Burial ground

Burial ground during the archaeological excavation; with the outlines of the individual grave pits marked on the floor

A grave field is a pre-Christian collection of arbitrary graves in the form of burials (also cremation graves ). These are flat graves and burial mounds , also humpback graves and urns .

The term is used in continental European archeology and other cultural studies as an alternative to the Christian expression “ cemetery ”.

Demarcation

In contrast to a burial ground, a necropolis or city of the dead ( ancient Greek νεκρός nekrós , German 'dead' , πόλις polis , German 'city' ) is a larger burial and consecration place of antiquity or early history. Necropolises have structural characteristics and are often located away from the residential areas. In Greek, Roman, Phoenician and Jewish places, this was required for religious reasons. In scientific usage, the term “necropolis” is sometimes equated with the term “burial ground”. Most of the burial sites in necropolises are chamber or building-like .

In a cemetery , the sum of the rows of graves is referred to as a “grave field” if it is geometrically demarcated from neighboring fields or quarters in the overall system.

description

The number of burials is hardly relevant when choosing a term. Theoretically, if there are three or more graves, one can speak of a burial ground, especially since it must always be expected that burials may have been lost due to erosion, overbuilding or agricultural work. For this reason, it should be noted that even on cemetery fields that have been fully explored, usually only a small number of graves can be declared as secure.

A cemetery does not only consist of grave finds . It also includes objects that are directly related to burials or that played a role in the ritual of the dead, such as building stones , rune stones , fireplaces , ship set-ups , huts or menhirs , provided that their simultaneity with the use of the burial site is proven.

The duration of occupancy , the active usage time of a burial ground, varies and can range from one generation to several cultures - in individual cases over several millennia. While the occupancy period is obviously more subject to demographic and topographic conditions and is less culture-specific, the choice of location (on ridges or near older burial mounds) can definitely be one of the characteristics of a culture.

The grave field analysis forms an important basis for archaeological research.

Grave fields of the band ceramists

Using the examples ( Elsloo and Niedermerz ), Norbert Nieszery shows that around 20% of the population of the settlements can be found in burial fields. Even in almost completely excavated sites, the number of body graves is similarly low (mostly even lower). This begs the question of what happened to the 80% remaining dead. A look at the band ceramic practices shows that not all of the dead are to be expected in burial fields. Those buried in the settlements or “sacrificed” in the caves are missing. However, the traditional number of these people does not appear to be sufficient to compensate for the deficit. An attempt was made to explain the low number of graves (which also applies to the Michelsberg culture ) with archaeologically undetectable practices or the predominance of cremation, which has only been handed down in a few cases. In Elsloo, with favorable conservation conditions, body burials make up about 58% of the cremation graves. When cremation dominates, the exceptional character of the body graves becomes even more apparent. The fact that by far not every settlement is known to have a burial ground and even with large-scale excavations, such as in the Merzbachtal , only one, together with several settlements in the immediate vicinity, could be uncovered, gives the impression that burial fields are called “micro -regional funeral centers "were used. If this were to be the case, the proportion of band ceramists who were buried in the body would be even smaller and the special status of in-body burial even clearer. The special position is underlined by the similarities between the "regular body burial" and the "cult victim", which are indicated in the findings and in the characteristic composition of the finds. In the body graves of the band ceramic there is a selected group of people. This is not completely handed down, which can be explained with poor conservation conditions. The exhumation of corpses (empty graves) also makes it probable that some body burials only represent an intermediate stage in the unfinished ( multi-stage ) burial ritual (established in Herxheim ). It can be assumed that the body burials only recorded a small group of people selected from the burial population. During the evaluation, only a selection is recognized and palaeodemographic analyzes are to be viewed with great caution.

species

Body burial of two girls in a grave pit ( double burial )

The term can be divided into subcategories according to the funeral rite .

• Barrows field when it comes to burials on a hill
• Body grave field , if it is exclusively unburned burials
  • Row cemetery if the buried are aligned in a uniform manner
  • Bone storage area , if only collected or exhumed bones are buried in one place
• Cremation cemetery , if it is only a question of burned burials
  • Fire grave field , if the burial of the corpse burn and the grave goods takes place in a different place than the cremation
  • Fire pit grave field , if the cremation and burial take place in one and the same place
  • Urn burial ground , when the remains are buried in urns. The conciseness of this custom in the Young Bronze Age Central Europe gave the cultural phenomenon its name: Urnfield culture
• Biritual burial ground ( Latin bi 'two' ), if it is both cremation and body graves

Merovingian burial fields

→ Main article : List of Merovingian burial fields

The Merovingian period coincides pretty much with the period in which early medieval row grave fields in Central Europe are the most important archaeological sources. These grave fields follow certain patterns in the selection of their areas or show regional similarities. Grave fields in Franconian and Alamannic areas of the Merovingian period were preferably created on a gently sloping terrain above the associated settlement , with a view of the settlement. In flat areas, however, spatial proximity to the settlement was preferred. Occasionally whole groups of graves of a period change their geographical orientation compared to earlier burials, which can be explained by changes in religious ideas. A common orientation of the graves is the east - west direction, the head of the deceased in the west.

Chronological order

The Merovingian burial fields are characterized by numerous grave goods, such as weapons, clay and glass vessels, and pieces of jewelry. They are used from around the 5th to the 8th century and can be divided into three time periods:

• The first section covers the second half of the 5th century and the early 6th century to around 530 AD. The proportion of these early graves in the burial fields is small, which can be explained by the fact that the addition custom was not widespread at this time which makes the graves more difficult to find, or that completely different forms of burial prevailed.
• The second section ranges from about 530 to about 585 AD and contains by far the largest number of graves. A regular and relatively uniform addition custom is typical. In women's graves there is a characteristic element of the four-fibula costume with almandine - disc brooches , bow brooches , S brooches and bird fibulas , and one-piece belt fittings and plate buckles . Men's graves are marked by the presence of weapons, especially a narrow ax and a shield hump with a pointed button.
• The third period approximately covers the period from 585 to 670 n. Chr. The typical grave goods of this section are a Einfibeltracht with gold disc brooches for women and Breitsaxe and Bosses without top button in men. Belts made of multi-part sets with semicircular or triangular fittings are also very characteristic. The fittings are often inlaid with geometric patterns or animal style decorations .

In the course of the 7th century, the Merovingian period cemetery fields end. Little by little, the custom of gifts declined, with large regional differences being recorded. In western Central Europe the custom of adding usually ends earlier than in the east. However, vessel additions were used in the Lower Rhine region until the 8th century, while this custom in Bavaria fell sharply in the early 7th century. At the transition from the 7th to the 8th century, the cemeteries also shift from the peripheral areas outside the settlements to the churches in the middle of the villages.

distribution

Grave fields from the Merovingian era can be found in the southern and western parts of Germany and other countries in the Rhine area, such as France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Significant grave fields in the Alemannic area are the grave field of Weingarten and the grave field of Oberflacht . Other larger, Merovingian burial fields in the Rhine region and southern Germany are, for example, Altenerding , Andernach , Aubing , Beckum , Bülach , Dittenheim , Deersheim , Donaueschingen , Ehrang , Eichstetten , Fridingen , Krefeld-Gellep , Holzgerlingen , Kirchheim-Heuau , Jülich , Schretzheim ( Dillingen an der Danube ), Stuttgart-Feuerbach , Unterhaching , Weilbach , Westheim in Middle Franconia to name just a few. In the Saxon region, in northern Germany and on the Jutian peninsula, urn graves predominated during the imperial era. From the 4th century, body graves were mixed in. There are relatively few grave forests from the Saxon areas from the 5th and 6th centuries, as many burial sites have been abandoned. One that was used for a long time is the one from Liebenau in what is now Lower Saxony. Some grave fields also contain horse graves, such as the one from Alach in Thuringia or Dörverden in Lower Saxony.

Further examples

Grave fields of different cultures and epochs can be found in Scandinavia, for example, in or near Gettlinge , Blomsholm , Li , Mala , Trullhalsar , Vätteryd , Vi alvar and Lindholm Høje .

See also

• Cillin
• Stone box

literature

• Norbert Nieszery : Linear ceramic grave fields in Bavaria (= international archeology. Vol. 16). Marie Leidorf, Espelkamp 1995, ISBN 3-924734-34-8 .
• Paul Wallin: In search of rituals and group dynamics: correspondence analyzes of Neolithic grave fields on the Island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea In: Documenta Praehistorica. Vol. 37, 2010, pp. 65-75, doi: 10.4312 / dp.37.6 .

Web links

Wiktionary: Gräberfeld  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

1. ^ Paul Wolf : The cemetery as an urban development and architectural problem. In: Stephan Hirzel (Hrsg.): Grab und Friedhof der Gegenwart (= books of the Reich Committee for Cemetery and Monument. Volume 1, ZDB -ID 844396-8 ). Callwey, Munich 1927, pp. 60-61.
2. ↑ Gerhard Fingerlin : On the Alemannic settlement history of the 3rd – 7th centuries. Century. In: Wolfgang Hübener (Hrsg.): The Alemanni in the early days (= publication of the Alemannic Institute. No. 34, ZDB -ID 741612-x ). Konkordia, Bühl 1974, pp. 45-88.
3. ↑ Hubert Fehr: Germanic immigration or cultural reorientation? At the beginning of the row grave horizon . In: Sebastian Brather (Hrsg.): Between late antiquity and early middle ages. Archeology of the 4th to 7th centuries in the West (=  supplementary volumes to the Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde . Volume 57 ). Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2008, ISBN 978-3-11-020049-2 , pp. 67-102 ( academia.edu [PDF; 3.8 MB ; accessed on January 9, 2017]).
4. ↑ ^{a b} Frank Siegmund : Alemannen und Franken (= Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde. Supplementary volumes. 23). 2nd Edition. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin a. a. 2000, ISBN 3-11-016788-3 (also: Göttingen, Universität, habilitation paper, 1996).