Cremation Burials

From: x99lynx@...
Message: 13350
Date: 2002-04-18

"tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
<<Did the Celts cremate? Or should one connect that custom with the
hypothetical "Nordwestblock" language between Celtic and Germanic?>>

It's hard to come to conclusions about the significance of early cremation
burials, even if one does have some idea of its history.

Cremation and various forms of inhumation consistently appear together in
many locations in Europe. Much has been made of the two appearing together
with no apparent rhyme or reason in Wielbark, but it seems the same is true
of many earlier Halstatt sites. If cremation burial is consistently
associated with any early "material culture" it is probably bronze age
Urnfield sites, which appears to have originated in the south of modern
Poland, spread and then fragmented. (I do not know when cremation burials
made their earliest appearances in the east or in south Asia. Maybe someone
on the list can help out here.)

However, cremation burials actually makes a partial appearance in Europe and
Anatolia a good deal earlier than Urnfield. One of those places is Tripolye
near the Danube, where inhumation and cremation graves appear together.
Here's a note from an interesting survey of funeral practices that you can
find on the web:
"Outre l’attestation à Gedikli dans l’extrême sud-est anatolien,
l’incinération est attestée en Europe centrale et balkanique au IIIe
millénaire, mais de façon très sporadique (à chaque fois l’inhumation reste
largement majoritaire). Dans le sud de la Russie, dans la phase récente de la
culture de Tripolye, l’incinération est également attestée pour une période à
peu près contemporaine à son apparition en Anatolie." - L'EVOLUTION DES
PRATIQUES FUNERAIRES SUR LE PLATEAU ANATOLIEN, by Yannis Deliyannis
(http://membres.lycos.fr/hatti/articles/hlk_2_2.html)

If we are to associate cremation burials with any kind of pastoral sky-god or
fire "worship" (I'm not saying we should), then perhaps that ethos may have
originated on the Danube. Again I do not know about earlier dates for
cremation burials elsewhere.)

(Very interesting in this piece is also the connection of a large number of
early supine inhumation graves in central Anatolia with a large influx of
Assyrian merchants, arriving while the region was still fragmented in many
local cultural units. This is also the location of arguably our first record
of IE languages.)

Of course what cremation burial represented when it first appeared is
anyone's guess, since it correlates with no other particular difference
observable by archaeology in these early cultures. It appears that it cannot
always be associated with "religious' motives or "ethnic" differences. It
should also be pointed out that we seem to have attestation (e.g., in the
Illiad) that not all cremations may have resulted in burials. I would also
think that the real meaning of cremation burials in Denmark is not at all
clear.

Steve Long