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Spectrums of depositional practice in later prehistoric Britain and beyond. Grave goods, hoards and deposits ‘in between’
Archaeological Dialogues Pub Date : 2020-11-13 , DOI: 10.1017/s1380203820000197
Anwen Cooper , Duncan Garrow , Catriona Gibson

This paper critically evaluates how archaeologists define ‘grave goods’ in relation to the full spectrum of depositional contexts available to people in the past, including hoards, rivers and other ‘special’ deposits. Developing the argument that variations in artefact deposition over time and space can only be understood if different ‘types’ of find location are considered together holistically, we contend that it is also vital to look at the points where traditionally defined contexts of deposition become blurred into one another. In this paper, we investigate one particular such category – body-less object deposits at funerary sites – in later prehistoric Britain. This category of evidence has never previously been analysed collectively, let alone over the extended time period considered here. On the basis of a substantial body of evidence collected as part of a nationwide survey, we demonstrate that body-less object deposits were a significant component of funerary sites during later prehistory. Consequently, we go on to question whether human remains were actually always a necessary element of funerary deposits for prehistoric people, suggesting that the absence of human bone could be a positive attribute rather than simply a negative outcome of taphonomic processes. We also argue that modern, fixed depositional categories sometimes serve to mask a full understanding of the complex realities of past practice and ask whether it might be productive in some instances to move beyond interpretively confining terms such as ‘grave’, ‘hoard’ and ‘cenotaph’. Our research demonstrates that is it not only interesting in itself to scrutinize archaeological evidence that does not easily fit into traditional narratives, but that the process of doing so also sheds new light on the validity of our present-day categories, enabling deeper insights into how people in the past ordered their material and conceptual worlds. Whilst our main focus is later prehistoric Britain, the issues we consider are potentially relevant across all periods and regions.

中文翻译:

史前英国后期及以后的沉积实践谱。墓地、囤积物和“介于两者之间”的存款

本文批判性地评估了考古学家如何根据过去人们可用的各种沉积环境(包括囤积、河流和其他“特殊”沉积物)来定义“墓葬”。提出这样的论点,即只有在整体考虑不同“类型”的发现位置时,才能理解人工制品沉积随时间和空间的变化,我们认为,查看传统定义的沉积背景变得模糊的点也很重要另一个。在本文中,我们调查了一个特定的此类类别——葬礼地点的无尸体物品沉积——在后来的史前英国。此类证据以前从未进行过集体分析,更不用说在此处考虑的延长时间段内了。根据作为全国调查的一部分收集的大量证据,我们证明了无尸体的物体沉积物是史前后期墓葬遗址的重要组成部分。因此,我们继续质疑人类遗骸实际上是否一直是史前人类葬礼的必要元素,这表明人类骨骼的缺失可能是一个积极的属性,而不仅仅是埋葬过程的消极结果。我们还认为,现代的、固定的沉积类别有时会掩盖对过去实践的复杂现实的全面理解,并询问在某些情况下超越解释性限制的术语,如“坟墓”、“囤积”和“纪念碑”。我们的研究表明,仔细研究不易融入传统叙述的考古证据本身不仅有趣,而且这样做的过程也为我们当今类别的有效性提供了新的视角,从而能够更深入地了解如何过去的人们对他们的物质世界和概念世界进行了排序。虽然我们的主要关注点是后来的史前英国,但我们考虑的问题可能与所有时期和地区有关。
更新日期:2020-11-13
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