Individual, Household, and Community after Death in Prepalatial and Protopalatial South-Central Crete (original) (raw)
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This thesis constitutes an attempt to approach and interpret a Prepalatial tholos tomb, Tholos Γ at the cemetery of Phourni, in Archanes, Crete, and Prepalatial mortuary practices in general, within the conceptual framework and the theoretical developments of the archaeology of death. The study follows four main stages. The first is the study of the evidence from Tholos Γ (presented in more detail in the Appendices of Volume 2), which allows the reconstruction of the entire history of the tomb, from its construction until its excavation. Thus, Tholos Γ, apart from being one of the very few well excavated and unlooted Prepalatial tombs, becomes the only tomb the history of which can be followed in relative detail. In the second stage, a synthesis of the existing theoretical approaches to the mortuary archaeological record is attempted, and the problems, potentials, advantages and significance of the archaeology of death are examined. The theoretical framework within which we approach Prepalatial mortuary practices is also presented. The third step is a description and discussion of the mortuary practices of Tholos Γ and other Prepalatial cemeteries, and particular emphasis is given to variations, differences and changes through time and space. The evidence presented and the conclusions made in the first three stages are used in the final stage of analysis, where an attempt is made to reconstruct the mortuary beliefs, and the horizontal and vertical organisation of Prepalatial society on the basis of the available mortuary evidence. Concerning the last two topics, we also discuss the Cycladic character of the Tholos Γ assemblage, and, more generally, the character of Creto-Cycladic relations during the early Prepalatial period. At the end of the thesis conclusions are made on the basis of what was discussed before, and possible issues for future research are investigated.
This thesis constitutes an attempt to approach and interpret a Prepalatial tholos tomb, Tholos Γ at the cemetery of Phourni, in Archanes, Crete, and Prepalatial mortuary practices in general, within the conceptual framework and the theoretical developments of the archaeology of death. The study follows four main stages. The first is the study of the evidence from Tholos Γ (presented in more detail in the Appendices of Volume 2), which allows the reconstruction of the entire history of the tomb, from its construction until its excavation. Thus, Tholos Γ, apart from being one of the very few well excavated and unlooted Prepalatial tombs, becomes the only tomb the history of which can be followed in relative detail. In the second stage, a synthesis of the existing theoretical approaches to the mortuary archaeological record is attempted, and the problems, potentials, advantages and significance of the archaeology of death are examined. The theoretical framework within which we approach Prepalatial mortuary practices is also presented. The third step is a description and discussion of the mortuary practices of Tholos Γ and other Prepalatial cemeteries, and particular emphasis is given to variations, differences and changes through time and space. The evidence presented and the conclusions made in the first three stages are used in the final stage of analysis, where an attempt is made to reconstruct the mortuary beliefs, and the horizontal and vertical organisation of Prepalatial society on the basis of the available mortuary evidence. Concerning the last two topics, we also discuss the Cycladic character of the Tholos Γ assemblage, and, more generally, the character of Creto-Cycladic relations during the early Prepalatial period. At the end of the thesis conclusions are made on the basis of what was discussed before, and possible issues for future research are investigated.
I am not yet allowed to upload this paper, your the front page you see, but you may write to request a pdf: lucagirella@yahoo.it Abstract Secondary burial is a complex multi-stage practice that involves the deliberate manipulation of the skeleton through the disarticulation and/or amputation of parts and their re-location and definitive deposition in different contexts, and has long been considered to be a necessary step through which the deceased achieved the status of ancestor. In the last twenty years, however, several scholars have argued that its ultimate aim was the creation of intergenerational memory that, in turn, might have been functional to the creation and maintenance of social relationships. Aside from problems of interpretation, this particular treatment of the human body also raises problems of recognition depending not only on the strategies of manipulation adopted, which might facilitate or hinder their identification as deliberate actions, but also on the type of tombs used. Indeed, the manipulation of human bones in tombs that were used for multiple burials over long periods of time has generally been considered to be an unplanned action that was functional to the creation of space for the newly deceased. In this paper we will focus on several funerary contexts from the Greek mainland and Crete dating between the III and the beginning of the II millennium BC and will argue (1) that the disarticulated skeletons recorded in the collective tombs of the III millennium need to be regarded as secondary burials, i.e. as the outcome of deliberate actions aimed at creating and/or maintaining social identities; and (2) that the shift from collective to individual burials recorded in the course of the II millennium BC mirrored a substantial change in the strategies through which the communities were constructing, performing and communicating their social identities.
Schmitt, A, Déderix, S. and Crevecoeur, I. (eds.) Gathered in Death. Archaeological and Ethnological Perspectives on Collective Burial and Social Organisation. Aegis 14. UCL Presses Universitaires, 2018
Large collective tombs seem to be a popular feature across the Mediterranean and most of continental Europe from the end of the Neolithic into the first phases of the Bronze Age (ca. 4000-2000 BC). Collective burial deposits were just one of the several types of interments that formed the complex funerary customs of the period, but their significance at this time is unparalleled in European history since. Amongst the popularity of collective tombs in the 4th and 3rd millennium BC, Crete proves to be exceptional due to the almost exclusive use of tombs with commingled burial deposits for more than a millennium (ca. 3200-1800 BC), which contrasts starkly against the burial variability in most other Mediterranean regions. At the same time, this is a millennium in which the island’s communities saw major changes in their size and complexity with significant developments in demography, settlement patterns, economic and political organisation. One cannot but feel that the effort and resources put on the Cretan collective tombs mark them as an important social arena at the forefront of these changes and that the exceptional burial record may have played a role in the development and sustainability of complex societies in the island at a moment when these were extremely rare across the Mediterranean. This article analyses this Cretan exceptionality in its Mediterranean context by reviewing the newly published bioarchaeological and taphonomic data from the tombs and contextualising it within the rich knowledge of the funerary record that has been developed in the last two decades.