Are metals necessary for the study of social stratification during the Bronze Age and the Iron Age? A proposal for a new methodological approach

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2020.101241Get rights and content

Highlights

  • The presence of GCh and MNV can be considered proxies for social stratification.

  • Social stratification was reflected in the probability of survival.

  • MNV was the variable most strongly predictive of age at death.

  • The concept of child marginalisation has been rejected.

Abstract

The relationship between the social status of individuals and the presence of metal grave goods has been one of the most extensively researched areas in mortuary archaeology. Our study raises questions about the potential existence of other indicators of social status, which may also be important bearers of social information. This study made use of the individuals from the Wicina cremation cemetery (n = 355), buried during the late Bronze Age and the early Iron Age, for whom age at death was estimated. The presence of timber grave chambers (GCh) and the minimum number of vessels (MNV) per grave were considered as proxies for social stratification. Tests were completed to determine whether these grave indices differentiated the probability of survival of individuals from different age classes, and to identify the indices that had the most significant predictive power with respect to age at death. Social stratification was reflected in the probability of survival: individuals belonging to a higher stratum of society had a greater probability of surviving for a longer period of time, and vice versa. Our results showed that the occurrence of metal objects had no effect on the probability of survival.

Introduction

In the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, urnfields covered a vast area of Central and Western Europe, and endured from the 14th century BC onwards (Falkenstein, 2012, Kaczmarek, 2017) (Fig. 1). Based on archaeological evidence derived from Central Europe, it was observed that there are at least three main characteristics that are common to most of the urnfield cultures: the prevalence of cremation, a considerable increase in the number of both graves and large cemeteries, and the incorporation of ceramics in funerary rituals. None of these traits were abundant in the archaeological record prior to the urnfield period. It was during that period that hundreds of pots filled with human cremains became an iconic picture of the later stages of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age in many regions of Europe (e.g. Mierzwiński, 2012).

Studies on the identification of potential social stratification based on grave constructions and grave goods comprise one of the most explored research areas in archaeology (e.g. Ekengren, 2013, Parker Pearson, 1999; with further references therein). However, the uncritical employment of certain basic notions, such as status, prestige and social rank, has also been noted (criticised, for example, by Bernbeck and Müller, 1996). In the funerary context, attention was primarily focussed on the definition of ‘prestige items’, which were made of raw materials that were valuable and/or rare (according to contemporary judgment), presented sophisticated forms, and sometimes exemplified innovations in terms of their material, techniques of manufacture, and so on, from which they derived most of their practical functions (e.g. Bernbeck and Müller, 1996, Kadrow, 2011, van der Vaart-Verschoof, 2017). In the archaeological literature, they are usually presented in opposition (whether explicitly or implicitly) to objects of personal use that are simple, practical, and less decorated (e.g. Kristiansen and Larsson, 1995). Studies on social stratification in the Bronze Age are mostly based on the examination of metal objects, i.e., their quantity, quality, and diversity of form and material – such as gold vs. copper (for deposits, see e.g. Levy, 1979), and the comparison of these variables to the anthropological data obtained from burials (e.g. Randsborg, 1973, Teržan, 1984). The process of searching for indicators of ‘richly’ and ‘poorly’ furnished graves and then comparing the results with the sex and age (both terms considered as biological categories) of the deceased has been a standard research procedure for decades (more examples from Polish literature: Przybyła, 2014, Woźny, 2005). Compared to metals, pottery has rarely been considered as an indicator of social rank. In such cases, objects produced from non-local raw materials, such as kaolinite clays (Łaciak, 2019), by employing time-consuming techniques, such as wheel-throwing, painting, graphite-coating, or narrative decoration (Van der Boom, 2000), were preferably taken into consideration (Kopiasz, 2008, Łaciak, 2019). It should also be noted that transformations in the style and distribution of grave pottery, as well as in the composition of its assemblages has recently been analysed by Central European studies on the dynamics of funerary rituals with interesting results pertaining to changes of burial and post-burial practices (e.g. Mierzwiński, 2012, Nebelsick, 2016).

In this paper, we provide a different method of assessing potential social stratification with the help of archaeological and anthropological evidence. This study is based on data collected from a cemetery with homogeneous sets of undecorated and unsophisticated grave pottery made of local raw materials, and with only a few, unremarkable metal objects. The objective is to test whether such indices can differentiate the probability of survival of individuals from different age classes, and to determine which of them was the best predictor of age at death. An alternative hypothesis that proposed that the age at death was a determinant of social position was also verified, and hence, the graves of children and adults differed in their equipment.

Section snippets

The site

The cemetery at Wicina (presently, SW Poland) is located in a densely occupied micro-region with numerous archaeological sites of similar chronology, i.e., from the late Bronze and early Iron Ages (Fig. 1). The focal point of the region is a famous fortified settlement in the broad basin of the Lubsza river, which was excavated for the first time in the 1920s (Schuchhardt, 1926). The site extends across an area of approximately 22,000 m2, and is clearly visible in the landscape, as the maximum

Examination of skeletal remains

The anthropological analyses conducted during the excavations of the 1970s resulted in the estimation of both sex and the age at death, which have already been used in the construction of a biological picture of the community (e.g. Piontek, 1979, Piontek and Kołodziejski, 1981). The acquisition of anthropological data from skeletal remains consisted of the following tasks: (1) determining the number of individuals whose skeletal remains were placed in the same urns (e.g. children and adults) on

Independent variables

A group of independent variables was used as a proxy for social stratification in the population of Wicina. The first variable refers to the quality of grave construction, which is determined by the presence of a grave chamber (GCh), and occurred in 165 graves (33%). We considered the chambers to be highly valued funerary structures since the construction involved the digging of a larger pit, followed by the use of previously prepared planks of uniform sizes. As a result, the preparation of the

Results

An MNV of 20+ vessels occurred more frequently in the category of individuals classified as ‘Adults’ versus those classified as ‘Children’ (87.7% and 12.1%, respectively). The Chi-squared test also confirmed that the proportion of 1–9 vessels in the ‘Child’ category was statistically higher than that in the ‘Adult’ category (62.2% and 39.8%, respectively) (Chi-squared = 53.164, df = 2, p < 0.001). When the classification of the MNV from Model 2 and Model 3 were accounted for, the Chi-squared

Discussion

Studies that combine biological and archaeological data during the urnfield period are surprisingly few, and they represent the constant search for repeatable patterns in the selection of good graves – that is the material indicators or the sex and the age of the deceased (e.g. Ložnjak Dizdar, 2013, Rajpold, 2017). Meanwhile, the state of research on the relationship between social status and health in prehistoric populations is fragmentary and provides inconsistent results (e. g.: Angel, 1984,

Conclusion

In the archaeology of the Late Bronze Age and the early Iron Age, the main focus has been on elite graves (e.g. Schumann and Van der Vaart-Verschoof, 2017), which were spectacular and lavishly furnished with exotic objects, but relatively few when compared to the thousands of similar, modest graves found in large parts of Europe. We showed that these graves have research potential and should not be considered only as an insignificant background to the studies on prehistoric communities.

Our

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Grażyna Liczbińska: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Methodology, Visualization, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing. Janusz Piontek: Data curation, Investigation, Writing - review & editing. Justyna Baron: Funding acquisition, Project administration, Writing - review & editing. Dagmara Łaciak: Data curation. Radosław Kuźbik: Visualization.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no competing interest.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks are addressed to Mark Toussaint, Ph.D, for providing language help. The authors wish also to thank the Editor-in Chief and the anonymous Reviewers for their helpful and valuable remarks and advice, which improved the quality of this paper.

Funding

This work was supported by the Polish National Centre for Science, NCN (UMO-2016/23/B/HS3/00450).

References (75)

  • M. Bugaj

    Nieinwazyjne badania osady obronnej w Wicinie

  • M. Bullock et al.

    Paleodemographic Age-at-Death Distributions of Two Mexican Skeletal Collections: A Comparison of Transition Analysis and Traditional Aging Methods

    Am. J. Phys. Anthropol.

    (2013)
  • D.R. Cox

    Regression models and life tables

    J. Roy. Statist. Soc., Serie B

    (1972)
  • M. Dokládal

    Ergebnisse experimenteller Verbrennungen zur Feststellung von Form- und Grössenveränderungen von Menschenknochen unter dem Einfluss von hochen Temperaturen

    Anthropologie (Brno)

    (1970)
  • T. Dzierżykray-Rogalski

    A new method of investigation of bone remains from cremation graves

    Anthropologie (Brno)

    (1966)
  • F. Ekengren

    Contextualising Grave Goods: Theoretical Perspectives and Methodological Implications

  • Falkenstein, F., 2012. The Development of Burial Rites from the Tumulus to the Urnfield Culture in Southern Central...
  • Gejvall, N.G., 1969. Cremation. In: Brothwell, D. and Higgs, E. (Eds.), Science in Archaeology (2nd ed.). Bristol,...
  • A.H. Goodman et al.

    Reconstructing health profiles from skeletal remains

  • J.W. Hatch et al.

    Stature and status in Dallas society

    Tennessee Div. Archaeol.

    (1974)
  • P.O. Hernández Espinoza

    Entre flores y chinampas: La salud de los antiguos habitantes de Xochimilco

  • Kaczmarek, M., 2017. The Snares of Ostensible Homogeneity. Lusatian Culture or Lusatian Urnfields? In: Bugaj, U. (Ed.),...
  • M. Kaczmarek et al.

    The Early Iron Age Fortified Settlements in Wielkopolska (western Poland) - past and present perspectives in archaeological research

    Prähistorische Zeitschrift

    (2011)
  • S. Kadrow

    Power and Authority in Prehistory and the Problem of Interdisciplinary Archaeological Studies

    Analecta Archaeologica Ressoviensia

    (2011)
  • Kałagate, S., 2013. Chronologia grodziska w Wicinie. In: Jaszewska, A., Kałagate, S. (Eds.), Wicina. Badania...
  • E.L. Kaplan et al.

    Nonparametric estimation from incomplete observations

    J. Am. Stat. Assoc.

    (1958)
  • Kopiasz, J., 2008. Ceramika “prestiżowa“ jako wyraz struktury społecznej mieszkańców osady z okresu halsztackiego w...
  • Krąpiec, M., Szychowska-Krąpiec, E., 2013. Analiza dendrochronologiczna drewna z badań grodziska w Wicinie w latach...
  • Kristiansen, K., Larsson, T. 1995. The Rise of Bronze Age Society. Travels, Transmissions and Transformations....
  • C.S. Larsen

    Bioarcheology: interpreting behaviour from the human skeleton

    (1997)
  • J.E. Levy

    Evidence of Social Stratification in Bronze Age Denmark

    J. Field Archaeol.

    (1979)
  • C.O. Lovejoy et al.

    Chronological metamorphosis of the auricular surface of the ilium: a new method for the determination of adult skeletal age at death

    Am. J. Phys. Anthropol.

    (1985)
  • Ložnjak Dizdar, D., 2013. Cremation burials in Northern Croatia 1300-750 BC. In: Lochner, M., Ruppenstein, F. (Eds.)....
  • J.R. Lukacs

    Dental paleopathology and agricultural intensification in South Asia: New evidence from Bronze Age Harappa

    Am. J. Phys. Anthropol.

    (1992)
  • J.R. Lukacs

    Dental Trauma and Antemortem Tooth Loss in Prehistoric Canary Islanders: Prevalence and Contributing Factors

    Int. J. Osteoarcheol.

    (2007)
  • Łaciak, D., 2019. The Oder-zone Painted and Encrusted Pottery as Cultural Phenomena of the Hallstatt Period. In:...
  • S. Łukasik et al.

    Warriors die young: increased mortality in early adulthood of Scythians from Glinoe, Moldova, 4th-2nd c. BC

    J. Anthropol. Res.

    (2017)
  • Cited by (1)

    • Bone, antler, and tooth objects from the late bronze/early Iron Age urnfields in south-western Poland

      2023, Quaternary International
      Citation Excerpt :

      The cemetery at Wicina is located in a densely occupied micro-region with numerous archaeological sites of similar chronology, i.e., from the late Bronze and early Iron Ages (Piontek and Kołodziejski, 1981). The excavations in the 1970s uncovered interesting information about the burial customs observed throughout the use of the cemetery, based on the high variability in the number of vessels present in the graves, the presence of timber constructions, and the negligible use of sophisticated metal objects as grave goods (Liczbińska et al., 2020). The urnfield of 502 graves, containing 574 burials, was the cemetery of a local community living initially in the open settlement, and then in a famous and well-dated fortified settlement destroyed by the Scythians soon after 571 BCE (Kałagate, 2013).

    View full text