Transitions

TransitionsChanging Burial Practices,

Neolithic-Iron Age• Large collective monuments for the dead began to appear on the coastal fringes of Western Europe (including

most of Britain) at this period. In inland Europe the Mesolithic tradition of burial in simple earth graves continued.

• The areas in which these large monuments were constructed correspond with the densely populated regions of the Mesolithic and may have been built as markers of territory between the new and old populations.

• They represented a permanent link between the community, the ancestral dead, and the land which they occupied, generally being placed close to settled areas in dominant positions. A good example is the West Kennet long barrow (Wiltshire) which dominates the skyline.

• There is some suggestion that the shape of tombs is related to the type of housing favoured in an area (round, rectangular, trapezoid or irregular). Houses of the dead were usually more permanent than those of the living, because the ancestors represent the community and the tombs were shrines to these supernatural beings.

• On the chalklands and lowlands of southern and eastern England, long mounds were often piled up on wooden structures. This type is concentrated in Wessex and is often close to another type of ritual monument, the causewayed enclosure. Tombs are usually positioned on uplands and at heads of valleys, perhaps above valley settlements for which no evidence survives. Examples include a very large long barrow at Maiden Castle, Dorset, at one extreme, and a number of long barrows in Norfolk (West Rudham, Harpley, Ditchingham) at the other.

• In the Cotswolds-Severn region, internal stone-built chambers are located under wedge-shaped mounds faced with local limestone. These are in prominent positions overlooking the Severn Valley to the north, although the settlements were probably to the south on the shallow slopes of the escarpments. For example, West Kennet, Wiltshire, uses limestone brought from the Cotswolds.

• In western Britain, dolmens and cromlechs, large stone chambers possibly covered by earth or stone mounds, are the dominant form. A good example is Lanyon Quoit, Cornwall (right).

Regional Variations• On the chalklands and lowlands of southern and eastern England, long

mounds were often piled up on wooden structures. • concentrated in Wessex • close to causewayed enclosure. • Tombs usually positioned on uplands and at heads of valleys, perhaps

above valley settlements for which no evidence survives. • In the Cotswolds-Severn region, internal stone-built chambers are

located under wedge-shaped mounds faced with local limestone. These are in prominent positions overlooking the Severn Valley to the north, although the settlements were probably to the south on the shallow slopes of the escarpments. For example, West Kennet, Wiltshire, uses limestone brought from the Cotswolds.

• In western Britain, dolmens and cromlechs, large stone chambers possibly covered by earth or stone mounds, are the dominant form.

Tombs and causewayed Enclosures• The tombs may have had several functions aside from that of disposal of the

dead, in the same way that a parish church is not simply a burial place. • Generally these tombs contain several bodies, with an average in Wessex of six

per tomb. • In most cases the bodies are disarticulated and incomplete, with some degree

of erosion or animal gnawing, suggesting that the bodies were exposed to the elements before burial. This practice is known as excarnation.

• In some cases it seems likely that the first structure on a site was a timber mortuary enclosure which may have been used for exposure. This was later burnt down and covered by a mound, with some charring of the human remains inside. Deliberate complete cremation is rare.

• In Wessex, excavation of causewayed enclosures such as Hambledon Hill has shown that these monuments may also have acted as mortuary enclosures.

• The ditches are filled with feasting debris, particularly bones of cattle, sheep and pigs, broken pottery, and disarticulated human remains. Skulls were placed at the bottom of ditches soon after they were dug, and deposits continued throughout the natural silting of the ditches.

Late Neolithic• Collective burial continued, but the bodies were undisturbed

after burial and survive as intact articulated crouched skeletons. There was also an increase in the use of cremation. Both types were buried under mounds, eg, Duggleby Howe.

• Megalithic passage graves were constructed in Ireland, North Wales and northern and western Scotland. The most famous, from each of these regions respectively, are Newgrange and Maes Howe. Groups of tombs were located in prominent and hilltop situations. They consist of chambers at the end of stone-lined passages with corbelled roofs, covered with large round mounds or stone cairns, c.15-80m diameter.

• Some Scottish examples have stalls rather than chambers, e.g. Mid Howe, and some of these were even double-decked.

Later Neolithic,continued• Maes Howe in Orkney has a dry stone passage and corbelled chamber. The

original burials and grave goods were lost. A runic inscription records the robbing of the tomb by Vikings in c.1150 and describes the discovery of treasure.

• Neolithic houses in Orkney show similarities to the tomb, with passages into central area with chambers or recesses for beds - i.e. resting places of the dead like sleeping areas. At Skara Brae , the settlement contained the burials of two women in a house which was set apart from the rest and may have been a confinement place for women during menstruation.

• Astronomical features are often present. For example, a box is situated above the Newgrange entrance for admitting light from mid-winter sunrise, and the Maes Howe passage faced the mid-winter sunset. A possible communal hall at the nearby village of Barnhouse faced the mid-summer sunset, suggesting that this time of year was concerned with the living, whilst the winter solstice concerned the dead.

• Megalithic tombs were also constructed in the South of Britain. For example, Wayland's Smithy, Wiltshire, was altered from an earthen long barrow to incorporate a megalithic tomb.

So, who was buried?• During both the early and the later phases it is clear that there is some

selection of individuals for particular forms of burial. • In the earlier Neolithic this may be based on the appropriateness of the

individual for inclusion in communal ritual practices, or on the basis of age and gender, with the whole community contributing to the building of the monuments.

• Later, the building of megalithic tombs and other monuments shows great advances in architectural and technological terms, and the commemoration of great ancestors suggests that wealth or status may have been the deciding factor.

• The vast majority of the population have disappeared, perhaps as a result of later destruction or lack of discovery, but more likely as a result of excarnation and scattering of their bones. Perhaps the people buried in the early tombs are merely those whose bones were able to withstand exposure and remained to be collected for burial.

Bronze Age burials• The main type of burial at this time consisted

of individual interment of firstly crouched inhumation and later cremation burials, often richly endowed with grave goods.

Beaker Burials• A new form of burial rite, the so-called Beaker

burials, began to appear around 4700 years ago.

• These are crouched inhumations accompanied by a particular pottery form known as a beaker and covered by a small round earthen mound.

• The introduction of the beaker culture is probably due to a mixture of migration, trade and copying of new fashions.

Beaker Burials and sacred spaces• The earliest burials were located at some distance from earlier

monuments and could represent a new trend away from the henge-building 'establishment', or perhaps at this early stage some really were invaders.

• Later, the earlier monuments began to attract cemeteries of round barrows - more than 260 are known within a two-mile radius of Stonehenge. A good example is the barrow cemetery at Winterbourne Stoke, Wiltshire.

• Such 'sacred landscapes' are spaced every 6 miles along the eastern river valleys and may mark boundaries or meeting places between territories. They seem to mark the limits of zones of settlements, suggesting different regions for the living and the dead

It is now common to see the Beaker culture as a 'package' of knowledge (including religious beliefs and copper, bronze and gold working) and artefacts (including copper daggers, v-perforated buttons and stone wrist-guards) adopted and adapted by the indigenous peoples of Europe to varying degrees.

Beaker burial, from a barrow cemetery near Shrewton. The male skeleton was found with Beaker pottery and a copper dagger

• Richer burials are known, e.g. Barnack, which contained gold hair decorations and buttons.

• However, around 4200 years ago richer burials became common, especially in Wessex.

• Grave goods indicate continental links of a warrior elite, and there are no more beakers.

• The richest excavated example is Bush Barrow to the south-west of Stonehenge, which contained a man with a large decorated gold lozenge on his chest, three large bronze daggers, a stone mace, and a gold-decorated baton. Cross-channel connections and exchange of wealth for imported goods suggests powerful and influential local leaders.

Bush Barrow is a site of the early British Bronze Age (ca. 2000 BC), at the western end of the Normanton Down Barrows cemetery. It is among the most important sites of the Stonehenge complex.

Middle to Late Bronze Age• Burial in the Bronze Age suggests a continuing change

in emphasis towards the individual, with burials of wealthy individuals and children with apparently hereditary status (although their grave goods were presumably supplied by grieving parents and may suggest their status rather than that of the dead child).

• There may also be a move towards concern with family and personal history rather than the supernatural power of the ancestors, with new beliefs connected with water cults perhaps taking precedence by the end of the period.

Later Bronze Age• The archaeological evidence for this period suggests that the dead were

no longer at the centre of life - and that the "landscape of the dead was replaced by a landscape of the living".

• the practice of cremation continued, but ashes were deposited in shallow pits without a pottery vessel

• By end of BA, cremation had virtually disappeared. Very little is known about the disposal of the dead in this period. A few inhumations with metalwork have been found and some metal hoards contain human bone.

• Human skulls are found in association with water deposits of weapons in the Thames, perhaps suggesting a move towards sacred water rites with the Thames acting as a British Ganges.

• Burials in peat and fenland areas are known in East Anglia from this period, especially around Methwold. A few intact skeletons of this period show evidence for violent ends.

There is evidence of a relatively large scale disruption of cultural patterns which some scholars think may indicate an invasion (or at least a migration) into Southern Great Britain around the 12th century BC. This disruption was felt far beyond Britain, even beyond Europe, as most of the great Near Eastern empires collapsed (or experienced severe difficulties)

Cremation was adopted as a burial practice, with cemeteries of urns containing cremated individuals appearing in the archaeological record.

The standard farming household consisted of two houses, a main living house and an out-house for cooking and textile production. The dead were cremated, and buried in small cemeteries behind each settlement. The large burial sites of the early Bronze Age were a thing of the past, as the land was now needed for agriculture.

Iron Age ( Celtic)• associated with an increase in the power of

tribal chieftains and an age of tribal warfare, with a greater degree of continental influence and the introduction of another new metalworking technology.

• Burial practices in this period show a continuing tradition of cremation from the late Bronze Age, with later inhumation and richly furnished burials up to the Roman period.

the discovery of this unknown stone circle may well be confirmation of the Stonehenge Riverside Project's theory that the River Avon linked a 'domain of the living' – marked by timber circles and houses upstream at the Neolithic village of Durrington Walls– with a 'domain of the dead' marked by Stonehenge and this new stone circle.

“Bluestonehenge”: A new stone circle near Stonehenge

The barrow cemetery at Winterbourne Stoke is focused on the early Neolithic long barrow, visible close to the modern roundabout in this photograph.

Woodhenge likely to have been a free-standing setting of posts rather than a roofed building. The burials may have been sacrifices or offerings to mark the use of the monument. The posts and entrance appear to have a similar alignment to that at Stonehenge.

Woodhenge is a Late Neolithic monument originally made up of a series of concentric circles of wooden posts within a circular bank and ditch. It is of similar size to Stonehenge

1920s excavations led to the discovery of a young child skeleton, buried near the centre of the monument. Another adult burial was found within the outer ditch. Finds included large amounts of Grooved Ware pottery, carved chalk objects and flint tools.

Early Iron Age• little is known about the disposal of the dead in this period. Cremation

and scattering of the ashes is one possibility, cremation and burial in a pit or under a barrow is another. Crouched inhumations in stone cists of Late Bronze to Late Iron Age date seem to have been the prevalent rite in the south-west peninsula and Wales.

• A number of burials have been found in settlement sites such as Gussage All Saints, Dorset, and hill forts such as Danebury in Hampshire.

• These include skeletons with parts missing, and burials of individual bones, especially skulls, at the bottom of pits in hill forts. There may have been selection of particular bones after exposure for use in ritual prior to burial.

• But only a small part of the population was involved. Some may have been killed in war, others may have been human sacrifices.

Middle Iron Age• The Arras culture of Yorkshire -large cemeteries with graves

under mounds surrounded by rectangular ditched enclosures. These include men, women and children. Eg, Wetwang Slack

• The culture is an elite burial tradition involving the interment of a two-wheeled vehicle with the body. The burials are generally of men, but at least one woman is known.

• the crouched position is native to Britain, suggesting emulation of exotic behaviour.

• Other types of burial in this period include bog bodies, an example of the ritual deposition of bodies in water.

Removal of Bones?• There is some evidence to suggest that bones were

removed from tombs to be used in ritual activities. Skulls are common in enclosures, but generally under-represented in tombs.

• Sorting of bones within the tombs is also common, and it is likely that tombs were periodically cleaned out for reuse.

• Adult bones are more common in tombs, but there are more children in causewayed enclosures. This could be a result of scattering of smaller remains by animals so that they were not collected for burial.

• Burial in a long barrow may have been reserved for individuals of high status, but there are other possibilities. People may have been selected for their relevance to the rituals in which they were being used, such as shamans, transvestites, wise women, people who died in a certain way, had a certain spiritual type, representatives of each family in a group, etc.

• Grave goods or display items were sometimes present, for example pottery, shale beads, bone scoops, flint tools and arrowheads.

• Not everyone was buried in long barrows. A few isolated flat graves have been found of this date, for example a female with an Abingdon-type bowl at Pangbourne, Dorset. These are sometimes marked by a post, and as similar animal burials have also been found it may be that the post and not the burial was the important feature,possibly as a totem pole. Casual burials are also found in the ditches of causewayed enclosures and in the shafts of flint mines. Over 250 burials are known from caves in Britain, and these consist of a much larger proportion of children than is found in long barrows, perhaps because they are undisturbed.