RememberMe DEEP IN TIME: MEANING AND MNEMONIC IN ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES OF DEATH YVONNE INALL AND MALCOLM LILLIE [This page intentionally left blank] Remember Me: The Changing Face of Memorialisation Deep in Time: meaning and mnemonic in archaeological studies of death. Yvonne Inall Malcolm Lillie University of Hull: Remember Me Project University of Hull Cottingham Road Hull HU6 7RX United Kingdom https://remembermeproject.wordpress.com/ © Yvonne Inall and Malcolm Lillie 2018 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licencing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of University of Hull: Remember Me Project. First published in 2018 Printed in the United Kingdom at the University of Hull. A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. ISBN 978-1-9996255-0-4 University of Hull: Remember Me Project has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Table of Contents Research Highlights 1 Executive Summary 2 1. Background and Rationale 2 2. Method 2 3. Iron Age 2 4. Romano-British 3 5. Anglo-Saxon 3 6. Medieval 3 7. Reformation and post-Reformation to AD 1640 3 8. Recurrent themes across time 4 1. Introduction 6 2. Method 6 3. Iron Age Burial Practices 8 3.1 Arras Culture Barrow Burials 13 3.2 ‘Chariot’ Burials 14 3.3 Speared-Corpse Burials 15 3.4 Durotrigian Inhumation 15 3.5 Cremation Burials 16 3.6 Burials in Settlement Contexts 17 4. Romano-British Burial Practices 18 4.1 Preparation and Viewing of the Dead 18 4.2 Romano-British Cremations 20 4.3 Inhumations 21 4.4 Lasting memorials: sarcophagi, gravestones and mausolea 22 4.5 Unusual burials: prone, decapitated and other burials 24 4.6 Children 26 4.7 Grave Goods 26 4.8 Placing the Dead: Organised Cemeteries 28 4.9 Diasporas and migrants 29 4.10 Gender bias, an under-representation of women? 29 5. Anglo-Saxon Burial Practices 30 5.1 Funerary Rites 31 5.2 Cremation 32 5.3 Inhumation 33 5.4 Traumatic/Tragic/Problematic Death and Deviant Burials 34 5.5 Grave goods 35 5.6 Cemeteries and Deathscapes: Importance of Place and Use of the Landscape 43 6. Medieval Burial Practices 44 6.1 Funerary Rites 45 6.2 Traumatic/problematic death 50 6.3 Non-Christian death 52 6.4 Grave Goods 52 6.5 Religious/Secular 53 6.6 Cemeteries and Deathscapes 55 6.7 Memorials and Mementos 56 6.8 Diaspora/Migrants 58 6.9 Death of Children 58 7. Reformation and Post-Reformation Burial Practices: the Secularisation of Death 59 7.1 The End of Purgatory 59 7.2 Changes in Burial and Funerary Practice 60 7.3 ‘Deviant’ Burial 61 7.4 Changing Memorialisation Practices 62 7.5 Emerging Forms of Memorialisation 65 8. Conclusion 65 9. References 68 List of Figures Figure 1: Upper Palaeolithic burial of an adult male from Sungir, Russia 11 Figure 2: An Arras Culture chariot burial during excavation 15 Figure 3: Reconstruction of the Welwyn Garden City Iron Age burial 17 Figure 4: Gravestone dedicated to Regina, wife of Baretes of Palmyra 23 Figure 5: Anglo-Saxon cremation urn 33 Figure 6: Anglo-Saxon bulla pendant 36 Figure 7:Sutton Hoo Ship burial under excavation 41 Figure 8: Funeral procession of Jean II 47 Figure 9: Parish coffin, Howden Minster, East Yorkshire 48 Figure 10: Monumental brass effigy of William Wadham 57 Figure 11: Tomb and funerary monument to Sir William Sharington 63 About the Authors Yvonne Inall holds a PhD in History from the University of Hull, undertaking an archaeological examination the role of spearheads in Iron Age Britain. As part of her doctoral thesis Yvonne conducted a review of British Iron Age burial practices, with a particular focus on martial burials. She is now assisting Dr Malcolm Lillie with the long durée component of the Remember Me Project: Deep in Time: Meaning and Mnemonic in Archaeological and Diaspora Studies of Death. Malcolm Lillie has been an archaeologist for 33 years. He is Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology & Wetland Science at the University of Hull and Director of the Wetland Archaeology & Environments Research Centre. He currently integrates two specialist areas into his research activities, the study of earlier prehistoric human remains and the study of wetlands. Since 1994-9 Malcolm has undertaken studies of human remains from Britain, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Turkey and other regions of Europe, which are aimed at understanding social structures, diet and pathology in archaeological populations. Death and Memorialisation are fundamental aspects of his work in human remains analysis and the current project offers an opportunity for this area of research to be refined in an exciting new direction by linking the attitudes of the past directly into the recent historic and modern contexts. Acknowledgements This research was funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (ref. AH/M008398/1). The authors are grateful to colleagues on the ‘Remember Me’ team - Emeritus Professor Margaret Holloway (PI), Dr Lisa Dikomitis (CI), Dr Nicholas Evans (CI), Assoc. Professor Liz Nicol (CI), Rev Dr Andrew Goodhead (project collaborator), Dr Louis Bailey (RF) Dr Miroslava Hukelova (RF), and Dr Michael S. Drake (CI) (†) 1 - for their shared insights. 1 Deceased 28.8.2017 [This page intentionally left blank] Research Highlights Across time the core function of memorialisation processes highlights a perpetual need to maintain an ongoing relationship between the living and the dead. There is considerable evidence, particularly in later periods that the forms and representations of memorials and memorialisation rituals mirror past practices. The dead may be transformed through memorialisation processes to reflect the cosmological beliefs of the society. Throughout time significant shifts are evident in the ways that society assisted the deceased on their journeys into the afterlife. For those whose deaths may have been problematic, ritual processes, showing similar features over time, were enacted to ameliorate troubled spirits and mitigate perceived supernatural dangers to the living. Treatment of the physical body was an important part of the memorialisation process, the deceased being treated with intimate care in every historical period. Liminal constructs, the spatial patterning, and the meaning of deathscapes varied over time depending on the nature of the relationships between the living and the dead. The dead often continue to have active social lives in the community of the living through the creation of memorials and the preservation and curation of remains: although throughout all periods there are modes of disposal that result in an ‘invisible dead’. Funerary goods, rites and memorials evidence the movement of peoples in complex processes of adaptation and integration between established and incoming cultures. While memorialisation practices may change, the concerns they seek to address reverberate across time. 1 [This page intentionally left blank] Executive Summary 1. Background and Rationale The Deep Time component of the Remember Me project seeks to identify broad trends and themes in memorialisation processes from the Iron Age (beginning c.800BC) through to AD 1640 as a means of informing understanding of the processes and significance of changing memorial practices in contemporary society. Across this span of time there has been an ongoing need to engage with and memorialise the dead. Recurrent themes emerge, and memorialisation practices of the past continue to resonate in the present. Despite the focus of this study on the more recent prehistoric through to historical periods, section 2.1 proves an overview of deeper time perspectives, as far back as ca. 50,000 years ago, and earlier, in order to encompass the longue durée of societal approaches to the dying and the dead. This approach will offer contemporary society a basis from which to re-imagine modern approaches to each of these processes. Recent studies, e.g. Croucher (2017a and b) have demonstrated the ways in which an imaginative use of modern approaches can inform the past, and vice versa. 2. Method Due to the extended time-scale involved in the Deep in Time study a decision was taken to focus primarily on the major funerary and memorialisation practices in each of the following, main chronological periods: Iron Age Romano-British Anglo-Saxon Medieval Reformation and post-Reformation to AD 1640 An expanded literature search was conducted using academic search engines, key reference works and targeted searches of the main archaeological journals for each period for key words related to death, mortuary treatments and memorialisation practices. Analysis included a particular focus on key sites in each period, for which abundant literature was available. 3. Iron Age A number of burial practices were identified for the Iron Age period in Britain. However, there are significant knowledge gaps for much of Britain and many mortuary practices are largely invisible in the archaeological record. Those practices which are observed in the archaeological record have a strong regional focus, including the Arras Culture square-barrow cemeteries of East Yorkshire, the Durotrigian inhumation rite, centred on the Dorset coast, and cremation burials in the south east of Britain. The Arras Culture barrow burials and the cremation burials of southeast Britain demonstrate connections to Continental Europe. In addition to these practices, the deposition of fragmentary human remains within settlement contexts was a mortuary treatment with a wide geographic distribution that covered much of Britain. 2 4. Romano-British The arrival of Roman colonists during the first century AD resulted in changes in burial and memorialisation practices. Burial practices become visible in the archaeological record across a far greater number of sites during the Romano-British Period.