TRACELESS DEATH. MISSING BURIALS IN BRONZE AND IRON AGE ESTONIA

Pub Date : 2011-12-01 DOI:10.3176/ARCH.2011.2.03
V. Lang
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引用次数: 11

Abstract

Departure In an overview of the Stone Age religious beliefs written half a century ago, Lembit Jaanits (1961, 68 f.) drew attention to the fact that the majority of people who lived at that time were most likely never buried in the ground. This conclusion was made on the basis of an amazingly low number of burials known in either settlement sites or separate cemeteries outside the settlements of that time. Similar thoughts had been published by Estonian folklorist in exile Oskar Loorits (1949, 118) already 12 years earlier. Although more cemeteries and graves from the late Mesolithic and Neolithic have been discovered within the last fifty years in what is today Estonia and its neighbouring areas, this suggestion is still valid and realistic. With a reference to anthropological evidence of some Siberian peoples, Jaanits supposed that the dead could have been taken to certain places outside the settlements (located e.g. in the forest) and left there on the surface of the ground, wrapped perhaps into skins or birch bark (Jaanits 1961, 69). After some time almost no traces will remain from such exposed bodies. As for the number of burial sites, the situation is even worse concerning the Early Bronze Age: no graves have been reported so far in Estonia, which could belong to the second millennium BC (Lang 2007, 147). This is most likely due to the stage of investigation and it is only a matter of time when the first burials will be discovered. In the southernmost neighbouring areas, for instance, several flat cemeteries with pit graves of the Early Bronze Age date have been unearthed, e.g. at Kivutkalns and Raganukalns (Graudonis 1967; Denisova et al. 1985). It was also in the late second millennium BC when the first monumental above-ground burial mounds were erected there, e.g. at Pukuli, Reznes, and Kalniesi (Graudonis 1967; Vasks 2000). In northern and western Estonia the first monumental stone graves were built slightly later, i.e. at the beginning of the Late Bronze Age (Lang 2007, 147 ff.). Since that time, at least one portion of burials has become very much visible in the archaeological record, and forms the main subject of research. However, it was gradually understood since the early 1990s that despite large numbers of stone graves of the Late Bronze and Iron Ages, one part of prehistoric populations have never been buried there. How big that part was, is not clear. At first sight this conclusion based on palaeodemographic calculations was only made for both stone-cist graves of the Late Bronze and early Pre-Roman Iron Ages and north-west-Estonian tarand-graves of the Roman Iron Age (Lang & Ligi 1991; Lang 1995a) because the number of burials in those graves was too small even for regular nuclear families. The tarand-graves in other parts of the country yielding larger numbers of burials were regarded to correspond to burial places of single farms with either nuclear or extended families. Later research into the osteological evidence of cremated bones has clearly demonstrated that even large burial grounds of the Middle and Late Iron Ages might have belonged only to one or a few families and not to larger village communities (Magi 2002, 74; Allmae 2003; Mandel 2003). This conclusion did not suit historical documents, however, that had reported a settlement pattern consisting of relatively advanced villages in the 13th century. The current article aims to discuss the problems connected with mortuary customs that are difficult to study or even invisible for archaeology. This is, first, a study of 'the others'--people who did not belong to the sphere of those buried finally in stone graves, sand barrows or flat cemeteries. Second, this is also a study of complexity in cultural behaviour concerning the death and mortuary customs in which the 'proper burying' has formed only one--and perhaps not the most popular--way of acting. Following the definition given by Frands Herschend (2009, 37), by the term 'burying' I mean the placing of the dead in a 'burial site', i. …
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无踪迹的死亡。青铜和铁器时代的爱沙尼亚失踪的墓葬
Lembit Jaanits (1961, 68 f.)在半个世纪前写的一篇关于石器时代宗教信仰的综述中,提请人们注意这样一个事实:生活在那个时代的大多数人很可能从未被埋在地下。得出这一结论的基础是,在当时的定居点遗址或定居点外的单独墓地中,已知的墓葬数量少得惊人。爱沙尼亚流亡民俗学家奥斯卡·卢里茨(1949,118)早在12年前就发表了类似的观点。虽然在过去的五十年里,在今天的爱沙尼亚及其邻近地区发现了更多的中石器时代晚期和新石器时代的墓地和坟墓,但这一建议仍然是有效和现实的。参考一些西伯利亚人的人类学证据,Jaanits认为死者可能被带到定居点以外的某些地方(例如在森林中),然后被留在地面上,可能被包裹在皮肤或桦树皮中(Jaanits 1961, 69)。一段时间后,这些暴露在外的尸体几乎不会留下任何痕迹。至于墓葬遗址的数量,青铜时代早期的情况更糟:到目前为止,爱沙尼亚还没有发现坟墓,这可能属于公元前第二个千年(Lang 2007, 147)。这很有可能是由于调查的阶段,发现第一批墓葬只是时间问题。例如,在最南端的邻近地区,已经出土了几个带有早期青铜器时代的深坑坟墓的平坦墓地,例如在Kivutkalns和Raganukalns (Graudonis 1967;Denisova et al. 1985)。也是在公元前2000年后期,第一批巨大的地面墓地在那里建立起来,例如在Pukuli, Reznes和Kalniesi (Graudonis 1967;瓦斯克2000)。在爱沙尼亚北部和西部,第一批巨大的石头坟墓建造得稍晚,即在青铜时代晚期开始(Lang 2007, 147 ff.)。从那时起,至少有一部分墓葬在考古记录中变得非常明显,并形成了研究的主要主题。然而,自20世纪90年代初以来,人们逐渐了解到,尽管有大量的青铜和铁器时代晚期的石头坟墓,但有一部分史前人口从未被埋葬在那里。这个比例到底有多大,目前还不清楚。乍一看,这个基于古人类统计学计算得出的结论只适用于青铜时代晚期和前罗马铁器时代早期的石棺墓和罗马铁器时代的爱沙尼亚西北部的石棺墓(Lang & Ligi 1991;(Lang 1995a),因为这些坟墓里埋葬的人太少了,即使是对普通的核心家庭来说也是如此。在该国其他地区,埋葬人数较多的陆地墓地被认为是与有小家庭或大家庭的单一农场的墓地相对应的。后来对火化骨骼的骨学证据的研究清楚地表明,即使是铁器时代中后期的大型墓地也可能只属于一个或几个家庭,而不是更大的村庄社区(Magi 2002, 74;Allmae 2003;曼德尔2003)。然而,这一结论与历史文献不符,这些文献报道了13世纪由相对先进的村庄组成的聚落模式。本文旨在探讨与墓葬习俗有关的问题,这些问题是考古学难以研究甚至看不见的。首先,这是一项关于“他人”的研究——那些不属于最终被埋葬在石头坟墓、沙坑或平坦墓地的人。其次,这也是一项关于死亡和殡葬习俗的文化行为复杂性的研究,在这些习俗中,“适当的埋葬”只形成了一种——也许不是最流行的——行为方式。根据Frands Herschend(2009, 37)给出的定义,“埋葬”一词是指将死者放置在“埋葬地点”,网址是. ...
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