Burials Page 1

Here's thirty random Beaker burials.  (10 men, 10 women, 10 children)

On this page, I've tried to capture burials from different regions, different burial types and different time frames.  These graves are all fairly recent discoveries, most within the last 5-10 years.

This is a total wag based on the availability and quality of images which is partly for the reason of the randomness.  I've neglected many photos, otherwise I could post six pages on Bohemian Beaker burials. 

Many of these burials include the survey pole or a north arrow which helps indicate orientation of the person.  All burials exhibit similarities that are central to Beaker culture or Beaker-ized people.  They are usually flexed, individual burials within a plot, cemetery or larger complex.  Men and women face the rising Sun, which along with other information, indicates a religious belief with emphasis on a solar deity.

(These graphics are taken from academic papers and news items for commentary purposes.) 


#1  l'Archer de Alsace  
(The Archer of Alsace - France)

Grave 68, male (L. Vergnaud), Antea Archéologie, "Current researches on Bell Beakers"

This twenty-something man in France was buried with a perforated boar's tusk in a vertical position suggesting it had been tied to a string.  Barbed arrow heads, bow equipment and 2 bell beakers were included in his timber-lined cist within a timber henge.  The nearby grave a 19 year old archer included the indication of a former quiver, as the arrows were grouped in such an association.  Vergnaud states that Boar's tusk pendants are not common in France.  This and other indications suggest this man could have either been an immigrant from Central Europe or his regional Beaker culture had some influences from a more eastern Beaker culture.

His brother is on page two.

#2  The Amesbury Archer 
(Salisbury, Wiltshire County, England)

The Amesbury Archer, Wessex Archaeology (commons)

The Amesbury Archer was forty-something and probably the father/elder of a younger archer buried nearby.  He has the full complement of Beaker accouterments including two sets of impressive, but unperforated boar's tusks.  He was buried about the time of the blue stones erection of Stonehenge and like many Beaker people in that area, had immigrated from the continent as indicated from tooth enamel isotopic analysis.  It almost appears he was buried with two sets of bow equipment, having an extra quiver and an extra wrist-guard.  If so, I wonder if they were just extra gear or if they belonged to someone important in his life. (?)   Update. 6/3/2015  According to A.P. Fitzpatrick in "The Amesbury Archer and the Boscombe Bowmen", he was not oriented N/S and faced another direction, possibly E/W like the Corded Ware Culture. 

#3  die Barbing Bogenschütze 
(The Barbing Bowman, Bavaria, Germany)

The Barbing Bowman - Photograph by Tino Lex

Barbing Bowman excavated in October 2010, photo by Tino Lex

The "Bogenschütze", or bowman, was about twenty-one years old when he died around 2,250 B.C.  He must have been a young warrior or noble since he was buried with the full complement, complete with a gold earring, Palmela point, flint arrowheads, copper dagger, archer's equipment and bell beakers.  His beaker pottery was painted red, which I find interesting.  It is also the earliest example of painted pottery in Germany.

Take special note of the positioning of his radial bracer on the left arm. The archaeologists had expected to find Celtic assemblages in their dig, instead, Bell Beaker.


#4  die Breisgau Bogenschütze & Frau
(The Breisgau Bowman & wife - Baden-Wuttemberg, Germany)

Regierungspräsidium Freiburg 2013, Baden-Wurttemberg, Southern Germany

The Breisgau Bowman was buried with archery equipment, bell-beakers and an Armschutzplatte (wrist-guard) around 2,200 B.C.  A woman, probably his much smaller wife, is buried atop in the prescribed Central European manner but on top of him within the same grave.  This grave was excavated by Jutta Klug in late 2013 and still under investigation in the laboratory.  Another man is buried in a grave nearby and several more graves, including that of a child, may belong to the same excavation. (?)  They face the rising Sun.  (The bowman's head is oriented toward the North as indicated by the arrow) [more] [more]

The Bowman has some facial features within the eyes and cheeks that are somewhat reminiscent of the northerly Mesolithic hunter-gatherer groups in my opinion.  Given the genetic results of the Motala individuals from Sweden, and the known y-chromosome haplogroup frequencies of modern Germanic groups, it would be easy to imagine these northerly Beakers intermarrying with some of the fishing populations they encountered.

#5  l'Archer de Maroc (removed)
 d’Ifri n’Amr ou Moussa)

All the IAM remains were dated to the Cardial Pottery period.

#6  das Bode-Becher
(River Bode Beaker from Saxony-Anhalt)

Archaeology Office of Saxony-Anhalt

This grave was discovered late in 2003 in Saxony-Anhalt, southeast of the River Bode.

Two girls were buried near this man at a later date.  Within this cemetery is an interesting mix of both Corded Ware and Bell Beaker materials.  Within a short distance was also a Unetice cup which makes this Saxony cemetery a very unique research project for the transition from Beaker culture to the Unetice, all of which probably overlapped within the same area.

I am uncertain whether archery equipment were included in his grave; it does not appear so, but he did have high quality beaker pottery and amber jewelry.  He is described by the anthropologist, K. Schwerdtfeger, as having gracile - feminine features, but not too much should be immediately read into this.  I don't know if this opinion was based on metrics or appearance, but his nasal bone and upper teeth are missing which may contribute to a weaker, feminine appearance. [link]

#7  Brymbo Man
(Brymbo, Wrexham County Borough, Wales)

"Brymbo Man" with AOO corded beaker, permission through Casglu'r Tlysau

Brymbo man represents a single, probably flexed-intended burial in a stone-lined cist.  He was buried with a short-necked bell beaker and a flint knife.  His shallow grave was covered by a large sandstone which appears to have been undisturbed.  Most of his skeleton is missing and it appears that only several large, broken pieces were interred.

Some of his bones show cut marks, however the doctor examining his bones did not have enough information to determine what the cause may have been, knife or canid.  

Late Neolithic British societies did practice excarnation, however this was followed by deposition in communal galleries instead of individual burials.  Also, the gravediggers apparently attempted to create the anatomically correct man by arranging the few pieces in the flexed template which would seem to indicate a desire for 'completeness'.  The closing of the grave appears incomplete but wanting more.

In this unusual burial, it seems a possibility that human remains were found in a field or wooded area and perhaps identified through personal effects, such as the man's bow or fragments of clothing.  His skull shows a healed arrow-shot, so violent feuds were not unknown to this man.  A demise stemming from an Otzi-style bad day certainly factors as a possibility.  

Brymbo Man in Wrexham Musuem (photographer unknown)

#8  łucznik zlota

(The Archer of Zlota - Poland)

Grave 173 "Kultura pucharów dzwonowatych na Wyżynie Małopolskiej" (Budziszewski, Włodarczak, 2010)

The archer in grave 173, Poland, had 11 arrowheads in the arrangement of a former quiver and two beaker vessels.  The grave was dug in an older Neolithic complex with some intrusion into a former grave from the Lublin-Volhynian culture of the Lengyel-Polgar complex.  Although cross-ethnic intermingling was undoubtedly happening here in Zlota, the Polish Corded Ware, Bell Beaker, Neolithic Farmer and Hunter-Gatherer communities in Poland seem to have remained relatively distinct, maintaining their own separate traditions for long periods of time.

Both the previous Neolithic Lengyel and Funnelbeaker peoples used ox-drawn wagons and specifically in those areas now inhabited by the Eastern Beakers.   Undoubtedly, this Bell Beaker man teamed oxen in his life to plow his fields and pull his farm wagons.

An emerging possibility in Beaker studies is that Beaker people possessed morphologically modern horses at an early date. 

#9   Canterbury Archer
(Ring ditch burial, Eastern Kent, UK)

Canterbury Archer (Canterbury Archaeological Trust, Ltd., 2007)

This archer was buried in a double ring ditch, most of which had been plowed over in old times.  He was buried with a beaker vessel, Palmela point and a nice greenstone wrist-guard.  Palmela points tend to narrowly fall on either side of the arrowhead vs. spearhead scales.  Some are definitely too small to be javelin/spearheads and some are larger than one would reasonably expect for an arrowhead.  

I used another graphic to scale the Palmela point.  It is definitely too big to be an arrowhead.

#10  Cashel Man 2,000 B.C.
(Cúl na Móna bog, County Laois, Ireland)

Recently discovered "Cashel Man" represents an individual from the Early Bronze Age (British Isles context) in a cultural zone still comfortably identified with Bell Beaker trappings (c. 1,700 B.C. for Ireland).  Within the bog itself are several copper axe heads, but not positively associated with Cashel Man.  The carbon date of 2,000 B.C. was taken from several sources including the birch stakes driven into the ground to mark his location and the stratification from the top of bog (2,000 B.C.) to the bottom of the bog (3,500 B.C.).  *It seems to me that the age is a bit conservative given the association of copper axe heads in Ireland and the age of the top of the bog*

Importantly, ritualized bog-killings show continuity from a Beaker cultural period through the metal ages to the Christian era.  Some have speculated the bog killings were nobility sacrifices usually consisting of mutilation and hanging, however it could be the kind of murderous familial blood-feuding that Celts were so well known for.  Or bog bodies could represent the fate of those condemned by tribal law.

The most interesting part of Cashel Man, or any future bog burials from the Beaker Age, is that we may soon learn of tattoo patterns associated with the culture.  Cashel Man's skin was scheduled to undergo thermoluminescence imaging to look for tattoos, but I have yet to see anything.
 

Ten Beaker woman graves

There seems to be several loose configurations in which Beaker women were buried which may have had more to do with the circumstances of death rather than ridged conformity.

Some women are buried on top of men throughout the Beaker world.  In these cases it's probably that the husband died first and then his grave or mound was altered to allow for his wife to be buried with him in an inverted position.  Jan Turek, a researcher from Czech Republic, supposes that a great many on-top burials once existed, but the top 'wife layer' was plowed over continuously for five thousand years leaving more men than women.

Women may also dis-proportionally represent the low frequency cremation burials, which I speculate on at woman #8.

Woman burials usually face the rising Sun and in the prescribed inverted position for women, but not strictly so, and only very occasionally 'man effects' are found in their graves.  Most of these are probably momentos from men in their life, however certain effects may have been associated with power, such as false beards in Egypt.

#1  Xena bohémský amazonských princezna
(Xena the Bohemian Amazonian princess, Ring-ditch burial, Tišice, District Mělník, Central Bohemia)



Small ring-ditches encircled the burials of important Beaker people.  This older woman was buried in a wooden burial chamber covered by a burial mound.  Mounds may have supported a timber chapel on top.  The burials of men would often be topped with the burial of a woman or perhaps his children.

"Xena", after the warrior-princess, was buried with warrior equipment but upside-down, typical for women.  Women practicing archery in Beaker culture were probably more likely than the archaeological record shows.  In EBA Britain, some women exhibit strong clavicles and left arm shock injuries similar to men.  Assuming these are archery injuries, it may suggest women drew the bow occasionally as well. [link]

The most likely reason for the addition of man items in her grave is probably paralleled in Egypt where the exceedingly few queens held the regalia of the pharaoh, which were those things of a man since the pharaoh is by nature, only a man.  Given the treatment of her burial, perhaps she was a rare Beaker queen or princess. (?)

#2 Moravská Babička 
(The Moravian Grandmother)



Fig. 1 Grave 856 (Drozdová et al, ppt, 2007)   Fig. 2 Impression of 856  (Sketch:  E. Veselovskaya)

This woman, approximately in her mid-fifties was buried at the Hostice cemetery.  Numerous individuals from this cemetery lived very long and healthy lives.  The lack of child burials may point to an exceedingly low mortality rate for that time, or like woman burials, may have been plowed over.

Stronium Isotope analysis indicated that many or most of the individuals in her cemetery had traveled within their lifetime.  In fact, this woman (grave 856) traveled considerable distance in her life, being an outstanding example within the isotopic ranges.


#3 Thanet Wife
(burial atop a male archer her senior [2 down] - Kent, England)

Female, QEQM Hospital, Margate (photo Susan Deacon)

Thanet wife was buried in the Southeast of England in Kent.  The archer below is probably her husband and they represent a fairly early burial, representing the initial wave of Beaker immigrants from Continental Europe.  She was found with a crudely-made, flint arrowhead in the skull.  A continuous influx of Beaker people from Iberia and Central Europe may have penetrated Southern Britain and Ireland over a period of several hundred years.

A very large tooth enamel isotopic study is currently underway in Britain (linked at bottom on main page).  Initial results, as with those from Central Europe, seem to indicate large population movements during this time-frame.  Some excerpts from the Thanet-Arch Museum website:

"The Beaker burial [below] was accompanied by a secondary inhumation [pictured above] cut through the northern (head) end of the primary burial.  The later individual [above] was female, possibly between 25-35 years of age. She was laid out the opposite way round to the earlier burial, but this allowed her to share the same east-facing orientation. Perhaps the position was also to allow her to be close to the Beaker as well. Does this suggest that there was there a close association between these two people in life?" (4)

The Thanet-Arch Archer, QEQM Hospital, Margate (photo Susan Deacon)

"The Beaker is of an 'Early Style' and has an associated radiocarbon-date of 2460-2200 BC; the earliest potential date yet associated with a Thanet Beaker.  This burial contained three barbed and tanged flint arrowheads..." [above] "...which accompanied the 'Bell' Beaker.   This type of Beaker is often associated with archery grave-goods, but the inclusion of arrowheads is a first for a Thanet Beaker burial.   They may be only the second (possibly the third) such association in Kent and likely comprise the largest single assemblage recovered from a Beaker grave."
(4) Photo - Susan Deacon

#4 Landsham Frauline
(near Munich, Germany)

Landsham Girl with beaker pottery, Munich (link) (image by Allmender)

This young Beaker woman was excavated by Petra Haller in 2004 and dates to 2,200 B.C.  I will update when I find more information about her.

#5  La Mujer de la Meseta

This recent excavation is of a twenty something year old woman and is buried atop a male of about thrity-something.  This small, artificial cave #2 was surrounded by post holes.  She has a grinding stone and Beaker pottery.  The Beaker pottery of both artificial caves is described as poorly made.  The nearby habitation that is likely associated with the two men and this woman continued to use pottery described as native to that region.  Other than a copper awl and pottery, no archery equipment for either men.

The people living in this Meseta settlement near Madrid maintained cows, pigs and sheep. 


#6  Mädchen Damen
(The Madchen Ladies, Saxony-Anhalt)

Two ladies from Saxony-Anhalt

This is a good example of a 90 degree inversion which sometimes occurs for women in Beaker burials.  Both of these individuals are women and they are associated with is the #6 man not very far.  At first, I thought they were directly above the man, however, it appears they are in a separate grave.   It would be interesting to know the genetic relationship of these individuals to each other.  Are 90 degree women daughters and inverted women wives?  Is this an example of a wife and daughter buried near the grave of the husband/father?  Or does it mean nothing?

Included in their burial is the bell beaker handled cup.

#7  Staruszka Zlota
(Elder lady from Zlota - Poland)

This lady was approximately sixty years old when she died.  She apparently has an indication of trepanation to the skull.  The description of her skull suggests she was somewhat different from the other people in the cemetery and may have had quite a bit of ancestry from the previous, native Lengyel or Funnelbeaker peoples.

The Lee et al. paper of 2012 examining Kromsdorf lineages seems to suggests that in some locations, immigrant Beaker men were taking native wives, although this was not explicitly stated in the paper.

#8  Cremation burial (more women?)
(Velke, Prilepy, Prague, West Central Bohemia) 

 Fig. 7 Velke Prilepy "Significance of Cremation in the Funerary Practices of Bell Beaker Eastern Province" Turek, 2006

Jan Turek mentions that, so far, it appears Central European Beaker cremations are more often associated with women-pottery.  Flexed burials are disproportionately low for women compared to men in the continent and may suggest that sometimes women were cremated.  Cremation is generally low throughout the Beaker world, but present.

Looking at the uni-parental genetic markers of Central Europe, a possibility emerges in which immigrant Bell Beaker men (R1b-M269) took foreign wives of both the Corded populations and the Neolithic farmer populations.  It may be that certain cultural traditions persisted matri-lineally within Beaker communities, such as, sex differentiated burials among Beaker+Corded populations and cremation among Beaker+Farmer populations.

There is only enough information to speculate.  Of course there are other possibilities for the same information as well.  Men may have died younger or died in spectacular deaths requiring more pomp.  Men may have sometimes been given boat burials or other burials that are a blind spot for archaeology.  Cremations of women appear to be more common in Britain as well. 

#9  Frau aus Rothenschirmbach
(Young woman from Rothenschirmbach, Mansfeld-Suedharz)

Here, the cist of this young Beaker woman is stone.  Cist construction probably depended heavily on available resources as in come regions they were timber, stone and others were carved out of the bedrock to make what is sometimes called "an artificial cave" or a "tomb".  The cist is one of the central elements of a Beaker grave, even for those that were cremated or those buried in caves.

Sorry, I'll post more information on her burial when I find it.

#10  Another Moravian 

Another older Moravian woman in her sixties.  I thought I would include this grave due to the facial reconstruction.




Ten Beaker child graves

These are difficult imagines, even for the great time that has passed.  The burials of these children however, tell us a little about Beaker society since all human parents project their ideals on their children.

Jan Turek has the only paper on Beaker children I've found so far, so it must be a very understudied subject. His website has a section dedicated to his paper "Being a Beaker child.  The position of children in Late Eneolithic society."   It contains some telling information about the toys, miniature beaker cups, sex differentiated pottery and positioning of Beaker children in graves.  In Scotland, minature battle axes were placed in the graves of young boys.

Sometimes young boys were buried in the 'girl position' for Central European Beakers.  Turek has said that this is probably due to maturity, not projected identity. 

An important paper worth considering is "Children as Potters" by Garrido-Pena and Herrero-Corral, 2015). 

#1. (coming soon)

#2  Beaker mother and infant, Spain
(Artificial cave, near Madrid)

Fig. 16  Mother and child, Artificial Cave (Liesau et al, 2008) [ref. 4]

Her head rests on what was once an organic pillow and two ciempozuelos beaker pots are in her arms.  Behind her rests her baby a small ciempozuelos pot.

The back of her head was intentionally flattened in childhood.  She is one of several examples of field reports mentioning Beakers flattening the back of their heads.  I wonder if moderate skull 'correcting' was common among Beakerfolk, and if so, do the shape of Beaker skulls need to be re-examined?  Perhaps the lightbulb head among Beakers was a modest modification in early childhood?

(Liesau et al, 2008)  The nearby, single grave of a man corresponds to this one.

#3  la demoiselle d’Ifri n’Amr ou Moussa

Removed, apparently dated to Cardial

#4  Beaker teenage boy (Stonehenge, England)
(Near Stonehenge, immigrant from Mediterranean zone)

Beaker boy of Stonehenge 'from the South'  BBC

This boy was about fourteen years old when he died.  He was buried with a rich amber necklace but without usual Beaker equipment.  He came from somewhere in the Mediterranean; Southern Portugal is a good guess given a number of stuff imported and exported to that area.  See Maju's comments here.

He was only discovered three years ago.

#5  The Boscombe Bowmen
(3 children, 1 teen, 2 twenty-somethings, 1 father)

"The Boscombe Bowmen" Wessex Archaeology (commons)

The Boscombe Bowmen represent a collective burial but in a single grave format over a flexed inhumation.  The flexed, forty something man was probably the father of all the boys and two young men buried with him. 

One child was placed in an urn and buried with him.  Another small child was buried with him and another was buried at a later date.  It appears the late teenager and twenty-something men were exhumed from their original graves to be buried with their father.

The Boscombe burial represents the greatest number of Beaker individuals in a British Beaker grave.  It also includes eight pots for the seven males, remembering one children was cremated. 

A number of aspects of this burial would favor the possibility that they were immigrants from Continental Europe.  It has been wrongly regurgitated throughout the web that they were from Wales when the isotopic analysis had only introduced the Welsh mountains as a mid-level possibility among several.  This was taken by some to be the most likely scenario given the proximity of Wales to Southern England, but the closest actual matches were in Central Europe.

The manufacture of their personal effects also seem to point to a Central European origin.  I should point out also, the Wessex Culture (a sub-culture of the Beakers) was intrusive to a larger multi-national Beaker complex in Britain and Ireland.  The circumstances of the first child, the only one to be cremated reminded me of this discussion from Dienekes...


#6 Nafarroako umea
(The Navarre Child, Tres Montes, Bardenas Reales, Navarra)

The Navarre Child (Ruperez, Garcia 1997)

This is from a Megalithic site near the Ebro River.  Few graves are recorded here within this complex, but included with the individual, flexed burials are very fine Maritime Bell Beaker pottery.

The complex appears to have connections with France, but I may cover peculiarities of this site in more detail on a 'burial types' page.

#7  Mère et l'enfant d'Altweis, Luxembourg
 (Mother and Child of Alweis)

Valotteau et al (photograph C. Weber)

This Beaker mother holds the head of her toddler child as if to look into the eyes.  The mother is in her twenties to thirties.  The mother faces the West in this case and her head is oriented North.  Perhaps the reason for this is the toddler was a boy??  In any case, the far Western Beakers are less strict in heading orientation.  A very similar mother/child orientation appears in Dunstable Downs of Britain.

She had a set of Maritime bell beaker cups near the feet.  The grave corresponds to the grave of a man and dates to around 1800 B.C.+/- at the end of the Beaker age.  
(Le Brun-Ricalens, Toussaint, Valotteau, 2011)

#8  Teenage Boy, 15-17 

Guisborough, Yorkshire, UK

Burial 8, 15-17 year old boy, Yorkshire, UK (Walsh, 2013)

The next in the dated sequence is burial 8, an adolescent dated to 2126-1904 cal BC. From the fusion of the bone epiphyses this individual was aged around 15-17 years at death. From the narrowness of the sciatic notches of this individual it is likely to be a male. This young male had not suffered any interruptions to his growth and has no indications of ill health throughout his life. As there were no lesions on his bones he may have suffered illness or injury which caused a quick death, a more drawn out illness would leave lesions on the bones. Before he was buried, a grave-pit was dug in the south half of the barrow; this is likely to have been the last activity carried out before the raising of the barrow mound. Before he was put into the grave the surface was covered in a layer of plant material. He was then put into the grave, laid on his back with the head to the west but the face turned south (Wood 1972, 6). Even though he was placed on his back, his legs were flexed and also faced south. A food vessel was placed between his knees and upper body. A small amount of cremated bone was also placed in his grave and may have been a token from a cremation deposit which was buried elsewhere.

After these burials were completed the barrow mound was constructed, an additional turf layer was constructed over the central turf mound which extended over all four grave-pits. (Walsh, 2013)

There's several interesting things about this boy.  I would be very interested in knowing a few things about his genetics and if isotopic analysis could tell us more about him.

Firstly, although he is a Beaker boy, he is buried in a somewhat similar orientation to that of a Corded Ware man. 

#9 Aymestrey boy
Aymestrey, Herefordshire, England

Aymestry boy was a flexed burial on left side with a bell beaker and a flint knift.  Grave is a cist with a stone lining.  No appearance of ring ditch within the quarry where found.  Grave does not appear to be well dated.  There is a paper by Andres, Moreno Lopez and Harrison called "Typology and parallels of the Bell Beaker from Aymestrey" from 1991 probably discussing Dutch influence of his Beaker, however I cannot find a copy online.

#10 Boscombe Boy
(Boscombe Down, Wiltshire, UK)

Four to Six Year Old Boy, Boscombe Down (Wessex Archaeology)

This boy was about four to six years of age.  Flint nodules accompanied him which may have tiny sized arrowheadlettes.  (a tiny arrowhead example was found in early August).  The burial dates probably from the Early Bronze Age which is the same time period as the Amesbury Archer at the top of the page.  The pit was within a ring ditch.  (I believe it was actually on the ring, therefore his burial would have been near an ancestor or relative at the center of the ring.

(1)  "Archaeology of Burial Mounds - Beaker barrows and the houses of dead"  Turek

(2)  "Current researches on Bell Beakers Proceedings of the 15th International Bell Beaker Conference: From Atlantic to Ural. " (Prieto Martinez, Salanova, 2011)

(3)  "Bell Beakers in the Iberian Peninsula and their European Context" (Blasco et al, 2005)

(4)  "A space for the living and the dead:  The Chalcolithic ditched enclosured settlement of Camino de las Yeseras (San Fernando de Henares, Madrid), (Liesau et al, 2008)

(5)  The Museum of Thanet's Archeaology, 2014

Smith, Martin. "Bones chewed by canids as evidence for human excarnation: a British case study." The Free Library 01 September 2006. 02 June 2014 <http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Bones chewed by canids as evidence for human excarnation: a British...-a0153513735>.