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Louwen, A.J. (2021)

Breaking and making the ancestors. piecing together the urnfield mortuary process in the Lower-Rhine-Basin, ca. 1300–400 BC

Doctoral Thesis
Towards the capstone of the European Bronze Age, in an area stretching from the Carpathians in the East to the North Sea in the West, vast cremation grave cemeteries occur that are perhaps better known as ‘urnfields.’ In the ‘Lower-Rhine-Basin,’ these cemeteries are often characterised by vast collections of small burial mounds under which the cremated remains of decedents were buried in small shaft-like pits. In many a case the cremated remains had been put in urns first, providing these cemeteries with their very name.
This dissertation delves into the wealth of funerary practices reflected in more than 3,000 urnfield graves excavated throughout the Netherlands in order to reconstruct the mortuary process associated with the urnfields in this particular part of Europe. Together these graves tell interesting stories about how the dead related to each other, how plain and simple objects could be used as metaphors in the creation of relational and ancestral identities and how...Show moreTowards the capstone of the European Bronze Age, in an area stretching from the Carpathians in the East to the North Sea in the West, vast cremation grave cemeteries occur that are perhaps better known as ‘urnfields.’ In the ‘Lower-Rhine-Basin,’ these cemeteries are often characterised by vast collections of small burial mounds under which the cremated remains of decedents were buried in small shaft-like pits. In many a case the cremated remains had been put in urns first, providing these cemeteries with their very name.
This dissertation delves into the wealth of funerary practices reflected in more than 3,000 urnfield graves excavated throughout the Netherlands in order to reconstruct the mortuary process associated with the urnfields in this particular part of Europe. Together these graves tell interesting stories about how the dead related to each other, how plain and simple objects could be used as metaphors in the creation of relational and ancestral identities and how the dead were inextricably linked to the land.
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Urnfields
Cremation graves
Funerary practices
Late Bronze Age
Early Iron Age
Ancestors
Personhood
All authors
Louwen, A.J.
Supervisor
Fontijn, D.R.
Co-supervisor
Fokkens, H.
Committee
Roebroeks, J.W.M.; Schats, R.; Brück, J.
Qualification
Doctor (dr.)
Awarding Institution
Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University
Date
2021-06-17
Publisher
Leiden: Sidestone Press
ISBN (print)
9789464280005 (softcover) ; 9789464280012 (hardcover)
ISBN (electronic)
9789464280029

Funding

Sponsorship
This research was part of the Dutch Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) funded projects 'Promoveren in de Geesteswetenschappen' (no. 322-060-007).