Death and the Body in Bronze Age Europe

Erscheinungsjahr 2023
ISBN: 978-1-009-24739-9
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 350 Seiten, Format (B × H): 183 mm x 258 mm, Gewicht: 610 g

This volume offers new insights into the radical shift in attitudes towards death and the dead body that occurred in temperate Bronze Age Europe. Exploring the introduction and eventual dominance of cremation, Marie-Louise Stig Sørenson and Katharina Rebay-Salisbury apply a case-study approach to investigate how this transformation unfolded within local communities located throughout central to northern Europe. They demonstrate the deep link between the living and the dead body, and propose that the introduction of cremation was a significant ontological challenge to traditional ideas about death. In tracing the responses to this challenge, the authors focus on three fields of action:  the treatment of the dead body, the construction of a burial place, and ongoing relationships with the dead body after burial. Interrogating cultural change at its most fundamental level, the authors elucidate the fundamental tension between openness towards the 'new' and the conservative pull of the familiar and traditional.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Sørensen, Marie Louise Stig

Rebay-Salisbury, Katharina

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Sonstige Religionen Sonstige Religionen: Kult, Riten, Feiertage, Zeremonien, Gebete
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Europäische Länder

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Introduction: changing practices and perception of the body; 2. A brief history of urns, urnfields and burials in the Urnfield Culture; 3. Theoretical framework; 4. The Bronze Age: setting the scene; 5. The changing Bronze Age body – introduction of case studies; 6. The treatment of the body: compatibility and divergence; 7. The construction of graves: coherence and variations; 8. After the burial: prolonged engagement with the body; 9. Conclusions: on the nature of change in burial practices.

Über Autor(innen)

Rebay-Salisbury, Katharina
Katharina Rebay-Salisbury is Research Group Leader at the Austrian Archaeological Institute, Austrian Academy of Sciences. She specializes in interdisciplinary approaches to analysis of Bronze and Iron Age burials. She was awarded a European Research Council Starting Grant for her project 'The value of mothers to society.'

Sørensen, Marie Louise Stig
Marie-Louise Stig Sørensen is Professor in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge. She has made important contributions to the scholarship on the European Bronze in a range of topics, including dress, creativity, the construction of identities, and the role of 'things.'