Death And Burial In Iron Age Britain

In this volume, Harding examines the deposition of Iron Age human and animal remains in Britain and challenges the assumption that there should have been any regular form of cemetery in prehistory, arguing that the dead were more commonly integrated into settlements of the living than segregated into dedicated cemeteries.

This work provides a social history of death from the earliest times to Diana, Princess of Wales. As we discard the 20th century taboo about death, this book charts the story of the way in which our forebears coped with aspects of their daily lives.

This is an introduction for the general reader, looking at the archaeology of Europe in the last prehistoric period before the Roman conquest (from c800 BC to AD 43). The archaeological collections of the Ashmolean Museum are used to illustrate a serie

A large-scale investigation into grave goods (c. 4000 BC-AD 43), enabling a new level of understanding of mortuary practice, material culture, technological innovation and social transformation.

{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\deff0\deflang2057{\fonttbl{\f0\fswiss\fprq2\fcharset0 Calibri;}{\f1\fnil\fcharset0 Verdana;}}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\f0\fs22 The British chariot burials, mainly concentrated in East Yorkshire, reveal a strong link with continental Europe, which has led some scholars to believe that this burial rite was introduced by immigrants from northern Gaul. Other scholars do not accept migration as the key explanation for cultural changes and argue that new rites and customs may also be adopted through social networks that often stretch over great distances. To determine which model best explains the introduction of new burial rites in East Yorkshire in the third century BC, this book describes the similarities and differences between the British chariot burials and those of contemporary chariot burials in northern Gaul. The comparison shows that elite networks, and possibly religious networks, lie at the basis of the emergence of new burial rites in East Yorkshire. This book also discusses various types of long-distance contacts that can forge and maintain social networks.\par\f1\fs17\par}

The archaeology of death and burial is central to our attempts to understand vanished societies. Through the remains of funerary rituals we learn not only about prehistoric people's attitudes toward death and the afterlife but also about their culture, social system, and world view. This ambitious book reviews the latest research in this huge and important field and describes the sometimes controversial interpretations that have led to our understanding of life and death in the distant past. Mike Parker Pearson draws on case studies from different periods and locations throughout the world--the Paleolithic in Europe and the Near East, the Mesolithic in northern Europe, and the Iron Age in Asia and Europe. He also uses evidence from precontact North America, ancient Egypt, and Madagascar, as well as from the Neolithic and Bronze Age in Britain and Europe, to reconstruct vivid pictures of both ancient and not so ancient funerary rituals. He describes the political and ethical controversies surrounding human remains and the problems of reburial, looting, and war crimes. The Archaeology of Death and Burial provides a unique overview and synthesis of one of the most revealing fields of research into the past, which creates a context for several of archaeology's most breathtaking discoveries--from Tutankhamen to the Ice Man. This volume will find an avid audience among archaeologists, anthropologists, historians, and others who have a professional interest in, or general curiosity about, death and burial.

This study investigatespotential regional patterns of Iron Age burial practices and the culturalimplications thereof. It is a literary-based assessment of 100 sites that datebetween the Late Bronze Age and the Late Iron Age, all containing human remains.The study illustrates a temporal relationship with the manner of disposal thatis regionally distinct. It addresses other repeated Iron Age burial themes,such as differential treatment of infants, reuse of earlier monuments, bonesmarking liminal and economic spaces, and deposits adhering to a specificspatial pattern with buildings. It demonstrates that the processing of thecorpse and the spatial context of the human remains deposit are central forunderstanding the community's perception of the bones and, thus, the meaning ofthe deposition. The core concept is that Iron Age communities practised variousritual processes, each with a different purpose, but using the same medium -human remains.