A good example of the 'seasional' camp used by the mesolithic people can be seen at 'Star Carr' near Scarborough, Yorkshire, which has recently been dated to c.8700BC. Remains at this site indicate quite a sophisticated society that actively managed their environment. However with the possible exception of a disarticulated burial at St Albans and a single site in Somerset there seems to be few surviving burials in Britain. The lack of burials could be explained by the abandoning of cave burial as a practice during the Mesolithic or more simply that none have survived, as Mesolithic burials are rare in any case and a change from cave to burial in open land would have mitigated against their survival. One of the most complete, and it is thought deliberate, burials found in the UK is at Aveline's Hole on the Mendips in Somerset. Dating from around 8,000 BCE a group of people set aside a cave in the Mendip hills for the burial of their dead. An excavation in 1914 reported that at least one individual was buried with grave goods, perforated animal bones for used in a necklace or amulet, together with red ochre. Also found in the burial location was stone tools and a series of inscribed crosses on the wall of the cave dating to around the same period and resembling others known from Northern France, Germany and Denmark. Whether this burial was simply a local practice, strontium isotope measurements indicate that the deceased were all relatively local to the Mendip area, or an indication that in Britain the cave burial practice continued is still open to question. |
We can however look to mainland Europe where a number of burials dating from the Mesolithic have been excavated.
Burial practices in this period in mainland Europe, though generally in open air flat cemeteries rather than caves, seem to continue the earlier Palaeolithic traditions of burial with the apparent importance of red ochre, ornaments of shell and teeth, and provision of tools and food. In Vedbaek, Denmark (c.6000 years ago), an area well known for Mesolithic settlement, Seventeen graves are known, the burials were in rectangular or oval pits, most containing single burials but also some contained the remains of more than one individual. One such burial contained a Woman and a child. The woman had approximately 190 teeth of red deer and wild boar around her head and another fifty tooth pendants around her hips, with several rows of perforated snail shells. The child had a flint blade at the waist and lay on a swan's wing. This provision of grave goods and the use of Red Ochre are also seen in the burials at Aveline's Hole discussed above. Does this mean that spiritual traditions first seen in the palaeolithic period remained unchanged despite the change of lifestyle and sophistication of the people?? If this is the case we can ask why the belief structure was so strong that it survived a major change in the lifestyle and technology of the people. In any case the remains found in Somerset indicate that great care was given to placing the remains of the dead along with the grave goods and the 'cross' markings found on the walls also indicate that the cave was a very special place and had 'ritual' importance. This again indicates that the dead were treated with considerable respect and that death was understood to be a 'special event'. The provision of grave goods again seems to indicate a survival of some sort of belief in an afterlife. While the Red Ochre and beads could be symbolic or indicate status in life the inclusion of stone tools in the Cave burial in Somerset does indicate a belief in the need to take tools at least to the next world. |
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