Borum Eshøj Revisited – Bronze Age monumental burial traditions in eastern Jutland, Denmark (original) (raw)
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The Early Nordic Bronze Age oak coffin burials include some of Europe’s best preserved human remains. Although traditional typological examinations thereof have not always found clear foreign references, recent provenance investigations from Egtved and Skrydstrup suggest that the two women were of non-local provenance. In order to investigate potential mobility patterns and how these might or might not be related to the archaeological evidence at first sight, we conducted comprehensive multi-analytical investigations on the rich burial of the Ølby Woman, another key female oak coffin burial. Her grave included, inter alia, a large number of metal items, the remains of a corded skirt and a glass bead recently identified as of Egyptian origin. We conducted strontium isotope analyses of the dental tooth enamel of Ølby Womans’s first, second and third molars to investigate her provenance and potential mobility through childhood. Furthermore, we conducted lead isotope and craft technical...
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2007
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Analecta Praehistoric Leidensia, 2018
Dedicated to our tèacher, coileague and friend, prof. dr Harry Fokkens. In the natural resert;es of the veluwe in the centre of the Netherland,s, there are hundreds of mounds that are registered. as 'prehístoric burial mound.s, (Fontijn 2011, table 1.1). some are protected as Natíonal Heritage, but many are not. only a small part has ever seen professional archaeological ínvestigation, and there are many for which no more is known than tha.t they are likely to represent ,prehistoric burial sites'. rhis applies particularly to mound"s in the munictpalitlt of Apeldoorn, where Iarge numbers are known to exist and fortunately protected as neitøge, butwhere in most cases not much is known on their d.attng, nature or potential sígnificance as source of knowledge on the past. Thís article presents the results of a fi.eldwork campaign where three newly di.scoveree small barrows were investigated. thqt are part or a much larger barrow landscape on which so far nothing *oi kno*n. In spite of their small síze and the føct that some were heavily damaged by forest ptoughing, the research yielded detailed. ínformatíon on their use history ona int social 6¿nd, ritual sígnifi.cance that they had in the Bronze Age. Even the most ínconspicuous mound. of which it was initialty seriously d.oubted. whether it was a prehisioric monument, appears to contqin the remains of many special prehístoríc features.
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The 3rd millennium BC in South Scandinavia was characterised by a sizable cultural heterogeneity covering differences in the use of material culture, burial practices and subsistence economic strategies. In the first half of the 3rd millennium BC, four archaeologically- defined cultural groups coexisted for at least a couple of hundred years: the late Funnel Beaker culture (TRB), the forager-oriented Pitted Ware culture and the Single Grave and Battle Axe cultures, the last two belonging to the overall Corded Ware complex. As the Funnel Beaker culture ceased, East Denmark entered an insignificant and culturally blurred period usually ascribed to the so-called ‘East Danish Single Grave culture’. However, this paper argues for a renewed and balanced understanding of the cultural conditions in East Denmark and questions the presence of the Single Grave culture in the area. Instead, it is argued that new material elements were obtained and fitted into existing Funnel Beaker traditions forming a heterogeneous cultural expression.
Relations Between Burials and Buildings in the Iron Age of Southwest Norway
2018
Recent archaeological excavations in Rogaland have revealed several cases of Late Iron Age (LIA) burials overlying Early Iron Age (EIA) buildings. In spite of a growing interest in the transition between the EIA and the LIA, there has been a tendency to treat burials and buildings separately, limiting discussions of the relationship between the two. The superimposition of burials over older buildings, understood as references to the past, can be seen as a characteristic pattern in the Scandinavian Viking Period. Presenting new sites, alongside a few well-known older excavations, and discussing common traits amongst them, I hope to develop new insights into Iron Age society. The most frequent burial-building combination is Viking burials associated with buildings from the Late Roman Iron Age/Migration Period. This may indicate that expansion in the period AD 150–550 played a special role in the Viking Period, and that the placing of Viking burials on Late Roman/Migration Period house...
Sagaholm: North European Bronze Age Rock Art and Burial Ritual
Oxbow Books. Oxford, 2016
"This major new study by one of Europe's leading prehistorians presents and discusses a series of rock art engravings from a Bronze Age barrow in Ljungarum parish, Jönköping Län, situated in the central part of southern Sweden. Sagaholm contains the largest group of rock engravings discovered in a burial context in northern Europe. Joakim Goldhahn addresses a number of aspects of the use of rock engravings in burial rituals during the Middle Bronze Age (c. 1600–1100 BC), combining the antiquarian and scientific history of this extraordinary find. In order to understand the meaning and significance of the rock art in the barrow, the author presents a theoretical argument that the art is meaningfully composed and can been seen as the result of an active symbolic praxis which mirrors a metaphorical way of thinking. Special concern is given to the frequent horse motifs at Sagaholm, and it is argued that they, and the morphology of this particular barrow, can be seen as a metaphor for a new and exotic cosmology that reached southern Scandinavia during the Middle Bronze Age. It is further suggested that this extraordinary find points to a (re)interpretation of Scandinavian Bronze Age rock art as an important part of burial ritual, linked to certain beliefs about the regeneration of life." Oxbow books
Life and afterlife in the Nordic Bronze Age. Proceedings of the 15th Nordic Bronze Age Symposium held in Lund, Sweden, June 11-15, 2019. Edited by A. Tornberg, A. Svensson, J. Apel. Acta Archaeologica Lundensia. Series prima in 4° No 37, 119-139, 2022
The study of burials is central to archaeology in many ways. Each burial is likely to have been an event that individuals and/or groups of various sizes attended, following norms, rituals, and customs; possibly from time to time such norms were altered or new ones were introduced. One may consider that during the funerary rituals, the deceased becomes tightly enmeshed with his or her burial. In this process, the complex plurality of each burial with all its components ends up conveying messages to the world of the living. Burial contexts can be considered for instance as communicating adherence or contrast to dominating values and norms; they could also signal forms of social, cultural, political or economic status characterizing the deceased him-/herself or perhaps his or her kin. This contribution aims to discuss and problematize the complexity at display in Late Bronze Age burials from southern Scandinavia using the cemetery at Simris II, in southeastern Sweden, as a case study. The dominant burial practice during the period in question is cremation, which almost completely obliterates the body of the deceased and its identity markers (e.g., gender, age, individual features, and material culture such as clothing and adornments). A review of the archaeological record—combined with data from recent multidisciplinary studies of the ceramic and osteological material from the site—suggests that not only the carefully selected urns, but also the characteristics and the positions of the graves embodied manifold meanings. Taken together, they likely signalled significant aspects of the identity of the deceased or of the family/group to which they belonged.