ARKY 327 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Grave Goods, Autopsy, Venus Figurines
19 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
02-13-2018
European Necrophobia- for second midterm or final****
Unexpected burial- outside of cemetery fences, abnormal positions, different grave goods,
objects in abnormal positioning ie in the mouth, evidence of execution ex bound hands,
beheading.
Western Europe
When a body decomposes it changes and when people die the body often floats- there is gas
build up, retraction of the skin. When a loved one died, those close to them would dream about
them, they thought this was an effort to return to life. This was before people understood
disease. After the dream they would dig up the body, and see fluids escaping, gas build up
release sounded like groaning. They thought the person wanted to come back to life. The first
time we see this is in Homer’s Odyssey, these ideas have existed since 700BC.
Germany post mortem changes- they would dig up the individual and find that the shroud
around the individual had been eaten, they thought that this was the individual coming back into
the body. These ideas start travelling throughout Europe.
Slovenian fighters wearing wolf coats would come back and haunt after death.
How to prevent the loved one from coming back to eat you: put an object in their mouth- you
would weigh the corpse back into the grave, preventing them from rising up. Actually allows gas
and fluid to escape.
2 females found in Italy 1576 (start of the plague) both individuals found supine. First female
was older.
Individuals may have been buried prematurely- before modern medicine. Caused a lot of people
to believe that these individuals were coming back from the dead- this phenomena was not
gendered-it happened equally. Plague related phenomena.
In england, we discuss mass grave analysis throughout the invasion of roman and anglo saxon
influences.Irregular burials in England- crouched position, may be a culture difference, may be
carelessness, may be an alternative to supine burials, potential for irregular punishing burials.
Multiple burials- more than one individual in the same grave site. May be vertical or horizontal-
where people are buried together it is taken as there is a primary death and secondary death
associated with it. Vertical multiple burials is usually one on top of the other. Prone burials with
face down or to the side. Women in medieval time were buried in the prone position as a
punishment for witchcraft. Prone burials represent the individual was an outcast from society.
Stoning=individuals buried covered in massive rocks. The individuals had valuable grave goods.
These irregular burials do not represent an outcast from society. They were covered in stone to
protect the graves from looting. They were found in the center of their family cemeteries.
Cultural Implications- to know why the graves mean something you have to know what
happened a lot of it has to do with different waves of immigration. Romans reached britain in the
first century. Women had different roles in these two societies. When christianity arrived, most
individuals were buried by the church. The incidence of irregular female burials in criminal
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Unexpected burial- outside of cemetery fences, abnormal positions, different grave goods, objects in abnormal positioning ie in the mouth, evidence of execution ex bound hands, beheading. When a body decomposes it changes and when people die the body often floats- there is gas build up, retraction of the skin. When a loved one died, those close to them would dream about them, they thought this was an effort to return to life. After the dream they would dig up the body, and see fluids escaping, gas build up release sounded like groaning. They thought the person wanted to come back to life. The first time we see this is in homer"s odyssey, these ideas have existed since 700bc. Germany post mortem changes- they would dig up the individual and find that the shroud around the individual had been eaten, they thought that this was the individual coming back into the body.
