Leiden University Student Repository

Jetses, Jordy Jonathan (2020)

Beenderen in graven en greppels. Een onderzoek naar de dodenrituelen in oostelijk West-Friesland tijdens de Midden- en Late Bronstijd

Master thesis | Archaeology (MA/MSc)

Burial mounds and flat graves are the most visible aspects of burial rituals in Bronze Age West-Frisia. The burial rituals for the barrow graves and the few flat graves that are found in the region are furthermore to a certain extent understandable for the archaeologists. After all, many inhabitants of Western Countries also bury their dead. A third element of the West-Frisian death rituals however, includes the distribution of separate human bones through the settlement. In this thesis, research is done according to the question of how the death rituals in eastern West-Frisia looked like during the Middle and Late Bronze Age. Thereby the focus will lie on this third element of human bones in the settlement contexts. For the answering of this question, a database was made which contains all Bronze Age human remains of West-Frisia that are found so far. Of these human remains several aspects were added to the database, including sex, age, dating, etc. Then with the help of these...Show moreBurial mounds and flat graves are the most visible aspects of burial rituals in Bronze Age West-Frisia. The burial rituals for the barrow graves and the few flat graves that are found in the region are furthermore to a certain extent understandable for the archaeologists. After all, many inhabitants of Western Countries also bury their dead. A third element of the West-Frisian death rituals however, includes the distribution of separate human bones through the settlement. In this thesis, research is done according to the question of how the death rituals in eastern West-Frisia looked like during the Middle and Late Bronze Age. Thereby the focus will lie on this third element of human bones in the settlement contexts. For the answering of this question, a database was made which contains all Bronze Age human remains of West-Frisia that are found so far. Of these human remains several aspects were added to the database, including sex, age, dating, etc. Then with the help of these aspects, significant patterns were looked after. Remarkable was that the majority of the human remains from this database seemed to come from the settlements more often than from the barrows and flat graves. These human bones from the settlements almost always consisted of only skull fragments or long bones. Considering this, one could ask oneself whether this should not also be considered a regular death ritual in West-Frisia.Show less

human bones

West-Frisia

Bronze age

graves

settlement contexts

ring ditches

Author

Jetses, Jordy Jonathan

Faculty

Faculty of Archaeology

Specialisation

Applied Archaeology

Supervisors

Bourgeois, Q.P.J.

ECTS Credits

20

Language

nl