PLOS ONE RESEARCH ARTICLE Between belief and fear - Reinterpreting prone burials during the Middle Ages and early modern period in German-speaking Europe 1,2 2 3 1 Amelie AlteraugeID , Thomas Meier , Bettina Jungklaus , Marco MilellaID , 1 Sandra LoÈ schID * 1 Department of Physical Anthropology, Institute of Forensic Medicine, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland, 2 Institute for Pre- and Protohistory and Near Eastern Archaeology, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany, 3 Anthropologie-BuÈro Jungklaus, Berlin, Germany a1111111111 *
[email protected] a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 Abstract Prone burials are among the most distinctive deviant burials during the Middle Ages and early modern period. Despite their worldwide distribution, the meaning of this burial practice is still a matter of debate. So far, a comprehensive analysis of prone burials is lacking for OPEN ACCESS Central Europe. By compiling evidence from Germany, Switzerland and Austria, this study Citation: Alterauge A, Meier T, Jungklaus B, Milella investigates how these findings fit into the scope of medieval funerary practices. 95 prone M, LoÈsch S (2020) Between belief and fear - burials from 60 archaeological sites were analyzed regarding geographical distribution, dat- Reinterpreting prone burials during the Middle ing, burial features, body position, age-at-death and sex. We applied descriptive statistics Ages and early modern period in German- speaking Europe. PLoS ONE 15(8): e0238439. accompanied by multiple correspondence analysis in order to highlight possible multivariate https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0238439 patterns in the dataset. Prone burials occur in funerary and non-funerary contexts, with a Editor: Peter F. Biehl, University at Buffalo - The predominance of single churchyard burials, followed by favored and exterior location and State University of New York, UNITED STATES settlements.