In the 1980s, archaeological studies near the village of Valkenburg, South-Holland, unearthed the skeletal remains of individuals buried at the Valkenburg-Marktveld cemetery during the Roman period...Show moreIn the 1980s, archaeological studies near the village of Valkenburg, South-Holland, unearthed the skeletal remains of individuals buried at the Valkenburg-Marktveld cemetery during the Roman period. Part of multiple Roman fortifications along the Limes dating from 40 A.D. onwards, the cemetery was likely used as a burial ground for inhabitants of the Valkenburg fort or nearby vicus, a civilian settlement. The cemetery comprised at least 250 cremated individuals as well as 47 inhumations, which is a striking find that contradicts the common Roman practice of cremation. Due to these inhumated skeletal remains, the site provides an unique opportunity to employ osteoarchaeological analysis to reconstruct the lives of individuals that lived in the Roman Frontier region. This thesis utilizes cross-sectional geometry and bilateral asymmetry analysis to infer activity patterns among individuals at the Valkenburg-Marktveld cemetery, as current research on the differences in bone geometry between different demographic groups within Roman communities in the Lower Rhine area is limited. The study further investigates the factors and potential activity patterns that might influence those variations, such as biological age and sex. To do so, it builds on the initial osteoarchaeological study conducted by Lonnée and Maat (1998), who reported the estimated sex and age-at-death of each individual. Following this, each relevant bone in the upper and lower limbs was measured on various points to generate the indices for each point of measurement, as well as calculate the percentage directional asymmetry (DA%) and absolute asymmetry (AA%). The resulting values were then compared statistically between the biological sexes and age-at-death categories. While statistical significance is limited, the interpretation of data highlights the potential of these analyses in inferring activity patterns. Results from the analysis indicate that males tend to display more robust and symmetric upper and lower limbs than females, which are likely attributable to biological factors or a wider range of activities in males. Age-at-death categories exhibited inconsistencies with patterns described in other study, which is possibly due to natural variation or the limited preservation and availability of the skeletal material. Despite the limited number of individuals that could be examined, this thesis contributes valuable insights into the application of cross-sectional geometry and bilateral asymmetry analysis in osteoarchaeological studies, complementing historical data and broadening our understanding of activities in Roman frontier regions.Show less
Research master thesis | Archaeology (research) (MA/MSc)
open access
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
