Messing with the dead: post-depositional manipulations of burials and bodies in the South Scandinavian Stone Age

Fahlander, Fredrik

doi:10.4312/dp.37.2

Cited by 8 publications

(7 citation statements)

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“…Burials that have been reopened, reused, destroyed and manipulated in various ways are known from all periods of prehistory (e.g. Randsborg 1998;Nilsson Stutz 2003;Kümmel 2005;Brinch Petersen 2006;Andrews & Bello 2006;Olofsson 2006;Fahlander 2008bFahlander , 2010Klevnäs 2013). Such post-burial actions do not comprise a single category of practices, but span over a large array of different types interferences with older graves.…”

Section: Introduction: Re-(ab)use Of the Old Deadmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Ritual interpretations tend to revolve around the buried individual as either a dangerous or a benign entity. For example, one reason for meddling with a grave can be to prevent the dead from interfering with the living by adding or removing things from the grave as a way to amend a failed burial ritual (Fahlander 2010;Runer & Sillén 2014:33). To destroy a grave can also be a way to neutralize an enemy's reputation or memory by ritually "re-killing" an already dead individual (Fahlander 2008b;Klevnäs 2016).…”

Section: Introduction: Re-(ab)use Of the Old Deadmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Materiality of the Ancient Dead – Post-burial Practices and Ontologies of Death in Southern Sweden AD 800–1200

Fahlander

2021

csa

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This text discusses reuse and modifications of older graves in southern Sweden during the Late Iron Age and early medieval period (c. 9th to 12th centu- ries AD). Post-burial practices in the Late Iron Age have in general been interpreted as means to nego- tiate status, identity and rights to land, while in the later part of the period they are comprehended as expressions of religious insecurity and syncretism. In this text, the continuity of post-burial practices during the whole period is stressed and instead of general top-down interpretative models, the onto- logical status and material aspects of death, dead bodies and their graves is emphasized. It is argued that the post-burial actions generally constituted ways of relating to a specific type of materiality, the bones of the ancient dead, which transgress binary categorizations such as living–dead, past–present, heathen–Christian, and human–nonhuman. The argument builds on five recently excavated sites in southern Sweden: Bogla, Broby Bro, Lilla Ullevi, Valsta and Vittene.

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Section: Introduction: Re-(ab)use Of the Old Deadmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introduction: Re-(ab)use Of the Old Deadmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Materiality of the Ancient Dead – Post-burial Practices and Ontologies of Death in Southern Sweden AD 800–1200

Fahlander

2021

csa

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“…According to a number of authors researching burial disturbance (Aspöck 2011; Aspöck et al 2020; Cauwe 2001; Crangle 2016; Duncan 2005; Fahlander 2010, 2018; Gleize 2020; Hoernes et al 2019; Nilsson Stutz and Larsson 2016; Weiss-Krecji 2011, 2020; Zielo 2018), these postfunerary actions can include a variety of ritual and nonritual manipulations of the human remains and grave goods, including disturbance of bodies and graves in the original resting place, exhumation and redeposition of bones, curation or loss of bones, comingling of human and animal remains, and the disarticulation and rearticulation of skeletons. The myriad reasons for postburial interventions include grave reuse; ancestral rites of appropriation, veneration, and commemoration; relic cults; tomb visits and tomb renewal rites; accidental superimpositions on disturbed unmarked older graves; and grave robbery, looting, and desecration.…”

Section: Toward An Archaeology Of Postdepositional Interactions With ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The postfunerary manipulation of bodies and graves may involve the reopening of previous burials; the disturbance, disarticulation, or reduction of the bodies or skeletons; subsequent tomb reuse and modification of older graves, including exhumation and the destruction or loss of bones; and lastly these bones’ redeposition at another place as relics, secondary deposits, or offerings (Fahlander 2010, 2018; Gleize 2020; Hoernes et al 2019). Postburial interventions beyond the funerary cycle do not involve secondary burials because these types of burials can also be subsequently disturbed (Weiss-Krejci 2011).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Older Burial Disturbance: Postfunerary Manipulation of Graves and Corpses in Precontact Northeastern Brazil

Solari

Silva²,

Pessis

et al. 2022

Latin Am. antiq.

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At times funerary practices do not end with the deposition of the corpses in their final resting place, because occasionally these supposedly definitive burials are disturbed later. When we can confirm that people were mainly responsible for these disturbances, even when other natural taphonomic factors are present, then we have a situation of anthropic postfunerary manipulation of bodies and graves. Some precontact sites in northeastern Brazil have mortuary contexts with “anomalies” in the deposition of bodies into their graves. Applying a taphonomy-based approach, we analyze these cases and compare them to other burials with similar characteristics from central-eastern Brazil in our discussion of the “alternative” phenomenon of postburial manipulation. The evidence suggests that the anthropic disturbance of older burials and corpses should be understood not as a random event, but as an integral and meaningful part of the mortuary practices of ancient inhabitants from across different regions of Brazil throughout the Holocene. With this work we highlight not only unusual mortuary patterns of precontact human groups in Brazil and South America but also the importance of a taphonomic approach to understanding the complexity and variability of funerary and postfunerary actions.

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“…Being hard to grasp, this gap between complete and incomplete skeletons has led researchers to assume that one of them is correct and the other something rare, something exceptional like expressions of skull cult, or a result of later intrusions ( e. g. Burenhult 1997, Janzon 1974, Larsson 2009a, Lindström 2020, I. Österholm 1989. Alternatively, this has been suggested to express changes in ritual over time ( Fahlander 2009( Fahlander , 2010, or the extremes have been considered to represent completely different but contemporary burial practices ( Knutsson 1995, Norderäng 2007a, Wallin 2015. It has been difficult to interpret this variety in the handling of human remains as different parts of a whole.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Governed by Grief, Fear and Reverence: Dealing with the Dead and the Buried during the Middle Neolithic on Gotland

Andersson¹

2023

INSI

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The Middle Neolithic sites on Gotland are characterized by variety in the handling of human remains. In addition to burials with complete and intact skeletons and package-burials, some contexts contain mutilated bodies, or they contain a few human bones or none. These practices have previously been interpreted as resulting from modern disturbances such as ploughing or pre-depositional treatment of dead bodies. Based on re-examination of the field documentation and C14-dates, I argue that the diverse ways of treating human skeletal remains represent post-depositional practices, and I propose that part of the mortuary practices was to reopen graves and exhume bones. During the Middle Neolithic, death might have been conceptualized as a process, and treatment of the dead and the buried could have been governed by a variety of emotions like grief, fear and reverence.

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Messing with the dead: post-depositional manipulations of burials and bodies in the South Scandinavian Stone Age

Cited by 8 publications

References 4 publications

The Materiality of the Ancient Dead – Post-burial Practices and Ontologies of Death in Southern Sweden AD 800–1200

The Materiality of the Ancient Dead – Post-burial Practices and Ontologies of Death in Southern Sweden AD 800–1200

Older Burial Disturbance: Postfunerary Manipulation of Graves and Corpses in Precontact Northeastern Brazil

Governed by Grief, Fear and Reverence: Dealing with the Dead and the Buried during the Middle Neolithic on Gotland

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