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Mortuary Practices in the Middle Neolithic

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Mortuary Practices in the Middle Neolithic Mortuary practices in the Middle Neolithic An archaeothanatological analysis of the burials at Ypenburg-locatie 4 and Schipluiden-Harnaschpolder Sander Spijkers Mortuary practices in the Middle Neolithic An archaeothanatological analysis of the burials at Ypenburg-locatie 4 and Schipluiden-Harnaschpolder Sander Spijkers 1796534 Thesis Tutorial BA3 1043SCR1Y-1819ARCH Dr. Q.P.J. Bourgeois MA Archaeology of Europe University of Leiden, Faculty of Archaeology Leiden 15-06-2019, final version 1 2 Table of contents Title page 1 Table of contents 3 1. Introduction 5 2. The history of burial archaeology and archaeothanatology 9 3. The methodology and principles of archaeothanatology 11 3.1 Anatomical terminology 11 3.2 Death, decomposition and disarticulation 13 3.3 Archaeothanatological analysis 15 3.4 Types of funerary deposits 17 4. The sites of Ypenburg-locatie 4 and Schipluiden-Harnaschpolder 19 4.1 Landscape formation 19 4.2 Stratigraphy and dating 20 4.3 Features 20 4.4 Subsistence economy 21 5. The grave fields at Ypenburg-locatie 4 and Schipluiden-Harnaschpolder 22 5.1 Age groups 22 5.2 The grave field at Ypenburg-locatie 4 22 5.3 The grave field at Schipluiden-Harnaschpolder 23 6. Descriptive analysis of the graves at Ypenburg-locatie 4 and Schipluiden-Harnaschpolder 25 6.1 Ypenburg-locatie 4 25 6.2 Schipluiden-Harnaschpolder 38 7. The mortuary practices at Ypenburg-locatie 4 and Schipluiden-Harnaschpolder 42 7.1 The tightly flexed burials and other mortuary practices 42 7.2 Grave goods 46 7.3 Demographics and the mortuary practices 47 8. The mortuary practices in a wider context 48 8.1 Mortuary practices of the Swifterbant and Michelsberg cultures 48 8.2 The migration of artefacts and ideas? 50 9. Conclusions 52 Abstract 55 3 Internet pages 56 Bibliography 57 List of tables 63 List of appendices 64 Appendices 65 4 1. Introduction Since the dawn of humanity, death has in the minds of people been both fascinating and fearsome. It is both the inevitability and the mystery of death that puzzles us (Abramovitch 2015, 870); what happens when you die is a frequently asked question that we cannot answer. Despite this seemingly futile attempt to understand death, our approaches to understanding it have helped in being able to reconcile with death and the loss of a relative. Death on its own is a tragic, arbitrary and meaningless event (or process; this discussion will be accounted for later) but it is us, humans, that put the emotions and meanings into it (May 2009, 4). Death could possibly be the most important aspect of our lives as it is one of the very few things in our lives that we are certain of and it overrides all other aspects of our lives, no matter the importance (May 2009, 4-5). By many it is, however, also believed that death is not the end. In Tibetan Buddhism, lamas are able to exert a critical social presence, yet lack a finite, separate living body. They can live on as corpses, appearances in dreams, rematerialisations such as rainbows and even in the bodies of ‘others’ (Zivkovic 2014, 1-2). The Berawan of Borneo conceive a living human being as the conjunction of a body (usaa) and a spiritual component (telanak). While the body decays after death, it is the spiritual component or ‘soul’ that undergoes a transformation for the telanak is not eternal. The soul changes into a bílì’ leta’, a spirit of the dead. It is only at the moment that the telanak changes into a bílì’ leta’ and enters the land of the dead, that an individual is truly dead. A soul that is not able to find the land of the dead turns malicious and forms a danger for the surviving population. Only by keeping a vigil on the corpse of the deceased and showing the vengeful soul, through mourning, that their beloved ones are hurt by their death, they might keep the soul from hurting anyone (Metcalf and Huntington 1991, 85-97). In contrast to the general notion of agency (Dornan 2002, 303-304), these examples thus show that the deceased, who cannot act intentionally anymore, are still believed to exert influence on the surviving population. Only through specific ritual, the surviving population could still get a hold on the deceased. Drawing closer to Europe, death ritual has been equally important in archaeology as in anthropology. Since the eighteenth century, mounds, pits, tombs and their contents have been a central avenue of archaeological research (Levy 1989, 155). In the Netherlands, the Middle Neolithic of Hazendonk 3 is also interesting for its treatment of 5 the dead. These people did not leave any monumental structures behind such as the hunebedden, but their mortuary practices might shed more light on both life and death between circa 3800-3400 BC. The sites of Ypenburg-locatie 4 and Schipluiden- Harnaschpolder near the coast in the western Netherlands are two important sites for the Hazendonk group. Together with settlements at Rijswijk, Wateringen 4 and Wateringse Veld, they tell the story of how these prehistoric peoples lived at the coast (Louwe Kooijmans 2005, 258; Jongste and Louwe Kooijmans 2006, 3). At the sites of Ypenburg and Schipluiden, in contrast to the other sites mentioned, human remains have been found. Several of these individuals have been found inside graves with their limbs drawn towards the torso, a so-called fetal position, while other positions are also present to a lesser extent. Furthermore, it has been noted by the excavators that skeletons seem to have been intentionally displaced and manipulated. Other interesting mortuary practices such as secondary deposits in pre-existing graves, double burials and the scattering of skeletal elements in settlement contexts deserve more merit (Baetsen 2008; Smits and Louwe Kooijmans 2006). It has been suggested that this fetal position is difficult to achieve anatomically when an individual has only recently died (Knüsel 2014, 42). Therefore it is possible that prehistoric peoples might have tried to preserve, manipulate or wrap the bodies of the deceased, thereby allowing them to position the bodies in such a way while maintaining the anatomical articulations that would have been lost if the flesh had already decayed. This hypothesis is interesting for it may show that prehistoric peoples treated the corpse in much more complex ways than simply depositing it in a grave. It might even suggest that prehistoric peoples kept the dead close to them for extended periods before burying them into the ground. Together with the other evidence of the manipulation of the body, Ypenburg and Schipluiden can enhance our views on how people dealt with death in the Middle Neolithic. The common occurrence of the fetal position at Ypenburg and Schipluiden is in contrast to the partially contemporaneous Swifterbant culture present in the central Netherlands in which individuals were more often buried stretched on their backs. Other mortuary practices found at Ypenburg and Schipluiden such as double burials are, however, also present at the Swifterbant burial sites. It is said that these traditions point to the Mesolithic origin of the Swifterbant culture (D’Hollosy and Baetsen 2001; Louwe Kooijmans 2005, 264; Meiklejohn and Constandse-Westermann 1978; Ten Anscher 2012). Also in the same period, the Michelsberg-culture is present in France, Belgium, 6 Germany and the southern Netherlands. In this culture, the fetal position is the most common positioning of individuals in burials (Beau et al. 2017; Kreuz et al. 2014, 73). Ypenburg and Schipluiden thus share similarities with both the Swifterbant and Michelsberg cultures in terms of mortuary practices; this is perhaps of no surprise as the Hazendonk culture is situated at the crossroads where these two cultures meet. Perhaps these similarities are a reflection of the Middle Neolithic more generally. This is namely a transitionary period in which fully agriculturalist and semi-agriculturalist societies meet. The process of neolithisation is fully making its way in the Netherlands and sites such as Ypenburg and Schipluiden are prime examples of how certain ‘Neolithic traditions’ have and have not been adopted (Amkreutz 2013b). Again, comparisons can be drawn with the Swifterbant and Michelsberg cultures. While the Swifterbant sites still display a large commitment towards hunting and gathering, the Michelsberg culture already displays a more widespread reliance on agriculture; Ypenburg and Schipluiden seem to be situated right in the middle of this development (Amkreutz 2013b; Koot et al. 2008, 457-466; Kreuz et al. 2014; Louwe Kooijmans 2006). The mortuary practices of Ypenburg and Schipluiden will be studied through the scope of archaeothanatology, the archaeological study of the biological and social components of death. Archaeothanatology tries to “reconstruct the attitudes of ancient populations towards death by focussing on the study of the human skeleton and analysing the acts linked to the management and treatment of the corpse” (Duday 2009, 3-6). Archaeothanatology stresses the absence or presence of certain articulations between skeletal elements and the position of these bones to infer more about the rituals associated with death and burial. In archaeothanatology, the decomposition of the body from corpse to skeleton to, possibly, a disarticulated heap of bones is essential. The body, namely, undergoes a complex process of decomposition consisting of different stages to which different rituals or mortuary practices might be linked. Archaeologists tend to usually only see the final stage in this process; a skeletonized human. Archaeothanatology, however, enables the archaeologist to infer more about what happened to the deceased before it skeletonized and also what happened when the flesh had already decayed (Duday 2009; Nilsson Stutz 2003). Through archaeothanatological and descriptive analysis of the graves at Ypenburg- locatie 4 and Schipluiden-Harnaschpolder, more information on the mortuary practices of the Middle Neolithic in the western Netherlands will be provided.
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