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Undergraduate Research Journal 2015.Indb ANTHROPOLOGY Deviant Burial and Fear of the Dead Zach Udell All living things end in death one day; that is the inevitable fact of living. While humans do not have the physical ability to prevent death, they tend to find incredible ways to handle it. Humans adapt to numerous obstacles and hardships that they encounter throughout their lives. Humanities ability to adapt to the numerous and diverse environments have made it possible for our species to expand and create the societies that we live in today. Despite all these achievements, one thing that humans have not yet been able to overcome is the end of life, death. Throughout human history, societies have mourned the loss of loved ones in unique ways that allows them to cope with the pain of that loss. However, some of the ways in which the dead have been laid to rest calls for for deeper investigation and analysis. In Eastern Europe, bodies have been found with their arms or legs bound, their heads and limbs removed, stones placed on top of the body or in their mouth; in so different many ways that it asks the question, why were these people buried in this way? The discovery of these bodies in unique circumstances brings about many questions surrounding the deceased and the society of that time. How the dead are handled is an important means of understanding culture and how it functions. Looking at atypical burial patterns is an effective way of seeking out the subtle nuances found in each culture. Burials that differ from the norm could be argued as having a meaning other than for mourning or respecting the dead. Desecration of the corpse in any intentional manner, such as the removal of limbs or intential harm done to the body, can be seen as necrophobic. Fear is a strong tool that can be used to scare people into doing things that they would not have done or thought of doing otherwise. Undergraduate Rsearch Journal | 11 ANTHROPOLOGY A religion can use fear to scare people into believing and doing the ‘correct’ things. Christianity for example is built on the premises that you will burn in hell and be tortured for all of eternity. Acting on fear has the potential to change how a group responds to an event in their society. Deviant or atypical burials can be linked to a fear of the dead or unknown, and these two things exist to provide a sense of understanding in an uncertain world. Techniques used when handling the deceased vary across the world, but each specific case has an intentional meaning that continues to change and expand along with our perspective of the dead. It is important to understand what makes a deviant or atypical burial different and unique. Without the understanding in place, no true analysis can take place. A deviant burial can only understood when there are enough burials beforehand to identify activities of normal culture practices. Eileen Murphy, in her book “Deviant Burial in the Archaeological Record”, writes that “’Unusual’ or ‘deviant’ burials are considered to be cases where the individual has been buried in a different way relative to the norm for the period/or the population under examination” (Murphy,2008: 11). In order to look at the extraordinary cases, you first have to have plenty of ordinary cases. In some cases of deviant burials, it could be done as an intentional act of disrespect, or it could be something more sinister. Murphy writes that, “in some cases unusual disposal is accompanied be evidence of practices, which appear to indicate fear of the dead” (14). A thorough analysis of a burial is absolutely necessary in determining the meaning behind it. Before analyzing specific examples of deviant burials, it is important to discuss who is buried and why it matters. When looking at things like atypical burial patterns, knowing who can offer explanations as to why someone is buried in such a different way than other people of that same culture and time period. In his article, “Deviant’ Burials Reveal Death on the Fringe in Ancient Societies”, Michael Balter writes that, “…in many societies, special burials were also given to outcasts and Undergraduate Rsearch Journal | 12 ANTHROPOLOGY certain classes of people, including criminals, woman who died during childbirth, people with disabilities, and unbaptized children”(Balter,2005: 613). When looking at strange burials, defined as different than the norm at the time, things like this must be considered. Additionally, in “The Archaeology of Death and Burial”, Mike Pearson writes that, “Orientation of the grave, its occupant(s) and tomb structures built over the grave may all be significant”(Pearson,1999: 6). In relation to the status of the deceased, he writes that, “The shape and depth of a grave may relate to the social status or gender of the person buried. It may also reflect the degree of formality in the burial rite”(Pearson, 5). A person of higher status will most likely receive a more elaborate burial than someone of a lower social or economic status. However, it does not mean that all deviant burials were just because of social status. A fear of the dead could have played an important role in how people were buried. For example, Balter writes that some bodies found in Ireland, “…were often buried face-down, their limbs were sometimes amputated, and their bodies were weighed down with stones; contemporary writings suggest these practices arose out of fear that the bodies might run around at night” (Balter, 613). Any type of phobia within a society can create an uneasy atmosphere that people will act on in a way that makes sense to them. Necrophobia specifically has quite an effect on burials, and how a society functions. A Durkheimian approach to culture has an interesting layout that fits nicely over how deviant burials and fear of the dead work. In a self- perpetuating culture, the rituals that are done are recreated over and over again, cementing themselves into the foundation of that culture. This in turn allows for it to continue to be recreated. It is self-perpetuating in an endless loop that is can be altered slowly over time or changed by outside influences. This model can be used to explain necrophobia and fear of the dead. People fear the unknown, and death is an immense unknown. Strange burials and the practices that go along with them are done in a way to provide meaning and understanding about such an ultimate unknown. As these practices are repeated, the meaning is carried Undergraduate Rsearch Journal | 13 ANTHROPOLOGY along with them, and they continue to feed off of themselves. In “Fear of the Dead as a Factor in Social Self-Organization”, Akop Nazaretyan writes about the beginnings of fear and how it is tied to the evolutionary process of our species. He argues that this leads itself to the creation of the spiritual, religion. He cites numerous examples of deviant burials that have been analyzed by archaeologists and he comes to the conclusion that, ” …the complex activities in order to deprive a dead body of movement (tying, and burial), or to eliminate it (by eating it, burning it or dismembering it) could be mainly due to the belief that the dead person was likely to persecute and hurt the living. If so, we can conclude that care for dead bodies, as well as care for helpless kinsmen are among the very first symptoms of the ‘highly irrational human imagination’, and thus, of the formation of spiritual culture”(Nazaretyan,2005: 5). A fear of the dead could have originally created spiritual culture, but spiritual culture could act simultaneously to create answers or at least understanding about the afterlife. A society can continue to create an atmosphere of fear that thrives off of itself, but that does not necessarily mean that all people must have acted on those fears. While analyzing potential meaning behind atypical burials, it can be easy to write something off as having a meaning that it originally did not contain. In “Vampires, criminals or slaves? Reinterpreting ‘deviant burials’ in early medieval Poland”, Leszek Gardela and Kamil Kajowski reanalyze burials that were excavated in the 1950’s. The burials discussed are different from the norm during Medieval Poland. Gardela and Kajowski write that, “The most common atypical graves in early medieval cemeteries in Poland are; 1) prone burials, 2) decapitated corpses and 3) bodies covered with stones” (Gadela, Lesxek, Kawjowski, 2013:781-2). Throughout the article, they are arguing for a reexamination of the bodies discovered in a more logical manner. These people, when first examined, were viewed as deviant and the conclusion was reached quickly that they must have been buried this way because the Polish Undergraduate Rsearch Journal | 14 ANTHROPOLOGY people must have thought that these people were vampires. The thought did not come up that they had been criminals or slaves. Being buried atypical does not immediately mean that there was some supernatural or fearful thought behind the action.These burials could have alternatively resulted from a lower social class. Additionally, Gardela and Kajowski researched old practices found in medieval texts on how to deal with vampires, and they found that, “…textual accounts of early-modern anti- vampire practices from Silesia and Lusatia indicate that the majority of cases were cremated instead of being interred in a deviant way” (Gadela, Lesxek, Kawjowski ,2013:784). It is important to both analyze deviant burial cases in as wide of a scope as it is logical, and to reexamine old evidence in case there was an error or any premature conclusions reached.
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