Male & female neolithic burial

tac foley

Evening, Gentlefolk, I have here a serious question.

mrs tac and I have just been watching a fascinating Time Team programme dealing with sea-shore excavations on Barra in the Outer Hebrides.

Apart from the interest of finding the site and remains of the largest 'wheel house' ever discovered in GB, a number of cist burials were excavated. Among these was the extremely well-preserved burial of a middle-aged woman from around 2000 BCE, arranged on her right side, with her hands drawn up to her face as if in sleep.

Mike Parker-Something* pointed out that in that period of time, most women were buried on their right sides, and men on their left side.

How widespread was this practice and what do the 'team' think might be behind the thinking?

Might this in some way be related to, or in some other way associated with the current practice of fastening clothing on the left or the right for men and women?

TIA.

tac

* Mike Parker Pearson

Cianmcliam

At 2000BC you are in to the Bronze Age, complete Neolithic burials here are rare outside Megalithic tombs because the soil conditions in Ireland are not great at preserving bone. Inside Neolithic tombs it's a pretty confused situation, cremation is very common, especially in passage tombs but even in tombs where there were burials it is not common to find articulated remains. Most tombs seem to have been communal burial or successive burials over long periods of time. Bones are usually all over the place, even below and behind the structural stones.
Single burial sites are rarer from the Neolithic, some Linkardstown cists exist with single burials but in general you'll find very, very few single Neolithic burials in Ireland with which to compare gender specific traditions.

I don't know if there are a lot of Bronze Age single burials here where the sex of the remains have been determined, would be interesting to find out. Generally in small scale societies there's a very pronounced gender division, due in good part to the segmentary system of tracing ancestry through only the father, or less commonly the mother, but never both. It could just be an extension of that rather than something like the Christian tradition where people were buried with feet to the east to face the rising sun on the day of judgement while priests were buried with feet to the west so they would rise and face their congregation.

tac foley

Thanks, Sir. I was aware of the paucity of Neolithic burials in Ireland, so my question was not aimed in that direction. Knowing the readership here has a very wide area of expertise and knowledge that is not constrained to the island of Ireland, I was hoping for a more generalised response.

Thank you anyhow.

tac

Cianmcliam

Ah I see, ok!

slowburner

Interesting question tac.

We know very little about the 'dress code' of the dead in the Bronze Age, and much less about the Neolithic; when cremation leaves us with hardly any evidence for perishable, individual details.
There is however, a relatively short window of opportunity in the Atlantic Middle Bronze Age to examine burial customs with intact skeletons. This was the phase when crouched inhumation was the customary practice - as in the Hebridean examples.
During this phase, it is thought that corpses were bound with fabric prior to being placed in the grave on their sides. Might they also have been buried in their favourite cloak or something similar? Today, it is common practice to dress the body of the deceased in their best clothing for the removal, or as the living pay their last respects.
Bronze or bone pins frequently accompany crouched burials, and such objects are usually thought to be a form of dress fastener. We could propose that if the dress code of the living included a male female distinction in the way the cloak was fastened, that custom influenced the way the corpse was laid out during burial.
If the body was draped in a cloak or something similar, we can probably assume that it was laid in a manner designed to keep the body covered. So, if females traditionally fastened their cloak left over right and vice versa, then it makes sense to lay out the corpse to whichever side would prevent the cloak from exposing the remains and that could (theoretically) account for the establishment of a male/female difference in burial orientation.

It's an interesting idea that the way we fasten our clothing today could have an ancient provenance, but I would not be surprised if someone argued for an historic origin for the custom - and supplied the evidence!

dubhthach

Cianmcliam wrote: »

At 2000BC you are in to the Bronze Age, complete Neolithic burials here are rare outside Megalithic tombs because the soil conditions in Ireland are not great at preserving bone. Inside Neolithic tombs it's a pretty confused situation, cremation is very common, especially in passage tombs but even in tombs where there were burials it is not common to find articulated remains. Most tombs seem to have been communal burial or successive burials over long periods of time. Bones are usually all over the place, even below and behind the structural stones.
Single burial sites are rarer from the Neolithic, some Linkardstown cists exist with single burials but in general you'll find very, very few single Neolithic burials in Ireland with which to compare gender specific traditions.

I don't know if there are a lot of Bronze Age single burials here where the sex of the remains have been determined, would be interesting to find out. Generally in small scale societies there's a very pronounced gender division, due in good part to the segmentary system of tracing ancestry through only the father, or less commonly the mother, but never both. It could just be an extension of that rather than something like the Christian tradition where people were buried with feet to the east to face the rising sun on the day of judgement while priests were buried with feet to the west so they would rise and face their congregation.

The three Bronze age burials from Rathlin Island are known to be male due to genome sequencing of ancient DNA. As memory serves they were cist burials, I imagine some of reports have the alignment of body in grave etc.

dubhthach

The three individuals from Rathlin Island were discovered during excavations in Church Bay in 2006 (4).
The style of burial, the associated pottery and radiocarbon dates derived from the three individuals (Table
S1.1) indicated that they were Early Bronze Age in date. C127 was a 40-60 year old male who had been
buried in the interior of a stone cist (C124). He was lying on his left side in a crouched position along a
north-south orientation, with the head to the north. He was a robust individual who would have had a
height of approximately 5’11”.

Information on "Rathlin 1"
Taken from appendix here (in supplementary information):
http://www.pnas.org/content/113/2/368.full.pdf?with-ds=yes

tac foley

Thanks, SB.

The programme went to some lengths to portray the lady, aged between 35 and 45, using the inimitable artistic skills of Victor Ambrus.

There was some evidence that she had had a pillow of some sort under her head, and a covering of some fabric material. The conversation around the grave was interesting to say the least, with the usual high-browed assertion that it had probably been some kind of ritual.

I'd agree, in part. IMO, simple soul that I am, the 'ritual' was one of making her comfortable for her last long sleep, with her own pillow to rest her head, and her best blankie to keep her warm in the grave.

Sometimes, academics can lose sight that we are talking about people here, rather than a framework on which to base high-browed theory.

tac

Wibbs

tac foley wrote: »

Sometimes, academics can lose sight that we are talking about people here, rather than a framework on which to base high-browed theory.

Very true T. Though it can go the other way too, where other academics and laypeople assume modern human behaviour to older peoples, where it may not be present or have a very different cultural meaning. For me the best example of that concerns the notion, indeed near given in the scientific community that Neandertals sometimes buried their dead, with all that this may entail. IMH(and I'd be well comfortable debating it even as the rank amateur that I am) they didn't, or at least there isn't a single "burial" I can think of that cannot be more easily explained by a natural process. A couple are so obviously not burials, yet are considered such, I get to scratching my head and wondering are they looking at the same site and evidence I am.

Ipso

Another thing to consider is that the burials that tend to be found are probably from high status individuals and not the plebs, so you may just be getting a snap shot from a certain class.

tac foley

Ipso wrote: »

Another thing to consider is that the burials that tend to be found are probably from high status individuals and not the plebs, so you may just be getting a snap shot from a certain class.

If that's all there is, then that's all there is.

tac

tac foley

Wibbs wrote: »

...or at least there isn't a single "burial" I can think of that cannot be more easily explained by a natural process.

Thread drift, but apposite nonetheless...

https://wonderfuloldthings.wordpress.com/2014/01/28/what-the-shanidar-cave-burials-tells-us-about-neanderthals/

tac

slowburner

Ipso wrote: »

Another thing to consider is that the burials that tend to be found are probably from high status individuals and not the plebs, so you may just be getting a snap shot from a certain class.

...or people who were simply loved and greatly missed. They may not necessarily have been important people. The pain of their loss might have needed expression.

Wibbs

tac foley wrote: »

Thread drift, but apposite nonetheless...

https://wonderfuloldthings.wordpress.com/2014/01/28/what-the-shanidar-cave-burials-tells-us-about-neanderthals/

tac

Aye Tac, but all still just as easily explained by natural deposition. The "grave goods" at Shanidar are far more in the wishful thinking of the excavators and researchers than were actually present in the initial digs. Repeated in the author of that article and others. Now that the "herbs added as bedding and medicine" angle has been pretty much discounted(rodent action causes such pockets of plant matter throughout the area) still researchers won't dismiss it entirely. The fact that geologically that particular cave is prone to regular cave collapses even down to today and also has so many(relatively speaking) Neandertal "graves" should raise suspicions, or at least more questions than it seems to. Aside* I have no issue with the notion that they cared for their sick and injured just like we might. The evidence for that is pretty definitive, but it's not a sign of modernity per se. There is direct evidence that Homo Erectus cared for their sick loved ones too and they were light years away from modern behaviour.

It seems we want to believe, especially since we discovered we carry their DNA. We want to bring them more into the fold of our humanity and are being quite fanciful in the attempt. The pendulum has swung from bent over hideous "ape man" and a byword for blunt stupidity to "ah they were just like us". IMH they were wrong about that then and they're wrong about how alike we are now and the pendulum has swung too far the other way. Don't get me started on reconstructions that tries to jam a modern white European face onto skulls that are uncomfortable with the attempt, or the neat descriptions and definitions of their lithic technology. That's a whole other day's work.

Hotei

I was in the National Museum of Ireland last year and took a few snaps of a reconstructed EBA cist burial there. The cist was excavated at Keenogue in Co.Meath, and revealed a crouched inhumation of a female lying on her left side. This particular example would appear to be an exception to the practice of lying females on their right side in burials during this period.




An original image of the burial as excavated at Keenogue (note how the reconstruction doesn't appear to be faithful to the original position of the body and food vessel within the cist):





An interesting link here relating to the burials of males and females in western Europe in the EBA:

http://bellbeakerblogger.blogspot.ie/p/beaker-burials.html

Wibbs

Hotei wrote: »

note how the reconstruction doesn't appear to be faithful to the original position of the body and food vessel within the cist

Yeah she originally lays in a much more pronounced left side down angle. I've noted how common that is with museum reconstructions. I suppose it's about making the exhibit more "aesthetic", even relatable(or stable)? I could understand that say 50 years ago, but IMH they should be more rigorous in accuracy these days, or show a photo beside the exhibit of the original in situ context.

dubhthach

Good quality skull in that burial, I imagine the folks in TCD would be able to use Petrous bone to give us a genome.



"Petrous bone is the new black"
http://www.molecularecologist.com/2016/02/petrous-bone-is-the-new-black/

Than again Bradley's lab in TCD supposed has up to 50 ancient genomes to publish. What will be interesting later this year is that Harvard and Copenhagen have joined together to do a massive paper on Bell Beaker, they'll be publishing greater than 200 genomes from Bell Beaker remains found across Western Europe.

Hotei

Wibbs wrote: »

Yeah she originally lays in a much more pronounced left side down angle. I've noted how common that is with museum reconstructions. I suppose it's about making the exhibit more "aesthetic", even relatable(or stable)? I could understand that say 50 years ago, but IMH they should be more rigorous in accuracy these days, or show a photo beside the exhibit of the original in situ context.

I just found another image I took of the reconstruction, and I'm not even sure if the stones used to construct the cist are the same as the originals! The skeleton looks more cramped and the cist is smaller than it looks in the original excavation image. I can only assume they had limited space to work with for the exhibit. I can't recall whether there was a photo of the original in situ cist with the display.

Wibbs

Yeah, smaller and a totally different internal layout. In my humble if one is going to put human remains on display the least that should be attempted is as near a replica as possible of their original position and surroundings or just leave casts out on display. For me anyway its a tad "ghoulish" for the want of batter word.

Mountainsandh

slowburner wrote: »

.

It's an interesting idea that the way we fasten our clothing today could have an ancient provenance, but I would not be surprised if someone argued for an historic origin for the custom - and supplied the evidence!

The most convincing anecdotal explanation for the different clothing fastenings on male and female garments I have read is that ladies were usually dressed by a maid, whereas gentlemen were more likely to fasten their own clothes. Thus, the ladies' fastenings were designed to be fastened by the person facing them, while men's fastenings had to be convenient for their own hands.

I was born without a sense of logic, so I'm taking this at face value. Make of it what you like