevitable conclusion
Page 117 and 118: OESTIGAARD, T. 1999. Cremations as
Page 119 and 120: Chapter 11 The Use of Ochre in Ston
Page 121 and 122: Ochre was used so intensively that
Page 123 and 124: Fig. 5. Zvejnieki burial ground. Th
Page 125 and 126: grave has been dated to 5690±45 BP
Page 127 and 128: Khanty of northern Siberia, the col
Page 129 and 130:
125 Beliefs
Page 131 and 132:
Chapter 12 ”Death Myths”: Perfo
Page 133 and 134:
Variation within the same cist Bø,
Page 135 and 136:
Variation within the same mound Lyd
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Figures 6 and 7. Modvo, Luster muni
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To what extent there have been corr
Page 141 and 142:
when they die, a probable explanati
Page 143 and 144:
fragmented spindles, iron weaving s
Page 145 and 146:
Chapter 13 Reproduction and Relocat
Page 147 and 148:
may be questioned, and analysed mor
Page 149 and 150:
References Andersson, G. 1997: A st
Page 151 and 152:
Chapter 14 A Road for the Viking’
Page 153 and 154:
Figure 2. The Jarlabanke Bridge tha
Page 155 and 156:
Chapter 15 A Road to the Other Side
Page 157 and 158:
Fig. 4. Clearing the bridge on an e
Page 159 and 160:
Chapter 16 Stones and Bones: The My
Page 161 and 162:
Fig. 4. An Iron Age scene at Sylta
Page 163 and 164:
Fig. 7. The resemblance between cru
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