--- In cybalist@..., x99lynx@... wrote:
>
> We don't know the specific rationale in any such prehistoric
> culture for putting weapons in graves or not putting weapons
> in graves. There is no way to be "sure" of anything. For all
> we know, weapons were simply valuable and they were meant to be
> something to trade with on the other side - what else was found
> in these and other graves is probably just as or more relevant.
>
> Steve Long
At
http://www.archaeology.org/9701/abstracts/sarmatians.html the
counterargument is made:
"Some scholars have argued that weapons found in female burials
served a purely ritual purpose, but the bones tell a different
story. The bowed leg bones of one 13- or 14-year-old girl attest
a life on horseback, and a bent arrowhead found in the body cavity
of another woman suggested that she had been killed in battle."
At
http://www.stoa.org/diotima/essays/wilde.shtml another burial
is described:
"In this grave there were two skeletons: the main burial was
of a woman but at her feet lay the body of a young man of about
eighteen years old. It was a fairly rich grave and the main
goods were grouped around the female. On her ears had been large
silver earrings, round her neck a chain made from bones and glass
beads, on her arm a bronze bracelet. Next to her lay a bronze
mirror, a clay loom-weight and iron plates upon which food gifts
had once been placed. To her left at the head end lay two iron
spear points, underneath them a smooth square plate which had
been used as a whetstone; further down they found the remains
of a brightly painted quiver made of leather and wood and forty-
seven bronze three-flighted arrowheads, and two iron knives.
Next to the head were two so-called 'sling-stones' although
no-one can be sure they were used as weapons. The young man's
skeleton on the other hand, had only two small bronze bells near
it, plus an iron arm-ring and some little bits of jewellery."
The male here is usually described simply as a servant, although
in similar burials where the gender of the occupants is reversed,
there's no hesitation in describing the attendant burial as that
of a concubine. There are also Sauromation burials of men with
cooking pots and/or a child on their arms, as well as burials
with a combination of both what we would consider typically male
and female equipment in either male or female burials. See http://
www.csen.org/eaa%20guidelines/%2020JDK.Statuses.20mss.edit.html .
David