Patterns of Irregular Burials in Western Europe (1st-5th Century A.D.).

Christopher J. Knüsel,Marco Milella,Maria Giovanna Belcastro,Valentina Mariotti

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0130616

Abstract

BackgroundIrregular burials (IB—burials showing features that contrast with the majority of others in their geographic and chronological context) have been the focus of archaeological study because of their relative rarity and enigmatic appearance. Interpretations of IB often refer to supposed fear of the dead or to social processes taking place in time-specific contexts. However, a comprehensive and quantitative analysis of IB for various geographical contexts is still lacking, a fact that hampers any discussion of these burials on a larger scale.MethodsHere, we collected a bibliographic dataset of 375 IB from both Britain and Continental Europe, altogether spanning a time period from the 1st to the 5th century AD. Each burial has been coded according to ten dichotomous variables, further analyzed by means of chi-squared tests on absolute frequencies, non-metric multidimensional scaling, and cluster analysis.ResultsEven acknowledging the limits of this study, and in particular the bias represented by the available literature, our results point to interesting patterns. Geographically, IB show a contrast between Britain and Continental Europe, possibly related to historical processes specific to these regions. Different types of IB (especially prone depositions and depositions with the cephalic extremity displaced) present a series of characteristics and associations between features that permit a more detailed conceptualization of these occurrences from a socio-cultural perspective that aids to elucidate their funerary meaning.Conclusions and SignificanceAltogether, the present work stresses the variability of IB, and the need to contextualize them in a proper archaeological and historical context. It contributes to the discussion of IB by providing a specific geographic and chronological frame of reference that supports a series of hypotheses about the cultural processes possibly underlying their occurrence.

Highlights

Each burial has been coded according to ten dichotomous variables, further analyzed by means of chisquared tests on absolute frequencies, non-metric multidimensional scaling, and cluster analysis
Irregular burials (IB—a definition preferred throughout this paper to the more commonly used but less neutral “deviant burials”–[1]), refer to mortuary practices “. . .different from the normative burial ritual of the respective period, region and/or cemetery” [2]
If focusing only on inhumation burials and Western Europe, from the Roman period onward, customary burials are represented by depositions in an extended, supine position, with no further modification of the body or skeleton

Summary

Introduction

Irregular burials (IB—a definition preferred throughout this paper to the more commonly used but less neutral “deviant burials”–[1]), refer to mortuary practices “. . .different from the normative burial ritual of the respective period, region and/or cemetery” [2]. The renewed focus on the social dimension of funerary contexts has led to new interpretation of findings that, in various geographical and chronological contexts, are characterized by specific treatments of the corpse or skeleton Examples of this line of enquiry include works dealing with the link between social constructions of deviancy and specific funerary treatments [18], as well as on the possible relationship between cultural and political perspectives on treatments of the body and headhunting in Iron Age Europe [19] and patterns of identity, social structure and social memory during the Natufian and Pre-Pottery Neolithic of Southwest Asia [20,21] and the Iberomaurusian of North Africa [22,23,24]. A comprehensive and quantitative analysis of IB for various geographical contexts is still lacking, a fact that hampers any discussion of these burials on a larger scale

Methods

Results

Conclusion