Rediscovering the Body: Cremation and Inhumation in Early Iron Age Central Europe

Abstract

The Late Bronze Age Urnfield Period in Central Europe (BA D, Ha A/B, c.1300 to 800 BC) is characterized by the dominance of cremation as a burial rite. The simple appearance of urn burials give an impression of simplicity, but they are the endpoint of a chain of actions and practices that constitute the funerary ritual, many of which may not be simple at all, but include a large number of people and resources. The washing, dressing, and furnishing of the body as it is laid out prior to cremation leave no traces. The funerary pyre, as spectacular as it may have looked, smelled, and felt during the cremation, preserves only under exceptional circumstances. The rituals and feasts associated with selecting the cremated remains from the funerary pyre and placing them in a suitable organic container or a ceramic urn prior to their deposition do not leave much evidence. The large-scale spread of cremation during the Late Bronze Age has traditionally been explained by the movements of peoples (e.g. Kraft 1926; Childe 1950), or a change in religious beliefs (e.g. Alexander 1979). More recently, a change in how the human body is ontologically understood and how it has to be transformed after death is seen as the more likely underlying cause (Harris et al. 2013; Robb and Harris 2013; Sørensen and Rebay-Salisbury in prep.), although a simple and single reason is rarely the driver of such pan-European developments. This chapter will be concerned with another transition, the change from cremation back to inhumation, several hundred years later during the Early Iron Age, and investigates its background and causes. In Central Europe, cremation is given up as the solitary funerary rite, and a range of different options, including inhumations in burial mounds, bi-ritual cemeteries, and new forms of cremation graves emerge. This change happens at a different pace in the various areas of the Hallstatt Culture and adjacent areas, which will be surveyed here. Despite doubts about the validity of the term ‘Hallstatt Culture’ as a cultural entity (e.g. Müller-Scheeßel 2000), it remains a convenient shorthand to the Early Iron Age in Central Europe, c.800–450 BC, in eastern France, southern Germany, Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, and parts of northern Italy.