12 replies to this topic

[jannelamb]

Hi there

I am doing a dissertation for an MLitt in Ethnology and folklore (to be handed in by the end of September!!!!!!)

My topic is on mourning :  rituals, customs, changes in mourning practices and modern ways of mourning.etc.

What I would like to know from the fount of wisdom that is the stonepages site is   - Is there any archaeological evidence for mourning in the Mesolithic or Neolithic periods in the UK?(particularly Scotland but I will gladly accept ANYTHING that you experts can come up with!)

cheers n good vibes
Anne Lamb

VERY mature student at the Elphinstone Institute, University of Aberdeen

[tiompan]

hello Anne ,  to retrieve personal feelings e.g. mourning , from the prehistoric is next to impossible but I'm sure there are plenty of burial practices  as interpreted from excavation and material culture that may be interest .

George

[Pete G]

Hi Anne,
I was at the Stonehenge Riverside Project excavations last year and was quite moved when a childs burial was uncovered that had a small carved chalk pig placed ontop.
A Child toy maybe? or a gift from the parents to accompany the child in death?
I don't know but I was really moved by it.
Pete

[jannelamb]

tiompan, on 9 August 2009 - 18:25, said:

hello Anne ,  to retrieve personal feelings e.g. mourning , from the prehistoric is next to impossible but I'm sure there are plenty of burial practices  as interpreted from excavation and material culture that may be interest .

George

Thanks for reply George, it is really the burial practice in the prehistoric that I want to posit as proof of ritual which arguably can imply mourning in itself, my problem is that I don't know enough about prehistory to reference any archaeological evidence and don't have much time left to cram, hence my query here on stonepages!

[tiompan]

jannelamb, on 10 August 2009 - 11:17, said:

tiompan, on 9 August 2009 - 18:25, said:

hello Anne ,  to retrieve personal feelings e.g. mourning , from the prehistoric is next to impossible but I'm sure there are plenty of burial practices  as interpreted from excavation and material culture that may be interest .

George

Thanks for reply George, it is really the burial practice in the prehistoric that I want to posit as proof of ritual which arguably can imply mourning in itself, my problem is that I don't know enough about prehistory to reference any archaeological evidence and don't have much time left to cram, hence my query here on stonepages!

Anne , there are no mesolithic burails in the UK afaik .There was however a striking Danish burial of a child on a bed of swan feathers .In the Uk  there was the  earlier Lady of Paviland (actuall a male )covered in red ochre a common practice wherever ochre is found . Neolithic monuments like long barrows and chambered cairns had deposits of bone and cremations but as the "bits " ahd been curated for periods up to decades they are probably best not considered burials in the strict sense . Grave goods are possibly the best association with mourning , meadow sweet has been found in a few burials but whether it was a token of remmebrance or there to mask the smell we don't know .The Bronze Age saw monumnets that were more like what we would consider graves , individuals in a stone lined pit in the ground sometimes with a beaker . There was an interesting bit of culture from some Scottish sites in that those that had cremations sometimes had sheep or goat remains whilst inhumations had pig bone . Knives , beads ,urns ,flints ,potsherds and scrapers were relatively common . Seeing as youre in the north east it is worth mentioning that Bronze Age burials in the area showed some distinctive patterns of burial relating to gender which was also found in Yorkshire .Females were found lying on their right side and oriented west with line of "sight 2 to the south . Males were palced on their left and and oriented east with line of " sight" to the south . Hope this helps a bit .btw do you have Tim Ingold as a tutor ?

George

[jannelamb]

tiompan, on 10 August 2009 - 13:23, said:

jannelamb, on 10 August 2009 - 11:17, said:

tiompan, on 9 August 2009 - 18:25, said:

hello Anne ,  to retrieve personal feelings e.g. mourning , from the prehistoric is next to impossible but I'm sure there are plenty of burial practices  as interpreted from excavation and material culture that may be interest .

George

Thanks for reply George, it is really the burial practice in the prehistoric that I want to posit as proof of ritual which arguably can imply mourning in itself, my problem is that I don't know enough about prehistory to reference any archaeological evidence and don't have much time left to cram, hence my query here on stonepages!

Anne , there are no mesolithic burails in the UK afaik .There was however a striking Danish burial of a child on a bed of swan feathers .In the Uk  there was the  earlier Lady of Paviland (actuall a male )covered in red ochre a common practice wherever ochre is found . Neolithic monuments like long barrows and chambered cairns had deposits of bone and cremations but as the "bits " ahd been curated for periods up to decades they are probably best not considered burials in the strict sense . Grave goods are possibly the best association with mourning , meadow sweet has been found in a few burials but whether it was a token of remmebrance or there to mask the smell we don't know .The Bronze Age saw monumnets that were more like what we would consider graves , individuals in a stone lined pit in the ground sometimes with a beaker . There was an interesting bit of culture from some Scottish sites in that those that had cremations sometimes had sheep or goat remains whilst inhumations had pig bone . Knives , beads ,urns ,flints ,potsherds and scrapers were relatively common . Seeing as youre in the north east it is worth mentioning that Bronze Age burials in the area showed some distinctive patterns of burial relating to gender which was also found in Yorkshire .Females were found lying on their right side and oriented west with line of "sight 2 to the south . Males were palced on their left and and oriented east with line of " sight" to the south . Hope this helps a bit .btw do you have Tim Ingold as a tutor ?

George

[flinteastwood]

If you look into the BA burial at Winterslow, Wilts, (see Stoves, 1948. 126-7). there was found associated with a pile of eye brow hair (too much for one donor, and kudos to the excavator for noticing!) this is interesting as there is a Biblical passage forbiding the removal eye brows as a sign of mourning (Lev 21:4-5) and Egyptians shaved their eyebrows when mourning the death of a cat (Heroditus)

Also "extra" teeth have been found at some burials eg Dalgety, Fife Kilmaho, Argyll, Patrickholm, Lanarkshire and Knappers, Dunbartonshire ( see Watkins, 1982. 131)


Stoves, J L 1948 'Report on hair from the barrows of Winterslow', Wiltshire Archaeol Mag, 52 1947-8. 125-7.

Watkins, T. 1982. “The excavation of an Early Bronze Age cemetery at Barns Farm Dalgety, Fife” Proc Soc Antiq Scot, 112 (1982) 48-141.

Herodotus http://classics.mit....story.2.ii.html


I think that the refereces are correct but please check!

[kevin.b]

Jannelamb,
            Could I just add a thought?
At present We mourn the loss of a human, We dispose of the body and ASSUME that this is the end.
We have differing notions of where perhaps an afterlife soul may venture etc.
What if?
What if in past times the people had not only thoughts at variant to this , but perhaps even a close understanding of a cycle of re-incarnation.
Then the loss becomes the mourners even more, the dead person may have been viewed as on a journey , the remains as defunct , obsolete, much as we scrap cars now, merely a temporary vehicle to assist our movement etc.
Unless this aspect of a possible knowledge of life and death is kept in mind, We are surely blind to what We now view?
kevin

[Maju]

I was reading the other day at National Geographic, that the Hadza of Tanzania (possibly one of the earliest offshoots of humankind, along with Bushmen and Pygmies) used to just abandon their dead to the hyenas and vultures. However this people is noticeable for their "presentist" attitude towards life, maybe much more than other groups. I know that other peoples had/have similar practices (among them some Iberian Celts or the Zoroastrians, however the degree of religiousness of these peoples and the meaning they give to these practices vary wildly: Zoroastrians are deeply religious, while Vaccei, one of the most important Iberian Celtic nations, were said to be atheists).

On the other hand, archaeology shows many many instances of intentional and careful burial, even among Neanderthals too, as well as other strikinglky different types of mourning: some peoples even today (some Papuans), keep their loved ones' skulls in their homes and sleep with them as if a teddy bear. They talk to them, or maybe offer sacrifices or gifts to the spirits, sometimes on fear of retaliation (not too different to our belief in ghosts). In many Neolithic cultures of West Eurasia people, specially children, were buried inside the home, probably to keep them close and protected, "at home" - literally. The attitudes vary a lot but in general some sort of mourning does exist (even elephants mourn!) and the practices vary even much more of course.

Sometimes it is difficult to discern a difference between mourning and spiritism/religion, i.e. there is a belief that the dead are around somehow, maybe with otherworldly powers or maybe at times with unfinished issues (ghosts, spirits) or even authoritarian attitudes (ancestor veneration). It is a most complex matter that in some cases seems to absorb the collective imaginary up to the point of obsession (religion and such) and in others seems to be minimized (agnostic or atheist tendencies maybe).

...

In an aside. I am somewhat fascinated by some Magdalenian burials (in cave) that have a design that strongly resembles a dolmen or trilithon but in small size, over in-ground burial. It is literally a thrilithon: with two small slabs to the sides and a larger one on top, resembling a small table (maybe it was an altar of sorts?). I'm not sure right now where are these (I saw one picture or replica at Altamira museum two years ago but not sure if it was taken from a French cave). And I have since I first saw it speculated if the concept could be somehow at the source of the trilithon burial concept, maybe interrelated in the imaginary with the concept of cave as ancestral home and graveyard.

The obsession with stone in Neolithic Western societies may have some sort explanation. I don't know... "Harri eta herri" (stone and people in Basque), said Gabriel Aresti.

[tiompan]

Maju , I think the cave burial with trilithon may be the one at Saint Germain La Riviere .There were also grave goods .

George

[Maju]

Maybe. I can't find anything in searches.

[tiompan]

Maju, on 11 December 2009 - 04:57, said:

Maybe. I can't find anything in searches.

http://books.google....riviere&f=false

If that doesn't work it's in "European prehistory: a survey"
by Sarunas Milisauskas


George

[jannelamb]

Hi to everyone who took the time to answer my query, many thanks for your help.  Dissertation is completed to draft stage so fingers crossed that my tutor says it can be submitted!

Hope you guys don't mind, but I have acknowledged you all together as a group under 'Stonepages Megalithic Forum'

as I only had 20,000 words and a lot to say!

cheers n good vibes
Anne