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Full Description
This book provides the exciting results of a long-term project examining Bronze Age round barrow construction and burial practices in Orkney, Scotland. A main focus of this research is on the act of cremation; a technology of bodily metamorphosis as articulated through complex mortuary practices, which produced a distinctive form of funerary architecture. This, and other topical themes, are explored through the results of extensive excavations at several barrow cemeteries including Linga Fiold, Gitterpitten, Varme Dale, Vestrafiold and the Knowes of Trotty, the latter being famous for rich grave goods including gold discs and amber beads. In this context, in being built on the ruins of an early Neolithic settlement, Knowes of Trotty provides an intersection of relational fields, fusing local tradition with faraway places.
At Linga Fiold, the barrow cemetery was almost entirely excavated, and by employing sophisticated recovery techniques and analyses, unique evidence is presented for a complex sequence of barrow building and mortuary practices. This enables the reconstruction of an extraordinary ritual journey of the deceased from cremation pyre to final interment.
Additionally, several cist excavations are published here for the first time. This evidence allows an appraisal of the developing cist burial tradition in Orkney through the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age, from the insertion of remains into chambered tombs and large re-enterable unobtrusive cists, to the development of imposing linear barrow cemeteries, to the drawing in of the dead closer to home.
Overall, the new findings presented here allow a reconsideration of the chronology and specifics of changing Orcadian burial technologies and traditions: clearly, such results have significance beyond Orkney for understanding the complexities of Bronze Age cremation and burial practices across Britain and north-west Europe.
Contents
Acknowledgements
1. Animating the Orcadian Chalcolithic and Bronze Age
2. Situating the dead in Orkney during the third and second millennia cal BC
3. Storing the dead: the cist burials of Orkney
4. Of fabulous wealth and distant places: the Knowes of Trotty barrow cemetery, West Mainland, Orkney
5. Looking northwards: Linga Fiold barrow cemetery, west Mainland, Orkney
6. Examining three barrow groups at Varme Dale, Gitterpitten and Vestra Fiold, and two coastal cairns at Queenamuckle and Quarrel Geo
7. Cremating the dead in Bronze Age Orkney
8. Re-assembling communities of the living with the dead in third and second millennia BC Orkney
Bibliography
