Death and the regeneration of life: a new interpretation of house urns in Northern Europe. (Notes & News).

Death and the regeneration of life: a new interpretation of house urns in Northern Europe. (Notes & News). House urns occur in two distinct areas of Bronze Age Bronze Age,period in the development of technology when metals were first used regularly in the manufacture of tools and weapons. Pure copper and bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, were used indiscriminately at first; this early period is sometimes called the and Iron AgeEurope. To the north, their distribution extends from Sweden intoPoland, northeast Germany and the northern Netherlands, and to the southit is restricted to Italy (FIGURE 1; Bartoloni et al. 1987; Muller1999). Montelius (1897) seems to have been the first person to suggestdirect links between both groups of finds and his view has been followedby more recent writers (Kossack 1954; Stjernqvist 1961: chapter 4;Kristiansen 1998: 166). The difficulty with this interpretation is thatit does not consider whether the vessels in both groups shared the samesignificance. [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] It is certainly true that they have stylistic features in common(FIGURES 2 & 3). House urns are ceramic models of buildings andoften portray details of their architecture such as doors, roofs andexternal decoration. Both regional groups are of similar date. In Italythey seem to have been made between the 10th and 8th centuries BC(Bartoloni et al. 1987) and in northern Europe they were first used atabout the same time but here they may have had a slightly longercurrency (Oelmann 1959). In each area they are found in cemeteries andcontain cremated bones. [FIGURES 2-3 OMITTED] Early sources considered all the vessels as a single group (Muller1999). This practice began in the middle of the 19th century and wastaken a stage further in 1924 when Behn published his monograph`Hausurnen'. He was so confident that they were copies of domesticdwellings that he made models of their likely prototypes and illustratedthem in his book. More recent work suggests that there is greatervariation. This is illustrated by an important difference ofterminology. In Italian these vessels are urne a capanna, which can betranslated as `hut-urns' (Bartoloni et al. 1987), whilst thenorthern examples are called Hausurnen, or `house urns' (Muller1999). Although each name refers to the kind of building represented bythe models, this procedure has led to some confusion. Behn's interpretation does apply to the Italian examples(FIGURE 2), for houses of very much this form have been identified inexcavation (Bartoloni et al. 1985; Bartoloni et al 1987). They date fromthe same period as the pots and are found in the same parts of thecountry. These vessels seem to have been copies of normal domesticdwellings. They are associated with cremation cremation,disposal of a corpse by fire. It is an ancient and widespread practice, second only to burial. It has been found among the chiefdoms of the Pacific Northwest, among Northern Athapascan bands in Alaska, and among Canadian cultural groups. burials but are not commonand may have been restricted to particular groups in society accordingto according toprep.1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians.2. In keeping with: according to instructions.3. status or gender. When Behn was writing nearly 80 years ago, very little was knownabout prehistoric houses in Northern Europe. The situation only improvedwith the identification of timber buildings through large-scaleexcavation. One of the pioneers of settlement archaeology on theContinent was Gerhard Bersu Gerhard Bersu (1889 – 1964) was a German archaeologist who excavated widely across Europe.He was born in Jauer in Silesia and as a teenager joined excavations near Potsdam. , and so it is particularly appropriate thatit was in a volume dedicated to him by his colleagues that Oelmann(1959) studied this class of pottery. In his view house urns did notportray domestic dwellings after all. They were probably copies of thestorehouses or granaries that Bersu had identified in the field. Oelmann's interpretation has been influential and itemphasizes a significant difference between the vessels found in Italyand those in other regions. It depends on a feature of the urns inNorthern Europe which was under-emphasized in early publications. Unlikemost of their Italian counterparts, the doors of the house urns did notopen at ground level, but were located part way up the wall, suggestingthat their prototypes would have had raised floors (FIGURE 3). Thisargument is supported by some of the finds from northern Poland whichdepict small rectangular buildings raised on pedestals. These vesselsare more like the timber structures usually interpreted as granaries. The pots in northern Europe do not look like the houses that havebeen identified by excavation. In fact the distribution of these vesselsextends across an area with three distinct styles of domesticarchitecture. In Sweden and Denmark, there is a tradition of largerrectangular dwellings, some of them long houses with separate divisionsfor humans and animals. There are only slight traces of storehouses orgranaries in this area, and it is usually supposed that these wererather insubstantial structures (Tesch 1998; Rasmussen & Andersen1993). Gebers (1985), working in Lower Saxony Lower Saxony,Ger. Niedersachsen (nē`dərsäk'sən), state (1994 pop. 7,480,000), 18,295 sq mi (47,384 sq km), NW Germany. Hanover is the capital. , suggests that they weresmall circular buildings whose outer wall was defined by hurdling. Therewas an opening close to the eaves and a conical thatched roof. This isnot unlike the Irish straw-rope granary (Lucas 1958). In a broad zoneextending from the Netherlands into north Germany and through Belgiuminto northern France large rectangular houses also occur, but this timethey are accompanied by small square or rectangular buildings defined bysettings of large post holes. These are usually interpreted as thesupports for raised granaries (Villes 1981). To the east of the RiverElbe the situation changes again. This time large houses are quiteexceptional and most of the buildings in excavated settlements weresmaller than those in western Europe Western EuropeThe countries of western Europe, especially those that are allied with the United States and Canada in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (established 1949 and usually known as NATO). (Buck & Gramsch 1986; Bukowski1990). Some of these may be dwellings and others could have been usedfor storage. Again the most obvious distinction depends on the size ofthe post holes. In the southern part of this distribution massivelybuilt four- and six-post structures seem to have been erected overshallow hollows (Horst 1985: Abb. 24-37). This might have increased thecirculation of air underneath the floor. These buildings may have beenamong the prototypes for the house urns supported on pedestals. Such points are widely accepted, but how do they contribute to theinterpretation of these vessels in Northern Europe? Where their contextsare recorded, house urns seem to be associated with cemeteries. Some ofthem occur together with small items of metalwork, including razors andpins, and a number of model buildings are found inside cists. The urnsthemselves can include cremated human bones. Such pots are by no meanscommon. For example, they account for well under a tenth of the ceramicsfound in extensively excavated cemeteries in Scania (Stjernqvist 1961;Olausson 1986). As in Italy, they may have been limited to a smallsection of society. Bergmann (1973) has suggested how house urns might have been used.In his excavation of the cemetery at Vollmarshausen he found a number ofceramic vessels which had been perforated after firing. They held humancremations, and Bergmann considered that the openings were created toallow offerings of meat or animal bone to be added to the existingburials. He suggests that house urns might have been used in a similarway (Bergmann 1982). It has also been argued that these distinctivevessels were intended to `store' the relics of the deceased(Stjernqvist 1961: chapter 4). In a sense this is true, but it hardlyexplains why these particular pots should take the form of a domesticbuilding. Perhaps there are clues from neighbouring regions of Europe Europe is often divided into regions due to geographical, cultural or historical criteria. Some common divisions are as follows. Directional divisionsGroupings by compass directions are the hardest to define in Europe, since (among other issues) the pure geographical criteria , for itwas during the same period that finds of human remains are regularlyfound on settlement sites (FIGURE 4). They consist of isolated bones andcomplete or partial inhumations. The examples in central Europe Central Europe is the region lying between the variously and vaguely defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe. In addition, Northern, Southern and Southeastern Europe may variously delimit or overlap into Central Europe. areregarded as altogether exceptional, particularly since there were formalcemeteries in the same region (Rittershofer 1997). Unburnt bones do notsurvive well at settlements in northwest Germany, but in Britain andnorthern France it is clear that human and animal remains are frequentlyassociated with grain storage pits (Whimster 1981: chapter 1; Jeunesse& Ahretsmann 1988; Delattre et al. 2000). These features alsocontain deposits of artefacts including agricultural equipment Such pitsare not found in the Netherlands, but rather similar offerings wereplaced in houses (Capelle 1987) and wells (Fokkens 1998). In southeastEngland there is also some evidence for the placing of cremated bone inthe foundations of raised granaries (Guttmann & Last 2000:354). [FIGURE 4 OMITTED] It seems as if there was a powerful connection between the domesticarena and the treatment of human remains in the Late Bronze Age andEarly Iron Age, but this took different forms in Italy and NorthernEurope. In Italy, urne a capanna may have been considered as the housesof the dead: a concept that was very important during the Etruscanperiod (Barker & Rasumussen 1998: chapter 7). In northern Europe,however, cremation burials were associated with models of granaries andstorehouses. Here they may form part of a wider symbolic system The term symbolic system is used in the field of anthropology and sociology to refer to a system of interconnected symbolic meanings.For complex systems of symbols, the term is preferred to symbolism . In theLausitz Culture, for example, human and animal burials are associatedwith deep shafts, some of which could originally have been wells(Bukowski 1999). In northwest Europe, the main association was with thestorage of grain. In each case it may be appropriate to connect thesefinds with ideas about the fertility of the land. Water is the source oflife, whilst it seems very likely that the storage pits were associatedwith specialized deposits because they provided an apt metaphor fordeath and renewal. This argument has won general acceptance during thelast few years (Cunliffe 1992). The work of Bloch & Parry (1982) provides a possibleexplanation for this relationship. In a paper which provides the titlefor this article they point out how often mortuary rituals areassociated with notions of fertility. The relationship can take manydifferent forms, but one underlying principle seems to be especiallyimportant. Life itself can be considered as a finite resource, one whichis depleted by death and must be renewed. In any particular society`each death makes available a new potentiality for life, and onecreature's loss is another's gain' (Bloch & Parry1982: 8). New life must take the place of one that has come to an end,and that may be why agricultural symbolism had such an important part toplay in celebrating the dead (Barrett 1989; Kaliff 1998; Roymans 1999). Perhaps the association of house urns with cremation cemeteries innorthern Europe is an example of the principle described by Bloch &Parry. Through the use of these particular vessels, the remains of thedead were associated with the crops which would have been sown andharvested year after year. These pots were much more than copies ofdomestic buildings. The connection between cremations and modelgranaries provides an example of the agricultural metaphor that playedan important role in late prehistoric Europe This bulk of this article encompasses the time in Europe from c 900,000 years ago to 8th-7th century BCE. Pre-PleistoceneThrough most of Earth's history, various subcontinental land masses such as Baltica and Avalonia that would later be part of Europe moved about the globe . Acknowledgements. I am grateful to Janet DeLaine and Mike Williams Mike Williams may refer to: Mike Williams (New Zealand), President of the New Zealand Labour Party Mike Williams (freelance writer), UK software developer and freelance writer critical of 9/11 conspiracism. for discussions of this material, and to Aaron Watson for the figuredrawings. References BARKER, G. & T. RASMUSSEN. 1998. The Etruscans. Oxford:Blackwell BARRETT, J. 1989. Food, gender and metal: questions of socialreproduction, in M.L.S. Sorensen & R. Thomas (ed.), The end of theBronze Age in Europe: 304-20. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports.International series S483. BARTOLONI, G., A. BEIJER & A. DE SANTIS. 1985. Huts in thecentral Tyrrhenian area of Italy during the protohistoric age, in C.Malone & S. Stoddart (ed.), Papers in Italian Archaeology IV PartIII: Patterns in Protohistory pro��to��his��to��ry?n.The study of a culture just before the time of its earliest recorded history.pro : 175-202. 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