Re: Indicia of Danubian Origins

--- In cybalist@..., x99lynx@... wrote:

> "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
> <I wonder how Kossina or anyone else could have claimed inhumation

as sign of

> Scandinavian origin given that that custom was introduced (most

likely by

> invasion from the South, says Albrectsen) to Scandinavia in the

period 50 BCE

> - 0, before which time cremation was used exclusively? But it would

fit in

> nicely with that elite in Scandinavia trying to reopen the trade

routes to

> their old homes?>
>
> Kossina's approach, and the one that characterized the

ethnographically

> oriented archaeology of the time (and to which the British school

was a

> reaction), was to look first for adjacency and cultural coherence.
> Inhumation, of course, was practiced by everyone from Scythians to

Celts in

> the south. But because the other markers were thought to be from
> Scandinavia, the dogma of the time was that inhumation also had to

be from

> there.
>
> There's no reason to think that inhumation - especially Wielbark-

style

> inhumation, e.g., w/o weapons,etc. - came from identifiable

Germanic speakers.

> There were a lot of similar practices throughout southern

Europe. An

> interesting question is whether weapons were broken or not included

simply to

> prevent grave-robbing. This would also explain the heavy stones

used to

> cobble some Wielbark graves.
>
> It seems that there isn't any rhyme or reason to whether a Wielbark

grave

> will be cremation or inhumation. I've never seen it correlated to

stone

> circles or barrows. The practice seems to have been independent of

anything

> that might have been "ethnic" in those graveyards.
>
> S. Long
>

But mixed cremation-inhumation is seen also in Denmark post the 50
BCE - 0 incursion (if that is what is was). I thought up another
answer to a question George asked some time back (Piotr may find I'm
toeing the line here, but I think this is pertinent to the matter
under discussion. Please comment if you think otherwise): If some
leader of a hypothetical Alan-related (and therefore exclusively
practising inhumation) invasion ordered that in the future all dead
should be disposed of by cremation, the very fact that the order was
given shows that one of the parties, the invaders or the invaded,
practised the opposite, ie. inhumation, at that time. And that party
was not the invaded who cremated exclusively. That the order was not
followed might have been disobedience caused by lack of discipline
following the beloved leader's early departure from the scene.)

Torsten