Session format:
Regular session
Title:
Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Analysis of Funerary Archaeology during the Bronze - Iron Age Transition in Atlantic Europe
Content:
The analysis of mortuary practices and their cultural context remains one of the most effective methods of tracking societal transitions. For this session we will be exploring the subject of continuity or change in burial modes during the Late Bronze - Early Iron Age in Atlantic Europe. Identifying specific change in funerary customs of this period has traditionally been difficult and varies widely between the Continent, Britain and Ireland. The end of the Bronze Age was not marked by a sudden incursion of culturally distinctive, iron-using groups. It was a prolonged, fluid process of gradual change which saw the intermingling of pre-existing traditions with new material culture. Chronologically defining these nuanced developments with the use of radiocarbon dating was limited due to the Hallstatt Plateau (800-400 BC). However, with the wide-scale adoption of Bayesian Chronological Modelling, it is now possible to overcome this limitation and provide absolute chronologies for individual cemeteries and wider burial traditions. In addition, advances in osteoarchaeology, Isotope analysis and ancient DNA allow for a multifaceted approach to the analysis of human remains. The application of these methodologies assists in identifying subtle changes in funerary customs such as burial modes, demography, treatment of the body, mobility, kinship and the spatio-temporal origins of these developments. The subtle and regionally specific developments identified can be juxtaposed with the more pragmatic 'big data' approach, to track broader patterns across the entire period. By integrating these multiple approaches, a robust narrative of the cultural developments in funerary practices during this transition in Atlantic Europe can be achieved.
We will accept papers from researchers that incorporate the novel approaches mentioned above with a focus on site-based and interregional mortuary practices and the degree to which they represent spatio-temporal change during the Late Bronze to early Iron Age in Atlantic Europe.
Keywords:
Transition, Death, Burial, Chronology, Late Bronze Age, Early Iron Age
Session associated with MERC:
no
Session associated with CIfA:
no
Session associated with SAfA:
no
Session associated with CAA:
no
Session associated with DGUF:
no
Session associated with other:
Main organiser:
Beverley Still (United Kingdom) 1
Co-organisers:
Ben Spillane (Ireland) 2
Arjan Louwen (Netherlands) 3
Affiliations:
1. Department of Archaeology, University of Durham
2. Department of Archaeology, University College Cork
3. Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University
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