An Analysis of Human Skeletal Remains from two Middle Bronze Age Tombs from Jericho

Chance discoveries of weapons, horse bones and human skeletal remains along the banks of the River Tollense led to a campaign of research which has identified them as the debris from a Bronze Age battle. The resources of war included horses, arrowheads and wooden clubs, and the dead had suffered blows indicating face-to-face combat. This surprisingly modern and decidedly vicious struggle took place over the swampy braided streams of the river in an area of settled, possibly coveted, territory. Washed along by the current, the bodies and weapons came to rest on a single alluvial surface.

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Human Skeletal Remains from Efrata and Other Bronze Age Sites in Israel

Excavations at Efrata ◽

10.2307/j.ctt1fzhd8f.9 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 95-109

Author(s):

Noemi Acreche

Keyword(s):

Bronze Age ◽

Skeletal Remains ◽

Human Skeletal Remains

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Nancy was not alone: human skeletons of the Early Bronze Age from the Norfolk peat fen

Antiquity ◽

10.1017/s0003598x00044872 ◽

1992 ◽

Vol 66 (253) ◽

pp. 948-955 ◽

Cited By ~ 13

Author(s):

Frances Healy ◽

Rupert A. Housley

Keyword(s):

Bronze Age ◽

Skeletal Remains ◽

Early Bronze Age ◽

Human Skeletal Remains

Four separate finds of human skeletal remains from the Norfolk Fens have been 14C-dated to the Early Bronze Age. It is suggested that they are a facet of the far more extensive deposition of bodies and artefacts in wet places.

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Grindstone: Grinding... and Human Sacrifice? Why?

Dissertationes Archaeologicae ◽

10.17204/dissarch.suppl3.241 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 241-258

Author(s):

Gábor Ilon

Keyword(s):

Bronze Age ◽

Iron Age ◽

Classification System ◽

Skeletal Remains ◽

Food Preparation ◽

Human Sacrifice ◽

Archaeological Research ◽

Human Skeletal Remains ◽

Action Sequence ◽

Unchanged Form

Three features, dated to diverse periods of prehistory (Neolithic: Transdanubian Linear Pottery Culture; Bronze Age: Tumulus culture; Iron Age: Celtic Period) are presented in the current study. One of our main goals is to encourage the introduction of an otherwise generally accepted protocol for the investigation and sampling of similar phenomena to Hungarian archaeological research. The method focuses on the examination of 1, complete or partial human skeletal remains; 2, complete or partial animal skeletal remains;3, offerings according to social position; 4, tools for food preparation and equipment of the ritual feast; 5, traces of burning or fire; 6, patterns of the action sequence burning–fragmenting–scattering, together with material analyses for all samples. This way a categorization of the results might open a possibility for a more adequate interpretation. The features under study fall into category A in Joanna Brück’s classification system of human skeletal remains,1 but I regard the phenomena also containing grindstones a subcategory. The ritual in the course of which these were created might have been practiced for millenia in an unchanged form; its possible interpretation was described by István Tóth. According to our view such actions represent the liminal zone between the worlds of the living and the dead.

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A Short Cist Burial at Kilkeddan Farm, Campbeltown, Argyll & Bute

Scottish Archaeological Journal ◽

10.3366/saj.2016.0062 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 38 (1) ◽

pp. 33-49 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Dawn McLaren ◽

Donald Wilson ◽

Rob Engl ◽

Alan Duffy ◽

Kathleen MacSweeney ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Bronze Age ◽

Human Remains ◽

Skeletal Remains ◽

Human Bone ◽

Early Bronze Age ◽

Human Skeletal Remains ◽

Radiocarbon Dates

AOC Archaeology Group undertook the excavation of a previously unknown Bronze Age cist, located in a field close to Kilkeddan Farm, Argyll & Bute, during September 2005 under the Historic Scotland call-off contract for human remains. The cist was found to contain poorly surviving unburnt human skeletal remains along with a finely decorated tripartite Food Vessel and a flint knife. The incomplete and fragmentary condition of the skeleton suggests that the human remains were disarticulated at the time of deposition. Radiocarbon dates obtained from the human bone and associated charcoal confirms an early Bronze Age date for the burial.

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Recently excavated Iron Age burials from the Western Isles

Scottish Archaeological Journal ◽

10.3366/saj.2018.0094 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 40 (1) ◽

pp. 55-82 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Martin Cook

Keyword(s):

Bronze Age ◽

Iron Age ◽

Coastal Erosion ◽

Skeletal Remains ◽

The Body ◽

Human Skeletal Remains ◽

The Past ◽

Burial Practice ◽

The Common ◽

New Evidence

Between 2004 and 2008, AOC Archaeology Group undertook the excavation of four separate Iron Age burials. These remains had been exposed by coastal erosion, and were excavated under the terms of the Historic Scotland Call-Off Contract for Human Remains; the four inhumations were fully excavated and radiocarbon dated. The excavations provide new evidence for Iron Age burial practice in the Western Isles and, more generally, Scotland. The examples discussed here from Scarista, Vallay, Griminish and Drimsdale were all unaccompanied burials, which by the position of the body in the grave and/or the grave setting, may have, in the past, been interpreted as possible Bronze Age or Early Historic graves in the absence of direct dates obtained from the human skeletal remains. These recent discoveries emphasise the necessity for the application of radiocarbon techniques (in the common absence of grave goods) to classify burials chronologically.

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