tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886680068187530519.post6980608785180896284..comments2024-02-07T23:25:07.429-06:00Comments on Bell Beaker Blogger: "Death by Combat" Page 2. (Needham et al, 2017)bellbeakerbloggerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01848982163843593127noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886680068187530519.post-23263494160315372092017-08-09T01:04:23.521-05:002017-08-09T01:04:23.521-05:00Another interesting aspect of this is the weapons ...Another interesting aspect of this is the weapons and tools of men deposited in Earth and bogs. I've wondered if that is another expression of private property following the deceased.bellbeakerbloggerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01848982163843593127noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886680068187530519.post-30993191612474423532017-08-08T19:32:26.110-05:002017-08-08T19:32:26.110-05:00"Maybe personal gear in the BA was viewed as ..."Maybe personal gear in the BA was viewed as inalienable private property"<br /><br />This is an interesting possibility. In much of the American South there is a distinction in real estate law between "legacy property" such as a plantation inherited from your ancestors, and commercial property that is purchased in an arms length transaction from third parties for fair market value. Commercial property is subject to ordinary inheritance, divorce and debtor-creditor laws, but there are rules that strongly favor causing legacy property to revert to family members, allowing people who are divorced to keep their legacy property, and not making legacy property available to creditors. The distinction no longer exists in the U.S. for property other than real estate, but this deep clan connection to property of any kind of the type you are suggesting is actually quite plausible. The notion that the clan may have had some residual ownership interest in heirlooms used by one of their own actually makes a certain amount of sense in general in addition to explaining why this valuable dagger was left with/in a dead man instead of being used. Other possibilities are an Egyptian-style intent that it be used in the afterlife, or an Italian-style/Balkan-style desire to take extra precautions that a dead man doesn't become an undead man that is observed in some of their burials.andrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08172964121659914379noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886680068187530519.post-15740093091232705552017-08-08T19:30:01.905-05:002017-08-08T19:30:01.905-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.andrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08172964121659914379noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886680068187530519.post-77407566009108524112017-08-08T13:17:34.760-05:002017-08-08T13:17:34.760-05:00These kinds of wounds seem consistent with a man f...These kinds of wounds seem consistent with a man facing (not running from) an enemy and without apparent interference of others. <br /><br />I agree that structured combat is highly plausible, maybe a duel. It also looks like there was an established social norm that made Racton's dagger undesirable or unavailable for the victor.<br /><br />Maybe personal gear in the BA was viewed as inalienable private property and the assailant did not want to be viewed as a petty thief; or perhaps a dead man's dagger was seen as taboo. It is also possible, as in a duel, there were a limited number of spectators and family members from each side that made taking personal property not an option.<br /><br />Maybe a future study will look more closely at dagger fights.bellbeakerbloggerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01848982163843593127noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6886680068187530519.post-38500868409695919202017-08-08T10:53:11.455-05:002017-08-08T10:53:11.455-05:00The cultural continuity this speaks to is pretty i...The cultural continuity this speaks to is pretty impressive. Iceland banned dueling in 1006 CE, which suggests that the practice was in place among IE people more or less continuously for about 3000 years. There also seems to be a distinction made between holmgang and einvigi, with the former being more ritualized and regulated and the latter consisting in Iceland at least, of less structured single combat brawling. Some accounts envision holmgang as a relatively late development, but this evidence would suggest that these accounts are inaccurate "just so" stories, rather than being historically authentic.<br /><br />Dueling is a pretty distinctive and anthropologically/culturally/sociologically important marker for cultures of honor, which are usually associated with pastoral economies, weak states, and clan based political organization (which is often also linked to cousin marriage). You don't see them in urban societies, or even in primarily horticulture based societies, because cultures of honor are based on deterrence to prevent people from stealing moveable wealth that doesn't take much cooperation to produce. One can see Christianity as a means by which classical people undermined cultures of honor that no longer made sense in an urbanizing and increasingly horticulturally based society with its central doctrine of forgiveness designed to defuse now dysfunctional blood feuds.<br /><br />Wikipedia also notes that while combatants sometimes invoked the gods favor there is not a single instance in all of the Norse and Icelandic sagas of gods actually influencing a duel following such a request, something that may reflect a more secular worldview than much of the world at the time and may presage the Protestant Reformation in Northern Europe among people who were the last to convert to Christianity, as well as the subsequent secularization that came early and to a high degree to the same regions.andrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08172964121659914379noreply@blogger.com