Who Were These People? A Sideways View and a Non-answer of Political Proportions

Abstract

This paper is a review of a broad range of evidence for burial practice in the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Britain. The author asks the difficult question – who were these people – in relation to the nameless dead found during excavations. A broad range of evidence is reviewed, including inhumations, cremations and conjoined bodies, and the fixed lines between these categories are questioned. The use of modern concepts such as ‘burial’ are also queried. Set within a chronological framework, this paper offers a challenging and fresh approach to archaeological understandings and interpretations of burial practice.

Cremation Practices and the Creation of Monument Complexes: The Neolithic Cremation Cemetery at Forteviot, Strathearn, Perth & Kinross, Scotland, and its comparanda

“…Further important parallels for Forteviot lay outwith Scotland and will be briefly discussed here (see also Parker Pearson et al . 2009; Gibson 2016). The best-known cemetery identified to date is at Stonehenge, where the earliest phase has recently been argued to be a cremation cemetery affiliated with a stone circle in association with the so-called Aubrey Holes (Parker Pearson et al .…”

“…2011; and see Mortimer 1905). Although these have been lost since being excavated, the typology of the associated artefacts suggests broad contemporaneity with Forteviot and Stonehenge (Gibson & Bayliss 2009; Gibson 2016, 67). (Duggleby Howe formed an important part of Piggott’s definition of the ‘Dorchester Culture’.…”

“…Cremation traditions may also have built on earlier inhumation practice; there is a general recognition that cremation and inhumation burials did occur in close proximity and temporality to one another in Britain and Ireland (cf. Cooney 2016;Gibson 2016). However, evidence of direct continuity is rare, with the exception perhaps of Duggleby Howe where inhumations began as early as the 36th century cal BC and then occurred again in the late 31st or early 30th century cal BC (3015-2985 cal BC, 95% probability; GrA-33102; Gibson & Bayliss 2009, 68).…”

“…The generally fresh appearance of most remains could also mean that some cremation deposits were kept safe in containers (perhaps those in which they were eventually buried) prior to being deposited with other cremated remains at a later date. Here we can perhaps see parallels with the conjoined and multiple inhumation burials that occasionally occur in the late 4th to first half of the 3rd millennium cal BC (eg Jones 2008, 185-6;Healy 2012;Gibson 2016). Whether the individuals at Forteviot were related or not, it is in the act of commingling and depositing at particular locations within cemeteries that we can witness further ways in which burial may have been used to materialise particular genealogies or histories of the dead, and create, manipulate, and at times reimagine the dead's status, their relationships with the living, and the history of these communities.…”

Bridlington Boulevard Revisited: New Insights into Pit and Post-hole Cremations in Neolithic Britain

“…Neolithic (c. 4000-2500 BC) funerary practices in Britain represent a diverse range of strategies for dealing with the dead (Gibson 2016;Jones 2008;Thomas 2000;Willis 2019). Our understanding of these actions is often skewed by the large assemblages of inhumed, cremated and disarticulated remains from megalithic and earthen monuments: henges, timber and stone circles, round and long barrows, ring ditches, tombs and cairns.…”