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...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
Research master thesis | Archaeology (research) (MA/MSc)
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In the Roman imperial period in the region of Tongres, Cologne, and Trier the inhumation burial ritual started to be used as the dominant funerary practice and thereby replaced the cremation burial...Show moreIn the Roman imperial period in the region of Tongres, Cologne, and Trier the inhumation burial ritual started to be used as the dominant funerary practice and thereby replaced the cremation burial. This transition to the use of inhumation burials had first occurred in Rome and it had also been in use in the east of the Roman empire before inhumations were used in Rome. Therefore, interpretations of this spread in burial practices over the empire had focussed on ex oriente lux cultural diffusions from the east to the west and several explanations saw the shift to the inhumation burial in the Roman empire as the result of emulations of Rome. Other empire wide theories were centred on relating the inhumation burial practice to early Christianization, the oriental mystery religions, the Crisis of the Third Century, ethic migrations, persistent local rituals, and the maintenance of the intact body. Whereas most of these explanations interpreted the inhumation burial rite on a regional scale this research tried to also incorporate a more local approach by re-examining the developments in funerary rites in the case-study sites Tongres and Cologne (as well as a sample of other cemetery sites with early inhumation burials). As it was also aimed to study the funerary rites at the regional scale the general developments in funerary rites in the research region were described and overview maps of sites with early inhumations in the research region were presented. Furthermore, following the recent scholars’ interpretations of the inhumation burial rites in terms of the maintenance of the intact body and a possible new meaning of the burial ritual it was attempted to interpreted the inhumation burial ritual along the lines of the concept of fractal personhood (and how this could be constructed in the funerary rituals). The interpretation of the inhumation and cremation burial rituals as two diametrically opposed rites or as exclusively connected to either the individual or dividual self did not seem to correspond with the results from the research region which indicated less rigid views of what the funerary practices could look like may have been prevailing. Possibly, the newly developing urban contexts of Tongres and Cologne where many different people and ideas of funerary practices came together made these places relatively receptive contexts towards other funerary ideas. Hence, the cremation and inhumation rites can be viewed as possibilities among the variability in funerary practices, which could have been selectively used to best fit the specific social situation, aims of the burying groups, and identity of the deceased.Show less
Animal remains that were discovered in cremation- or inhumation graves dating to the prehistory are often interpreted as food offerings for the deceased. Animals are still categorized in human...Show moreAnimal remains that were discovered in cremation- or inhumation graves dating to the prehistory are often interpreted as food offerings for the deceased. Animals are still categorized in human-subject and animal-object categories that interpret animals as an addition to the live of the prehistoric people instead of living beings. Interpreting animal remains from graves with this approach limits the possibility that animals were buried other than food offerings. This traditional view has been questioned by scholars such as Russell and Hill. Their research has concluded that many prehistoric habitants perceived objects in their universe as living and dynamic agents able to make independent and deliberate decisions. Russell has made a subdivision between different animal find categories found in graves. With these categories, he rejects the pre-assumption that animals were only used for their nutritional value and always placed as a food offering in the grave. This thesis tests the approach from Russell and Hill by analyzing faunal remains that were found in the Bronze- and Iron Age graves in the Netherlands. The aim of this thesis is to research if there is a different perspective on how prehistoric people perceived and used animals. For both the faunal remains from the Bronze Age as for the remains from the Iron Age a database is constructed. The faunal assemblage is thereafter analysed and categorized in the following five categories: food offerings (bones from meaty parts of the animal), ornamental grave goods (decorated or perforated objects and hunting trophies), implements (tools), individuals (complete animal skeletons) and the last category contains other uncategorized finds. An overview of animals that were found in Bronze- and Iron Age settlements were presented in this thesis. Animals found at settlements in the Bronze- and Iron Age consist mainly of livestock animals, such as cattle, sheep/goats and pigs. In Bronze Age settlements game animals were found often, indicating that these animals were still part of the diet. In Iron Age settlements game animals were found sporadically, indicating that these were not frequently eaten. Various animal species were discovered in both Bronze- and Iron Age graves. Animals that were found in Bronze Age graves were cattle, sheep/goat, pig, horse, dog, deer, fish, bird and brown bear. Animals that were found in Iron Age graves were cattle, sheep/goat, pig, horse, deer, bird, fish and marten. The results of the comparative analysis between the Bronze- and Iron Age animal remains prove that there is a changing perception of animals demonstrated between the Bronze- and Iron Age. During the Bronze Age, animals were frequently buried as ornaments and individuals. Animals that were buried as individuals were treated as if they were humans. Food offerings to the deceased was not often observed. This could be indicating that some Bronze Age people formed an emotional bond with animals, which is in sharp contrast with the traditional view that animals were only held due to their nutritional value. In the Iron Age on the other hand animals were mainly buried offered as food and less frequently as ornamental- and implements or individuals, which can be interpreted as attempts by family members or friends to ensure that the deceased would not suffer from food shortage in the afterlife. The Dutch Bronze- and Iron Age faunal assemblage indicates a shift in the perception of animals between the Bronze- and Iron Age from a perception that allowed people to bond emotionally with animals to a perception of animals that is focused on their ritual and nutritional value.Show less
