Abstract
The author discusses the relationship between people and animals in a time perspective of millennia. The starting point is the pre-Christian, Scandinavian, animal graves of dogs and horses, the Saami bear-graves, as well as animal burials of modern time. The occurrence of animal graves in pre-Christian time and the wide range of ways to dispose ofhuman and animal bodies complicate our understanding of the concept of a grave. The relationship between people and animals is complex. The animal burials reflect the existence ofa longstanding and very close bond between people and animals, which is based on emotion, prestige and the ritualising of a dynamic nature. It seems that people position themselves in their surroundings with a kind of mentality that has a long time span. This gives unexpected views of the cultural inheritance, of the idea of people as the crown of creation, and of the way in which the main threads are interwoven in our cultural history.
Highlights
Prehistoric graves and pre-Christian burial customs differ from our own traditions to care for and bury the dead
Ritual practices in connection with the dead reflect the complex relations between people and animals; they are both different from and similar to present-day practices
The modern understanding of graves is too narrow to give us insight into all the different ways of treating the dead in pre-Christian time, regardless whether the dead are human or animal
Summary
The author discusses the relationship between people and animals in a time perspective of millennia. The animal burials reflect the existence ofa longstanding and very close bond between people and animals, which is based on emotion, prestige and the ritualising of a dynamic nature. It seems that people position themselves in their surroundings with a kind of mentality that has a long time span. This gives unexpected views of the cultural inheritance, of the idea of people as the crown of creation, and of the way in which the main threads are interwoven in our cultural history.
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