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Chapter 2: Past approaches to Bronze Age mortuary studies: an archaeology of objects?
2.1 Introduction
From the earliest excavations of antiquarians, to more recent interpretations, artefacts have most often been the focus of archaeological studies of Early Bronze Age mortuary practices. Craniometry was also an early focus of study but this went out of favour with the demise of the culture historic approach. Processual approaches then focused on the cross-cultural analysis of data and economic interpretations. Post-processualist approaches included an increasing interest in interpretative archaeologies drawing on structuralism, agency and personhood.
This section will review these past approaches to consider how the questions they raised, are still influential today. It will assess the problems and limitations of past theoretical paradigms and look at new developments in approaches to the Early Bronze Age. New methodological developments have often been applied to data and questions derived from out-dated paradigms.
2.2 Primary burials, chiefs and warriors
The earliest excavations into Bronze Age mortuary sites were carried out by antiquarians, who were usually focused on finding the primary burial and associated rich artefacts. The idea of the primary burial originated from individuals such as Stukeley, who saw barrows as the burial places of druids or kings (Petersen 1972, 22).
Prior to this, medieval thinkers such as John Leland thought round barrows were
‘sepultures of men of war’ (Ashbee 1960, 16). Later in the early 19th century these ideas were continued with the discovery of the rich Wessex barrows by Colt Hoare and Cunnington. The idea of the ‘chieftain’ became widespread among antiquarians; the theory of human sacrifice was also a popular way to explain secondary or multiple burials (Greenwell and Rollestone 1877, 244). At the end of the 19th century, the human sacrifice theory went out of favour (Petersen 1972, 25).
However, the idea of the single-grave as the primary, important burial survived. It provided usable evidence (grave-goods) for chronology and for the diffusion argument
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which was an important focus of the culture historical approach (Gilman 1981, 1). This led to attention being focussed on the artefacts rather than the burials or barrows as a whole (Ashbee 1960; Petersen 1972, 23). Although barrows were put into categories according to their external form these never correlated with the contents and so were not useful in this way (Grinsell 1953).
These antiquarian interpretations remain influential. Bronze Age burials are still often thought to be predominantly male individuals, this especially applies to central or
‘primary’ inhumations; whereas later inhumations or cremations are said to be mainly women and children (Brück 2009). Grave-goods continued to be a focus for early barrow studies until relatively recently as they were seen to indicate rank and status, particularly in the Wessex area (Clarke et al. 1985). This approach was used as a way of accessing hierarchy (Meskell and Preucel 2007, 125). For example, Earle (1991, 9) discusses how Bronze Age ideology involved status identification with foreign objects, especially metals as wealth (Helms 1979).
It is debatable how such objects were viewed in the past and the label of ‘prestige’
object ignores more recent interpretations such as object biographies and personhood. Value may have depended on the social context such as ritual, or been variable depending on region and time or, associations such as lineage, ancestors and community (Barnatt and Collis 1996, 41).
2.3 Craniology, culture history and the beaker people
As the material culture approach became dominant, barrows and their artefacts were viewed as the visible evidence of the movement of different peoples. The typology and chronology of artefacts were taken to be the most important aspect of these sites as it was thought to provide evidence of the progress of the ‘diffusion’ of various cultures (Ashbee 1960, 95). Any new artefact type was interpreted as being spread by the invasion of new peoples; these new people were seen as ‘founders of our Bronze Age’ (Clark 1966). For example, the Wessex culture was thought to result from an invasion of people from Brittany. These rich artefacts included: bronze axes and gold-ornamented daggers, bronze pins and sceptres; as well as objects of gold, faience and amber (Clark 1966, 183; Barrett 1990, 180; Woodward 2000, 101).
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Antiquarians had a strong interest in the study of craniological features for the comparison of past peoples. During his excavations, Bateman (1848) noticed that chambered tombs contained dolichocephalic skulls and that round barrows had brachycephalic skulls, but it was Thurnam who first said ‘long barrows – long skulls, round barrows – round skulls’ (Brodie 1994, 38). Unfortunately at this time it was not known that some round barrows were Neolithic which led to some confusion and misinterpretation. Abercromby (1902) was the first to associate ‘round headed’
individuals with beakers and this led to the idea of the ‘beaker people’ (Brodie 1994, 39).
Childe (1933) argued that the cranial index was not a good indication of race as modern racial groups were also dolichocephalic.
‘It is thus obvious that a culture need not correspond to a group allied by physical traits acquired by heredity’ (Childe 1933, 198).
While rejecting a connection between culture and race Childe felt that the beaker people might be an exception (Brodie 1994, 41).
‘In this instance therefore it looks as if culture and race coincided and one might legitimately speak of a beaker race’ (Childe 1939, 218).
Beaker people were also thought to be a different ‘racial sub-group’ due to other skeletal characteristics, as they were thought to generally be taller and more rugged than previous, Neolithic peoples (Ashbee 1978, 137).
The ‘beaker people’ are the only culture to still be discussed in this way. It is debateable whether there was an immigrant ethnic group or just an artefact trend, there are various later interpretations ranging from movement and marriage exchange (Brodie 1997) to male warrior drinking culture (Shennan 1982). Brodie’s (1994) archaeological and craniological study of ‘beaker people’ discussed other possible reasons for differences in cranial shape. Brodie supported the idea of a change in cranial shape from the Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age, but proposed an environmental cause. He suggested that changes in diet affected the muscles used for mastication, which resulted in changes to cranial shape (Brodie 1994, 80).
9 2.3.1 Defining beaker burials
Often beaker burials are simply defined as those Late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age burials with a beaker pot or wrist-guard etc. Some studies discuss general Early Bronze Age burials as beaker (Sofaer Deverenski 2002). Thomas (1991) also considers some a-ceramic beaker burials but these are not buried differently to other Early Bronze Age burials. It seems problematic to classify a burial as ‘beaker’ without criteria to differentiate them from other burials without artefacts from around this time.
Beaker migration was traditionally thought to be indicated by a change in burial practice from Neolithic collective burial monuments (e.g. Hazleton North: Saville 1990) to individual burials in round barrows (Barrett 1994, 51). This change in burial practice was assumed to mirror changes in social structure.
Figure 3: Aspects associated with changes in burial tradition
Recently it has been argued that Neolithic mortuary practices are more complex and diverse than previously thought (Whittle et al. 2007). Brodie (1994) does not see continuity in Neolithic and Bronze Age mortuary practices. Opposing this view, Gibson (2007) argues that burial practices including single/multiple inhumation and cremation were present in both the Neolithic and the Early Bronze Age. Whilst object types offer some broad spectrum dates, further radio-carbon dating would be helpful in resolving this issue. A recent study has undertaken isotopic analysis to solve the question of whether beaker people were incomers from the continent. However, there are currently still no conclusions (Jay and Richards 2007; Jay et al. 2012).