Neolithic and Chalcolithic People and Death

Question 1

Portal tombs/dolmens

Answer 1

• 4000-3000 BC - mostly coasts and river valleys of Ireland
• Social significance of raising cap stone (heavy and difficult)?
• Associated with leaf shaped arrowheads, pottery and cremated human remains

Question 2

Court tombs

Answer 2

• 3800-3500 BC
• Largely restricted to North and Central Ireland
• Associated with mid-Neolithic pottery types, polished stone axes and leaf shaped arrowheads

Question 3

Wedge tombs

Answer 3

• Late Neolithic
• squatter in form than portal dolmens and mainly occurred in western and southern Ireland
• 500-550 survive
• Entrances face SW and often have double walls
• Finds included barbed and tanged arrowheads, Beakers and coarseware pottery
• 2500-2000 BC

Question 4

Passage tombs

Answer 4

-Constructed 3500-3000 BC
Limited distribution with concentrations in the NW and E of Ireland
-Associated with Grooved Ware, stone and clay balls, hammer pendants and maceheads
-Contain internal chambers for burial remains, predominantly cremations but with inhumations too
-Some reused in the earlier Bronze Age

Question 5

Boyne valley

Answer 5

• Monument complex, Ireland
• Tara is one of several great monument complexes in Ireland in/near the Boyne valley. Recent geophysics found an early Neolithic palisaded enclosure under the later Neo henges & barrows

Question 6

Mound of the Hostages

Answer 6

• In the Hill of Tara, Ireland, in one of the monuments complexes in the Boyne Valley
• Contained 150+ cremations & inhumations, in pre-mound cairns mixed with Carrowkeel pots , but also with later Neo & EBA pottery
• Bone pins & decorated stone orthostats also found.

Question 7

Newgrange

Answer 7

• The central passage at Newgrange with side chambers & corbelled roof is illuminated by the light of the midwinter solstice sunrise.
• The main cairn at Newgrange was probably begun c. 3200 BC.
• In addition to a carved macehead found with human bone, there was also Grooved Ware, a large stone basin, & much decorated stone.

Question 8

Neolithic Populations

Answer 8

• Genetic studies are debated, but Oppenheimer (2006) suggested that known migrations since Neolithic account for only 30% of British DNA, though male lineages in Neolithic may form 10-30% of the modern British gene pool.
• So Mesolithic populations also contributed DNA, perhaps the majority?
• Isotope studies seem to indicate many variations in diet amongst Early Neolithic people, implying significant differences in agricultural practices

Question 9

Neolithic Diets

Answer 9

Richards & Hedges (1999) suggest that there was a major move away from marine resources, although this is disputed by Milner et al. (2003).
-Some coastal shell middens continued to form in Neolithic.
-Wysocki and Whittle (2000) also outlined variations in Neolithic diets, & mortuary practices. This & other studies suggest a large amount of animal protein being consumed by some people, in comparison to plant proteins.
-This suggests that herding animal products such as milk, cheese & meat
played important role in people’s diets.

Question 10

Ethnographic Comparisons

Answer 10

-The Zoriastrian Parsi community of India expose their dead in special dhokmas or ‘towers of silence’.
-Sky burials, Tibet and China, buddhist and animist beliefs state that bodies should be exposed to vultures on special platforms, and often disarticulated
-The Torajafu on Indonesian
island of Sulawesi build
elaborate funerary arenas in which buffalo and pigs are killed and meat shared amongst the community
-After initial burials, many Malagasy practice famadihana – ‘turning of bones’, when human remains are later removed, rewrapped as part of great festivities, then returned to permanent internment.
-Funerals are often occasions where feasting takes place. In Madagascar, cattle are usually ritually killed for this purpose.

Question 11

Chalcolithic?

Answer 11

• Researchers such as Start Needham & Alison Sheridan now proposing a first copper or Chalcolithic phase of the Bronze Age during c. 2450 2150 BC.
• During this initial period that only lasted 200-300 years, Beakers overlapped in time with Grooved Ware.
• At the opposite end of their range (towards the end), Beakers also overlapped with the Bronze Age Food Vessels & Urns traditions.

Question 12

The Beaker ‘package’ of artefacts

Answer 12

• These iconic items included Beaker vessels, barbed and tanged arrowheads, stone or bone ‘wristguards’, & copper daggers or axes.
• Arrowheads are not always found with ‘wrist guards’.

Question 13

Use of Beaker weapons/Tools

Answer 13

• Barbed & tanged arrowheads sometimes used for hunting animals such as aurochs, but perhaps also in formal skirmishes & duels between people. Some people were killed by them, as at Stonehenge.
• Some elaborate flint knives, especially fine barbed & tanged flint arrowheads & stone battle axes were produced. But metal like the Ashgrove dagger would have been striking & new – a very different material with very different qualities.

Question 14

Metalworking

Answer 14

-Metalworking requires specialised and restricted knowledge, & may have had to take place within certain places in the landscape. Its transformations may have been regarded as magical.

Question 15

Beaker period buildings

Answer 15

-Relatively few non-monumental structures are known from this period. A Beaker building was excavated on Cranborne Chase near the Fir Tree shaft, and others have been found at West Heslerton and at Gwithian

Question 16

Beaker Pottery Chronology

Answer 16

• The earliest Beakers in Britain, though made from local fabrics, are extremely similar in form to some Continental examples, with fine corded decoration.
• Over time, regional groupings seem to have appeared in Britain, with greater variety in form & decoration.
• Many Beakers were well-made in fine fabrics. But some were a bit rubbish,

Question 17

Beaker fabrics

Answer 17

• Many Beakers had their incised or comb-decorated features infilled with a white paste.
• X-ray fluorescence of such Beakers by Mary Davis at the National Museum of Wales has found crushed bone within this paste, and a study of Beakers in Aberdeenshire using SEM & Raman spectroscopy has suggested that this was ground down cremated bone. It cannot yet be proven that this was human bone – but it seems likely?

Question 18

Beaker burials

Answer 18

• Many Beaker burials take the form of a crouched inhumation, if biologically male accompanied by a Beaker, a stone ‘wrist guard’ or ‘spacer’; & perhaps also a copper or bronze dagger &/or barbed & tanged arrowheads.
• Many were in flat graves, others under barrows.

Question 19

Beaker Grave Good Distribution

Answer 19

• There seems to have been gendered structure to grave goods, for biologically female graves were more often accompanied by flint scrapers, antler & bone tools, bone and copper pins, & sometimes jet and shale buttons, amber, shale or faience beads; &/or gold earrings & hair tresses.
• Some of these ‘exotic’ items, acquired from distant parts of Britain or (like amber) from Europe, suggest that at least some women may have been able to acquire/inherit status during their lives. There were also exceptions to these apparent ‘rules’, however.

Question 20

Hemp Knoll barrow, Wilts

Answer 20

-In the centre of the Hemp Knoll round barrow was a pit, with indications of a coffin and the crouched inhumation of a male individual with a Beaker, a bone toggle, a stone wristguard; and a cattle skull and foot bones, perhaps from a ‘head and hooves’ burial with a hide draped over the coffin.

Question 21

Irthlingborough, Northants.

Answer 21

-The barrow at Irthlingborough contained a probable high-status Beaker burial of a male individual, & the funerary rites were probably accompanied by the slaughter of hundreds of cattle, & possibly huge feasting events.

Question 22

The ‘Amesbury Archer’, Boscombe, Wilts.

Answer 22

• This grave at Boscombe may originally have been under a barrow with the body in a wooden coffin.
• The grave is one of ‘richest’ Beaker burials in Britain, with 5 Beakers, 2 wrist guards, 16 barbed & tanged arrowheads, 3 copper knives, 2 gold ‘earrings’ or hair tresses, 4 boar’s tusks, a ‘pillow stone’, a whetstone & assorted bone, shale & flint objects.
• The ‘pillow stone’ possibly used in metalworking.
• There were 2 pairs of Beakers – 2 in unusual dark, underfired fabric & possibly made for the burial. 1 of the other pair has Scottish-style decoration.
• The wrist guards were also light & dark in colour – deliberate? 1 copper knife was poss. in an organic bag on his chest; another, the gold tresses & a shale belt ring poss. on clothing by his knees.
• The man himself was probably aged 35-45 at death, & his left knee cap had poss. been torn off at some point, leaving him with an immobile knee joint & a constant, painful bone infection.
• Several fingers and a rib were missing, possibly removed after death?
• His copper knives were made from European ores.
• O18 & O16 isotope analysis suggested he had possibly travelled a long way indeed, from the central Alps in southern Germany, Austria, Switzerland or the Czech Republic.
• Dated to 2400-2300 BC, he may have been one of the first metalworkers in Britain.
• But no strontium isotope work, which can be more accurate. He could be from northern Britain.

Question 23

The Amesbury Archer’s companion

Answer 23

• Close to grave of ‘Amesbury Archer’ was another grave, of a younger man (25-30) born & raised in S. England or Ireland, though may have spent teens in midlands or even NE Scotland.
• Nonmetric traits on the bones suggest he was a relative of the ‘Archer’ – perhaps a son? Younger brother?
• There were few objects in the grave, but it did contain two gold hair tresses found in his mouth, that were virtually identical to those of the ‘Amesbury Archer’. The dates also fall within 2400-2200 BC.

Question 24

The ‘Boscombe Bowmen’

Answer 24

• In another nearby, larger pit were remains of 7-9 individuals incl. 3 adult men, these 3 dubbed the ‘Boscombe Bowmen’; a teenage male, & at least 3 children.
• This unique burial also contained 8 Beakers, 5 barbed & tanged arrowheads, a boar’s tusk, worked flints & a bone toggle of possible European design.
• The corded decoration on one of the pots to one of those with the Amesbury Archer, but has Continental affinities.
• Non-metric traits in the skulls of the 3 men and 1 teenager suggest that they were all related.
• There seems to have been a primary burial of a 45 year old man with an injured leg, & some of other bones arranged and rearranged over & around him.
• Many bones were worn – circulated, exposed, or reinterred?
• There was also the cremation of a child. Isotope analysis suggested 3 men had grown up together in 2 different locations, possibly Wales, the Lake District, or Brittany.
• Initially hailed as the builders of Stonehenge, their dates of c. 2300 BC mean that the second main constructional phase of Stonehenge was already many generations old before they were buried.

Question 25

The Corsican cross-dresser?

Answer 25

• In 2005, Dr Catriona Gibson was running another WA site at Boscombe, when they found the grave of a teenage, prob. biological male
• This individual seems to have come from the southern Mediterranean.
• He was buried with amber beads, made from Baltic amber – usually considered female items.
• Preliminary 14C results suggest he died in the Middle Bronze Age though, around 1550 BC

Question 26

The Beaker People Isotopes Project

Answer 26

• The Beaker People Isotopes Project has therefore been analysing excavated skeletons of Beaker date from across Britain, around 250 individuals, or approximately 50% of the known remains from this period.
• Findings suggest most Beaker people consumed a diet high in meat & dairy products. Mixed geological origins – most people probably locals, but of 50 burials from East Yorks. chalk Wolds, nearly half are nonindigenous to chalk areas.
• There was clearly a great deal of movement around Britain by some individuals, but only full results will show how many were actual immigrants to Britain.
• More recent work by Volker Heyd & colleagues suggests a sig. proportion in early Beaker burials.

Question 27

Knowth

Answer 27

• Part of the Boyne valley complex
• Large cairn with over 200 burials
• Majority cremations with people burnt outside the monument then interred
• Many decorated kerbstones

Question 28

Funerary Rites

Answer 28

• Long barrows - males outnumber females by 3:1 or more
• Abnormalities and pathologies such as club feet or knock knees more common that in a ‘normal’ population
• Human remains from Hambledon Hill and some long barrows have cut marks , suggesting dismemberment as part of complex rites