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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland
1789696313, 9781789696318

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland

Cormac McSparron

McSparron, Cormac. Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland, Archaeopress, 2021. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/wisc/detail.action?docID=6647703. Created from wisc on 2024-03-01 16:12:15.

14/05/2021 11:05:41

Copyright © 2021. Archaeopress. All rights reserved. McSparron, Cormac. Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland, Archaeopress, 2021. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/wisc/detail.action?docID=6647703. Created from wisc on 2024-03-01 16:12:15.

1

Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland

Copyright © 2021. Archaeopress. All rights reserved.

Cormac McSparron

Archaeopress Archaeology

McSparron, Cormac. Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland, Archaeopress, 2021. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/wisc/detail.action?docID=6647703. Created from wisc on 2024-03-01 16:12:15.

Archaeopress Publishing Ltd Summertown Pavilion 18-24 Middle Way Summertown Oxford OX2 7LG www.archaeopress.com

ISBN 978-1-78969-631-8 ISBN 978-1-78969-632-5 (e-Pdf)

© Archaeopress and Cormac McSparron 2021

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Cover illustration: D.M. Waterman and J. Waddell 1993. A Bronze Age cist cemetery at Stranagalwilly, Co. Tyrone, Ulster Journal of Archaeology, 56: 44-60.

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McSparron, Cormac. Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland, Archaeopress, 2021. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/wisc/detail.action?docID=6647703. Created from wisc on 2024-03-01 16:12:15.

Contents List of Figures�� iv List of Tables�� vi Foreword and Acknowledgements�� vii Chapter 1 Introduction��1 Why study the social structure of the Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age by an analysis of the single burial tradition?��1 Aims and Objectives��1 Definitions��2 The Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age��2 The single burial tradition��2 Social structure��2 The structure of the book��3 Introduction��4 Anthropological approaches to the study of death and funerary ritual��4 The sociologists��4

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Chapter 2 Theoretical Approaches to the study of Death, Funerary Rituals and Social Structure��4 The functionalists��5 Structuralism��5 Modern anthropological studies of death ritual��6 Archaeological approaches to the study of death and funerary ritual��7 The ‘New Archaeology’ and its contribution to the study of death and funerary ritual��7 Critics of the ‘New Archaeology’ and their approach to the study of death and funerary ritual��8 The new synthesis ��9 Modern approaches to the study of social structure��12 Un-ranked or egalitarian societies��13 Ranked societies��13 Stratified societies��14 Conclusions��15 Chapter 3 Ireland in the Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age��16 Introduction��16 The archaeology of the Irish Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age��16 The Late Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age environment��17 Ireland at the cusp of the Chalcolithic��18 Into the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age��18 Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age settlement��19 Non-funerary rituals of the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age in Ireland��19 Megalithic burial rituals of the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age in Ireland��20 Wedge tombs and Atlantic Europe��21 Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age metallurgy in Ireland��21 Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age metalwork��22 Daggers��22 Halberds ��22 Gold in Early Bronze Age Ireland��23 Lunulae��23 Provenance of Irish gold��23 Is there continuity between Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic Ireland?��23 The transition from the Chalcolithic to the Early Bronze Age��24 Previous research on the Early Bronze Age single burial tradition of Ireland��25 Summary��32 Chapter 4 Methodology��33 i

McSparron, Cormac. Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland, Archaeopress, 2021. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/wisc/detail.action?docID=6647703. Created from wisc on 2024-03-01 16:12:15.

Introduction�� 33 Selection of sites for study�� 33 Coding and recording the data in a database�� 33 The database fields�� 34 Assessing ranking by an examination of burial ritual�� 41

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Chapter 5 Radiocarbon Dating the single burial tradition�� 44 Introduction�� 44 Methodology�� 45 Constructing models in OxCal 4.2�� 45 Criteria for excluding dates from the radiocarbon analysis.�� 46 Other dates excluded from the analysis�� 47 Analysis of the radiocarbon dates from the Late Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age single burial tradition�� 48 Dating the single burial tradition across Ireland �� 48 Dating single burial tradition by province�� 48 Dating single burial tradition funerary pottery�� 49 Dating aspects of pottery decoration�� 50 Dating techniques of decoration�� 50 Defined / undefined decoration �� 51 The chronology of funerary ritual and grave attributes�� 52 Dating cist and polygonal cist burials �� 52 Dating pits �� 53 Examining cist dates by province�� 53 Dating inhumation and cremation�� 53 Dating graves which contain no pottery, pot-less cists and Pits�� 56 Conclusions�� 56 Phasing the Irish single burial tradition�� 57 Chapter 6 Analysis�� 60 Introduction�� 60 Relative frequency of grave types, their size and shape�� 60 Frequency of basic grave classes�� 60 Burial in the landscape�� 62 Distance to water of single burial tradition burial sites�� 63 Sub-soil types of single burial tradition burial�� 64 Aspects of ritual �� 64 Pygmy vessels�� 86 Human remains from single burial tradition burials�� 87 Frequencies of number of individuals found in burials�� 87 Position of the body in inhumation burials of the Early Bronze Age�� 88 Geographic spread of Early Bronze Age funerary ritual practices�� 90 Distribution of inhumation and cremation by province�� 91 Distribution of basic grave type (cist / pit/ polygonal cist / patch) by province�� 91 Distribution of funerary vessel types by province�� 94 Sex and single burial tradition burial practices�� 98 Sex and pottery class and the presence of a pot in the grave�� 98 Sex and pottery decoration�� 99 Sex and side upon which the body is resting�� 100 Sex and direction head is facing�� 100 Sex and cremation / inhumation�� 100 The age of human remains at death and single burial tradition burial practices�� 100 Age and cist size�� 100 Age and multiple burial�� 101 Pottery and aspects of the single burial tradition�� 101 The position of the grave within the cemetery�� 101 Frequency of burials by quadrant in single burial tradition burial cairns�� 102 Pottery class and position in a cemetery�� 102 Grave type and position in cairn�� 104 Defined decoration / undefined decoration on funerary vessels and their position within cemeteries �� 105 ii

McSparron, Cormac. Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland, Archaeopress, 2021. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/wisc/detail.action?docID=6647703. Created from wisc on 2024-03-01 16:12:15.

Sex and position within a cairn or cemetery��105 Grave goods and status��105 Grave good class and age ��105 Grave good class and sex��106 Grave good class and inhumation / cremation��106 Grave good class and pottery class��106 Grave good class and cist / pit / polygonal cist��106 Grave good class and position in a cairn or cemetery��107 Vessels with defined / undefined decoration and grave good class ��107 Grave good class compared with grave type and presence or absence of a pot or urn ��107 Multiple burials��107 Numbers of multiple burials��108 Numbers of individuals interred in multiple burials��108 Frequencies of sexes interred in multiple burials��109 The relationship between multiple burial and grave type��109 The relationship between multiple burial and cremation / inhumation ��109 The relationship between multiple burial and the numbers of funerary vessels present in the grave and the class of accompanying vessel��110 Summary��110 Burial Ritual��110 Human remains��111 Geographic spread of aspects of single burial tradition burials��111 Sex and burial ritual��112 Age and burial ritual��112 Pottery decoration and burial ritual��112 Burial position within cairns and cemetery mounds��112 Grave good class��112 Multiple burials��112

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Chapter 7 Analysing Complexity in the Irish single burial tradition��113 Introduction ��113 A Chronological Model of the development of the Late Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age single burial tradition��113 Phase A ��113 Phase B��114 Phase C��114 Complexity and status in late Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age Ireland ��116 Looking at complexity and social structure as revealed in single burial tradition burials in greater detail116 Phase C clusters and associations with the age of the interred��132 Phase C clusters and associations with the sex of the interred��133 Phase C clusters and placement in a cairn / cemetery mound ��133 Phase C clusters and pottery class��133 Chapter 8 Discussion��137 Phase A social structure��137 Phase B social structure��137 Phase C social structure��138 The significance of the correlations between Phase C clusters and age and sex��138 Continuity and change in the single burial tradition��142 Chapter 9 Conclusions��154 Directions for further research ��155 Bibliography��156 Online Appendices http://doi.org/10.32028/9781789696318-appendices

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List of Figures

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Figure 1.1

Photo of a cist containing an inhumation and accompanied by a tripartite bowl from Church Bay, Rathlin, Co. Antrim ��2 Figure 1.2 Photo of an inverted vase urn within a cist from Knockroe, Co. Tyrone ��2 Figure 2.1 Diagrammatic summary of the interrelationships of degree of ranking, access to the economic base and social evolutionary typology.��14 Figure 3.1 Cloghnagalla, Co. Derry / Londonderry wedge tomb after Herring.��20 Figure 3.2 Bowl and Vase forms ; a. simple bowl from Tonyglaskan , b. bipartite bowl from Straid , c. Necked bipartite bowl from Dungate , d. tripartite bowl, e. ribbed bowl from Altanagh , f. tripartite vase from Tremogue , g. bipartite vase from Drumnakeel. ��27 Figure 3.3 Examples of vase and encrusted urns, a. vase urn from Drumanakeel and b. encrusted urn from Drumanakeel.�28 Figure 3.4 Examples of a cordoned urn a. from Kilcroagh and collared urn b. from Lisnagat.��29 Figure 4.1 Location map of the 206 sites in the database��34 Figure 4.2 Dividing cairns / cemetery mounds into quadrants.��35 Figure 4.3 Decorative Motif Elements, worked example ‘Herringbone- Left, Incised Line, Incised Line Defined’��37 Figure 5.1 A Diagram of the radiocarbon date ranges of the main attributes of the Late Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age single burial tradition. Light grey is the 95.4% Start/ End Range, mid grey the 68.2% Start / End Range, black the area within the Start and End ranges.��44 Figure 5.2 OxCal 4.2 multiplot of the calibrated ranges of dates associated with vessels displaying Defined Decorative Motifs. Red line shows a best fit line through the calibrated ranges. ��51 Figure 5.3 OxCal 4.2 multiplot of the calibrated ranges of dates associated with cist burials. Red line shows a best fit line through the calibrated ranges. ��52 Figure 5.4 OxCal 4.2 multiplot of the calibrated ranges of dates associated with inhumation burials. Red line shows a best fit line through the calibrated range��54 Figure 5.5 OxCal 4.2 multiplot of the calibrated ranges of dates associated with cremation burials. ��55 Figure 5.6 Phasing scheme of the single burial tradition, with Needham’s scheme for the British Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age and O’Brien’s Irish Chalcolithic scheme.��57 Figure 5.7 Oxcal 4.2 multiplot showing the radiocarbon dates of all vessels with reliable dates in the data set.��59 Figure 6.1 Frequency of single burial tradition grave type ��60 Figure 6.2 Histogram of cist areas.��61 Figure 6.3 Histogram of pit areas.��61 Figure 6.4 Histogram of pit areas.��61 Figure 6.5 Histogram of capstone areas.��62 Figure 6.6 Histogram of polygonal cists areas, for those polygonal cists which do not contain a funerary urn.��62 Figure 6.7 Histogram of polygonal cists areas, for those polygonal cists which contain a funerary urn.��62 Figure 6.8 Height above sea level of Early Bronze Age burial sites��63 Figure 6.9 Sites in the database displayed on a background relief map of Ireland. Westmeath group circled in red, Galway / Mayo group circled in blue.��63 Figure 6.10 Distance to water of single burial tradition burial sites��63 Figure 6.11 Direction of slope of single burial tradition burial sites��64 Figure 6.12 Type of subsoil at single burial tradition burial sites��64 Figure 6.13 Frequencies of graves containing cremation and inhumation burial , empty graves and graves containing both inhumations and cremations.��64 Figure 6.14 Distribution map of flint flakes from the database.��70 Figure 6.15 Cremation burial of an adult male from Carricknab, Co. Down a. burial cist, b. ribbed bowl, c. bronze awl, Thomas Type 1b d. two flint scrapers e. bronze dagger, Waddell’s Class 2 ‘ Corkey Type’. ��71 Figure 6.16 Distribution map of flint scrapers and arrowheads from the database. ��72 Figure 6.17 Distribution map of flint knives from the database.��73 Figure 6.18 Distribution of daggers and knife-daggers in Ireland ��75 Figure 6.19 Distribution map of razors from the database.��78 Figure 6.20 Distribution map of bronze awls from the database.��79 Figure 6.21 Tremoge, Co. Tyrone, the cremated remains of an older female, found with a bipartite vase, accompanied by an awl of Thomas’ Type 2 and a ceramic loom weight. ��80 Figure 6.22 Distribution map of bone tubes, toggles and cylinders from the database.��81 Figure 6.23 Distribution map of bone and copper / copper alloy, pins and needles from the database.��83 Figure 6.24 Distribution map of buttons and beads from the database.��85 Figure 6.25 Pie chart showing relative frequencies of number of individuals buried per grave.��87 Figure 6.26 Relative frequencies of age categories in single burial tradition burials.��87 Figure 6.27 Relative proportions of male , female and indeterminate human remains from single burial tradition burials.��88 Figure 6.28 Side / part of body which human remains are resting on.��88 Figure 6.29 Orientation of the body in single burial tradition inhumation burials.��89 Figure 6.30 Stature of single burial tradition female inhumation burials.��89 Figure 6.31 Stature of single burial tradition male inhumation burials. ��90

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McSparron, Cormac. Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland, Archaeopress, 2021. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/wisc/detail.action?docID=6647703. Created from wisc on 2024-03-01 16:12:15.

Figure 6.32 Figure 6.33 Figure 6.34 Figure 6.35 Figure 6.36 Figure 6.37 Figure 6.38 Figure 6.39 Figure 6.40 Figure 6.41 Figure 6.42 Figure 6.43 Figure 6.44 Figure 6.45 Figure 6.46 Figure 6.47 Figure 6.48 Figure 6.49

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Figure 6.50 Figure 6. 51 Figure 6. 52 Figure 6.53 Figure 7.1 Figure 7.2 Figure 7.3 Figure 7.4 Figure 8.1 Figure 8.2

Distribution of inhumation burials from the database. �� 90 Distribution of cremation burials from the database.�� 91 Distribution map of cists from the database.�� 92 Distribution of pit burials from the database.�� 92 Distribution of polygonal cists from the database.�� 93 Distribution of bone patches from the database.�� 93 Distribution map of simple bowls from the database.�� 94 Distribution map of bipartite bowls from the database.�� 95 Distribution map of tripartite bowls from the database.�� 95 Distribution map of ribbed bowls from the database.�� 96 Distribution map of bipartite and tripartite vases from the database.�� 96 Distribution map of collared urns in the database.�� 97 Distribution map of cordoned urns from the database.�� 98 Distribution map of encrusted urns and vase urns from the database.�� 99 Frequency of burials in cemeteries by quadrant�� 103 Frequencies of burial by QuadFactor 1 �� 103 Percentage frequencies of Burial by QuadFactor 2 �� 103 Relative frequency of burials of individuals to multiple burials , apparent burials with no human remains found within them.�� 108 Relative frequency of individuals buried in a multiple burial as opposed to those buried in an individual burial.��108 Frequencies of numbers of individuals buried in graves of the single burial tradition�� 108 Frequencies of the different sexes in graves with multiple burials�� 109 Frequency of different combinations of sexes in multiple burials.�� 109 Plot of the log of the possible number of burial attribute combinations against single burial tradition Phase.�� 117 Cluster analysis of Phase A burials.�� 121 Phase B Clusters�� 125 Phase C Cluster Analysis�� 134 The Ranking Pyramid: Numbers of individuals for each status value in Phase C.�� 140 Map of Class 2 knife – daggers and Class 3 daggers, overlain on map of river catchment areas.�� 150

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McSparron, Cormac. Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland, Archaeopress, 2021. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/wisc/detail.action?docID=6647703. Created from wisc on 2024-03-01 16:12:15.

List of Tables

Table 3.1 Table 4.1 Table 5.1 Table 5.2 Table 5.3 Table 5.4 Table 5.5 Table 5.6 Table 5.7 Table 5.8 Table 5.9 Table 5.10 Table 5.11 Table 6.1 Table 7.1 Table 7.2 Table 7.3 Table 7.5 Table 7.6 Table 7.7

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Table 7.8 Table 7.9 Table 7.10 Table 7.11 Table 7.12 Table 7.13

Waddell’s classification of Irish Daggers��22 Qualitative descriptors of statistical significance used in the text and their quantitative equivalents.��39 Radiocarbon dates excluded from aspects of the analysis��47 OxCal 4.2 calibrated ranges for the Start and End of the single burial tradition��48 Oxcal 4.2 calibrated ranges for the single burial tradition, by province��48 Brindley’s PCDR and FCDR s ��49 OxCal 4.2 calibrated ranges for the Start and End dates of single burial tradition funerary vessels at 95.4% and 68.2%��49 OxCal 4.2 calibrate ranges for the start and end dates of decorative techniques from single burial tradition funerary vessels at 95.4% and 68.2%, using dating samples directly associated with the vessels.��50 OxCal 4.2 calibrated ranges for the Start and End dates of Defined / Undefined decoration from single burial tradition funerary vessels at 95.4% and 68.2%, using dating samples directly associated with the vessels��51 OxCal 4.2 calibrated ranges for the start and end dates of cists and pits at 95.4% and 68.2%, using dating samples directly associated with the vessels.��53 OxCal 4.2......................................................................................................................................................................................... calibrated ranges for the start and end dates of cists by province at 95.4% and 68.2%, using dating samples directly associated with the vessels.��53 OxCal 4.2 date ranges for the start and end of single burial tradition inhumation and cremation��54 OxCal 4.2 date ranges for the start and end of pot-less burials��56 Dimensions of small blades and razors from the database��77 Phase A burial attribute combinations.��120 Coding status / energy expenditure in Phase A burial attribute combinations��120 Phase A status values for burial attribute combinations ��120 Coding energy expenditure / status in Phase B burial attribute combinations��123 Phase B status values for main burial attribute combinations ��124 A summary of the Phase B clusters, status value, correlations with age, sex and their associations with other burial information. A ‘+’ after a value, means that a correlation observed between that cluster and a variable in a cross-tabulation table has an adjusted residual value of 1, meaning that it is significant at 68.2%. A value of ‘++’ means that it has an adjusted residual value of 2, meaning it is significant at 95.4%, the usual threshold of statistical significance. ��126 Coding energy expenditure in Phase C developed vase tradition burial ritual attributes��128 Phase C developed vase tradition burial attribute combinations.��128 Pot-less inhumation burials��130 Coding energy expenditure in Phase C collared and cordoned urn tradition burial ritual attributes��130 Suggested increments of status for the cordoned and collared urn tradition burial attribute combinations.��131 A summary of the Phase C clusters, Status estimation and their associations with other burial information. Green bands are mostly developed vase tradition clusters, Red bands are clusters with mainly collared and cordoned urn tradition burials, Blue bands are clusters showing a mixing of elements of both traditions. Lilac the ‘apical’ class Cluster is composed largely of cordoned urn burials.��134

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Foreword and Acknowledgements This book is based on a PhD dissertation which I wrote at and was awarded by Queen’s University Belfast (McSparron 2018). I would like to thank my supervisor Professor Eileen Murphy, my second supervisor Dr Gill Plunkett and my original second supervisor Professor Jim Mallory for all the wonderful help and support I received. I would also like to acknowledge the great encouragement I received from Dr Colm Donnelly of the Centre for Archaeological Fieldwork at Queen’s. In addition I would like to thank Dr Alison Sheridan and Dr Carleton Jones for all their interesting and helpful suggestions and observations. I also especially wish to thank my wife Bronagh and my children, Olcan, Fergus, Cormac, Tailte, Ruairi, Finvola and Petronella, for their patience, understanding and enthusiastic encouragement, I hope it was not too disruptive. Finally I would like to express my debt to my mother Maureen, my aunt Susan McCormack and especially my late father Seamus. Many of the images used in this book appear by courtesy of the Ulster Archaeological Society, to whom I am most grateful. In addition I would like to thank Nick Brannon, Clare Foley, Declan Hurl, Brian Sloan and Dr Brian Williams for permission to use images from their excavation reports.

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I would very much like to thank Ruairí Ó Baoill for his help preparing the text for publication.

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Chapter 1 Introduction Why study the social structure of the Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age by an analysis of the single burial tradition?

Aims and Objectives This work aims to examine aspects of the social structure of Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland using burials from the single burial tradition as an analytical data set. There are a number of specific objectives.

The single burial tradition of the Irish Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age was rich and diverse and was the dominant Irish burial tradition for a period of approximately 600 years. The large number of burials which have survived, combined with the variety of burial rituals within the tradition, invites archaeologists to attempt to reconstruct the society of Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland.

1.

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Some work has been carried out in this area before. A broad body of theoretical work (Saxe 1970; Binford 1971; Tainter 1975; Peebles and Kus 1977; Wason 1994) has outlined an approach to the reconstruction of social structure. This approach has been critiqued (Parker Pearson 1982; Hodder 1982), but the criticisms have fallen short of negating the utility of burial analysis as a method of examining society (Brown 1995; Kamp 1998).

2.

The burial rituals of Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland have been examined by John Waddell in his excellent summary of the single burial tradition and much was achieved by Charles Mount (1997) with his examination of the society of southeast Ireland through the lens of the single burial tradition. More evidence has become available in the intervening years. In particular the large number of radiocarbon dates now available, many published by Brindley (2007), and the presence of tools like OxCal 4.2, which allow non-statisticians to carry out complex analysis of radiocarbon chronologies, means that it is possible to consider looking at the burial traditions of this era within a more refined chronological framework than has previously been possible. The division of the Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age into three chronological periods in this study has facilitated both synchronic examinations of each of these burial phases, allowing a reconstruction of the social structure of each phase, and a diachronic examination of the entire period, observing growing complexity and ranking through each of the phases, culminating in a significant increase in evidence for ranking in the latest phase, Phase C. It is proposed that the decline in Irish copper production after 2000BC, and the economic crisis which must have resulted, may have been a significant factor in the increase in social complexity and ranking seen in Ireland, and possibly Britain, at this time.

3.

4.

As a necessary first step the study attempts to build a radiocarbon based chronology for the Irish single burial tradition, looking at the beginnings and spread of the tradition through Ireland, re-examining the radiocarbon dating of the era’s funerary pottery, and looking at the development of aspects of burial ritual, such as the beginning of cremation, the beginnings of the use of pit burials and the appearance of potless burials. Devise a system for making grave goods comparable in terms of how they may reflect the status of the interred, and making them statistically analysable with other burial attributes. Establish the degree of complexity of burial ritual at different chronological phases of the Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age, from that assess degrees of social complexity in each stage, and to then relate this complexity to the degree of ranking within society during each of these phases. Through a subtle and multifaceted crosstabulation and cluster analysis of burial ritual, the study aims to identify the basic social structure of each of the main chronological divisions of Early Bronze Age Ireland.

The study is not blind to the fact that this form of analysis is only a model of reality and accepts the possibility of both deliberate and incidental ideological masking of social reality through burial as suggested by several writers including Hodder (1982) and Parker Pearson (1982). By examining the results of the crosstabulation statistics, both synchronically and diachronically in light of the chronological model developed for the Irish single burial tradition, it is hoped that variations in the ways in which status was displayed though the era can be identified. The book aims to be able to discuss the Irish single burial tradition in its wider context and in particular look at contrasts and comparisons with burial ritual and society in Britain.

1

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland Definitions This book examines the single burial tradition of Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland and some implications for social structure. As a prerequisite it is necessary to define some terms. The Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age The Irish Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age is quite difficult to define compared to, for example, the commencement of the Neolithic, when there is a clear cultural and technological change. The Irish Early Bronze Age has had several definitions even over the past few decades. Megaw and Simpson (1984) defined, the Irish and British Early Bronze Age chronologically as the period between 2300 and 1300 BC. Cooney and Grogan (1999) have preferred 2300 to 1700 BC, succeeded by a Middle Bronze Age. In recent years it has become increasingly common to make a nuanced distinction between the Chalcolithic and the Early Bronze Age proper, with the Chalcolithic extending from about 2400 to 2050 BC. Some writers, like Billy O’Brien (2012), would consider the Irish Late Chalcolithic as continuing beyond this, until about 2000 BC, which would date the entire first phase of the Irish single burial tradition within the Late Chalcolithic. The detailed chronology of the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age will be discussed at greater length below but, for the purposes of this study, and realising that this is a simplification of a complex topic, the era of the single burial tradition as a whole is going to be referred to as the Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age, which will be considered as beginning at approximately 2200-2150BC.

Figure 1.1 Photo of a cist containing an inhumation and accompanied by a tripartite bowl from Church Bay, Rathlin, Co. Antrim (after Sloan 2008)

The single burial tradition The single burial tradition is the burial of individuals, or groups of a few individuals, in small, discrete graves, which may be part of larger cemeteries or cairns, dating from approximately 2200-2150 BC to about 1600 BC. Within this definition the single burial tradition can be divided into two broad sub-groups:

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a.

b.

Figure 1.2 Photo of an inverted vase urn within a cist from Knockroe, Co. Tyrone (Williams and Wilkinson 1988)

Burials, cremated or unburnt, contained withina stone built cists or pits (Figure 1.1). These cist or pit burials may contain accompanying pottery vessels of several distinct styles and occasional grave goods. Cremation burials, which are contained within a funerary vessel and then placed into a pit or a cist (Figure 1.2). The in-urned burials are also more occasionally accompanied by accessory vessels, and somewhat more commonly accompanied by grave goods.

Both types of burials are found individually, in flat cemeteries, in specially constructed mounds, or reusing earlier megalithic burial monuments. Social structure Social structure is a term which can be used in different ways. Levi-Strauss noted how ‘the term social-structure 2

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Chapter 1 Introduction

has nothing to do with empirical reality but with the models that are built up after it’ (1963: 279). In this book it is used to mean a model of the political system, social ranking or stratification, gender relations and kinship structures of Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland, in so far as they are detectable by an analysis of the archaeological record.

provinces. The dating of pottery is examined, as is the dating of some decorative elements of the pottery. Cists and pits are dated as a whole and by province, as a study is made of dating of inhumation and cremation burial. Pits and cists which contained human remains, but no pottery vessels, ‘pot-less burials’, are examined and unexpectedly found only to begin some time after the commencement of the single burial tradition and continue until the end of the Early Bronze Age.

The structure of the book This book is divided into eight chapters.

Chapter 6 is a detailed statistical analysis of the attributes of the single burial tradition. Initially descriptive statistics, focusing on characterising the data set, are presented. The results of the crosstabulation analysis of different attributes are then given along with associated significance testing. The results of the cluster analysis are also presented. The status of grave goods assemblages is compared statistically to various burial attributes, fulfilling Objective 2.

Chapter 1 is the introduction, setting out the aims, definitions, the books structure and acknowledgments. Chapter 2 is a review of the theoretical approaches to understanding death rituals and how death and burial may inform us about society. It looks at anthropological and archaeological approaches to death and burial before setting out the theoretical approach used for this study.

Chapter 7 presents a chronological model of the development of the single burial tradition informed by the results of the radiocarbon analysis presented in Chapter 5. This chronological model is used, along with the statistical results from Chapter 6, to build up a model of aspects of the social structure of the Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age Ireland. The changing funerary complexity of burial ritual is examined and possible indicators of status for each chronological phase are identified. This fulfills Objective 3. Possible social groups within each chronological phase are identified by cluster analysis and crosstabulated with status indicators.

Chapter 3 examines the background of Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland as a whole, a necessary perspective from which to judge the burial record and its significance. It examines first the environment of Early Bronze Age Ireland and evidence for the types and extents of agriculture. Early Bronze Age metalworking is also examined, as are funerary and non-funerary rituals and Early Bronze Age settlement. There is then a review of the existing literature discussing the single burial tradition in Ireland.

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Chapter 4 is a detailed description of the methodology of gathering, recording and analysing the data statistically. It describes site selection, coding the data for input into the database, preparation of the data for analysis and then the methodology of statistical analysis in SPSS, focusing on cross-tabulation and associated significance tests and cluster analysis. An examination is undertaken of techniques for evaluating the status of grave goods accompanying burials in a way which makes them comparable and analysable. Finally this chapter discusses methods for assessing ranking from an analysis of burial ritual, setting out a set of criteria for different types of un-ranked and ranked societies..

Chapter 8 discusses the type of society that is likely to have existed at each phase of the Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age using categories borrowed from multilinear social evolutionary theory (Lewellen 2003; Wason 1994; Earle 1993; Earle 1997; Ames 2015), fulfilling objective 4. In addition this chapter discusses the origins of the single burial tradition, the reasons for the emergence of ranking in Early Bronze Age Ireland and aspects of relationships between the Ireland and Britain in this era. Chapter 9 Recaps the main conclusions of the study and states future directions for study.

Chapter 5 is an analysis using OxCal 4.2 of the radiocarbon information from the sites recorded in the database. It fulfills Objective 1. One of the great strengths of the Microsoft Access database is the ability to bring disparate data together easily through the use of queries. This allows C14 data from human remains, or other sources, in the database, to be used to look at the dating of associated attributes of the burial ritual. An examination is made of the date range of the single burial tradition across Ireland along with an analysis of the differential appearance of the tradition in different 3

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Chapter 2 Theoretical Approaches to the study of Death, Funerary Rituals and Social Structure in Archaeology and Anthropology Introduction

that a simplistic linear association between burial and society cannot be drawn. In addition it is accepted that it is necessary to look at the entirety of the society (Lull 2000), as well as the burial record, synchronically and diachronically, to properly understand the society (Chapman and Randsborg 1987). This study also takes the view, espoused by Brown (1995), that small single cemetery analyses are futile, and that larger, regional, multi-cemetery statistical studies are much more fruitful and reliable.

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The twentieth century was the epoch when archaeology as a science emerged and matured. From the prescientific era of antiquarian archaeology and culture history through to the present, the archaeology of death, and the rituals and rites surrounding it, have played a dominant role in the discipline. Initially much archaeology was simply concerned with cataloging sites and burial rites, with naive, although not necessarily always incorrect, interpretations based on ‘common sense’ or classical analogues. As archaeology approached its ‘loss of innocence’ (Clarke 1973), the increasing weight of data, but the lack of a similarly increasing body of knowledge derived from that data, led to new approaches. Archaeology borrowed from anthropology, building theories which were testable, general, and perhaps a little too ambitious. A second wave of reflection followed the first, setting limits on what could be inferred. This process, which was prophesied by Clarke (1973), continued through the 1970s, 80s and 90s. A parallel process has been a rejection of some of the ‘objective’ certainties of an archaeology which focused on the adult western male and a conscious attempt to write archaeologies of women, children and the marginalised. As Clarke suggested would happen, there have been signs since the mid 1990s of a synthesis, where the aims and methods of the ‘new archaeology’ have been matured by cautionary tales.

To understand the link between burial, the individual and society it is not only necessary to categorise burial, it is also necessary to be able to categorise society. Multilinear social evolutionary concepts like band, tribe, chiefdom and state, provide a useful classificatory system (Service 1962). Also useful is the examination of the degree of ranking, from egalitarian societies through to stratified societies (Fried 1967 and Wason 1996). Together these two strands of theoretical thought provide the archaeologist with a powerful set of analytical tools. The criticisms of Shanks and Tilley (1987) are rejected as being appropriate to an earlier 19th century version of unilinear social evolution, typified by the likes of Lubbock (1865) or Lewis Henry Morgan (1877) and misrepresenting the post-war multilinear social evolutionists. Before implementing them, to understand their use, it is necessary to discuss them in the context of the developments in anthropological and archaeological thought on the relationship between burial rituals and the societies which produce them.

In this study the criticism, aired by Heidegger (Glazebrook 2012), that mechanistic science alone cannot explain nature, is accepted. However this work parts company with those, such as Shanks and Tilley (1987), who see little value in attempts to examine social structure from burial evidence. Value is placed on scientific analysis of gathered data as the foundation upon which interpretation can be made. Again Heidegger perhaps drew the best distinction when he compared historical science, the collection of historical facts, of which he was critical, from the true discipline of history, collecting, interpreting and giving meaning to these collected facts (Glazebrook 2012: 18).

Anthropological approaches to the study of death and funerary ritual Nineteenth and early twentieth century investigations of funerary ritual, such as those of Frazer (1911), described the varieties of funerary practice but they tended to view each specific funerary ritual as unique, conditioned by the ideas and beliefs of the specific society, and made little attempt to look for meaning or pattern in the form of funerary rituals. In the early years of the twentieth century the writers of the Année Sociologique school began to develop theories of the structure and meaning of funerary rituals, and the treatment of the dead, which could have more general application.

A number of parallel strands of thought are accepted, with qualifications, by this study. The approach to burial archaeology espoused by writers such as Saxe (1970), Binford (1971), Tainter (1975) and Peebles and Kus (1977), who all believe that there is a direct relationship between burial ritual and the individuals place in society is accepted, albeit with the understanding, as proposed by writers like Wason (1994) and Kamp (1998),

The sociologists In his 1907 essay ‘The Collective Representation of Death’ Robert Hertz proposed that there is a structure 4

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Chapter 2 Theoretical Approaches to the study of Death, Funerary Rituals and Social Structure

to funerary ritual which may be found widely spread amongst ‘many societies less advanced than our own’ (Hertz 2009: 28). Hertz suggested that the modern concept of death, occurring at a particular instant, is not found in all societies but rather that death is a process, sometimes an extended one. He divided the process of death and funerary ritual into two stages, the Intermediary Period and the Final Ceremony. During the first stage, the deceased is not seen as wholly dead, the spirit is in some way still resident on earth and has the potential to bring pollution to the surrounding community. During this period the body is temporarily stored, what Hertz calls ‘Provisional Burial’, and the relatives of the deceased enter a period of mourning in which they are in some way cut off from their usual social roles (Hertz 2009: 41-2).

certain groups, is accompanied by a ceremony, the ‘rite of passage’ to facilitate the progression (Van Gennep 1960: 3). This rite of passage itself is subdivided into three parts; the rite of separation, the rite of transition and the rite of incorporation (Van Gennep 1960: 11). Van Gennep also introduced the concept of liminality, a place between states, between worlds, which accompanies these transitions. Like Hertz, Van Gennep provides archaeologists with a template for examining, comparing and interpreting the evidence for funerary rituals of past societies. Emile Durkheim suggested in his Elementary forms of Religious Life (1912) that there is a direct relationship between ritual complexity and social complexity. Durkheim had suggested that the ‘collective consciousness, the highest form of psychic life’, (Durkheim 1915: 445) which society enacts (reenacts) through ritual activity, is conditioned by the complexity of the society which is being considered by the ritual. A simple society, therefore, will not develop complex rituals because it will not need complex rituals to contemplate and explain its simple structures and place in the universe. A complex society, however, with multiple roles, procurement strategies, locations and social groups will need a more complex set of beliefs and associated rituals to place itself within creation. This Durkheimian principle suggests burial ritual too will directly reflect the complexity of the society. Because this ritual contemplation of society will, to a great extent, focus on the structure of the society, the roles and the power relations within society, complexity in ritual becomes representative of the degree of complexity and ranking within society.

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After a variable period of time the second stage of the funerary ritual, the ‘Final Ceremony’ in Hertz’s nomenclature, takes place (Hertz 2009: 59). This is the committal of the remains of the deceased, now free of the spirit, to its final resting place. Hertz suggests that a common factor in many occurrences of this ritual, is that it stresses family or community in contrast to the individualist ‘Provisional Burial’. This final ceremony also marks the end of the enforced period of mourning of the relatives of the deceased and may be marked by purificatory rituals and feasts. Hertz noted that there are categories of people who may not be granted the full set of funerary rituals. The very young, or the very old, the slave or stranger, he notes as being less likely to be given the full burial ritual that an important adult in their prime might receive. This Hertz explains as being because, as persons not playing as full and dynamic a role in society as others might, they do not have the social status within the collective consciousness to deserve such treatment (Hertz 2009: 76). He states that it is not the actual physical death of the individual which elicits funerary ritual but the death of the identity of the person within society, a schism which must be salved by collective ritual, leading to some form of reconstitution of the deceased’s consciousness in an afterlife. The connection between death and rituals of fertility, birth and marriage is observed by Hertz, a point developed by later writers such as Metcalf and Huntington (1991) and Bloch and Parry (1982).

The functionalists The functionalists, who saw society as analogous to an organism in which different components functioned together, were highly influential in the decades either side of the Second World War. Leading figures of this school were Evans-Pritchard (1940) and Radcliffe-Brown (1935). Their approach used the metaphor of a multicellular organism for society, individuals could die and others would be born but the social unit would continue. The social relationships, and ritual activities, such as funerary rituals, would function, in a self regulating manner, to perpetuate the social structure (Radcliffe-Brown 1935: 396). Functionalism has been criticised since the 1960s as implying that institutions of a society function effectively leaves little room for dysfunction or for mechanisms of change (Metcalf 2005: 86).

Van Gennep was a contemporary of Hertz and brought to the study of death a viewpoint which complimented Hertz. In The Rites of Passage (Van Gennep 1960, originally published in French 1909 but translated to English in 1960) Van Gennep demonstrated how, during the course of life, there are certain situations when an individual must pass from one well defined state to another. When this occurs the transformation, which may be a physical one, such as passing from one territory to another, or a more symbolic one such as marriage or initiation into

Structuralism In the 1960s a new and dynamic approach to anthropology, Structuralism, was arguing that humans 5

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland instinctively categorise things based upon the hard wiring of our brains and nervous system; the way we perceive things. Consequently, all things being equal, two individuals, observing a new phenomenon should both perceive it in similar ways. That an act of interpretation and categorisation of information is continually happening is, of course, unknown to the individuals, in this respect the process closely resembles the use of language, and Structuralism in anthropology is largely derived from structural linguistics. Just as two individuals will interpret a phenomenon in similar ways, by extension, they will order their behaviours, their opinions, their customs, their worlds, in ways which, while not identical, are similar, the deep undercurrents of the mind structuring their behavior. Levi-Strauss (1966) suggested that the inner working of the mind, informed by the physicality of our bodies, analysed the world by contrasting opposites, such as male : female, left : right, nature : culture etc. Also useful for considering ritual is LeviStrauss’ (1966) concept of the bricoleur a French term for a handyman-type character, who could make a usable structure from whatever tools and materials she had to hand, in contrast to the craftsman who would build an exacting, perhaps superior structure, but at greater cost and with less speed. It was in this type of activity which Levi-Strauss believed traditional ways of ritual were engaging, what he called the ‘Science of the Concrete’, linking useful symbols together through the associations and transformations he believed to be at the root of unconscious human thought.

of the living (Metcalf and Huntingdon 1991: 85-93). They shed light on the paradox, already noted by Hertz, that not all bodies receive secondary burials. They suggest that this is because, amongst the Berawan at least, secondary burial is an honour granted to some, rather than a necessity for the transmigration of the soul (Metcalf and Huntingdon 1991: 96). In general their examination of the Berawan demonstrates the wide variability of funerary rites and optimistically demonstrates how much of this variability can be explained in a Hertzian paradigm. Metcalf and Huntingdon also tested the Hertz / Van Gennep theoretical position with a detailed examination of the Bara of Madagascar. The Bara, like all 18 separate ethnic peoples in Madagascar, have made funerary ritual central to their social lives embodying religion, economics and social prestige (Metcalf and Huntingdon 1991:110). They have a threefold ritual involving a temporary burial, utilising a coffin placed in a cave, a ‘gathering’ at which up to 500 persons attend a great feast held in honour of the deceased in the dry season following the death, and a final burial, also held during a dry season in subsequent years. During the revelry associated with each of these stages there is considerable drinking of rum and dancing and, especially during the feasting attending the temporary burial ceremony, a degree of sexual license not usually permitted by the Bara. The explanation amongst the Bara for these revelries is that the spirit and body of the deceased are in transition and in the meantime the spirit needs to be entertained (Metcalf and Huntingdon 1991: 112-3), clearly implying that there is a Van Gennep style liminal phase in progress. To explain why revelry and sexual license is the appropriate response to grief they dissect Bara beliefs on order and fertility revealing a set of binary oppositions of:

The anthropology of funerary ritual has been influenced by Structuralist thinking, both explicitly and also implicitly. Mary Douglas (1988) identified that the origin of much of the concept of pollution, being unclean, in human societies results from the difficulty of placing an object into convenient pre-existing categories, upsetting symmetry and order. An example of an object which is difficult to define is an unburied human body. The unburied body, in Hertz’s Intermediary Period, is between the living and the dead, difficult to categorise as one or other binary opposite, leading to it being viewed as potentially polluting and dangerous.

order : vitality, male : female, bone : flesh, death : birth and tomb : womb.

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Modern anthropological studies of death ritual

They suggest that since death is a surfeit of male order the antidote is female fecundity, therefore licensing sexual activity normally frowned upon.

The work of Hertz and Van Gennep has been consciously built upon by Metcalf and Huntingdon (1991). They made a detailed examination of the funerary rituals of the Berawan of Madagascar. In particular they examined the eschatology of the Berawan, teasing out the complexities of the progression of the soul to the afterlife. They indicate that the reason for the mourning of the near relatives is as much to engage the sympathy of the soul of the deceased who, not yet able to depart to the land of the ancestors until the decomposition of the flesh, is earthbound and jealous

The relationship between fertility and death has most explicitly been addressed by Bloch and Parry (1982); however they define fertility as the general fertility, or fecundity, of the land and community as opposed to a narrow view of merely human fertility (Bloch and Parry 1982: 9). They also suggest that in many cases human fertility is perceived as a limited good, birth leading to death, one in one out so to speak, and go farther to 6

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Chapter 2 Theoretical Approaches to the study of Death, Funerary Rituals and Social Structure

suggest that in many societies what is viewed as ‘female’ sexuality is symbolically represented in opposition to ‘legitimate’, male mediated, fertility.

ritual (1969) by indicating to archaeologists the range of funerary practice possible. He was able to demonstrate that there was no direct correlation between the presence of a recognisable burial ritual and the explicit belief in the afterlife (Ucko 1969: 264-5). Ucko was also able to demonstrate that there was no necessary link between a large tomb and an aristocratic or royal lineage being interred within it (Ucko 1969: 267-9).

Maurice Bloch’s studies of the Merina people of Madagascar have, in particular, made a great contribution to contemporary understandings of funerary ritual. The Merina still have a megalithic double burial tradition, where bodies are temporarily buried in one location before being moved to the tomb of their ancestors. In subsequent years the dead are removed from the tomb, danced with, redressed and replaced, and in so doing gradually atomising the fragile human remains until they fall apart, becoming one with the anonymous ancestors. He notes the misogynistic elements of this ritual, how the Merina men symbolically force the women of child bearing age to dance with and dress the corpses, while men, and a few older women, officiate. This he casts within the light of Merina concepts regarding the ‘dangerous’ energy of female fertility which must be constrained by the cold, agricultural, male fertility of the ancestors. Bloch makes another suggestion which is of importance to archaeologists, he in effect stands the functionalist view of death on its head and suggests that rather than death being a threat or insult to the organic whole of the society it is death, and the rituals surrounding death, which create, and recreate, the concept of the organic whole of the society (Bloch and Parry 1982: 218). This is an idea which archaeologists have been proposing since Childe (1945) suggested that it was the enormous effort expounded in the construction of the pyramids which made a viable state out of the unstable conquest of Lower by Upper Egypt.

By looking at the tendency of some Australian peoples to leave bodies exposed, with little or no burial ritual, he challenged the common archaeological assumption, then made, that most or all of the individuals in a community must receive some sort of formal burial, a view which explained gaps in the funerary record by suggesting archaeology simply had not yet identified them (Ucko 1969: 270). Ucko suggested that the most important lesson to be learnt from ethnographic accounts of burial ritual was that in many societies there was no sole burial ritual, rather, that within a single society there may be a wide diversity of burial type, corresponding to the status of the deceased individual (Ucko 1969: 270). He sketched out some of the possibilities suggesting form of grave, location of grave, position and treatment of the body as ways in which the burial might reflect status in life. Saxe (1970) consciously set out to construct a body of theory which would relate burial practice to the organisation and structure of society. He devised a number of hypotheses which, he suggested, may help link the two. The most important of these are: 1.

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Archaeological approaches to the study of death and funerary ritual

2.

It would be a mistake to think of archaeological thought regarding death and funerary rituals prior to the 1960s as purely atheoretical. As noted above, from at least as early as 1945 Gordon Childe was speculating, in a way presaging Bloch, that funerary ritual was creating society, rather than the converse. In the same paper he denied that there was any necessary link between the wealth of deposits in graves and the general wealth of society citing Ireland and Britain in the Bronze Age as his example (Childe 1945). However during the ‘New Archaeology’ of the 1960s, what became known as processual archaeology, archaeologists became aware that their theorising about burial practice had been carried out, in large measure, in isolation from ethnography.

3. 4.

5.

Nature of funerary attributes may represent the social persona of the deceased (Saxe’s hypothesis 1). The structure of the society is related to the number and types of the social personae within that society (Saxe’s hypothesis 2). Social status is directly correlated with the number of features and attributes of the burial (Saxe’s hypothesis 3). The more redundancy of the components of the mortuary ritual (e.g. differential treatment between otherwise similar individuals), the more complex and less egalitarian (more ranked) the society (Saxe’s Hypothesis 5). Formal cemeteries are maintained by kin based descent groups who use the authority of the ancestors to control land, resources etc. (Saxe’s hypothesis 8).

As important an advance as this was it was not unproblematic. Hypothesis 1 and 3 may very well be correct in many cases, but if the attributes of the burial are difficult to detect archaeologically, such as very perishable grave goods, or a funeral feast carried out at a location removed from the grave site, how

The ‘New Archaeology’ and its contribution to the study of death and funerary ritual Ucko summarised the contribution which ethnography could make to the archaeology of death and funerary 7

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland can the archaeologists, from physical evidence alone, reconstruct the social status and social persona of the deceased. Nevertheless it gave archaeologists a starting point to work from, imperfect preservation of evidence is, after all, the very nature of archaeology.

A subordinate dimension where energy and symbolism will be ordered mainly according to sex and age, e.g. adult burials will be more complex than those of children. Peebles and Kus suggest that symbolism of rank and power should be absent from these graves and that the energy expenditure for the highest subordinates should be lower than that for the lowest superordinates.

Like Saxe, Binford (1971) made a number of general suggestions linking burial evidence to social structure and organisation.

They went on to suggest that the numbers of individuals in each sub-group within the superordinate dimension should decrease as status increases, what they called the ranking pyramid.

Binford noted that: 1. 2. 3.

4.

Variation in burial practice is linked to the organisation of society (Binford 1971: 223) The social persona of the deceased and the complexity of the social unit are the two biggest contributors to burial practice. The number of different dimensions of the social persona was directly related to the complexity of the society in question. Therefore agriculturalists, for instance, who may hunt, gather and farm, will have more dimensions of their social persona represented in their burial than hunter gatherers, who gather and hunt. The form of mortuary ritual is decided by the type/s of social personae represented. Status he suggested is generally represented by the number of grave goods, sex by the types of grave goods and group membership the location and orientation of the grave.

Critics of the ‘New Archaeology’ and their approach to the study of death and funerary ritual One of the great insights of Maurice Bloch, discussed above, was the realisation that burial ritual is not simply a reflection of the status of the deceased individual within the social structure of a society but is also the generation and perpetuation of the social structure of that society. Therefore funerary rituals can provide an opportunity to mask the inherent inequalities of social organisation, equating the ‘legitimate’ authority with the negation of death and the timeless continuance of the social order (Bloch and Parry 1982: 223-4). This insight inspired a new generation of burial archaeologists to view death rather differently than those working up to this point.

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Tainter (1975) agreed with the sentiments expressed by both Saxe and Binford but described the formal analysis techniques, which both advocated, as unworkable (Tainter 1975: 3). Tainter built upon their work by suggesting that it was the effort, the energy expended in constructing the tomb, making the grave goods, treating the body, which was the indicator of social status of the deceased.

The direct correlation of status with the complexity of burial ritual is denied by Mike Parker Pearson’s analysis of nineteenth and twentieth century burial practice in Cambridge. He found little evidence in the twentieth century, of a strong relationship between the wealth of the deceased, for which he experimented with several measures, and the complexity or the expense of the funeral or funerary monument (Parker Pearson 1982: 102). Parker Pearson noted that this was not always so, and that in the nineteenth century there was a relationship between status and the cost of funeral, however he suggests that the trauma of the First World War, changed attitudes and the competition of families to display status through elaborate burials ceased (Parker Pearson 1982: 109). He states that there are different attitudes to display of wealth in modern Britain (1980s) which relate to attitudes to funerary display, the elite preferring to wield power subtly.

Peebles and Kus (1977) added further to the range of burial analytical techniques with their discussion of chiefdoms and how to identify them from funerary evidence and other archaeological remains. They made a number of assertions, ‘Archaeological Correlates of Chiefdoms’ (Peebles and Kus 1977: 431), and tested them, with apparent success, against an analysis of cemetery and settlement evidence from Moundville, Mississippi. They suggested that in a chiefdom there should be two levels of stratification visible within the funerary remains (Peebles and Kus 1977: 431):

Ian Hodder (1982) also criticised what was becoming known as the Saxe/ Binford hegemony by taking a series of assumptions derived from their work about the significance of cemetery locations (cemetery locations close to settlement means a close relationship between the living and the dead), within cemetery patterning (bounded cemeteries equate to ownership of land / resources by kin based corporate

A superordinate dimension based on energy expenditure and symbolism where all ages and sexes are represented. They suggested that there may, at the very top of this superordinate dimension, be an apical group consisting only of adult males. 8

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Chapter 2 Theoretical Approaches to the study of Death, Funerary Rituals and Social Structure

groups) and within grave artefact patterning (age, sex and status differentiation equates to artefact patterning) and comparing them to an ethnographic case study, that of the Nuba of Sudan. He found that while the first two propositions, that is the proposition of cemeteries close to the settlement being closely linked to the community, and the proposition that well defined cemeteries are indicative of descent group appropriation of resources, were reasonably well supported, he found that changes to Nuba society in recent decades had not been reflected in changes to burial ritual (Hodder 1982: 198), although James Brown (1995) seems to indicate that Hodder fundamentally misunderstood Saxe’s relationship between cemeteries and resource control (see below).

believes that it is those relationships that create the self that are being represented metaphorically by the objects placed in the grave (Brück 2004: 313). Brück admits that this ‘dividual’ concept of the self is still present today even in the contemporary west amongst many people (it could be said that most people, most of the time, utilise a dividual concept of the self). Bruck may, however, be overemphasising the extent to which processual archaeologists use the idealised concept of the Western individual when discussing burial. In fact Brück’s network of relationships defining a dividual self seems to be similar to Binford’s multifaceted social persona (1971). The idea that the grave and its assemblages directly reflect the social persona of the interred individual has been also questioned, explicitly in an Irish and British context by Joanna Brück (2004: 310). She argues that it is impossible to state which grave goods are possessions of the deceased, which might have been added by mourners, or might reflect aspects of general funerary ritual. The points she makes here are valid but in some respects she is, again, over simplifying the processual argument. The salient point is that the grave and the objects, if any, placed within it, are not random, they are chosen to be appropriate to the person being interred, and one major aspect of the ‘being’ of that person is the station, the position, that they held within that society and that is likely, in many cases, to have been reflected in the burial ritual, as will discussed further below when we look at modern processual burial theory.

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Shanks and Tilley (1987) criticised the processual approach to the archaeology of burial ritual as descriptive, lacking in explanatory content and heavily influenced by functionalism in anthropology. The criticism of burial archaeology as descriptive is an odd one in that naming and description are surely first steps in any academic (or more fundamentally any human) endeavor, and are necessary precursors to meaningful explanatory coment. In the 1990s, beginning with Chris Tilley’s landscape study (1994) some archaeologists began to look at archaeological sites, monuments and artefacts from a phenomenological perspective. Denying that there is an objective reality to be discovered, phenomenologists argue instead that personal engagement with reality is how reality is understood (Brück 2005). Consequently Tilley (1994) argued for engagement with landscape directly, on foot, engaging the senses. Thomas (1999), on the other hand, argued for a refined concept of materiality, pertaining especially to artefact studies, where the contrast of subject and object was broken down. The problem of the verifiability of phenomenological theories is a major problem for this school. In the landscape sense it must invite one to make the same journey of discovery into the landscape. As Joanna Brück (2005) points out some archaeologists have employed new technology like laser scans to allow the reader to get closer to the experience of the writer. But for a school built on a critique of Descartes, to consider a 3d model constructed from polar coordinates as a significant advance over a 2d Cartesian map, must seem like a hollow victory, although the irony of this is not lost on Brück (2005).

The new synthesis The post-processualists criticisms were generally valid but they overstated their case. Since the 1980s there has been a return to processual approaches to burial studies tempered by the post-processual critique, or at the very least addressing its main criticisms. O’Shea (1984), attempted to use several intensively studied native American groups, to examine the validity of a number of principles of processual burial analysis. O’Shea wanted to establish if it was possible to: a. b. c.

Brück has taken a phenomenological perspective and directly applied it to burial studies. She states that the contemporary concept of the self, the defined individual with agency, is a modern, western concept and that the line between an individual and the outside world may be drawn differently in different cultures, the identity being defined by interrelationships with others. She

demonstrate that mortuary distinctions reflected actual social distinctions; to observe changes in mortuary ritual through time; see if ethnic distinctions within the native American societies under examination would be reflected in mortuary practice.

O’Shea created an idealised pattern in the burial record for various social practices and compared them to what was actually found when the ethnography of the individual group was examined. At Gallery Pond Mound, 9

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland for example, where the society was differentiated into two moieties O’Shea expected that: 1. 2. 3.

Although the study found that there were other causes of expenditure variability, such as gender, type of death and group affiliation, these tended to be minor and only hierarchical societies produced ostentatious displays of funerary expenditure. Kamp didn’t reject the proposition that, rather than blindly reflecting the status of the deceased, funerals can also be a stage for the living to display their own social status, or aspiration, but he thought that status display was the larger influence on behaviour. The study noted some of the types of societies which didn’t display status in this way and made a number of suggestions. Societies which had been formerly been part of an advanced empire, such as the Kurds, often did not directly display status in funerary expenditure. Kamp (1998) proposed the idea that only societies which are socially competitive, or where burial display has an opportunity to facilitate social competition, are likely to engage in status driven funerary display. Therefore a society may compete over an artefact type whose supply is restricted, but will be unlikely to continue to display in this manner if this artefact type becomes commonplace. She suggested that there may be cyclical fashions in this sort of behaviour. In other words all societies which have significant differences in funerary expenditure will be ranked, but not all hierarchical societies will choose to display their status in this way, at all times. Although not directly stated by Kamp it is clear that diachronic studies would be more likely to see this sort of cyclical process, as societies pass into, and out of, phases where competition is ideologically allowed and expressed.

the mortuary occurrences would be divided into two roughly equally sized groups the demographic composition of each group would reflect the demographic composition of the population as a whole other classes of mortuary distinction could cross-cut the group with horizontal distinctions (such as fraternal organisations, sodalities, as opposed to vertical distinctions: social status, caste, class etc) represented by attributes of approximately equal energy expenditure.

With the Pawnee, Omaha and Arikara native American groups O’Shea had excellent case studies. He found that by comparing expected attributes (correlates) with statistical analysis of actual burial attributes, vertical differentiation, rank, both ascribed and achieved was detected successfully but that distinguishing horizontal differentiation and kinship was more difficult. Interestingly he also observed how ethnographic accounts, by focusing on ‘typical’ practices, underreport variation in burial ritual. Flannery and Marcus (1993) seeing some validity in both sides of the argument called for a new approach, for archaeology as a whole, not just burial studies, one which rejected the ‘dehumanisation of history’ of the processualists, but which still was based on a rigorous, scientific approach. Flannery and Marcus wanted to reintegrate the epiphenomena, the cosmology, ideology, religion and iconography, which processual studies were largely silent on, back into a renewed, rigorous, scientific ‘cognitive archaeology’.

James Brown (1995) went right back to Durkhemian principles, by affirming that there is always a direct relationship between ranking, social complexity and ritual complexity. Brown gave limited credence to the concerns of the, mainly British, post-processualists but suggested that burial customs reflect changes in social, demographic and economic conditions. Brown revisited Saxe Hypothesis No 8, that formal cemeteries are maintained by kin based descent groups who use the authority of the ancestors to control resources. He noted that Hodder’s Nuba based critique (1982: 198), mistakenly assumes that Saxe was implying that formal cemeteries must equate to local residence as well as resource control, and suggested that Bloch’s classic study (1971) of the Merina of Madagascar, show that this is not the case.

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Parker Pearson (1993) at about the same time, was heading in a similar direction, developing his earlier analysis of several hundred years of Iron Age Danish burials, again demonstrating ideological inversion but also seeing, at other junctures, direct relationships between status and grave goods. He looked at the totality of the evidence, burial, settlement and bog depositions. Kamp (1998), attempted to evaluate the SaxeBinford proposition that there is a direct relationship between the status of the individual in life and the archaeologically detectable ‘expenditure’ on the funeral. Kamp used the Human Area Relations Files to examine 54 distinct cultures. The study categorised five levels of energy expenditure and compared it against a number of variables including social status, gender, age, religious group, religious specialist and cause of death. The study concluded that there was a strong link between social status and funerary expenditure, with 67% of societies showing this link.

Brown also criticised small, single cemetery, statistical studies which tried to find groups of like burials and equate them to social groups or hierarchies, stating that such studies need to be much larger, regional in scale, to be successful, because of the statistical nature of the analysis. 10

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Chapter 2 Theoretical Approaches to the study of Death, Funerary Rituals and Social Structure

Brown (1995) was more supportive of the postprocessualist position that there is no direct link between status in life and death, seeing status in death as both a reflection of politics / ideology and role / status in life. Brown prevaricated somewhat in his discussion of which was more important in determining burial ritual.

that a change from collective to individual burial may show the lessening of a hereditary basis for rank, but not necessarily a change from an egalitarian to a hierarchical society as sometimes claimed. He rejects the broad principle proposed by Renfrew (1974) that individual burials are an indicator of chiefdoms noting that ethnographically there are many un-ranked societies with individual burial. Again context and chronology are key, seeing the broad historical context of events.

Wason (1994) in a broad review of ranking in archaeology, discussed the ability of burial archaeology to examine ranking. He concluded that while there there was some merit in the post-processual critique, they had overstated their case. He stated that there is a greater chance of underestimating ranking from burial data rather than the opposite. He states that while there are examples of societies which have an ideology of equality which does sometimes mask display of rank in burials, in most societies there is a direct link between ranking and burial ritual. Wason accepts the Binford and Saxe positions that there is generally a direct relationship between burial treatment and status and rank in life.

Grave Associations as indicators of rank: Wason (1994) notes that ethnographic examples show that large numbers of grave goods are rarely an indicator of rank and does not believe that numbers of artefacts are a useful technique for investigation, often resulting in uninformative counts of different types of not comparable artefacts, or alternatively being swamped by large numbers of commonplace items. He thinks that type of grave good is much more important for analysis of status in burials. He suggests a list of likely distinctions in grave goods which may indicate either status or rank:

Wason was also broadly supportive of Tainter (1975). He found, through a meta-study of ethnographic burial studies, that energy expenditure differentials between the burials of individuals is likely, but not absolutely certain, to reflect status. Wason (1994) emphasised that energy expenditure is a measure without context and may be affected by numerous factors, such as change in overall social complexity or periods of instability. He stated that energy expenditure is useful because it is multidimensional, allows different types of data and different aspects of burial practice to be mixed together in a single analysis. He stated, however, that for this kind of analysis to be successful it must take place within a wider contextual framework, in particular a chronological framework where changes and developments in burial practice can be identified.

• • • •

Mortuary distinctions which crosscut age or sex: Wason (1994) notes that when a mortuary variation is found to be present across both sexes and / or ages then it appears to be a clear indicator of rank. Mortuary distinctions and their relationships with age seems to be useful as an indicator of status or ranking. When children are included in the group which are marked out as high status it is a very strong indication of ascribed status. This has strong cross cultural support from ethnography. Amongst the Tikopia of the Solomon Islands, young children are not typically buried, but still births of chiefs receive full royal burial. The Native American Omaha treated high status male children as high status adult males in their burials.

Wason (1994) went on to outline how several common ‘dimensions of mortuary variability’ can represent status differentials:]

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Differences in types of artefact Differences in workmanship Differences in raw materials Differences in sources of materials, local / nonlocal

Tomb Form: Broadly agreed with Binford’s position that tomb form usually correlates with status, with the largest tombs, the ones with the greatest expenditure, typically reflecting high status. He notes however that where there are two broad tomb types, shared by large sub-sections of the population, a moiety based explanation might be appropriate, with perhaps status still being relevant if one moiety was dominant.

The treatment of the old may potentially be used to identify non-hereditary, achieved, ranking. In ‘big man’ type societies the leadership that the ‘big man’ provides is largely a product of his personal ability. It is an achieved, as opposed to ascribed, position. Consequently the ‘big man’ is likely to loose prestige as he ages. If burial variation appears to suggest that older men are under-represented in high status burials, and men in their prime over-represented then could be an indication of a ‘big man’ type society.

Collective Burial: He notes how general collective burial must be distinguished from mass burials as a result of, for example, warfare. Wason rejects the notion that collective burial does not display status, but suggests that it may display group or lineage status. He suggests

Some interesting work in the past couple of decades has focused on the emotional response to death seen in burial ritual. An interesting suggestion has been made 11

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland by MacDonald (2001), who proposes that the wealth of a grave in addition to reflecting status, or the false consciousness of an ideologically driven inversion of the true social order, may reflect the potential of the person that died. He uses an analysis of graves from the southwest USA to demonstrate that the burials of adolescents, which he defines as being aged 10-20 years, have the most grave goods. This he suggests is a reflection of a feeling of greater loss conditioned by the lost reproductory and labour potentials of the dead youths.

The social evolutionary approach to social structure was criticised as reductionist and a theoretical and idealist fiction by post-modern writers like Shanks and Tilley (1987: 151). They suggested that the term band for instance could be used to reduce all the variability within hunter-gatherer social structure to a single word and also that there were problems with linear views of progress co-opted from Darwinism, which support a ‘normative hierarchy of good and bad’, using modernity as a reference point (Shanks and Tilley 1987: 151). They rejected any usefulness of the social typology of multilinear social evolution believing that these categories had little explanatory use (Shanks and Tilley 1987: 47). Their critique is a weak and selective one however. Shanks and Tilley indulge in oversimplification of social evolutionary concepts, such as their critique of reducing the complexity of thousands of cultures to a single word ‘band’. One might as well say that by calling thousands of early agriculturalists ‘farmers’ you are doing the same. It is the discussion and qualification that is attached to the label which renders it useful or not.

Burial ritual is an arena where emotion can be either displayed or suppressed. Anthropologists have debated the origins of emotional response what is biological and what is cultural (Tarlow 2000: 714-7). Catherine Lutz (1988) has seen emotions as largely separate from biology and socially constructed. Maurice Bloch and Jonathan Parry (1982), in a context of funerary ritual, argue that the emotional response at funerals is, and has been, created by the rituals themselves, they see the ritual as deliberately shaping and controlling the emotions, and the lives, of the participants. The evidence of Murphy (2011) displays how there can be many levels of biological and social construction of emotion in funerary ritual.

Building on multilinear social evolution Earle (1993) observed the tension between categorical types, like band, tribe and chiefdom, and the ethnographic reality of a continuum, sliding from un-ranked, to ranked and stratified societies, which only imperfectly fit the typology of anthropology. However it is the nature of typologies that some simplification must take place (Wason 1994), in fact in drawing any conclusions from a large body of data, some simplification is inevitable. Shanks and Tilley (1987) in addition, make the criticism that multilinear social evolution pre-supposes a hierarchy of bad and good with progress judged in reference to western modernity. The accusation could be laid at the feet of 19th century unilinear social evolutionists, like Lubbock (1865), or to some extent Lewis Henry Morgan (1877), but the multilinear social evolutionists of the mid-20th century onwards were and are totally unburdened by these pseudo-Darwinian assumptions, Shanks and Tilley were setting up a straw man to slay.

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Modern approaches to the study of social structure In the post war years a number of American anthropologists began to look at ways of ordering cultures / societies into convenient categories of increasing social and economic sophistication. Marxist concepts of a direct relationship between the economy and the type of society underlay much of this type of thinking, taking much of the types of thought presented by Childe in ‘Man Makes Himself ’ (1936). Leslie White (1949: 368) proposed a simple equation ‘Energy X Technology = Degree of Cultural Development’. In a similar manner Childe (1951) explicitly linked social evolution with economic production leading to population growth and surplus production which could be controlled and redistributed. Societies it was suggested could be grouped into different kinds, a ‘social typology’ of band, tribe, chiefdom, state (Service 1962), with an evolutionary progression along the continuum. The Band was a small group of closely related individuals with no ranking, which were typical of pre-agricultural societies. Tribes were a product of the advent of farming and were larger and, while egalitarian, had a number of fraternal bodies or sodalities within them. Chiefdoms were ranked, had central places and economic specialisation. This type of thinking, renamed multilinear social evolution, did not accept the racist underpinnings of 19th century unilinear social evolution and had no fixed direction of social progress, it was non deterministic.

Taking inspiration from Earle (1993), a number of writers, such as Ames (2015) and Wason (1994) have begun to place more emphasis on terms which describe the degree of ranking in a society, rather than the perhaps broader, more descriptive, terms, band, tribe and chiefdom. They describe three types of societies with differing degrees of social inequality un-ranked, ranked and stratified societies. The taxa proposed by multilinear social evolutionists are then associated within these broad societal types. Ames (2015) defines what inequality actually is. He notes that difference is natural and that all individuals are different. He defines social inequality as the 12

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Chapter 2 Theoretical Approaches to the study of Death, Funerary Rituals and Social Structure

evaluation of these differences and the consequent action resulting from these evaluations. He notes that there is a considerable body of evidence from anthropology and primate studies that there has never been a human society which did not display some kind of social inequality.

leading to specialisation and trade (Ames 2015). The role of conquest has also been highlighted as a possible cause leading to a ranked society (Ames 2015). Wason (1994) suggests that there are two broad subgroups of ranked societies. Those societies in which ranking is achieved and those in which it is ascribed. Wason gives the example of a ‘big man’ type society as one where ranking exists but where it is achieved, not ascribed. Wason notes how a chief ‘comes to power’ but a Big Man ‘builds power’. He also notes how the post of ‘big man’ is not an office in the strict sense, since many societies which typically have a ‘big man’ can successfully continue without one in the absence of a suitable candidate.

Ames (2015) states that the status flowing from social inequality can manifest itself in two ways, which may or may not occur together. It may manifest itself as prestige, or dominance. Persons of prestige have authority to influence without coercion, those who are dominant without prestige need coercion. Multilinear evolutionary theories are diagrammatically represented in Figure 2.1.

Wason (1994) notes also ranked societies in which there are permanent offices of rank which can be either ascribed or achieved. He notes the Cherokee as an example of a society with permanent offices which have rights and duties which confer status, but which are achieved by candidates of the necessary abilities. Wason, agreeing with Fried (1967), observes how in this type of society there are fewer offices than suitable candidates to fill them, locking some qualified persons outside prestige.

Un-ranked or egalitarian societies In these societies status is a combination of personal qualities. There are typically as many positions of prestige as there are people capable of filing them. Ames (2015) notes how in un-ranked societies there is free access for all to the means of production and subsistence.

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Linking these descriptors of social inequality to the social typology of multilinear social evolution, Wason (1994) notes how Service’s (1962) bands and tribes are examples of un-ranked societies.

There are probably examples of that most controversial concept, the chiefdom, in both ranked and stratified societies. The chief is an office which must be filled but where, unlike in the case of the Cherokee noted above, the post is ascribed rather than achieved with accession to the office of chief based, at least in part, on kinship. The breadth of the chiefdom type of society is emphasised by Wason (1994), from the conical clan, where each individual is ranked by their distance from the founder’s line, to more stratified versions of chiefdom societies, where elite lines are thought of as being qualitatively distinct, more fit to rule than other lines.

The band is a group made up of several families, typically numbering no more than about 100 persons. Marriage tends to be exogamous (meaning that they marry outside the band) and virilocal (the wife resides with the husband’s band). Usually several bands will identify themselves as a larger group, or society. The tribe, he notes, is a much larger group which contain institutions within it to create a larger group identity. These institutions, called sodalities, include age sets, clans, medicine societies, secret societies, warfare societies. There may be a belief in a common ancestry for the tribe but the genealogy of one line (or group of lines) is not considered predominant over others. Fried (1967) also notes that these societies typically have as many vacant positions of prestige as there are suitable candidates, that there is relatively little division of labour that is not sex based, and also that there is little emphasis on property boundaries or private property.

Wason (1994) notes certain things which typically accompany ranked chiefdoms. The office of chief, based on kinship (at least partly), is typically bolstered by ideology, often with an appeal to the past, invoking the symbolic capital of earlier periods through a reuse of ancient monuments. Chiefdoms often involve some element of redistribution. Payments are taken from the subjects to ensure the maintenance of the chiefdom, community services and emergency stores of food or other resources, although the idea that Chiefdoms are solely or mainly about redistribution (Service 1962) has largely been rejected (Wason 1994: 53).

Ranked societies Numerous reasons have been proposed for the change from un-ranked to ranked societies, although there is no consensus. Of those writers who look for causes of ranking a number of factors seem prominent. Sedentism seems to be an important precondition for the ‘emergence’ of ranking, as are regional differences in land quality, population growth, and the existence of a surplus

Many ranked chiefdoms display two types of economy, a subsistence economy and a political one, with 13

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland considerable chiefly involvement in the political economy. Chiefs have the capacity to organise much larger labour forces than smaller family scale societies, and they have the wealth from gathered tribute to spend on public works, displays of power, or crafts.

Chiefdoms do not, typically, indulge in wars of conquest, warfare is usually about prestige. In other matters of external relations competition can be positive, encouraging competition in the manner of peer polity interaction. External relations with other chiefdoms may encourage international fashions amongst the chiefs and close kin and also the competitive exchange of items (Wason 1994).

Earle (1993: 6) suggests a list of ten sets of actions which emergent chiefdoms are likely to have taken to establish their power and position, some are more appropriate to what are known as group orientated chiefdoms (Renfrew 1974), who typically focus on collective public works (such as potentially the late Neolithic chiefdoms of Ireland and Britain), whereas four are appropriate to individualising chiefdoms which focus on demonstrating wealth by status adornment, special houses or burial.

Stratified societies One aspect of the broad chiefdom type of society, noted above, is that it does not neatly fit into either the ranked or stratified classes, rather it straddles both. Wason (1994) follows Fried (1967) in defining a stratified society as one in which the elite of the society controls both the subsistence economy (the means of sustaining life- such as farm land) and political economy (the means of displaying wealth and prestige- such as fine metalwork), exploiting the subsistence economy for their its own benefit. Fried (1967) believes that this, in effect, means control of fixed resources, like land and raw materials. Because there is likely to be resistance to this economic control successful stratified societies develop means of physical coercion to buttress their power. This is how Fried sees the emergence of the state, from a stratified chiefdom.

Earle’s four actions of emergent individualising chiefdoms are: a. b.

c. d.

Seizing control of existing principles of legitimacy Creating or appropriating new principles of legitimacy, especially through ties to an outside ideology or the adoption of an ‘international style’ Seizing control of internal wealth production and distribution Seizing control of external wealth procurement

Although he does not focus as much on ranked versus stratified chiefdoms as Wason (1994), Earle (1997) explicitly argues for four types of power being exploited by successful chiefdoms:

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Despite the ascribed nature of their office not all chiefs are very much richer than other members of their society. If the chief is the steward of the collective lands of the chiefdom, as opposed to their owner, he is likely to find that his ability to monopolise large amounts of the societies resources for himself, is very proscribed (Wason 1994).

• Social power, ties of kinship, such as descent from a shared famous or divine ancestor.

Figure 2.1 Diagrammatic summary of the interrelationships of degree of ranking, access to the economic base and social evolutionary typology.

14

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Chapter 2 Theoretical Approaches to the study of Death, Funerary Rituals and Social Structure

• Economic power, the ability to control the supply of certain types of goods, such as the regulation of prestige goods. • Military power, no-one submits willingly even when buttressed by ideology, physical coercion is a necessary tool of authority. • Ideological power, this depicts the established social order as natural, unchangeable.

• Tainter’s (1975) correlation of energy expenditure with social position is accepted as a principle for examining burials. • Peebles and Kus (1977) model of what should be expected in the burial rituals of a ranked society /chiefdom are also broadly accepted: a subordinate class ordered by age and sex with an absence of status indicators, a superordinate class with status indicators cross-cutting ages and sexes and an apical class consisting of only adult males. • Wason’s expansion of the positions of Tainter (1975) and Peebles and Kus (1977) where he suggests a number of fruitful areas for looking for indications of ranking in burials: tomb form, collective versus individual burial in context, inferences based on type of grave goods, mortuary distinctions which cross-cut age and sex and spatial patterning cross-cutting other variables.

Ultimately Earle believes that economic power, control of the means of production, creates chiefdoms and that without the power that comes from controlling the economy, and logistically organising people, the other re-distributive and coercive aspects of chiefdoms are not possible. He explicitly rejects the managerial theory of chiefdom formation, in which chiefdoms are a re-distributive adaptation to more populous societies resulting from settled agriculture (Service 1962). Conclusions For the purposes of this study the processual approach, especially the work of Tainter (1975), Peebles and Kus (1977) and Wason (1994) will be drawn upon to inform the interpretation of burial ritual within the framework of social structure. This social structural framework is derived from the schemes of the post-war social evolutionists augmented by the realisation of Earle (1993), Wason (1994) and Ames (2015), that social structure can be investigated by looking at increasing degrees of ranking, as well as by an, arguably less elegant, typology of societies. By looking at the Irish Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age synchronically and diachronically problems like ideological inversion leading to a change in the way status is displayed in burial, can be identified and taken into account. Taking from several theorists a set of general principles of funerary analysis of social structure can be summarised.

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Summary of general principles • It is possible to use burial to examine the structure of ancient societies (Binford 1971, Hypothesis No. 1) • There is a probable relationship between burial and the position of an individual within society (Saxe 1970, hypothesis No. 1). • There is a relationship between ritual complexity (including burial ritual) and social complexity (Durkheim 1915, Saxe 1970, Hypothesis 2 and 3, Binford 1971, Hypothesis 3 and 4). • Social complexity can be measured in one of two ways, either the degree of ranking and stratification (Fried 1967, Earle 1993, Ames 2015 and Wason 1994) or social typology(Service 1962). 15

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Chapter 3 Ireland in the Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age The idea of a Chalcolithic or Copper Age in an Irish or British context initially gained some early acceptance in Ireland. In the 1930s Ó Ríordáin in his examination of the Irish Halberd proposed a Copper Age in Ireland (1937). Later Christopher Hawkes, in his, near mythical, unpublished 1960 lecture, proposed a two stage Copper Age in Britain, preceding the Early Bronze Age. Following on Burgess’ attempt to reorient prehistoric archaeology away from the Three Age system, and building upon Hawkes (1960), Needham (1996) identified a two phase Copper Age, coterminous with Burgess’ Mount Pleasant period, stretching from 2500 to 2050BC. He called this the Metal Using Neolithic.

Introduction The chapter is split into two broad sections. The first part is a summary of the archaeology of the Irish Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age. The section begins with an overview of the environment and environmental change during the period followed by a summary of settlement and ritual in the Late Neolithic period in Ireland with a discussion of the non funerary ritual and settlement archaeology of Ireland in the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age. Megalithic burial rituals, wedge tombs of the Chalcolithic period, and the continuing use of these monuments into the Early Bronze Age is addressed. Metallurgy through the era is then discussed before an overview is presented of the changes that occurred in Ireland in the transition from the Chalcolithic to the full Early Bronze Age.

In Ireland, since Ó Ríordáin in 1937, the there has been less focus on a specific Copper Age. At approximately the same time as Needham (1996) was making a case for a Copper Age, Anna Brindley was discussing an ‘Introductory Phase’ to the Irish Early Bronze Age, in which ‘all of the main characteristics of the Irish Bronze Age became established’ (1995: 5), commencing as early as 2350BC and continuing until 2000/1950BC. These views were repeated by O’Brien (2001: 563) who contrasted Brindley’s usage of the ‘Introductory Phase’ with the term Chalcolithic, noting the acceptance of the former in Ireland. In many respects however, despite the seeming juxtaposition, they both accepted that there was something essentially different about the period sandwiched between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age, a period which saw major technological change, the appearance of beaker pottery, and changing and developing ritual and burial practices. It is not, therefore, surprising that in the past few years the Chalcolithic seems to have found itself a more permanent niche in both Irish and British prehistory. Sheridan (2008) has been using the term ‘Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age’ to cover the period 2500 to 1500BC in Britain. In Ireland Billy O’Brien has begun to distinguish a distinct ‘Chalcolithic Horizon’, commencing about 2400BC and continuing until 2200/2100BC (O’Brien 2011). In 2012, drawing these threads of agreement closer together, the Prehistoric Society Research Paper Vol. 4 ‘Is their a British Chalcolithic’ (Allen et al. 2012), lead by Needham’s (2012) presentation of the case for a British Chalcolithic, seems to have moved the argument closer to a consensus, with most, although not all, authors accepting its utility in a British and Irish context. Billy O’Brien (2012), in the same volume, proposes that the Irish Chalcolithic is split into three sub-divisions, an Early, Middle and Late Chalcolithic. The first, the Early Chalcolithic (O’Brien 2021: 215), 2500-2400BC, was the era of the initial introduction or

The second section of this chapter is a review of the work carried out to date on the Irish single burial tradition looking at the work of early antiquarians and archaeologists, followed by an examination of the detailed accounts and catalogs of the ritual and ceramics from the single burial tradition made in the latter half of the twentieth century. Relevant aspects of the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age of Britain are then briefly summarised, focusing on the chronology of the era in Britain and the interaction of beaker burial traditions in Britain with the single burial tradition in Ireland.

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The archaeology of the Irish Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age In recent years there has been an increasing focus on the term Chalcolithic in Irish and British prehistory. The term has been used for many decades to describe the copper using era in mainland Europe, but it has only been patchily used in Irish and British studies. Many archaeologists have used instead the term Early Bronze Age to cover the entirety of the copper using and early tin- bronze using phases of Irish and British prehistory (O’Brien 2000, Waddell 2010). This has perhaps been less than satisfactory. Some have tried to avoid using either term focusing instead on periods of cultural change or chronology. Colin Burgess consciously eschewed the use of technological eras as a means of subdividing Irish and British prehistory (1980), preferring site type names as a label for defining more nuanced and meaningful chronological divisions. By the 1990s Humphrey Case (1995) was also avoiding ‘Three Age’ terminology, instead referring to absolute chronology. 16

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Chapter 3 Ireland in the Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age

adoption of metallurgy in Ireland. The second, Middle Chalcolithic (O’Brien 2012: 218-9), 2400-2160BC, was when gold working first appeared, agriculture and population seem to have begun to recover from their Late Neolithic lull, and important ritual monuments, like the pit circle at Newgrange were constructed. The final phase of the Chalcolithic, the Late Chalcolithic (O’Brien 2012: 220), O’Brien proposed was the era when new single burial practices emerged in Ireland and tin Bronze appeared.

2100BC (Turney et al. 2006). In general, however, the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age seems to have been an era of cooler and wetter conditions favouring the growth of peat and blanket bog (Mitchell and Ryan 1997: 207). It is not certain to what extent anthropogenic activity, in the form of farming, played a part in the expansion of blanket bog. O’Connell (1990a) has noted how overfarming may produce soil exhaustion and the formation of impervious iron pan layers in a similar manner to the podsolization and iron pan formation that encourages the growth of blanket bog in a wet environment. There are some indications of agricultural expansion in the Early Bronze Age. The Neolithic period had commenced with a rapid increase in agricultural activity with abundant evidence for farming (Whitehouse et al. 2013), but the level of agricultural activity declined in the Middle Neolithic. Evidence suggests an increasingly open landscape at the transition of the Neolithic to the Chalcolithic. In the Aran Islands, at Inis Oírr, pollen from An Loch Mór shows a decline in trees and shrubs and a high level of micro charcoal and is interpreted as clearance for pastoral farming (Malloy and O’Connell 2004). An open landscape is also suggested for the Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age environment around Ballynahatty, Co. Down (Plunkett et al. 2008), with production of cereal crops suggested. Frank Mitchell’s work at Littleton Bog, Co. Tipperary, (Mitchell and Ryan1997) suggests also an intensification of agriculture sometime in the Early or Middle Bronze Age, but without supporting radiocarbon dates it is impossible to refine this further. In her study of the Middle to Late Bronze Age environment of Ireland Gill Plunkett (2008) has noted evidence for a Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age open landscape and moderate levels of human activity, at Owenduff, Co. Mayo, followed by apparent abandonment of the area and reforestation. At Carnaglough, also in Co. Mayo, Michael O’Connell (1990), in a palaeoecological study of a prehistoric field system, found evidence of Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age cereal production and weeds associated with cereal production. In Co. Clare Jones et al. (2011) noted an expansion of agricultural activity, visible through the proliferation of small fields and farmsteads in the Burren, possibly exploiting marginal lands, during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age.

Dissenting opinions have been expressed, also in Prehistoric Society Research Paper No. 4, by Neil Carlin and Joanna Brück (2012), who emphasise what they see as continuity from the Late Neolithic through to the Early Bronze Age. However they do not set clear criteria demonstrating what constitutes continuity, or discontinuity. They believe that the emergence of hierarchy, which they take as the reason for the acceptance of the term Chalcolithic in Europe and Britain, is absent from the Irish archaeological record and consequently see the renaming of the era as inappropriate. In this study the appropriateness of the Chalcolithic as a useful chronological division is accepted in its tripartite form proposed by Billy O’Brien (2012). As noted below in Chapter 5 the first phase, here called Phase A, of the single burial tradition, is broadly co-terminus with O’Brien’s Late Chalcolithic (O’Brien 2012: 220). The Late Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age environment

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There is less known about the environment of the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age than the periods immediately prior to it. There has been a tendency to view this era as climatically and agriculturally a continuation of the proceeding Late Neolithic, with perhaps some climactic deterioration. There is real evidence for change, however, although some of the evidence is contradictory. In the mid-third millennium BC there is the evidence for environmental variability. Studies of bog surface wetness, using peat-based proxies, have identified increasingly wet conditions after about 2400BC (Plunkett et al. 2013). This is quite close to the period of restricted growth at 2345BC noted by Baillie and Munro (1988) which could indicate a significant event associated with deterioration of the climate. Baillie and MacAneney (2015) have also suggested that the 2345BC event may have been the trigger for a number of events causing considerable climactic variability in the northern hemisphere from 2200 to about 1900BC. There is also some evidence that the climate in Ireland became somewhat dryer, at least for a time, with a peak in tree populations around the edges of bogs, an indicator of dry conditions, noted about

Looking at this evidence collectively it seems as if Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland presents a changing and diverse environment. There is some evidence of wetter conditions at the start of the Chalcolithic, compared to the preceding Neolithic, with fluctuating wet and dry periods after this. There is continuing agriculture in the Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age although neither pastoral nor arable agriculture is dominant, and there are hints of agricultural expansion at various times during the era. 17

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland record. It is the period when beaker pottery is first found in Ireland, it is the era when the first metallurgist began to produce copper and gold objects and it is also when wedge tombs are constructed and first used in Ireland.

Ireland at the cusp of the Chalcolithic Ireland in the second quarter of the third millennium BC was a society of communities in contact with each other, and with communities in northern and western Britain (Sheridan 2004: 32-33). The material culture of this era is typified by grooved ware, a ceramic style which had spread early in the third millennium from Orkney, and also by distinctive forms of flint, such as the discoidal knife (Sheridan 2004: 27). Shared ritual structures include timber circles, mainly dating from about 2600 to 2450BC (Sheridan 2004 and ó Drisceoil 2009), often found with grooved ware. There is limited settlement evidence in Ireland with circular post built houses, some with square set arrangements of four central posts, reminiscent of timber circles, found. Examples having been excavated at Slieve Beragh, Co. Meath (DePaor and ó h-Eochaidhe 1956), Scart, Co. Kilkenny (Laidlaw and Monteith 2008), Balgatheran, Co. Louth (Ó Drisceoil 2009) and at Armalughey, and Annaghilla, Co. Tyrone (Dunlop and Barkley 2016). A timber circle was also found, along with grooved ware pottery, at Armalughey (Dunlop and Barkley 2016) in close proximity to the house. A series of radiocarbon dates from these structures have shown them to date to the second quarter of the third millennium BC.

Beaker pottery in Ireland Space does not permit a full examination of beaker pottery in Ireland but there are some important points to be made about this type of pottery in Ireland and her near neighbours. Firstly Irish beaker pottery exhibits elements apparently derived from both Atlantic beakers, and from north British and northwest European beakers (Case 1995: 20). Case has suggested (1993) that early continental vessels, arriving via Britain, are followed by vessels which blend Atlantic with north British and northwest European styles, with a late group continuing to be used into the ‘Food Vessel era’. The Idea of beakers arriving in Ireland solely via Britain, through Wessex, has been gradually challenged by writers who place greater emphasis on the Atlantic (Case 1995, Fitzpatrick 2015). Needham (2005) still sees a ‘fusion’ of styles as happening in the Poitou-Lower Rhine area and then spreading to Britain. In terms of its usage beaker pottery has been found in ritual and, apparently, domestic settings in Ireland, but it has not been found accompanying single inhumation burials in the manner it commonly does in Britain and northwest Europe, although it has been found in megalithic tombs which is discussed further below. Although a few possible examples of beaker like burials are cited by Cleary (2016), such as the apparent inversion of a beaker pot over a cremation burial from Teebaum, Co. Galway, none are entirely satisfactory examples of the British / northwest European beaker burial. An example from Mel Co. Louth (McQuade 2005) has been cited as a beaker burial without a beaker, a phenomenon known in Britain amongst Needham’s Period 2 (see Chapter 3: Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Metalwork), based on a solidly Chalcolithic radiocarbon date (Carlin and Brück 2012) from the remains. Despite this, the Mel burial is a single case from which it is difficult to make a convincing wider argument.

A number of writers have noted, as with grooved ware, the similarity of these pit and post structures to structures in southern Britain including Sheridan (2004: 29) and Gibson and Simpson (1998: 34) who compares the pit circles at Newgrange and Durrington Walls.

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Contact across the Irish sea at this time may also be suggested by the embanked enclosures, like the Giant’s Ring, Co. Down. These bear a resemblance to British henge monuments (Burgess 1980: 327). Limited excavation has been carried out at these monuments, but what evidence there is suggests that they are from the grooved ware using Late Neolithic (Carlin and Brück 2012). There is a small amount of burial evidence known from the Irish Late Neolithic. At the embanked enclosure at Monknewtown, Co. Meath (Sweetman 1976) the cremated remains of a young child were found in a Carrowkeel ware pot. Cremations associated with Carrowkeel ware, within cists have also been found at Ballynahatty (Hartwell 1998), apparently predating the timber circle there (Sheridan 2004: 29). Cremation burials within grooved ware pots, placed within pits, have been found in recent years at Lyrath, Co. Kilkenny (Carlin and Brück 2012: 196), possibly echoing Carrowkeel traditions.

Beaker pottery has been found in eleven of the 40 excavated wedge tombs in Ireland. In nine cases the beaker pottery has been found in close association with human remains (Cleary 2016: 151). More than a third of excavations at court tombs have also uncovered beaker pottery, in most of these cases however the beaker pottery deposited has not been accompanied by any human remains. Beaker pottery has also been found in Scotland inserted into Neolithic tombs (Wilkin 2016). Here the types and varieties of beaker pottery suggest this is a practice which continues into the Early Bronze Age proper. He suggests that it is

Into the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Chalcolithic Ireland is an era which sees a number of important innovations in the Irish archaeological 18

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Chapter 3 Ireland in the Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age

evidence of an Irish-Scots cultural milieu at this time. Carlin has contrasted the insertions of beakers in close association with human remains at wedge tombs with the insertion of broken domestic beaker vessels, not in direct association with human remains in court tombs (Carlin 2018)

at Bawnfune, Co Waterford, was dated to the boundary of the Early and Middle Bronze Age (Eogan and SheeTwohig 2011: 48-9). Two later Early /Middle Bronze Age houses were uncovered at Downpatrick (Pollock, Waterman and Preston 1964). The smaller house (House A) was 3.9m in diameter, with a central hearth, the larger house (House B) was approximately 6m in diameter. Cordoned urn sherds were found with House A and B. A number of radiocarbon dates were obtained from House B. Two dates were obtained from the occupation horizon with the pot and a contemporary feature. They together had a calibrated range of 1886 to 1326BC (1689 to 1459 at 68.2%).

Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age settlement There are relatively few examples of Chalcolithic or Early Bronze Age houses, or settlement sites in Ireland. Possible Chalcolithic settlement, in the form of a small oval house, has been found in the interior of the Late Neolithic embanked enclosure at Monknewtown, Co. Meath (Sweetman 1976). beaker pottery and coarse pottery was found in the occupation material associated with the house. Pits and hearths associated with beaker pottery were found outside the passage tomb at Newgrange, Co. Meath (O’Kelly et al. 1983), and have been interpreted as the remains of a number of huts / houses of the beaker era, although Carlin and Brück (2012: 200) would see this as evidence of continuing ritual activity. In the Burren, Co. Clare, Carleton Jones (1998) discovered a number of prehistoric and Early Medieval settlement sites within the complex dry-stone field systems of Roughan Hill. One habitation structure, Settlement 1, produced a large amount of beaker pottery, while a second nearby structure, Settlement 2, produced sherds of Early Bronze Age vases. Recent rescue excavations have uncovered evidence for a beaker hut at Graigueshoneen, Co. Waterford (Johnson et al. 2008), and also at Ballydullaghan, Co. Derry / Londonderry (Sloan 2012) where excavations revealed a sub-rectangular double post-built structure with some possible grooved ware and a smaller oval post-built structure, with a nearby pit containing fragments of multiple beaker vessels.

It has been suggested that Early Bronze Age settlement may have been concentrated in upland locations (Cooney and Grogan 1994: 104), with a conjecture that as the Bronze Age progressed and climactic conditions may have deteriorated in the later Bronze Age, settlement moved into lower locations (Cooney and Grogan 1994: 100). The excavated evidence from the upland Roughan Hill, and Knockdhu with associated Chalcolithic dates perhaps adds support to this suggestion. This may explain why little Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age settlement has, as yet, been discovered during infrastructural renewal and development projects which generally occur in lowland environments. Non-funerary rituals of the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age in Ireland Community rituals of the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Ages, not associated with burial, are rather difficult to pin down. The ceremonial henge structures of the Late Neolithic, which, in some areas at least, continued to have been built well into the Early Bronze Age (Brophy and Noble 2012), seem to have graded into the stone circles, and are found all over Ireland and Britain, but with concentrations in west Ulster and Munster (Waddell 2010). These monuments are not particularly well dated, but that at least some were utilised in the Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age seems to be demonstrated by presence of single burial tradition burials within some stone circles. At Castlemahon, Co. Down (Collins 1956), for example, the cremated remains of a child and a flint plano-convex knife were discovered within a cist in the interior of the circle.

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At Knockdhu promontory fort, survey has revealed dozens of roundhouses within the embankments. Five have been excavated (Macdonald 2016), four had late bronze age dates but one, a roundhouse with central hearth, was Chalcolithic, a series of dates producing a calibrated range of 2459 to 2201BC. During excavations in advance of road development, evidence of Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age settlement was found at Cloughabready, Co. Tipperary (McQuade et al. 2009: 30), where a hearth and pits were found containing fragments of bipartite vases. A radiocarbon sample from the site produced a calibrated range of 2289 to 2041 BC. At Dogstown, Co. Tipperary (McQuade et al. 2009: 32), a round house with a diameter of about 6m was found with fragments of a tripartite vase. A radiocarbon date produced a calibrated range of 20221774BC. A hearth with fragments of a vase urn was found at Butlerstown, Co. Waterford (Eogan et al. 2011: 52) and a small round structure with a diameter of 5m

Stone circles in Ireland seem to exist in two broad regions with slightly different expressions of form. In Munster there are 93 stone circles. All of the sites have an odd number of stones – five to nineteen stones. Each stone circle has a recumbent stone located opposite the entrance, which is usually defined by two portal stones. (ó Nualláin 1984: 3). These stone circles are very similar to the recumbent stone circles of northeast Scotland. In Scotland the finding of AOC beakers in recumbent stone circles has suggested a Chalcolithic 19

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland origin for them (Burl 1970), with a limited amount of radiocarbon dating in broad agreement (Ruggles and Burl 1985), and on form alone the Munster circles could be considered contemporary. Unfortunately the dating of Munster recumbent stone circles is not so clear. It has been suggested by both ó Nualláin (1984) and more recently by (O’Brien 2004), that these stone circles are likely to be of Middle or Late Bronze Age date.

the dominant trapezoidal shape, when viewed both in section and plan (Figure 3.1). Wedge tombs consist of a covered passage contained within a well-defined cairn. The bulk of these tombs are found in western parts of Ireland with concentrations in Munster, especially west Cork, Clare, Galway, Mayo and Sligo with a significant number running southwest to northeast through Ulster. Across the whole of the country about 560 of these tombs have been identified (Cleary 2016: 151). The basic funerary ritual consists of the communal interment of unburnt and cremated individuals. While these burials are not individually accompanied by ceramic vessels, beaker pottery is commonly found in these tombs. Simple bowls are also sometimes found in these tombs.

The west Ulster stone circle cluster is somewhat different to the Munster cluster. Davies (1939) notes several characteristics of the Ulster stone circles, including the small size of the stones, which are sometimes only a few tens of centimeters high, and their tendency to be clustered in groups. He suggested three main classes of stone circle – single, double and concentric – and observed that some groups are associated with external alignments and stone rows, such as the spectacular groups of stone circles at Beaghmore (May and Mitchell 1953) and the more recently discovered Copney, both of which are located in Co. Tyrone (Foley and MacDonagh 1998).

Brindley and Lanting (1992), from an assessment of radiocarbon dates obtained from a selection of samples of inhumation burials from several wedge tombs in Munster, concluded that they were constructed between about 2500BC and 2100BC. This has been reinforced by a programme of radiocarbon dating of cremated human remains from Largantea wedge tomb, Co. Derry / Londonderry undertaken by Schulting and colleagues (2008), although their work focuses on only one site. Only a very small proportion of Ireland’s wedge tombs have been dated, nevertheless it seems likely, given the geographic spread of these dated examples, and the

Megalithic burial rituals of the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age in Ireland

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Chalcolithic Ireland saw the emergence of a new type of megalithic tomb, the wedge tomb, so called because of

Figure 3.1 Cloghnagalla, Co. Derry / Londonderry wedge tomb after Herring (1940).

20

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Chapter 3 Ireland in the Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age

dating of both burnt and unburnt remains, that wedge tombs are constructed from about the beginning of the Chalcolithic in Ireland. Use of wedge tombs continues throughout the Early Bronze Age (Brindley and Lanting 1992), but the later dates are typically reuse, single burials inserted into a pre-existing tomb.

pre-existing megalithic tombs (Gibson 2013: 77). In the Tagus valley in Portugal niches were utilised or added to pre-existing tombs to receive burials of individuals accompanied with beakers, a practice which Cleary has, not entirely convincingly, suggested may occur at some Irish wedge tombs (Cleary 2016: 154-6).

Wedge tombs are frequently located on, or close, to what is today regarded as good agricultural land (De Valera and Ó Nualláin 1961). It has been suggested that many wedge tombs, in the Cork/ Kerry region, have been constructed close to areas of copper working (O’Brien 2000: 170), although not the copper mine at Ross Island, which is about 12km from the nearest wedge tombs. The small copper working beds found in association with these wedge tombs are comparable with the later Mount Gabriel mines in Cork, rather than the earlier Ross Island type, and, although situated close to wedge tombs, may post date their construction, if not their entire period of actual use.

Wedge tombs do seem to be novel. If they had been simply a reinvention of a megalithic tradition they would have emulated an existing Irish type of tomb, possibly in a simplified manner, perhaps with wide variation in detail as differing groups reinvented megalithic traditions in their own way. The broad uniformity in form and the practices of wedge tombs suggest a pre-existing prototype and an introduction to Ireland from outside. The best candidate region for this is Atlantic Europe, not only Brittany but north and west Iberia also. The concentration of these tombs, in copper rich parts of Ireland closest to the Atlantic, may not be the product of chance, although the exact mechanism of the spread of these tombs, and the ideas, artefacts and technologies of the Chalcolithic accompanying them, is uncertain. Carlin (2018) sees lots of micro-interactions on an everyday basis between the inhabitants of Ireland and its neighbours as the likely route for the spread of beaker pottery and metalworking. A similar suggestion of trade, travel and marriage could perhaps explain the spread of a new wave of megalithic tomb building to Ireland, although the purposeful movement of groups of people, possibly attracted by the presence of copper in Munster, is possible also.

Wedge tombs are significantly later than other Irish megalithic tombs which Carlin and Brück (2012: 197) see as demonstrating that they are not an example of megalithic continuity but megalithic reinvention, although more generally they see considerable continuity in Ireland from the Late Neolithic through to the Early Bronze Age. Billy O’Brien has suggested several alternative social functions for wedge tombs, seeing them as indicators of a segementary society, grouped into wider confederacies (O’Brien 2000: 170), possibly signifying an attempt to reference the past to shore up a social order threatened by new developments (O’Brien 2012: 217), or alternatively the restricted nature of burial in wedge tombs as indicating new ruling lineages led by powerful individuals (O’Brien 2012: 217).

Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age metallurgy in Ireland The earliest evidence for metallurgy in Ireland or Britain comes from Ross Island, Co. Cork, which has been dated to approximately 2400BC (O’Brien 2004). The overwhelming majority of the copper used in Ireland during the Chalcolithic is of Ross Island metal (O’Brien 2001: 564) and the majority of copper objects of the same era from Britain also seem to be made from this ore (Northover et al 2001). The earliest metallurgy seems to arrive in Ireland as a fully fledged fahlore smelting technology which seems to indicate that, rather than copper technology being independently invented, or imperfectly copied by local metalworkers, at least a small group of specialists must have come to Ireland between 2500 and 2400BC (O’Brien 2012: 218). Ore of this type seems to have been used in Ireland and Britain well into the Early Bronze Age proper, with Kilallah type axes, in Ireland (O’Brien 2001: 571) and Migdale type axes, from eastern Scotland, also using this type of metal (Needham 2004). O’Brien has suggested that ‘strong leadership structures’ developed in Munster as a result of the exploitation of copper (2012: 223). Copper extraction seems to have continued at Ross Island until around or just after 2000BC (Bray and Pollard 2012).

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Wedge tombs and Atlantic Europe An aspect of wedge tombs and their relationships with beaker pottery, which has been discussed by several writers, is their possible relationship to Atlantic Europe. The suggestion was first made by De Valera and Ó Nualláin (1961) that wedge tombs were an Irish variant of the, at least superficially similar, alées couvertes of Brittany. Their argument was that the first metallurgists in Ireland, coming from Brittany to copper rich Munster, brought this tomb tradition. The similarity of the types of beaker deposition in the Breton tombs to that found in wedge tombs supported their thesis. Radiocarbon dating of alées couvertes suggests, however, that they are older than the beaker depositions within them (Brindley and Lanting 1992), but many archaeologists still posit a relationship (O’Sullivan and Downey 2010: 38). The practice of placing beaker pottery in apparently communal contexts in megalithic tombs is not limited to Brittany, it is also found in Galicia and northern Portugal, where maritime beakers were inserted into 21

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland

Waddell’s Simplified Dagger Class

Form

Class 2

‘Corkey Type’ usually bronze, flat, riveted(2-6), shorter and longer blades found

Class 1

Class 3 Class 4

Date

Copper flat daggers, bevelled edge, rounded point, tanged, 2400 to 2200BC although rivets are also known (Waddell 2010: 129)

Similar to British Series 2 (Woodward and Hunter 2015), where they date from circa 2200 to 1900BC

Flat, triangular, blades, central rib, riveted, grooves along Similar to British Series 3 (Woodward edge, 4 to 6 rivets, Armorico-British influence. Similar to and Hunter 2015)where they date to daggers found in many Wessex I burials. between circa 1950 and 1700BC. Grooved, ogival daggers, some of which are decorated.

Later than the Class 3 daggers (Waddell 2010).

Table 3.1 Waddell’s classification of Irish Daggers

been considered the contemporary to the Scottish Migdale axe industry dated to 2100 to 2000 BC (Needham 2004), both using the same Irish copper but with some distinctions in form. These are broadly contemporary with Needham’s (1996) MA3.

Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age metalwork

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The study of Early Bronze Age copper and bronze artefacts in Ireland has attracted numerous researchers over the years. Peter Harbison (1969) and Colin Burgess (1980) have produced detailed schemes for the development of Irish metalwork during this period, with John Waddell (2010) synthesising their schema into four dated phases: Knocknagur, Killaha, Ballyvally and Derryniggin. This is somewhat different than Waddell’s (1998) earlier dating of these metalwork phases. Waddell does not lay out his reasons for changing the dating of these phases in detail, but suggests that they are inline with Lanting’s (2007) suggestion that the use of tin bronze in Ireland did not commence until after 2050BC. As will be noted below, however, Lanting’s scheme has not met with universal support (Wilkin 2013: 67). Aspects of Bronze Age chronology are still not as refined as is perhaps desirable. In particular the dating of the Killaha phase has implications for the MigdaleMarnoch tradition in Scotland (Needham 2004). In the absence of any consensus on these chronologies the ambiguities in the dating will be expressed in the alternative dating ranges given for the metalwork phases below. For each phase the Waddell 2010 dating is given first, followed by the Waddell 1998 dating.

Ballyvally Phase axes, which appeared around1900 to 1700BC / 2000 to 1600BC, had a rounded butt as well as a narrow body, with a crescentic edge much wider than the body. These axes are quite small and approximately 50% are decorated with incised decoration (Waddell 2010: 126-8). Derryniggan Phase of metalwork, overlapping with Ballyvalley Phase, 1700 to 1600BC / 1600 to 1500BC, typified by small, straight-sided axes with flat butts and an expanded, crescentic cutting edge and low hammered flanges. These were almost all covered in incised decoration, which was typically herringbone in form (Waddell 2010: 126-8). Daggers There is an approximate sequence for Irish daggers first developed by Harbison (1969) and simplified by Waddell (2010) (Table 3.1), although the amount of associated dating is less than for the British daggers. The question of knives and daggers can be a difficult one to address. Some suggest that knives are shorter, and daggers longer, but others (Coles 1969), suggest that the division should be between tanged and riveted blades, the functional distinction deferred. In essence Waddell accepts and develops Coles’ scheme but further subdivides the riveted blades into an earlier group Class 2 and a later group Class 3, which bears similarities to Wessex blades.

Knocknagur Phase, which dates from around 2500 to 2000BC / 2500 to 2200BC, is typified by copper axes, tanged knives and awls (Waddell 2010/ 1998, 125-6). This phasing breaks from the more general phasing of the Irish and British Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age by rejecting the division of the this period into two phases Period 1 (2500 to 2300 BC) and Period 2 (2300 to 2050BC) of Stuart Needham (1996) or the three phase Chalcolithic of Billy O’Brien (2012). This phase is equivalent to Needham’s Metal Assemblage (MA) 1 and 2.

Halberds

Killaha Phase, c 2000 to 1900BC / 2200 to 2000BC was a fully bronze using phase. The axes were much larger, with a crescentic blade (Waddell 2010: 126-8). It has

A type related to the dagger is the halberd of which about 175 have been found In Ireland, about 30% of the 22

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Chapter 3 Ireland in the Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age

European total. Halberds seem to have emerged rapidly across areas of central and western Europe, probably the result of a period of Peer Polity Interaction, around 2200BC (O’ Flaherty 2002: 404). The functionality of these as weapons has been questioned (Waddell 2010: 141), with the suggestion being made that much of their use may have been connected to ritual. However Bell and Brandherm (2014) point out that there is evidence of actual use on some halberds consistent with their use in combat, and O’ Flaherty suggests that the wear on rivets and evidence for rehafting and repair demonstrate their actual use (O’ Flaherty 2002: 405). Experimental work carried out with sheep heads collected from an abattoir, demonstrated that a reproduction halberd is capable of being an effective weapon, with little sign of wear (O’ Flaherty 2002: 356).

its journey through the sky. This is based upon Iberian and Scandinavian images of boats with representations of the sun and the very occasional finding of lunulae along with sun discs, such as from Strokestown, Co. Roscommon. The dating of lunulae is difficult although Taylor has suggested a date in the range 2200 to 1900BC (Taylor 1970). The beaker inspired decoration on the classical style Lunulae, has been cited as an example of one of the ways the bell beaker package was adopted, but reinterpretated, in Ireland (Wilkin and Vander Linden 2015). Provenance of Irish gold A recent multi-disciplinary study, the Irish Prehistoric Gold Project, has compared the trace elements in Irish gold objects with gold from various different gold sources. It concluded that most Early Bronze Age Irish gold was likely to have been obtained from gold workings in the western Mournes, Co. Down (Warner et al. 2009). It has also been suggested that the locations in the Mournes where gold might be extracted are rich in casserite, a natural source of tin, which would explain the tin signature in some early gold and possibly provide an Irish source for the tin used in the manufacture of Irish bronze, with Munster providing the copper. These findings have been contested by Ian Meighan (2011) on geological grounds, who has suggested that the Sperrins of Tyrone is a preferable alternative. In a reply to Meighan the Irish Prehistoric Gold Project have suggested that he misunderstood their argument and they appear to have successfully countered his points (Chapman et al. 2012). Recent analysis of the composition of Irish gold by Standish et al. (2015) has cast doubt on an Irish source of Early Bronze Age gold items found in Ireland. They have noted that while some aspects of the composition of the Irish Early Bronze Age gold favour an Irish origin, no exact match with any known Irish gold deposit can be made. Instead the authors suggest a southwest British origin for the gold is more likely, although the objects may have been made in Ireland. They suggest a cosmological reason why this might have happened with a material from a distant source increasing the supernatural power of a ritual object. Timberlake (2016) has broadly agreed with Standish et al. (2015), additionally suggesting that in the later part of the Early Bronze Age gold production does actually commence in Ireland.

After a time O’Flaherty suggests they may have ceased to be utilised as weapons, their role being taken by spears, and that they adopted a ceremonial role (O’ Flaherty 2002: 356). The majority of halberds have been found in watery places (O’Flaherty 2002: 180). Needham (2016) has attempted to suggest that there are beaker and halberd zones in Ireland, corresponding to different groups and ideologies. The idea is attractive but it is perhaps more likely that what Needham is really seeing is that beaker deposits avoid the areas in Ireland where there is standing water or a high water table (Carlin 2018: 154), halberds, by the nature of their deposition, do not. Gold in Early Bronze Age Ireland Copper and bronze were not the only metals utilised in Early Bronze Age Ireland, gold was also extensively worked. The earliest gold objects found in Ireland may have been the sun discs which Warner (2010) has proposed were brought to Ireland by early gold users since they were not manufactured from the same type of gold as other gold objects of this era in Ireland. Taylor (1994) noted how there is a concentration of the discs in copper rich southwest Ireland.

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Lunulae One of the most interesting classes of objects of the Irish Early Bronze Age are the lunulae. Joan Taylor (1970) has identified three classes of lunulae – classical, unaccomplished and provincial. The classical lunulae the thinnest and the widest, with well executed decoration, which bears comparison with that on beaker pottery. The unaccomplished lunulae have poorer execution of their decoration and also tend to be somewhat thinner and narrower. The provincial class are mostly found outside Ireland and have less intricate decoration than the classical lunulae. It has recently been suggested (Cahill 2015) that the lunula is a representation of a solar boat, carrying the sun on

Is there continuity between Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic Ireland? A number of writers have noted evidence for continuity between the Irish Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic Periods. The burials within Monknewtown (Sweetman 1976) embanked enclosure may also show continuity from the Neolithic through to the Early Bronze Age (Cooney and Grogan 1994, Carlin and Brück 2012 and 23

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland O’Brien 2012). Wedge tombs are also cited as showing continuity (Cooney and Grogan 1994), although others suggest they are a reinvention of earlier traditions (Carlin and Brück 2012: 204). Also stated to show commonality between the two eras is the paucity of both grooved ware and beaker settlement evidence and the incorporation of beaker pottery into what some consider a localised diversity of funerary practice (Carlin and Brück 2012: 204). There are other ways of looking at this data however. The burials within Monknewtown (Sweetman 1976) embanked enclosure may also show continuity from the Neolithic through to the Early Bronze Age, although the possible presence of the Irish practice of incorporating beaker pottery into a range of different funerary contexts is similar to many of the practices encountered in northern and western Iberia, (Gibson 2013). If there was a migratory Atlantic element to the Irish Chalcolithic, with Munster a likely landfall, intrusive groups might have, in the absence of access to sufficient pre-existing megalithic tombs in Cork and Kerry in particular, reinvented a Neolithic tradition, but an Atlantic Neolithic tradition, rather than an Irish one.

suggests that tin-bronze was not adopted until much later 2050-1900, the arguments advanced do not seem, however, to have achieved general acceptance (Wilkin 2013: 67), although Waddell (2010) seems to be accepting Lanting’s 2008 dating of the actual commencement of bronze working in Ireland. Bray and Pollard (2012) suggests that tin-bronze does not become the norm until 2100BC, but suggests that tin-bronze began to be made much earlier, soon after the beginning of copper use. Wedge tomb construction probably ended between 3700 and 3650 bp (Brindley and Lanting 1992), which, calibrated, would suggest a date with a range falling largely between 2200 and 2100BC. As noted above the ritual continuity with the Late Neolithic, which continued into the Chalcolithic, typified by embanked enclosures and pit-circles appears now to end. The use of grooved ware also ceased. As will be discussed at length below, this is the period when the single burial tradition appears in Ireland, apparently in a fully fledged form, with inhumation burials in cists, accompanied by bowl pottery. What is interesting is that while this transition may be happening at approximately the same time as the change from a Chalcolithic to a fully Early Bronze Age society in Britain, it does not follow the same pattern. In Britain there is burial continuity from the Chalcolithic through the Early Bronze Age to approximately 2000BC, the so called Phase 2 of beaker Burials as defined by Needham (2005). It seems as if the Irish Early and Middle Chalcolithic is distinct both from the contemporary British Chalcolithic and the Irish Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age which follows it, adopting new practices, reminiscent of those seen in Britain, especially northern Britain, probably around the time of Needham’s fission horizon. This is perhaps to be expected given that in the Chalcolithic period Irish copper was used extensively for production of British metalwork. Ingots of copper have been found in relative proximity to Ross Island (O’Brien 2011) establishing that metal was traded from this area outwards.

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The strongest evidence for continuity between the Neolithic and Chalcolithic eras is perhaps the evidence for non funerary ritual continuity, timber circles, stone circles, henges and hengiform monuments. The pit circles at Newgrange, associated with both grooved ware and beaker pottery (Carlin and Brück 2013) seems to hint at this. Recent excavations of post circles at Kilbride, Co. Mayo (Cotter 2008), where grooved ware was found in a pit at the entrance and Paulstown, Co. Kilkenny (Elliot 2009), where beaker pottery was found with several pit-circles, appear to confirm this continuity, however Carlin and Brück (2012) note that pit-circle sites appear to fall out of use by 2200BC. The burials within Monknewtown (Sweetman 1976) embanked enclosure may also show continuity from the Neolithic through to the Early Bronze Age, although the possible presence of beaker domestic, as opposed to ritual, activity within the enclosure may suggest that the ritual use of the site was punctuated (although Carlin (2018: 39-64) would disagree with the interpretation of the site as a beaker settlement).

One area of Britain which appears to show sustained contact with Ireland is north east Scotland, what is today Aberdeenshire, Moray and Banff. Needham (2005) has noted the presence of a prolific Migdale / Marnoch industry in northeast Scotland and its use of Irish copper. Particularly of interest are the distribution maps of Migdale Marnoch axes, moulds and also recumbent stone circles in northeast Scotland (Needham 2005). The locations of the moulds corresponds fairly closely with the locations of the recumbent stone circles. Recumbent stone circles are, of course, also commonly found in Cork and Kerry. This is also the region which was the source of Irish copper for the Migdale/ Marnoch copper workers. It is difficult to date stone circles but this association between ritual structures and copper working is suggestive of a

The transition from the Chalcolithic to the Early Bronze Age The end phase of the Chalcolithic similarly is best seen as a technological change accompanied by associated ideological and cultural attitudes and fashions. The first actual bronze to be produced in these islands in the Early Bronze Age possibly appears in Britain, according to Needham’s chronology around 2200BC at the transition from his MA2 to MA3 eras, spreading rapidly across Britain and Ireland (Needham 1996). An alternative scheme, advocated by Lanting (2008), 24

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Chapter 3 Ireland in the Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age

wider relationship between the two areas. Wilkin has also observed what he believes are clustered burial traditions, one of which, ‘Food Vessel’ burials, may show Irish settlement in northeast Scotland, and another which may show the strengthening of symbols of local identity though the adoption of elongated necks on beakers (Wilkin 2011). It may be too much to suggest that these burials show large scale Irish settlement in northeast Scotland, but the appearance of burial types similar to Irish ones in northeast Scotland does emphasise that strong cultural links were being forged by the exchange of copper. These links were strong, not just in northeast Scotland, but in the Great Glen, and in Kilmartin, and other areas through which Irish copper might have been traded (Sheridan et al. 2013).

on the vase and encrusted urn traditions (ApSimon 1958: 35). Derek Simpson examined the characteristics of ‘food vessels’ in southwest Scotland and Ireland (1964). He noted the similarity of the Irish vase in Ulster and southwest Scotland and he agreed, with reservations, with Apsimon’s (1958) assertion of the connection between north British beakers and Irish vases. He also examined Irish bowls and suggested a typology of bowls based on decorative motifs (Simpson 1964: 33). The first modern study to focus in detail on the actual practices and rituals of the single burial tradition in Ireland was John Waddell’s catalogue, description and discussion of the cist burials of Ireland (1970). He divorced the collared and cordoned urns from the cist burial traditions, and noted how encrusted urns and vase urns seemed to be linked to the cist tradition. Waddell further observed the relative proportions of cremation and inhumation amongst the burials and that, although typically a single burial tradition, there were occasions of multiple burial, and in some cases successive burials (Waddell 1970: 98). He observed the absence of cists from the southwest, and the tendency for these burials to be found on sandy or gravelly soil.

Previous research on the Early Bronze Age single burial tradition of Ireland

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The first scholar to seriously consider what we now know to be the Early Bronze Age single burial tradition in Ireland, was William Wilde (1857). He noted the existence of graves which he describes as ‘kists’ or ‘chambers’ and the funerary vessels frequently accompanying them (Wilde 1857: 169). He observed that they were sometimes found singly and on occasion in the ‘tumuli of cromlechs’, where he correctly deduced they were much more recent than the original monument.

Flanagan (1976), based on the results of his excavations at Cloughskelt, Co. Down, hypothesised that there was an under-representation of ‘uncisted’ graves, by which he meant pits, because they tended to be overlooked during ground works. He stated that there were cemeteries with both pits and cists within them, and also made the suggestion that the ‘cisted’ tradition was earlier than the ‘uncisted’ (Flanagan 1976: 11).

The first modern examination of the Early Bronze Age burial traditions of these islands however was undertaken by Abercromby (1912) and resulted in the production of his large catalogue and typology of the (early) Bronze Age pottery of Britain and Ireland. He sub-divided the food vessels of Ireland and Britain into eleven categories. It is possible to recognise, in embryonic form, the later classification of these food vessels into bowl and vase forms. There is an inbuilt assumption in Abercromby that innovation in northern Britain and Ireland must be the result of innovations spreading from the southeast of Britain (Abercromby 1912: 134). He also identified six varieties of ‘cinerary Urn’ the equivalent of which would now be called the collared urn, pygmy cup, the cordoned urn, the encrusted urn and the vase urn (Abercromby 1912: Volume 2: 7).

The mid-1970s saw a return to studies of funerary pottery with three comprehensive catalogues of Irish encrusted urns (Kavanagh 1973), collared and cordoned urns (Kavanagh 1976) and pygmy vessels (Kavanagh 1977), compiled by Rhoda Kavanagh. She first described and catalogued the encrusted urn tradition in Ireland (Kavanagh 1973). She noted the eastern distribution of the urns, observed their absence from wedge tomb areas except for Antrim and Tyrone, and suggested an introduction from northern Britain (Kavanagh 1973: 524). Kavanagh also examined collared and cordoned urns (1976) describing their rituals and associations noting their easterly/northeasterly distribution and their favouring of sandy or gravelly subsoil (Kavanagh 1976: 314). She derived collared urns from Scottish prototypes and considered that collared urn users from Ulster made their way to Leinster, and from there Wales (Kavanagh 1976: 315).

Arthur ApSimon was the next to address the question of Irish Early Bronze Age pottery vessels (1958). He accepted the thrust of Abercromby’s work but suggested that its value was descriptive rather than explanatory. He retained four broad classes of Early Bronze Age ‘Food Vessel’, two of which were his Irish vases and Irish bowls. He suggested that these two vessel types have different British inspirations (ApSimon 1958: 29-33). He saw the entire Irish vase and bowl traditions as beaker inspired but saw influence from Irish Neolithic vessels 25

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland Finally Kavanagh (1977) catalogued pygmy cups, dividing them into five classes, noting the circumstances of the finding of all the vessels, usually accompanying other vessels but also their presence in cists, sometimes without any accompanying vessels, and the general absence of grave goods in burials with pygmy cups (Kavanagh 1977: 64). Their island wide distribution was, apart from the absence of pygmy cups from the southwest, noted. Kavanagh believed that the pygmy vessel spread to Ireland from southwest Scotland with an ultimate derivation from the Wessex culture, although she did not speculate on the exact mechanism of this spread (Kavanagh 1977: 77).

instigative of change leading to a native response in the form of vase urns and encrusted urns, accompanied by degenerate flint plano-convex knives, contrasted with the bronze daggers and razors of the collared and cordoned urns. Brindley rightly questioned why, in an island known for early metalworking, the ‘degenerate’ Irish burial traditions should not be at least as likely to contain bronze grave goods (Brindley 1980: 197)? She suggested that the development of encrusted and vase urns was a development within the Irish vase tradition which predated collared and cordoned urns (Brindley 1980: 206). Waddell (1990) reiterated his rationalisation of the Irish Early Bronze Age funerary pottery into the bowl, vase (Figure 3.2), vase urn, encrusted urn (Figure 3.3), collared urn and cordoned urn (Figure 3.4) styles, and his opinion that the vase and encrusted urns are an evolution of the vase tradition and not a response to external influences (Waddell 1990: 11). He described the burial practices associated with each type of vessel, discussing the use of cists relative to pits, inhumation and cremation practices, the presence of non-pottery grave goods in graves and the grouping of burials in cemeteries.

A substantial study of British collared urns, including Irish examples too, was made by Longworth (1984). Longworth defined a chronological succession of collared urn types. He noted the near absence, apart from a few isolated examples, of his Primary Series in Ireland, but observed numerous examples of the Secondary Series, particularly the Northwestern English Group, in eastern Ireland. Longworth dismissed suggestions of a relationship between the collared and cordoned urn traditions.

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Waddell (1995) believed that the devolutionary theories which saw cordoned urns as a degenerate form of collared urn (Abercromby 1912 and Brindley1980) were flawed. Waddell viewed the cordoned urn tradition as separate from the collared urn tradition and emphasised the Irish / Scottish nature of the distribution of cordoned urns, suggesting a possible association between the copper trade and their distribution. In Ireland cordoned urns are most common in Ulster. In Scotland they are found in moderate numbers in Argyll, coastal areas of Dumbarton and Renfrewshire, a scattering through Perthshire, a with substantial concentrations in northeast Aberdeenshire and a very high concentration in Lothian and Fife.

Waddell and O’Ríordan (1993) published their impressive catalogue and comprehensive typology of the bowls and vases from Ireland, including an important contribution by Alison Sheridan on the vessel’s techniques of manufacture and the decoration (Sheridan in Waddell and O’Ríordan 1993). They split the bowl class into five groups; the simple bowl, the bipartite bowl, the necked bipartite bowl, the tripartite bowl and the ribbed bowl. They also divided the vase tradition into tripartite and bipartite vases. Waddell and O’Ríordan (1993) also discussed the burial rite associated with each pottery class, and sub-class where appropriate noting that, for instance, bipartite bowls were more usually found with cremations, while other bowl types were found equally with inhumation and cremation. They observed the position of the bowl in the grave, noting how many vessels were found near the skull in inhumation burials and also the sitting position of the pot and how the vessel related to cremated remains. They also noted how inhumation is uncommon in burials accompanied by vases. Waddell and O’Ríordan provided further confirmation of Waddell’s contention that the vase urn and encrusted urn burials were developments of the vase tradition noting how much more frequently vases were found with either vase urns or encrusted urns as opposed to collared or cordoned urns (Waddell and O’Ríordan 1993: 35).

Kavanagh and many of her predecessors, followed an invasionist, or at least diffusionist, explanatory paradigm for innovation in the Early Bronze Age pottery of Ireland. Waddell (1978) challenged this postulating that there was a similar shared response to the arrival of beaker pottery upon closely related native ceramic traditions in Ireland and Scotland. The relationship being reinforced by bi-directional contact across the North Channel (Waddell 1978: 124). Similar points were made by Brindley (1980) who stated that concepts of an ‘Urn package’ of funerary ritual and cinerary vessels, advocated by ApSimon (1958) and Kavanagh (1973, 1976 and 1978) were a fallacy stemming from a general belief that developments in the north of Britain and Ireland must have antecedents in southern Britain (Brindley 1980: 197). She criticised a model seeing collared urns and cordoned urns as

Alison Sheridan (Sheridan in Waddell and Ó Ríordáin 1993) conducted thin section analysis establishing that these vessels, in all but one or two cases, were made in the 26

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Chapter 3 Ireland in the Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age

Figure 3.2 Bowl and Vase forms ; a. simple bowl from Tonyglaskan (Hurl and Murphy 2004), b. bipartite bowl from Straid (Brannon and Williams 1990), c. Necked bipartite bowl from Dungate (Waterman and Brennan 1977), d. tripartite bowl, e. ribbed bowl from Altanagh (Williams et al. 1986), f. tripartite vase from Tremogue (Foley 1985), g. bipartite vase from Drumnakeel (Williams and Wilkinson 1985).

27

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland

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Figure 3.3 Examples of vase and encrusted urns, a. vase urn from Drumanakeel (Williams and Wilkinson 1985) and b. encrusted urn from Drumanakeel (ibid).

same locality as their ultimate place of deposition and, possibly, that they were made in small quantities, perhaps on an individual basis (Sheridan in Waddell and Ó Ríordáin 1993: 67). She noted the presence of unusual deposits on the interiors of bowls and vases in Ireland (Sheridan in Waddell and O’Ríordan 1993: 69). This suggested possible parallels with a vase from North Mains, Perthshire which which may have contained a cereal based porridge or an alcoholic ale flavoured with meadowsweet, and a beaker from Ashgrove Fife which contained honey or mead, also flavoured with meadowsweet.

Leinster were directly related to the social status of the individual. He noted cremated and unburned human remains and postulated that the decision to not burn bodies may have indicated a desire to preserve the physical remains of the deceased as a right of the socially advantaged. By contrast Mount saw cremation as signifying lower rank. He noted also what he believed to be an under-representation of juveniles and suggested that the decision to give full funerary rites to a subadult was also a privilege of high status. He suggested that the decision to inter multiple individuals in a grave was indicative of lower status noting the underrepresentation of funerary vessels in these graves and also noting that multiple burials were more likely to be the burials of women and children. Finally he suggested

Mount first outlined his processual-influenced ideas on the single burial tradition, in a brief paper (1991) suggesting that distinctions in burial practice in south 28

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Chapter 3 Ireland in the Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age

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Figure 3.4 Examples of a cordoned urn a. from Kilcroagh (Williams 1992) and collared urn b. from Lisnagat, (Jope and Jope 1952).

that cist graves themselves and the decision to include a funerary vessel, in particular a bowl, were indicators of status. He discussed these ideas in more detail in a later paper (Mount 1997). He established, convincingly, that there had been an under-representation of pit burials in the archaeological record, previously suggested by Flanagan (1976) and reiterated his earlier theory that certain aspects of single burial tradition practice were associated with the status of the individual being interred, which he explicitly linked to Tainter’s (1975) concept of energy expenditure. He used this concept to explain why he believed the use of a cist and presence in a cemetery mound were indicators of status. He also suggested that the presence of certain pottery types was an indicator of status, which he linked with the apparent exclusivity of bowls as the only grave good in many burials; a reference to the ‘prestige goods’ type concept of Richard Bradley (1984). It could be argued that Mount did not sufficiently address the possibility of rank being deliberately hidden through burial rituals, and he was hampered by the lack of a refined chronology for the period, nevertheless Mount’s approach was an innovation in an Irish context and an influence on this work.

Mount (1997: 155) suggests that not all persons received a formal burial in the Irish Early Bronze Age, those of lower status perhaps never having received a burial. This was also emphasised by Cooney and Grogan (1994: 110) who stated that in the Irish Early Bronze Age only the elite received burial. This is hard to substantiate however, Mount claimed that there was a 50% underrepresentation of children’s burials. As will be discussed below in Chapter 6, the results from this study do not unequivocally support Mount’s or Cooney and Grogan’s contention. There may be an under-representation of the burials of adult women, although the large number of burials of indeterminate sex may be obscuring the real proportion of male and female burials. Considering the large numbers of burials of the single burial tradition known there does not seem to be the evidence to support the contention that there was a very large group of persons of low status who received no formal burial whatsoever. Johanna Brück (2004) questioned the assertion of Clarke et al. (1985) that the single burial tradition is an indication of the increasing importance of the individual (a claim also made by Renfrew 1974), 29

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland contending that it presupposes an evolutionary route from collective to individual burial, and by noting that although the individual graves are typically single, the graves are usually still collected together in cemeteries. She also notes how she believes studies like Clarke’s simply replicates a modern western view of the self. Brück’s phenomenology is more fully discussed above in Chapter 2.

Blackhill Co. Kildare and many others, which are also all dated on collagen, but which are not rejected from the analysis of bowl PCDR. The same rules do not appear to be consistently applied. There are many other similar examples. In the absence of further explanation in the text the suspicion is that dates may have been removed from the analysis through a process of circular reasoning, removing dates, as contaminated or outliers, which do not fit the investigators model. These methodological quibbles aside, and many of these dates are problematic, Brindley’s PCDRs do seem reasonable.

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A recent important contribution to the study of Early Bronze Age funerary remains has been made by Anna Brindley in her 2007 volume The Dating of Food Vessels and Urns in Ireland. She discussed previous contributions to the topic and also reasserted her earlier (1980) opinions regarding the origin of urns, arguing persuasively for the retention of the term food vessel as a collective term for vase and bowl burials. Brindley also made an attempt to explain the gap that is southwest Ireland in all the distribution maps of the Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age single burial tradition rejecting the suggestion that wedge tombs and single burials form mutually exclusive burial areas and explaining the absence of single burials in southwest Ireland through a combination of a lack of sand and gravel extraction and little ground breaking agriculture (Brindley 2007: 56). She attempted to develop a refined chronology and typology of the various classes of food vessels and urns. Brindley accumulated all of the available radiocarbon dating evidence for each type of vessel, including many dates obtained directly by her and Jan Lanting at the Groningen radiocarbon dating laboratory and calculated a Preliminary Calculated Dated Range or PCDR based on the Range of all the 68.2%% calibrated dates which she did not reject as outliers.

The second part of Brindley’s radiocarbon analysis is an establishment of a more refined typology and chronology of each pottery type. She goes some way to describing basic decorative motifs of Early Bronze Age pottery but she is perhaps too reductive. She, for instance, dispenses with the herringbone motif, saying that it is just alternating lines of oblique strokes. The radiocarbon part of her typological study also is less than convincing. The same methodological problems beset her approach to her refined chronology as beset her PCDR. She divides each class of pottery into three chronological stages and obtains a dated range for each stage, and a more constrained range than the PCDR for the whole class. This new range is now called the FCDR (Final Calibrated Dated Range). In the case of the bowl vessels she cuts 40 years off the older part of the PCDR range because the radiocarbon calibration curve is unfavourable for dates around or just before 3700bp and the vessels with dates older than 3700bp (of which there are six) seem similar in form and decoration to vessels with dates younger than 3700BP. This may be correct but equally she may be putting too much weight on her model which demands a relatively compressed timescale for the emergence and development of bowls (Brindley 2007: 243). She, by this stage of her analysis, has removed at least ten, apparently acceptable, dates accounting for about 200 years from the more ancient end of the range of C14 dates of the bowl class, about 20% of the number of dates she actually used for her entire analysis. There seems no consistently applied reason for removing these dates from the analysis, apart from the fact that they do not fit the proposed model. Again, similar issues recur in the rest of her analysis.

The estimates look reasonable enough on first examination, the calibrated ranges of the bulk of the dates certainly fall between the limits of the PCDR ranges but there is methodological inconsistency in her work. For instance in her PCDR dating of bowls she, rightly, rejects several dates from Straid, Co. Derry / Londonderry (GrN-15491 3810±40, GrN-15492 3840±35 and GrN-15493 3845±40) which are, slightly (a few decades) older than the next oldest dates used in her analysis which are from Grange, Co. Roscommon (OxA2664 3770±70). Brindley justifies removing these dates from her estimate of the Bowl dates on the grounds that three of the four Straid dates (a) are slightly too old, (b) dated using collagen, and (c) that two have quite high negative δ13C values, which she suggests implies that the individuals from which the bones were obtained might have had a diet particularly high in freshwater fish, which can cause a reservoir effect on collagen dates(Brindley 2007: 25). She is probably correct to remove these Straid dates, as they are problematic. However there are other dates in her data set which have equally high negative values of δ13C, such as those from Stonepark, Co. Sligo; Lisnamulligan, Co. Donegal;

Similar points have been made, perhaps more elegantly, by Sheridan and Bayliss (2008) who note Brindley’s inconsistency in deciding what is an anomalous date, possible sampling bias in her choice of which dates to model, and her informal approach to wiggle matching. Recent work in Britain has relevance for the Irish Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age burial record. Already mentioned briefly above is Stuart Needham’s (1996: 124-29) work providing a chronological framework for the British Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. 30

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Chapter 3 Ireland in the Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age

Needham’s chronological framework:

necked beaker vessels, to make the elongated beaker. This he associates with a reaction to Irish settlement in central Scotland, which he evidences by the presence of ‘Food Vessel’ burials, connected to the copper trade. In northeast Scotland, he notes the coincidence of the distribution of beaker burials and recumbent stone circles and an increasing variety of grave goods in the period after 22nd century BC, which he, again, associates with Irish influence and the copper trade. Wilkin notices a delay in the adoption of single burial in east central Scotland until after the 22nd century BC, and the practice, in that area, of both inhumation and cremation.

Period 1, 2500 to 2300BC, few beaker burials, domestic beaker use, early copper axes, emergence of gold working, continuance of timber circles and survival of elements of grooved ware society. Period 2, 2300 to 2050BC, more beaker burials, occasional ‘beaker Type’ burials unaccompanied by an actual vessel. Tin bronze is first used, British food vessels appear, use of halberds and lunulae in Britain. Period 3, 2050 to 1700BC, fewer beaker burials, food vessels, collared urns, cordoned urns and the early ‘rich’, aceramic, Wessex I burials (Needham 1996: 131). Jet, Amber, Faience and Bronze grave goods, typically found with the Bush Barrow grave series, probably belong to this period.

Wilkin (2013) has also looked, in detail, at food vessels, both bowls and vases and their grave associations, for three English regions. He discussed the relationships of bowls and vases in Ireland and Britain, noting the connection again with the copper trade. He observed that the British bowls with the greatest stylistic and decorative similarity to Irish ones were located in western Scotland, east central Scotland and in other parts of Britain in areas with close, or easy access to, the Irish Sea coast. Wilkin also speculates that the beakers most similar to Irish bowls, globular short necked beakers, are found in northeast Scotland, at the east end of the Great Glen, an area easily accessible from Ireland and where styles could easily have mixed and new forms created.

Period 4, 1700 to 1500BC, occasional beaker and food vessel burials but collared and cordoned urns dominate. Change in ‘rich’ graves from inhumation to cremation during this period.

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Needham (2005) has also outlined a number of important concepts for the development in the form and use of beakers in Britain which are useful in an Irish context also. He notes that initially there is limited use of beakers and their associated culture in Britain between 2500 and 2250BC, followed by a period, 22501950, where beaker culture becomes mainstream, spreading throughout society and diversifying, with a succeeding final period where beaker burials are occasional, poor and referencing the past. Needham proposes a ‘fission horizon’, 2250-2150BC where the previously small number of styles diversify into a wider set of beaker types. Perhaps Needham’s most important contribution, from an Irish perspective, is to note that British food vessels are part of this process of acceptance and divergence. It is a small step, from Needham’s position, to see that Irish bowls and vases may be part of a similar process of acceptance and division.

Wilkin and Vander Linden (2015) looking at the interconnections of Ireland, Britain and continental Europe notes how many aspects of the archaeology of Ireland and Britain were generally synchronised through the Late Neolithic and then again In the Early Bronze Age, but that the Chalcolithic and the Bell beaker package, are an aberration, an interruption, in that historical continuity (2015). An interesting suggestion has recently been made by Mary Cahill (2015) regarding the decoration on the base of some bowls. She has noted the similarity between this decoration, which can take the form of various cruciform, chevron and star like patterns, with that found on Early Bronze Age gold discs. She suggests that gold discs are solar symbols and that the base decoration on bowls is a solar motif also.

Neil Wilkin (2011) has defined a parsimonious beaker burial tradition of northeast Scotland and east Lothian and a more fluid beaker burial tradition in central Scotland. He sees the origin of the ritual fluidity of central Scotland in the interaction of groups from central Scotland with copper traders from Ireland and tin traders from southern Britain. He notes also patterning in beaker burial sub-groups, such as the short necked burials of adult males of the 25th to 23rd century BC, accompanied by archery kits, their bodies placed on their left side, and their heads orientated to the east. In the 22nd century BC he observes greater numbers of female and child burials, multiple vessels in burials, and the lengthening of the neck of short

Recent work by Cassidy et al (2016) has provided interesting indications of possible migrations in early Irish prehistory. The complete genomes of four individuals, one individual from a Neolithic megalithic tomb at Ballynahatty, Co. Down and three individuals from Early Bronze Age single burials from Rathlin Island, Co. Antrim were examined. The Neolithic burial had a genome which suggested a near eastern origin, but with a substantial admixture of western hunter gatherer DNA. The Bronze Age specimens had 31

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland very different genomes however, which indicated a heritage ultimately derived from the Yamnaya of the Steppes. The authors of the paper suggest that these genomes are indications of migrations to Ireland, one a migration from Atlantic Europe to Ireland in the Early Neolithic period bringing farming, followed by a migration from Europe, which they tentatively link to the spread of beaker pottery and possibly the introduction of a language ancestral to Irish. It must be emphasised however that this study is a small one, and it is not certain exactly when the northern / eastern European genomes appeared in Ireland, it may have occurred before or after the spread of beaker pottery, only a larger study, coupled with a solid chronology can establish this either way. Recent work by Olalde et al. (2018), a major study of halopgroups of Neolithic and Bronze Age individuals from Britain and continental Europe, suggests that there was a major change in the genetic makeup of most of the British population, with y-DNA analysis of individuals either side of the bell beaker horizon showing a marked shift from southern European to northern / eastern European DNA, with a considerable amount of Yamnaya heritage. Both studies suggest a high degree of population replacement associated with the potentially beaker era migrations. Summary A century and a half of investigation have left us with an understanding of the rituals of burial in the Late Chalcolithic and Early Irish Bronze Age. We also have an outline chronology of the period, crafts, settlement rituals and burials which define it. Although more data is desirable we have enough environmental information to allow us to picture a mixed environment, which may show some increase in agricultural activity in the Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age, in the context of a fluctuating climate.

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Before going on to the actual statistical analysis of the burial remains, and a discussion of their significance, it is necessary to take a detailed look at the methodology or the recording and analysis of the information from the single burial tradition (Chapter 4) followed by a detailed look at the chronology of burial rituals in the Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age (Chapter 5).

32

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Chapter 4 Methodology The People of Prehistoric Ireland (Murphy et al. 2010) database was used as a primary source for Early Bronze Age single burials in this project. This was an INSTAR funded, cross border, project which aimed to collect baseline data on Ireland’s prehistoric human remains.

Introduction In this chapter the methodology of the selection, collection, standardisation and analysis of the data from accounts of the excavation of graves of the Early Bronze Age single burial tradition will be discussed. The intention of the study was to gather together a large amount of evidence relating to the single burial tradition, mainly from archaeological excavations, make it comparable, and subject it to statistical analysis in an effort to uncover aspects of the organisation of society through the Irish Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age. There were four distinct stages to this process which will be discussed in more detail in the sections below. Firstly site selection was a vital but difficult part of the process. It has been estimated by James Eogan (2004) that there had been approximately 1400 burials of Early Bronze Age date found in Ireland to that date, and there have been additions to that number since. Many of these were incomplete or inaccurate descriptions of the excavated remains, often from antiquarian investigations. A mechanism had to be devised for discriminating excavation accounts worthy of including in the study from those not (see Selection of sites for study). It was then necessary to find a way of breaking down the information in these excavation reports and recording it for comparisons, not just between different sites, but between different individuals, graves, pottery vessels, other grave goods, in multiple different ways (see Coding and recording the data in a Database and The Database Fields). Thirdly, there has to be an examination of this data, to see what matches what, and this has to be done so that associations caused by chance can be identified, genuine correlations between data evaluated and groups of like cases assembled (see Preparation of the data for Statistical Analysis). Finally the inferences obtained from this process can be brought together to inform our knowledge of the burial customs and rituals of the era and the society in which they existed.

There is a basic set of criteria which must be present if an excavation is to be included in the data set for this study. The excavation account must have: • • • • •

A good written description of features. Supported by drawings and / or photographs. Location and position of any human remains. Identification and descriptions of grave goods. Description and illustration / photograph of any funerary vessel/s. • Analysis of the human remains carried out either by a medical anatomist or osteoarchaeologist, even if the findings are indeterminate. Accounts of 206 separate excavations, with 496 individual graves and 665 identified individuals have been included in the data set. They are spread widely across the Irish landscape, 28 of Ireland’s 32 counties are represented with those not included comprising Kerry, Leitrim, Longford and Monaghan (see Figure 4.1). The reason for an apparent lack of single burial tradition burials, may, in Longford, Monaghan and Leitrim, be the result of a relative lack of development. The absence of apparent evidence for single burial tradition burials in Kerry may likewise be partly down to its relative isolation from major infrastructural development until recent decades and may also be the result of its rocky terrain (as suggested by Brindley 1980), precluding deep ploughing. Coding and recording the data in a database A key objective of the study was the reduction of complex accounts of excavations into data which could easily be compared and analysed. The excavation data was broken down into several sub-sets of information; Site, Grave, Human Remains, Grave Goods, Pottery Vessels, Pottery Decorative Motifs, cairns, C14 dates, Funerary Structures, Pyres and Ring Ditches.

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Selection of sites for study There are a great many records of finds of single burial tradition burials, many are ancient accounts of discoveries by farmers or builders. Some, even modern, accounts of these types are of limited use if there has been significant disturbance to the grave. Also a number of sites are well preserved and have been scientifically excavated but they are unavailable for examination because of lack of publication. Although in many of these cases good ‘grey literature’ accounts are available.

Microsoft Access was used initially to record the information, and each sub-set of excavation information was recorded as a separate sub-database or table in Access. The database was later migrated to SQLite, in which form it can be obtained from the author. Microsoft Access and SQLite are relational databasees. A relational database is a database in which the 33

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland

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Figure 4.1 Location map of the 206 sites in the database

information within it is contained in tables which can be interrelated in multiple different ways, something impossible in a flat file database. Each table in the database is linked by shared indices allowing complex relational queries, across multiple tables, to be carried out upon the data.

locational and geographic data as well as bibliographic information. For details of the individual fields see Appendix 1 Table 1. The Grave table was, in many respects, the most important table in the database. It represents the individual grave and it recorded the type, size, dimensions and attributes of the grave, as well as fields indexing any associated human remains, pottery vessels, grave goods, or C14 dates.For details of fields in Grave Table see Appendix 1 Table 2.

The database fields The Site Table contains the primary index and all other information in the database can, either directly or indirectly, be related to it. The Site Table contains 34

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Chapter 4 Methodology

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Figure 4.2 Dividing cairns / cemetery mounds into quadrants.

In the case of those cemeteries where it was possible to define the perimeter, mostly cairns or mounds, the space within the grave was split up to facilitate analysis, using a simplified form of Polar Co-ordinates (Figure 4.2). The defined cemetery was split into four quadrants of 90 degrees each measured clockwise from due north, Quadrant 1, Quadrant 2, Quadrant 3 and Quadrant 4. Also the distance from the centre of the cemetery was broken down into Inner (found less than ½ a radius distance from the cemeteries centre) and Outer (found more than half a radius distance from the cemeteries centre). Burials found at the centre of a cemetery are coded ‘B’ for bullseye and those few burials clearly beyond the cemetery perimeter are coded ‘X’ for beyond the perimeter of the cemetery. So if a burial was found at a rotational co-ordinate of 110° from north and more than ½ a radius of the cairn from the cairn centre it would be coded as Quadrant 2 Outer. A burial 300° from north but less than ½ a radius from the perimeter of the cairn would be found at Quadrant 4 Inner.

The Human Remains Table recorded the skeletal remains found within the grave. As noted above each set of human remains is linked by its Human Remains ID index field to a corresponding field in the Grave Table, allowing the skeletal remains to be linked to the grave which contained them. For further details on the fields within this table see Appendix 1 Table 3. The Grave Goods Table has identifications of the artefacts in the grave, their basic type, material, subclass, their placement in the grave and any additional notes thought relevant. For a description of the individual fields see Appendix 1 Table 4. The Pottery Table records the vessels that are frequently included in single burial tradition burials, both as objects deposited in the grave with the remains and as containers for the remains. They are often decorated, sometimes profusely. Significant work has been done on the typology of Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age funerary vessels (Waddell and Ó Ríordáin 1993, 35

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland Longworth 1984, Kavanagh 1973, Kavanagh 1976 and Kavanagh 1977) and there is no reason not to accept the pre-existing typology of vessels types and subvariants. The pottery table records the type of vessel, its dimensions, sitting position and its position relative to the body and relative to the grave. There is also considerable attention given to the decoration found on the vessel. For details of the individual fields in the pottery table see Appendix 1 Table 5.

The body form of Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age funerary vessels is well studied. The decoration found upon Early Bronze Age funerary pottery, while it has often been described, has possibly not yet had its analytical potential realised. Some degree of formal analysis seems like the only way to address this. The formal analysis has as its starting point the thought that decoration has meaning. This does not have to be a literal meaning, but may still have significance, for the makers and users of these vessels. Deciding what unit has meaning is relatively easy for an entire artefact, but what of a component. The arrowhead has meaning, so too does the scraper, but does the microlith, the component of the composite tool have meaning? What is the formeme and what is the factmeme in examining Early Bronze Age funerary pottery decorative motifs? Is the band of decoration running around the pot the factmeme, perhaps it is the zone of decoration Rim, Upper, Middle of Lower, or maybe the pot needs to be looked at as a whole? In this study the formeme has been taken to be the individual band of decoration and the factmeme the decorative elements which make it up. Bands of decoration, and indeed the entire pot, are taken as analogous to a non-linear text where several meanings (or perhaps a better term in this context would be appropriateness) potentially could be displayed.

Recording decoration on pottery: a system for codifying and recording pottery decoration has been devised for this study. This codification has two main strands, recording the decoration as it occurs on the body and the formal description of the decoration itself. To facilitate the recording of the decorative information as it occurs on the body it was necessary to sub-divide the pottery vessel into zones. Pots were split up into five separate zones, the Rim, Upper Body, Mid Body, Lower Body and Base. This may be done simply by dividing the body into thirds once the rim is accounted for, although on some vessels there was a clear demarcation left by the maker, such as the tripartite bowls for instance. There are twenty decorative fields included in the Pottery Table. The decorative motifs recorded in each of these fields is an index in the Decorative Motif Table where each decorative motif is recorded in more detail. The fields for recording decoration are also found in Appendix 1 Table 5.

The scheme devised for recording the pottery attempted to break down each motif into units analogous to the facteme and formeme. The initial recording was quite ‘high level’ meaning that potentially more data than was really necessary was being recorded, the possibility existing for recoding into more basic categories, without impinging on the ability of the initial database to act as an archive of decorative information.

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The actual decorative motifs themselves were recorded in a Decorative Motifs Table. Before discussing the actual recording of the decorative motifs from the funerary vessels it is necessary to first discuss the concepts behind the recording system (Figure 4.3). The scheme has been influenced by the structuralist study of archaeological artefacts propounded by James Deetz (1967). Deetz considers the created world of artefacts and language to be similar. Deetz draws an analogy between the morpheme of structural linguistics, sound elements and the word, and the artefact, be it ancient or modern, which he calls the formeme.

Several key elements were identified: The concept of a basic Decorative Type is postulated at this stage, a kind of decorative archetype of the Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age. To make an actual decorative Motif used on a pot it is modified in a number of ways, such as the addition of definition or bounding to the top and bottom of the decorative band, the interruption of the decoration by bosses, bars etc. and the nature of the decorative technique, corded, combed, incised etc.

Deetz sees the artefact, which he calls the formeme (analagous to the word) as composed of smaller more primitive elements, which he names factmemes (analagous to the morpheme), changing the mix of the factmemes changes the meaning of the artefact, makes it a different artefact. If a flint knife is a formeme the flint flake from which it is fashioned, the butt trimming for the halft and the retouch on its cutting edge are its factmemes. Add an additional factmeme, retouch on the opposite side to the cutting edge, and its meaning is changed, it is a different formeme, a projectile point instead of a knife.

As each decorative motif was encountered, 315 were separately identified, it was given a separate, and verbose Decoration ID which was recorded in SPSS. It was then matched to one of 38 Basic Decorative Types recorded in the database. If it was defined at its top and bottom, this was recorded in the Decoration Defined? field, and the nature of the Decoration Definer, such as an incised line or impressed lacunae, was recorded also. If the Decoration is Separated along its length, this is noted too, as was the nature of the Decoration Separator. Finally the Decorative Technique used for the main 36

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Chapter 4 Methodology

Figure 4.3 Decorative Motif Elements, worked example ‘Herringbone- Left, Incised Line, Incised Line Defined’

motif, such as, for example, incised or cord impressed, is recorded. For details of the actual fields used in the Decorative Motif Table see Appendix 1 Table 6.

that data, by necessity and for reasons of convenience, must be held in several sub-databases or Tables. To extract data from more than one table a query must be used. Queries are one of the most powerful features of relational databases, and one of the most difficult pieces of the database to use. They rely on the fact that the different parts of the database have shared indices and by using these they relate and collect disparate information together. One might want, for example, to look at the spreads of radiocarbon dates for a particular pottery type. The radiocarbon information is held in the C14 Dates table, the pottery type information in the Pottery table. There is no shared index between these two tables but there are graves where vessels of interest have been placed, and these graves contain human remains which have been radiocarbon dated. Using a query in either SqLite or MS Access it is possible to link, using shared indices, the Radiocarbon Table to the Human Remains Table to the Grave Table to the Pottery Table and extract all the radiocarbon dates which are associated with all the skeletons in graves containing the class of pots under consideration.

A worked example: (Figure 4.3) Decorative Type: Herringbone (Left) Defined: Y Definer: Incised Line Decorative Technique: Incised Line C14 Dates Table The radiocarbon dates from Irish Early Bronze Age single burials included in this data set are recorded in a table called the C14 Dates Table. This table is relationally linked to the Grave and Human Remains tables through shared indices. The Table records:

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Lab Number: Such as UBA-13453; The Radiocarbon Age: The radiocarbon date in years BP after correction for Delta C12/C13; Laboratory error; Delta C12/C13 Ratio and Sample Material The cairn Table Many single burial tradition burials have been found inserted into cairns / cemetery mounds. These take two forms, reused megalithic tombs and purpose built Early Bronze Age cairns, sometimes described as multiple cist cairns. Because of the significance of these cairns, and the possibility of examining the use of space of single burial tradition burials they were given their own table. Also included within this category are tumuli composed largely of earth, a group of which are encountered in Mayo, Sligo and Galway, although they are found elsewhere too. The cairn Table records: cairn Name; Type of cairn; Diameter; Height; Type of Stone / Earth; Notes: any notes or observations.

The results of the query can then be exported from the spreadsheet. Depending on the file type which the database exports the results in, it may be necessary to import them into a spreadsheet like Excel or similar to save the results in a file format for easy importing into analytical software to be used. If the data is then saved as an Excel file it can be read by SPSS. OxCal 4.2 also has a utility for importing data pasted into it from MS Excel or other spreadsheets. Statistical analysis There are a number of different statistical techniques which can be used for analysing the data. Descriptive statistics can be utilised to provide information about the nature and make-up of the data set. Crosstabulation can be used to examine the data set for correlations between different fields within the data set, and test if they are statistically significant or not. SPSS also has a range of multivariate statistical analysis techniques. Two step cluster analysis was chosen because of the broad range of data types it accepts, including categorical data. It also leaves a cluster membership

Preparation of the data for statistical analysis It is necessary first to export the data from MS Access and convert it into a form readable by either OxCal 4.2 (Bronk Ramsay 2015), the radiocarbon analysis software, or IBM SPSS Statistics Version 22, the statistical analysis software (IBM 2013). The first step to doing this is to draw together the data which you want to use in analysis. The nature of the database is that large amounts of data are contained within it but 37

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland variable in the data file at the end of the cluster analysis, making it easy to cross tabulate the clusters resulting from the analysis with other burial attributes. It is very important however not to inadvertently crosstabulate the cluster with one of the cluster variables, or any variable that an input variable was recoded from. This would in effect be a circular argument, bound to throw up erroneous correlations.

of apparent correlations between variables. Two tests were used in this study to study the relationship between different variables: Chi-square: In a cross-tabulation this tests the relationship between the row and column variables of a cross-tabulation table to see if they are independent. Chi-square compares the expected values (by chance) in each cell of a table against the actual values observed. It produces two figures, a chi-square figure, and a significance level, which is based on the chi-square and the size of the table. The significance level figure suggests the likelihood that the relationship is down to chance alone, a value of 0.25 for example would suggest a one in four chance that chance could provide the observed result. A significance level of 0.05 is accepted in this study as demonstrating a significant relationship. This means that the chance of the observed result being down to chance is less than one in twenty. A drawback of chi-square is that, in the view of some statisticians (and it does seem that statistical opinion is divided on this point), it can be unreliable if too many of the cells in the table have an expected count of less than 5 (Bryman and Cramer, 1998: 172), in other words the data is spread too thinly over too many categories.

Frequencies SPSS can calculate the frequencies of occurrence of various aspects of the data set. It can tell how many cists, pits or polygonal cist there are in the data set for example, or the frequencies of different areas of cist. Sometimes if crosstabulating numerical data, like for instance the areas of cists in m2, against another burial attribute, there might be simply too many discrete values for any relationship between the variables to be apparent. In a situation like this it may be desirable to reduce the values of the variables into a number of blocks or categories for easier analysis. SPSS has a number of ways of doing this. It can divide the data into quartiles or other percentiles based on the range of values. These groups of data, can be recoded into a new categorical variable (say small, medium, large, very large if it is something like numerical data of cist area) and rendered more useful for statistical analysis.

Cramer’s V This test is suitable for tables which have a large number of cells and is appropriate for use in cases where more than 20% of cells have an expected value of less than 5. It produces two figures, Approximate Significance, demonstrating whether the result is significant (values less than 0.05 are significant) and a figure Cramer’s V, which demonstrates the strength of the relationship (the closer the value is to 1 the stronger the relationship).

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Crosstabulation There are relationships between different aspects of the data set, some of these will be down simply to chance, but some will be real associations between burial different rituals, attributes and individuals which will shed light on the nature of the Late Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age single burial tradition and the society within which it existed. With the help of crosstabulation we can uncover these significant relationships. Crosstabulation is the displaying, in tabular form, of the number of cases which occur in each of the possible combinations of values which are being compared. Using the SPSS crosstabulation routine it is possible to get a value, not just for the number of cases in each cell, but a value for the number of cases which would be expected by chance in the cell, based on the size of the data set and the distribution of the data within it. SPSS also provides the facility of testing the crosstabulation table, using one of a number of techniques, to see if the relationship between the variables is statistically significant.

These tests demonstrate the significance or otherwise of the relationship between two variables. However, they only demonstrate this for the whole relationship, they do not test it for the validity of correlations between individual variables as displayed in the crosstabulation table. The key to testing the validity or significance of the relationships between individual values of the variables being tested lies in the concept of the residual. Residual: The residual is the difference between the observed and the expected values of a variable in the cross-tabulation table. It can be utilised in many forms. Sometimes the residual itself can be utilised although a large residual may only be indicative of a large data set rather than a significant result. More commonly the Residual is utilised in the form of the Standardised Residual or the adjusted residual.

Significance tests It is possible to use mathematical formulae, called significance tests, to examine if the relationship between two variables is likely to be real, or simply the product of chance. There are a number of possible significance tests that can be used to test the validity

Standardised Residual: This is where the residual is divided by it’s own standard error (the standard deviation of a statistic). Standardised residuals have a mean of 0 and 38

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Chapter 4 Methodology

Terms used in text

Exact statistical meaning

Significant Relationship

Statistically significant correlation at 2Σ, in a cross-tabulation table which has been significance tested by a chi square or Cramer’s V test

No Relationship More Likely / Over-represented/ Over-representation

No statistically significant correlation at 2Σ, in a cross-tabulation table which has been significance tested by a chi square or Cramer’s V test

Within a cross-tabulation table cell, a relationship between any two values which has an adjusted residual of 1 (1Σ) or above but less than 2 (2Σ).

Much More Likely/ Very Over-represented/Significantly Over-rep- Within a cross-tabulation table cell, the relationship beresented/ Significant Over-representation tween any two values which has an adjusted residual of 2(2Σ)or more. Less Likely / Under-represented/ Under-representation

Much Less Likely / Very Under-represented/ Significantly Under-represented / Significant Under-representation

Within a cross-tabulation table cell, a relationship between any two values which has an adjusted residual of -1 or above but less than -2. Within a cross-tabulation table cell, a relationship between any two values which has an adjusted residual of -2 or more.

Table 4.1 Qualitative descriptors of statistical significance used in the text and their quantitative equivalents.

a standard deviation of 1 meaning all values over +2 or -2 are significant.

Reporting Statistical significance within the text: Chi square, Cramer’s V tests and adjusted residuals, give exact figures, which can easily be compared with each other. Taking this information and incorporating them into a textual argument can be difficult. To assist in this qualitative statements of statistical significance have been standardised throughout the text, and are used exclusively in Chapter 6 (Table 4.1). So as to avoid excessive repetition, and to allow slightly different sentence structures to be used, several equivalent terms are used for several types of statistical correlation.

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Adjusted residual: A similar utilisation is the adjusted residual where the standardised residual is expressed in standard deviation units above or below the mean. Consequently all values over +2 or -2 indicate a significant result. Haberman (1973: 207-9) recommends the use of the adjusted residual as a means of identifying which elements within a cross-tabulation, which has already been shown to have a significant relationship, are themselves significant. In this study the adjusted residual is displayed for all Crosstablation tables. The adjusted residual is also an important tool for seeing which relationships are important where there may not be an even distribution of data, for taphonomic or methodological reasons. For instance there may be an under-representation of females in the data set, which may not accurately reflect the distribution of the sexes in Early Bronze Age Ireland, or their presence within the contemporary burials. It is possible that there has been a consistent under-identification of burials of women in the Irish archaeological record (Murphy et al. 2010: 9). Because the adjusted residual looks at the over-representation or under-representation of a variable in relation to the expected representation of that variable, in the case where an important variable, such as sex, is misrepresented in the data set, it will still be possible to see which significant relationships it has with other variables.

Multivariate statistics: cluster analysis There are a number of types of multivariate statistics which attempt to reduce the complexity in data sets to something which is more manageable. There are two common ways in which they achieve this, factor analysis and cluster analysis. Factor analysis attempts to find the variable which causes most of the variation in a data set, however it is best suited to nominal data and as such is unsuitable for an examination of a data set composed of nominal and categorical categorical data. Cluster analysis attempts to group data together, to form clumps of like cases, which can be interpreted. The most commonly used type, Hierarchical Cluster Analysis, which produces a dendrogram plotting the relationships between its clusters, is not suitable for categorical data, but Two-step Cluster analysis is suitable for this categorical data. To carry out a two step cluster analysis a series of input variables must be chosen by the investigator. Two Step Cluster Analysis by default chooses the best number of clusters to fit the 39

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland data but it is possible, if the user wishes, to specify the number of clusters required, although that feature was not utilised in this analysis.

classificatory scheme for grave goods: type or form, material, craftsmanship, whether it is utilitarian or decorative, are all possible axes around which a categorisation could be constructed. However the concept of energy expenditure, first proposed by Tainter (1975) has been utilised here. This concept has proved its worth in considerable numbers of studies. O’Shea (1984) used energy expenditure successfully as a way of looking at the equivalence of the burial practices of different moieties within the same society. Kamp (1998) used a five-fold energy expenditure classification of burial practice to examine detailed accounts of the social structures and burial customs of 55 societies from the Human Area Relations Files and found that 67% of the societies in the files displayed their status in burials in a manner which could be modeled by energy expenditure. Kamp (1998: 87) was aware that all systems of interpretation and codification involve interpretation but making case by case evaluations, without a system of codification, involves just as many, if not more interpretations, but it is without a formal scheme, and is less replicable and testable.

The clusters produced by cluster analysis are accompanied by a useful evaluation figure called the average silhouette measure of cluster cohesion and separation, which mathematically calculates how close the members of clusters are to their calculated cluster groups. An average silhouette of less than 0.4 is Poor, 0.4 to 0.6 is Fair, 0.6 to 1 is Good. SPSS 22 recommends that if the average silhouette value for a cluster analysis is less than 0.4 than the cluster should be redone amending the cluster model. It also, very usefully, produces a cluster membership variable for each case within the cluster. This makes examination of the cases within the cluster easy and most importantly allows cross-tabulation of clusters with other variables in the data set. Initial attempts at classification using this procedure however revealed little, probably because of the mix of chronologically disparate cases being examined and the choice of input variables. A second stage of Two Step Cluster Analysis was conducted after the radiocarbon analysis (see Chapter 5) and the descriptive and cross-tabulation statistical analysis (see Chapter 6 and Chapter 7) had been carried out. It was much more successful and it produced cluster results which were coherent and discrete, with very high average silhouette values and which seem to be consistent with other, not clustered, variables in the data set. They have played an important role in allowing patterns in ritual activity to be recognised.

Wason discussed the pros and cons of energy expenditure. His main criticism was that it was, potentially at least, a concept without context. So that a certain level of energy expenditure can be high for one society, but negligible for another. He realised however that it is multidimensional, allowing different aspects of practice to be drawn together (Wason 1994). Energy expenditure has a tremendous capacity to absorb into a single value, multiple different attributes, using energy as a common denominator, it entirely avoids the distinction between phenomena and epiphenomena, everything can be evaluated and compared, no object is analytically inalienable. Energy expenditure as a concept is like money, it allows the evaluation of categorically disparate objects and practices. The single biggest risk in using energy expenditure is, as Wason stated, the lack of contextual information contained within the concept. It is important when using energy expenditure to use it in a context where like is being compared to like. A most important consideration in using energy expenditure is to understand the chronology of the society.

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Grave Good Class There are 61 separate types of non ceramic grave goods found within the data set, made from 30 different types of material, many of them unique occurrences (Section 6.6). This poses an analytical challenge. There are a number of ways to analyse these grave goods in the context of funerary ritual and the individual buried. It is possible to examine each grave assemblage individually, assessing, on a case by case basis, the overall significance and meaning of the assemblage, its place in the burial practice and its relationship to the interred. This practice is a valid one, and it has been carried out by archaeologists for generations. It has advantages and drawbacks. It is possible, in a phenomenological way, to get an understanding of the grave goods and grave assemblage through a deep immersion and study of the material. However it is difficult to compare with other studies, difficult to verify conclusions arrived at and judgments made.

To simplify the complexity of the grave goods in this data set they have been categorised into several energy based groups. Grave goods have been divided into four categories, grave good class (0), (1), (2) and (3). Four categories were used because a.

The alternative to this is to attempt some sort of classification of grave goods. There are many different attributes which can potentially be used to build a

more complex systems seemed to involve too many choices which were vulnerable to culturally specific judgments of worth, beauty, or significance.

40

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Chapter 4 Methodology

b.

larger numbers of categories would be less suitable for statistical analysis as they tend to spread the number of cases too thinly for useful cross-tabulation and Chi square or Cramer’s V significance testing.

Assessing ranking by an examination of burial ritual In this study a number of separate statistical tests have been undertaken to try and examine the nature and development of society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland. As will be discussed below, the society has been split into three chronological phases, based on changes in burial ritual.

One problem is dealing with multiple objects in the grave. Wason (1994) in his analysis found that simple counts of artefacts was a very ineffective method for studying status, or other aspects, of funerary ritual. He believed that it resulted in comparisons of not comparable objects. Initial statistical investigations of this data set confirmed this. Wason believed that type of grave good was what was important. In this categorisation numbers of artefacts therefore will not be utilised.

Before discussing the results of the chronological and statistical analysis in detail it is necessary to discuss the types of archaeological signature which can be expect to find in the burial record for each of the types of society we are likely to encounter. In late Chalcolithic Ireland and Early Bronze Age Ireland we are likely to encounter either un-ranked, ranked or stratified societies. Each of these should have different archaeological indicators. Earle’s (1993) idea of a continuum of societies from un-ranked through to stratified is utilised here. In terms of the typology of mulitlinear social evolution these societies should range from tribes through to stratified chiefdoms (Service 1962, Wason 1994, Earle 1997). The occurrence of small band type societies is though very unlikely, because the economic base, farming, craft-working and trade, is capable of supporting much more complex societies. Likewise there seems to be no evidence of highly complex state type society in either the burial archaeology of the era or the wider archaeological record.

In this categorical scheme grave goods assemblages were ranked according to increasing energy investment, each assemblages class being decided solely by the highest class of object in the grave:

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Grave Good Class 0. No grave goods of any kind 1. Any kind of unimproved object of a commonplace raw material, deliberately left in the grave, such as an un-retouched flake. This needs a minimal amount of skill and time to produce, and utilises an easily available raw material. It represents a low level of energy expenditure 2. A well defined artefact, skillfully made, of a commonplace raw material, for example, a retouched scraper, a flint knife, or perhaps a single stone bead. These requires an investment of time and a certain level of skill, although it is likely that the raw material is plentiful. These objects represent an intermediate level of energy expenditure. 3. A grave good that is notable for the raw material it is made from, and / or the significant input of specialist, crafts-persons’ skill utilised in their manufacture. Examples could include copper or bronze objects, or complex jewelry. These objects represent a high level of energy expenditure.

Un-ranked societies Un-ranked societies are not entirely without inequality. As Ames (2015) has noted there has probably never been a society which has not had some form of social inequality, although if the society is non-ranking, then it is likely that personal qualities and individual successes denote status, rather than roles of office or inheritance. In a non ranked society there may be some evidence for status having been achieved. It is also possible that an un-ranked society may have sexual inequality. Burial indicators of un-ranked societies As Ames (2015) states ‘archaeologically egalitarianism is generally demonstrated by negative evidence (i.e., no evidence of rank), rather than positive evidence for egalitarianism’.

For instance: • a burial with one bone pin would count as a grave good Class (2) grave good assemblage, • a burial with three un-retouched flint flakes would be a grave good Class (1) assemblage; • two bone pins and a flint plano-convex knife would be a grave good Class (2) assemblage; • a single copper alloy razor would be a grave good Class (3) assemblage.

If a society was truly un-ranked, i.e. reflecting achieved burial status, with no limit on the number of possible achievers of rank, it would be likely that: 1.

Multiple occurrences of objects are not counted in grave good class, three flint chunks does not equal a plano-convex knife.

Since an un-ranked society is relatively simple there should be a limited redundancy of burial ritual (Saxe 1970: Hypothesis No. 5), relative to other societies and periods.

41

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland 2. 3.

4.

Generally adults should be over-represented in the higher status groups as they have had time to achieve status. There should be an absence of burial attributes of status which crosscut age and sex, the converse of Wason (1994) suggestion that burial attributes in a ranked society should crosscut age or sex. There may be evidence for membership of sodalities (Service 1962), through the presence of certain grave goods perhaps, which otherwise seem unrelated to status

Burial indicators of ranked societies with office holders who achieve rank: 1. These types of societies, with permanent offices, are likely to reflect their greater social complexity in greater burial ritual complexity (Saxe 1970: Hypothesis No. 5 and Binford 1971), 233), relative to un-ranked or ‘Big man’ type societies. 2. As these societies do not have ascribed, but achieved ranking, there will probably be an overrepresentation of adults in high status burials. 3. As successful adults achieve formal offices they may be less vulnerable to losing status with age, so older adults may be similarly represented in high status burials. 4. Children are likely to be underrepresented in the highest status burials.

Ranked societies Ranked societies come in different types The ‘big man’ is a trans-egalitarian society where an individual can ‘build power’ and establish a leadership position in society. It is sandwiched between ranking and non-ranking societies. Wason (1994) notes how the ‘big man’ is not a permanent office, and how these types of societies can function without a ‘big man’ for considerable periods.

Ranked societies in which status is ascribed, or ranked chiefdoms. These societies break with achieved ranking as a way of filling offices and, instead use ascribed rank, where membership of a descent group is more important than personal qualities for determining status. They may not necessarily be very much more complex than societies where offices are achieved. Status is ascribed, rather than achieved however and they do control the ‘political economy’ (Earle 1993), the supply of special ‘prestige goods’ as Bradley (1984) described them.

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Burial attributes expected in a ‘big man’ type society: 1. Adult males, in their prime, should be overrepresented in high status graves (Wason 1994). 2. There should be a corresponding lessening of status visible in the burials of older males (Wason 1994). 3. Women and children should be excluded from the very highest status graves. 4. Otherwise few attributes should cross-cut age and sex (Wason 1994) 5. As society is only slightly more ranked than un-ranked societies, it is to be expected that there should only be a little more redundancy in the funerary ritual compared with un-ranked societies(Saxe 1970: Hypothesis No. 5 and Binford 1971: 233).

Burial indicators of ranked societies in which status is ascribed: 1. There may be evidence for more complex burial ritual reflecting a more complex society (Saxe 1970: Hypothesis No. 5 and Binford 1971). 2. There should be a significant differentiation between the status of different groups in the burial record the subordinate and superordinate classes and there should be a ‘ranking pyramid’ with progressively fewer cases in the higher classes than in the lower classes Peebles and Kus (1977). 3. There should be burials of children in high status graves (Peebles and Kus 1977 and Wason 1994). 4. Peebles and Kus (1977) proposed that what they call an ‘apical class’ should be visible in the burials of chiefdoms. This group should be small, exclusively male and its graves should be opulent. 5. There should be a correlation between high status / high energy grave goods and other indicators of high status burial.

Ranked societies with achieved office holders. In these societies office holders achieve rank and live in a qualitatively more complex society than the ‘big man’ type society. There is a social structure beyond the individual and their relationships with idealised offices and standards which are needed to attain this rank. Also, as has been noted by Fried (1967) these ranked societies, where status and office is achieved, have fewer offices than there are qualified applicants for the offices, meaning that, even though access to rank is not ascribed at birth, not everyone with the necessary qualities to occupy a position of status can do so. These are not truly chiefdoms, however, since rank is not based on descent, but they are more complex societies than ‘big man’ societies.

Stratified chiefdoms The big difference between stratified chiefdoms and all less ranked / unstratified societies is the way in which the chiefly class have control of the entire economy, not just 42

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Chapter 4 Methodology

certain areas associated with the ‘political’ / ‘prestige goods’ economy, but the ‘subsistence economy’, land, fishing and hunting rights, all raw materials etc (Earle 1997). Identifying stratified chiefdoms, separately from ranked chiefdoms, by burial evidence alone is not easy. Many of the correlates of ranked chiefdoms burial ritual will also apply to stratified chiefdoms. There are some areas where it may be possible to differentiate.

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Burial indicators of a stratified chiefdom: 1. There is likely to be social pressure within a stratified chiefdom, it is not in the interests of most individuals to accept increased power of the chiefs. It is likely that this power will have to be enhanced by coercion (Earle 1997). Weapons may become more common, either in graves, or in the wider archaeological record. 2. This is a much more complex society, which now has the economic means to wield social military and ideological power (Earle 1997)and support the structures of these institutions. It should be a scale of magnitude more complex than any more simple society and this should be available in the degree of redundancy in the burial record. 3. Stratified chiefdoms, where all of the economic and subsistance resources of the society are in the hands of an elite, may require more ideological support for this inequality than in merely ranked societies. It may be that in the more developed stratified societies, the inversion, through burial ritual of the true social order, of the type proposed by Parker Pearson (1982) becomes more likely. In this scenario an appeal to the levelling nature of death, physically demonstrated by a parsimonious burial ritual applied to all social classes and social groups, may be used to suppress social discontent resulting from inequality.

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Chapter 5 Radiocarbon Dating the single burial tradition • A re-examination of the dating of single burial tradition funerary pottery types. As mentioned previously, although this topic has been examined in depth by Anna Brindley (2007) there are aspects of this study which are less than completely satisfying. • Chronological variations in decorative techniques used on pottery. Unfortunately, there are too many individual decorative motifs, even if grouped into like classes, for a meaningful analysis. However if the analysis is just limited to decorative techniques, such as whether the vessels are incised or comb decorated, corded impressions, defined or undefined, interesting results are obtained. • An examination of the chronological spread of basic burial ritual and grave attributes, provides interesting perspectives on the relative dating of cists and pits, the dating of inhumation and cremation and the persistence of pot-less burials throughout the Early Bronze Age.

Introduction The Single Burial Tradition Database contains records of 167 radiocarbon dates, the context of their recovery, their associations and the nature of the materials dated along with associated technical information. The collection of this data in a relational database makes possible the interrogation of this information in interesting ways, bringing together chronological information with numerous different aspects of burial and burial ritual for analysis. In this chapter radiocarbon analysis will be used to provide a chronological framework (Figures 5.1, 5.5 and 5.6) for the study of Irish Late Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age single burial tradition burials. The chapter is divided into four main sections:

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• An examination of the general spread of radiocarbon dates from single burial tradition burials in Ireland.

Figure 5.1 A Diagram of the radiocarbon date ranges of the main attributes of the Late Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age single burial tradition. Light grey is the 95.4% Start/ End Range, mid grey the 68.2% Start / End Range, black the area within the Start and End ranges.

44

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Chapter 5 Radiocarbon Dating the single burial tradition

In addition to being able to tell which sequence models are compatible with the radiocarbon evidence OxCal has a number of tools for estimating the start, end and span of the entire sequence or defined phases within it. There are different approaches to model building in OxCal and some users build complex models, which may contain several different types of information to attempt to constrain the estimated date ranges of radiocarbon dated events. However the more complex the model, and the more additional information built into the model, the greater the likelihood of information being incorporated into the model which may have questionable premises. The approach taken here is to construct relatively simple models, which frame general questions about the chronology of Late Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age single burial tradition and to then use OxCal 4.2 Agreement Index to see which proposed models are compatible with the data, allowing the estimation of reliable start and end ranges for each phase / event under examination.

Methodology A core concept of the analysis of these radiocarbon dates is the Rev Bayes’ theorem, which can be written as Posterior belief = standardised likelihood X prior Beliefs (Buck et al. 1991). It is been summarised as ‘revising current beliefs in the light of new information...a formal way of dealing with life’s ubiquitous problem of learning from experience’ (Buck et al. 1991). The analysis in this chapter is based around the implementation of Bayesian statistical principles in OxCal 4.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2015) using the IntCal 13 calibration curve (Reimer et al. 2013). The primary objective of the analysis is to find reliable statistical date ranges for different aspects of funerary practice; to find when a practice starts and when it ends.

The models constructed in the various analysis presented below all used variations on the following OxCal4.2 code format:

There are many ways in which Bayesian principles can be integrated into archaeological interrogation of radiocarbon dates. Commonly the ‘prior’ is a strategraphic sequence, or some similar, hopefully robust, chronological model which can either be tested by the radiocarbon dates for its reliability as a model, or if it is believed to be reliable, used to constrain / modify the dates provided by the radiocarbon data. A second approach, in the absence of useful strategraphic information, or a very trustworthy model, is to treat dates from similar contexts, artefacts, ritual practices, etc. as existing within a bounded phase of like practice, the ‘uniform phase model’ (Bronk Ramsey 2009). The assumptions then being that the dates are representative of the mathematical distribution within the phase. It is this second implementation which is utilised here.

Plot() { Sequence () { Boundary(‘Start of Aspect of SBT’); Phase(‘Aspect of SBT’) { Actual Radiocarbon Dates }; Boundary (‘End of Aspect of SBT ‘); }; }; This model treats the radiocarbon dates from an aspect of the Late Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age single burial tradition as a Phase, within a Sequence. A Sequence is an OxCal 4.2 program structure which orders events or groups of events. A Phase is an OxCal 4.2 structure for grouping a series of radiocarbon dates together which are believed to belong to the same era, but which have no stratigraphical or other information to further order them relative to each other. Internally the Phase is un-ordered, but externally each Phase can be ordered relative to other Phases, radiocarbon dates or calendrical events. A Boundary is an OxCal4.2 command which estimates the beginning and end of Phases and Sequences.

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Constructing models in OxCal 4.2 OxCal 4.2 contains a number of tools for analysing radiocarbon dates. It is possible in to build models of a perceived sequence of events using additional, nonradiocarbon, information, such as stratigraphy from an excavation, a known calendrical date, or a believed sequence of events. OxCal 4.2 can estimate how compatible these models are with the actual radiocarbon dates available. It cannot prove that a model is correct, but it can reject models which are incompatible with the data. It produces a value called the Agreement Index for the model. An Agreement Index below 60% is considered unreliable (Bronk-Ramsey 2015). While analysis can be used to demonstrate that a proposed model isn’t compatible with the radiocarbon data, it is possible to propose more than one model which is.

This model code presented above creates Phases within a Sequence. The Boundaries defined at the top and bottom of the Phases estimate date ranges for the beginning and end of the Phase. 45

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland One point which should be noted is that the Boundary function in phases with small numbers of dates, may produce very wide start or end date ranges, which can be larger than what is already known from archaeological knowledge (Bronk Ramsey 2000: 201). This is because OxCal 4.2 makes the assumption that, with a small number of samples, it is likely that the earliest and latest dates in the phase are unlikely to be truly representative of the phase’s real duration, consequently it extends its estimate of the boundaries. This can be seen in a few of the analyses carried out below when only a small number of dates are available. Generally with more available dates the OxCal 4.2 Boundary command will give a tighter estimate of the beginning or end of a Phase.

• Charcoal dates are removed from further analysis because of the probability of an ‘old wood’ effect (Warner 1990) biasing the dates. Although techniques for addressing ‘old wood’ problems have been proposed, such as Warner’s (1990) method using an offset coupled with an error range and a similar ‘outlier’ analysis for charcoal implemented in Oxcal 4.0 onwards (BronkRamsey 2010) they, in essence, make the results statistically reliable by extending the possible date range greatly. • Dates which were significant outliers from the rest of the data set (dates which had no overlap at 95.4% with the 95.4% range of the nearest date) were also excluded. In some cases these outliers were obvious, dates many centuries earlier or later than any other date of the single burial tradition. • In a number of cases, such as Straid, Co. Derry / Londonderry, multiple dates have been obtained from the same set of human remains which are contradictory, having no degree of overlap at 95.4%. It is tempting to pick the date which best fits other dates, the most ‘believable’ date, but this approach is potentially problematic. Are you giving priority to the model, your preconceived beliefs, or the data? In these cases, where there are contradictory dates from a single grave or set of human remains, all the contradictory

Criteria for excluding dates from the radiocarbon analysis. A criticism of Brindley’s (2007) analysis of the radiocarbon dating of Bronze Age funerary vessels is that she does not explicitly state, and stick to, a set of criteria for excluding dates from her analyses. Here a set of rules has been applied in all cases. This has reduced the number of dates available for analysis to some extent, but it means that the conclusions arrived at can be considered a firm basis for further work to build upon.

ID

Cist or Pit?

County

Lab No.

Pit Pit

Tyrone Tyrone

UB-2561

Annaghkeen Grave 1

Cist

Galway

GrN-13580

4210

60

Annaghkeen Grave 1

Cist

Galway

OxA-2665

3440

70

Ballyveelish 2 Grave 1

PolyCist

Tipperary

GrN-11657

3580

50

PolyCist

Tipperary

GrN-11659

3485

Cist Pit

Sligo

Pit

Wexford

GrN-19691

Wexford

GrN-16820

Altanagh Ritual Pit

Altanagh Ritual Pit 2

Ballyveelish 2 Grave 1

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Carrigeens Grave 1 Coolnaboy Grave 1 Coolnaboy Grave 1 Cush Grave 1

Glentalucky Grave 1

Graney West Grave 3

Pit Pit Pit

Limerick Cork

Kildare

C14 Date

Lab error

C14 Dates Sample Material

Reason for Exclusion

2900

100

Charcoal (unidentified)

Charcoal

3140

GrN-11450

GrN-15964

Human bone (unburnt)

Outlier

Wood charcoal

Charcoal

40

Wood charcoal

Charcoal

3510

50

Charcoal

Charcoal

3420

140

Charcoal

Charcoal

131

UB-3989

1430

70

100 24 32

Charcoal Charcoal Charcoal Charcoal

Halverstown 2 Grave 2

Pit

Kildare

GrN-11032

3860

60

Charcoal

Haylands Grave 1

Cist

Wicklow

GrN-11901

4095

30

Dates Contradict

Haylands Grave 1

Cist

Wicklow

OxA-2669

Charcoal

Dates Contradict

3430

UBA-12978

Charcoal

Human bone (unburnt)

3850

GrN-10633

55

3580

70

46

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Charcoal Charcoal

Willow/ poplar Charcoal / outlier Charcoal

Dates Contradict Dates Contradict

Chapter 5 Radiocarbon Dating the single burial tradition

ID

Cist or Pit?

County

C14 Date

Lab error

C14 Dates Sample Material

Reason for Exclusion

Pit - Urn Antrim

GrN-15378

Killeenagh mountain Grave 1

Pit

Waterford

GrA-14798

3740

80

Carbonate

Dates Contradict

Killeenagh mountain Grave 1

Pit

Waterford

GrA-23261

3520

40

Carbonate

Dates Contradict

Letterkeen Grave 1

Cist

Mayo

OxA-2656

1320

70

Oak Charcoal

N’Stewart Grave1 ChamberA

Cist

Tyrone

UBA-13538

3615

29

N’Stewart Grave 1 ChamberA

Cist

Tyrone

UB-6783

3897

39

Human Bone (cremated)

Charcoal / outlier

N’Stewart Grave 1 ChamberB

Cist

Tyrone

UBA-13539

4094

36

N’Stewart Grave 1 ChamberB

Cist

Tyrone

UB-6784

3680

38

Rathcahill West Grave 1 Cist Straid Grave 2

Cist

Limerick

GrN-14251

3530

35

Straid Grave 2

Cist

Derry

UBA-13533

3433

22

Straid Grave 2

Cist

Derry

UBA-13534

3513

43

Straid Grave 3

Cist

Derry

GrN-15492

3840

35

Straid Grave 3

Cist

Derry

UBA-13532

3715

21

Straid Grave 3

Cist

Derry

UBA-13535

3954

26

Strawhall Grave 2

P-Cist

Carlow

GrA-14827

3420

80

Kilcroagh Grave 2

Strawhall Grave 2 Strawhall Grave 2 Strawhall Grave 3 Tremoge Grave 1

P-Cist P-Cist P-Cist Cist

Carlow Carlow Carlow

Tyrone

3510

GrA-14823

3680

GrA-14070

3290

OXA-2657

3420

OxA-2658

3440

GrN-11446

3570

35

35

40 80 40 45

Tremoge Grave 1

Cist

Tyrone

GrA-14064

4385

35

Urbalreagh Grave 2

Pit

Antrim

GrA-25777

3005

40

Urbalreagh Grave 1

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Derry

Lab No.

Pit

Antrim

GrA-24664

3035

45

Oak charcoal from Urn

Dates Contradict

Human Bone (cremated)

Dates Contradict

Human Bone (cremated

Dates Contradict

Human Bone (unburnt)

Dates Contradict

Human Bone (cremated)

Dates Contradict

Charcoal

Charcoal

Human Bone (cremated)

Dates Contradict

Human Bone (unburnt)

Dates Contradict

Cremated Bone

Dates Contradict

Carbonate

Dates Contradict

Human Bone (cremated)

Dates Contradict

Human Bone (unburnt)

Dates Contradict

Carbonate

Dates Contradict

Charcoal Charcoal

Unidentified charcoal

Charcoal Charcoal Charcoal

Carbonate

Outlier

Charcoal

Charcoal / outlier

Charcoal

Charcoal / outlier

Table 5.1 Radiocarbon dates excluded from aspects of the analysis

dates were removed from the analysis. All dates excluded from analysis for one of the above three reasons is listed in Table 5.1.

• Two dates from the Early Bronze Age burials at Ballynacarriga, Co. Cork; UBA-14777 and UBA14778, were dates from the cremated bone contents of a cordoned and an encrusted urn respectively. The calibrated date ranges of these two dates are much earlier than the date range for these types of pottery, either Brindley’s 2007 date ranges, as is admitted by the excavator of Ballynacarriga (Lehane 2011), or the date ranges

Other dates excluded from the analysis Although not breaching any of the criteria noted above a very small number of further dates seem incongruous and have been excluded from analysis. These are 47

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland

EBA single burial tradition

SBT Start Date 95.4% range (68.2% range)

SBT End Date 95.4% range (68.2% range)

2184-2102BC (2157-2123BC)

1680—1589BC(1612-1660BC)

Table 5.2 OxCal 4.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2015) calibrated ranges (Reimer et al. 2013) for the Start and End of the single burial tradition

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for cordoned or encrusted urns suggested by the analysis below. • Similarly a date, GrA-14756, obtained from cremated remains found within a cordoned urn found at Harristown, Co. Waterford, are earlier than the 95.4% range of cordoned urns from Ireland as a whole. Brindley (2007) says this may be a mis-association and the dated bone is likely not to actually belong with the vessel. • A single date from Poulawack, Co. Clare Grave 4, OxA-3260, is much older, not just than the other dates from that site (apart from the much earlier dates associated with the Neolithic Linkardstown Cist) but even any other reliable Munster single burial tradition date. It was not included in the analysis. It has been noted that some of the radiocarbon dates which appear to be outliers in this, and other, analyses are from cremated bone. The possibility of an ‘old wood’ effect for cremated bone, caused by carbon from wood pyres intermixing with the carbon of bone during cremation, has been suggested by Jesper Olsen (2013), although he believes that the effect is typically limited. • A date GrN-15491, from Straid Grave 1, an inhumation in a cist with an associated tripartite vase, has an unusually early date. All the other dates from Straid have been excluded because of inconsistencies between the date of samples from which more than one date was obtained. The Straid Grave 1 date has no comparator to reject it using this criteria, but it is a very early date. Perhaps the erroneous Straid dates are the result of some local contaminant. This date has been removed from further analysis.

Analysis of the radiocarbon dates from the Late Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age single burial tradition Dating the single burial tradition across Ireland All the available radiocarbon dates directly associated with single burial tradition burials were combined into a single un-ordered Phase within an OxCal 4.2 sequence (Bronk Ramsey 2015) (Table 5.2 and Appendix 2 Table 1). The Boundary command was used to estimate start and end dates for this Phase. As there were a large number of dates available for this estimation this is likely to give the most realistic estimation of the beginning and end of the single burial tradition. It suggests, at 95% probability, that the single burial tradition commenced between 2184 and 2102BC and concluded between 1680 and 1589BC. Dating single burial tradition by province A series of four sequences, of all the usable single burial tradition burial dates, arranged into Phases by Province (Ulster, Munster, Leinster and Connacht) was produced. This analysis suggested that single burial tradition burials commenced and ceased in each of the four provinces during the dates ranges presented in Table 5.3 and in Appendix 2 Table 2. This table appears to show that the single burial tradition began in Ulster and Connacht at around the same time, possibly beginning at about the same time or a little later in Leinster. It is likely that the appearance of the single burial tradition in Munster is delayed, the 68.2% range suggesting that the appearance of the single burial tradition in Munster is delayed by about a century compared to the rest of the country.

Province

SBT Start Date 95.4% range (68.2% range) SBT End Date 95.4% range (68.2% range)

Ulster

2217-2046 BC (2166-2081 BC)

1717-1494 BC (1661-1598BC)

2186-2069 BC (2156-2104 BC)

1737-1620 BC (1724-1660 BC)

Connacht Leinster Munster

2232-2047 BC (2171-2066 BC)

2008-1843 BC (1952-1875 BC)

2161-1935 BC (2071-1968 BC)

1657-1422 BC (1609-1498 BC)

Table 5.3 Oxcal 4.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2015) calibrated ranges (Reimer et al. 2013) for the single burial tradition, by province

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Chapter 5 Radiocarbon Dating the single burial tradition

The estimates for the date ranges are, in some cases, somewhat earlier than that made by Brindley’s PCDR. This is a natural consequence of the method utilised by this study. Brindley simply took the earliest and latest 68.2% calibrated ranges for the subset of dates which she used in her analysis and used them to determine the beginning and end of the use of these vessels. This is not an unreasonable technique if you believe you have a data set which accurately reflects what you are trying to date, but it may underestimate the true age range if you have a data set which is biased in any way. This study, as noted above, uses the OxCal 4.2 Boundary command, which takes the size of the data set into account so as to minimise this possibility.

Dating single burial tradition funerary pottery As mentioned previously Anna Brindley has already looked in some detail at the dating of single burial tradition funerary vessels. She produced a series of date ranges for each pottery type, a Preliminary Calibrated Date Range (PCDR) and more nuanced date ranges, a Final Calibrated Date Range (FCDR) (Table 5.4), based on a combination of radiocarbon dating and Brindley’s sub-typology of vessel types. Pottery Type

Brindley PCDR

Brindley FCDR

Bowl

2200-1800 BC

2160-1920

Encrusted urns 2000-1700 BC

2000-1740

Vase Vase urns

Collared urns

2150-1750 BC 2000-1700 BC 1900-1650 BC

Cordoned urns 1880-1500 BC

2020-1740

The calibrated date range for encrusted urns is very wide due partly to the small number of dates available for examination and the spread of the dates. However because encrusted urns contain cremated remains it is possible to infer that they cannot pre-date the emergence of cremation in Ireland, which because of the large number of dated cremations in the data set can be reliably shown to be after 2155 and probably after 2134BC (see Chapter 5: Dating Inhumation and Cremation). Perhaps the 68.2% start range for encrusted urns of 2113 to 1958BC may in this case be the more useful. This may be a little later than Sheridan’s (Sheridan in Gibson and Sheridan 2004) dating of vase urns and encrusted urns in Scotland, although in this case also the date ranges were quite broad. Unfortunately all of the encrusted urns with usable dates have come from either cists or polygonal cists. Only two encrusted urns from pits have been dated, both of which have provided anomalous results, UBA-14778 the extremely early date from Ballynacarriga, Co. Cork and UBA-12978 from Glentalucky, Co. Cork, which gave a date of only 131 BP, clearly an anomaly.

2000-1740 1850-1700 1730-1500

Table 5.4 Brindley’s PCDR and FCDR s (Brindley 2007)

As discussed below (see Section 3.3.6) there are a number of methodological problems with Brindley’s approach so a series of calibrations using OxCal 4.2’s (Bronk Ramsey 2015) Sequence and Boundary commands of dates for each of these vessel types was compiled. These gave similar, but somewhat different, ranges than Brindley’s PCDRs and FCDRs(Table 5.5 and Appendix 2 Table 3, Appendix 2 Table 4, Appendix 2 Table 5, Appendix 2 Table 6, Appendix 2 Table 7 and Appendix 2 Table 8). The start range for bowl dates is similar for that from the single burial tradition as a whole, which is not surprising as the most of the earliest dates are of burials with bowls. It is probable that there is a delay of a few decades between the appearance of bowls and vases.

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Pottery Type Bowl Vase

Encrusted urns Vase urns

Collared urns

Cordoned urns

While the encrusted urns may predate the vase urns by a few decades, it seems likely that both encrusted and vase urns are in contemporary use for a considerable time before the emergence of collared and cordoned

New Calibrated Date Range Start Date 95.4% (68.2% in brackets)

New Calibrated Date Range End Date 95.4% (68.2% in brackets)

2216-2037 BC (2140-2050BC)

1875-1694 BC (1863-1766 BC)

2186-2061 BC (2151-2084BC) 2271-1906BC (2113-1958 BC)

1948-1852 BC (1922-1876 BC) 1890-1504BC (1852-1673BC)

2127-1893 BC (2053-1943BC)

1851-1542 BC (1726-1620 BC)

1972-1682 BC (1875-1732 BC)

1854-1570 BC (1743-1633 BC)

1955-1574 BC (1782-1640 BC)

1719-1351 BC (1656-1512 BC)

Table 5.5 OxCal 4.2(Bronk Ramsey 2015) calibrated ranges (Reimer et al. 2013) for the Start and End dates of single burial tradition funerary vessels at 95.4% and 68.2%

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland urns. The encrusted urns and vase urns are earlier than the collared and cordoned urns, both of which probably only come into use after 1900BC, the evidence of the 68.2% calibrated ranges suggesting that it is possible, but not certain, that the collared urns are the earlier. The dating of collared urns may be slightly later in Ireland than that suggested in Scotland (Sheridan 2007), perhaps 50 or 100 years later, which is compatible with Longworth’s (1984) observation that his earlier (of two) series of collared urns was barely represented in Ireland.

Dating aspects of pottery decoration A large number of decorative motifs are included in the database. It would be a study of its own to examine the ebb and flow of these decorative motifs in the data set. This is an area for more work in the future. It is possible, however, to date the modifiers, the decorative techniques used, and the presence or absence of definition on pottery motifs, some of which, there is reason to believe from the works of Hodder (1982) and Conkey (1982), could potentially be connected to status or the way society is structured.

The dating of the ending of use of all the urn types is interesting also. Each type, the vase urns, encrusted urns, collared and cordoned urns, appear to continue until quite late in the Early Bronze Age, possibly as late as the seventeenth century BC in the case of the Encrusted, Vase and collared urn and, in the case of the cordoned urn, possibly as late as the sixteenth Century BC. This suggests that there was a considerable period of time when all of these vessel types may have been in contemporary use, possibly several centuries.

Dating techniques of decoration Three decorative techniques have enough associated radiocarbon dates for reliable modeling of their date ranges, cord impressed, comb impressed and incised decoration (Table 5.6 ). Despite the Start and End date ranges for each of these techniques being unfortunately wide, a couple of points are apparent. Firstly it seems, from the 68.2% date range, that vessels with corded decoration may predate vessels with incised decoration and probably predate vessels with comb impressed decoration. What is also evident is that comb impressed decoration ends a little earlier than the other motif techniques. However when looked at in a little more detail these apparent results may be seen to be misleading. Although cord impressed decoration has an earlier Start date, this at least partly because there are fewer dates from cord decorated pottery than for the other two decorative techniques. It is more likely that vessels with these three motifs appear at approximately the same time, as is in fact borne out by looking at individual vessels and their date associations.

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The results of this analysis is similar to an analysis carried out by Alex Bayliss and Muiris O’Sullivan (2013). They suggest a similar date range for bowls, collared urns and cordoned urns, but a somewhat tighter date range for vases and encrusted urns. These tighter date ranges are partly because of the larger number of dates used in the analysis, only dates from sites which had complete enough excavation accounts to be entered into the database were used in this analysis. However it is also partly due to the use by Bayliss and O’Sullivan of Brindley’s (2007) phasing of pottery types by decoration. While this phasing is interesting it is, I believe, not yet established, and using Brindley’s insights, which are themselves a blend of typology and radiocarbon analysis, in a radiocarbon analysis perhaps risks putting too much faith in the model, as discussed more fully in Section 3.3.6. This is not to say that the date ranges proposed by Bayliss and O’Sullivan are not reasonable, simply that they take a somewhat different position on analysis than the analytical philosophy used in this study.

Also, although comb impression appears to end sooner than the other vessel types, it is worth noting that comb impressed decoration is found on both cordoned and encrusted urns occasionally. Only one radiocarbon date, however, in the data set has been obtained from an urn burial with comb impressed decoration and that

Decorative Technique

Start Date Range at 95.4% (68.2% in brackets) End Date Range at 95.4% (68.2% in brackets)

Cord impressed

2264-2056BC (2200-2100BC)

1744-1476BC (1698-1570BC)

Comb impressed

2204-2037BC (2145-2053BC)

2011-1925BC (2027-1876BC)

Incision techniques

2146-2041BC (2102-2048BC)

1856-1783BC (1864-1717BC)

Table 5.6 OxCal 4.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2015) calibrated ranges(Reimer et al. 2013) for the start and end dates of decorative techniques from single burial tradition funerary vessels at 95.4% and 68.2%, using dating samples directly associated with the vessels.

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Chapter 5 Radiocarbon Dating the single burial tradition

was GrN-10633, from Cush, Co. Limerick, on unidentified charcoal, with a laboratory error of ± 100 years which was rejected for analysis. It is likely that the estimated end range for comb impressed decoration is too early. Overall the impression is of a degree of continuity in decorative technique, in all the vessels, from the early part of the Late Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age, through to its end.

decoration unbounded, can be modeled (Table 5.7, Figure 5.2 and Appendix 2: Table 12 and 13). It is possible, but not certain, that the earliest decoration on single burial tradition funerary vessels was defined, with unbounded decoration following a short time, at most a few decades, later. It is also possible that both appeared contemporaneously. When the radiocarbon calibration of defined decoration is plotted on a graph (Figure 5.2) it is possible to see a change in the gradient of the graph, about or just before, 1900BC. With a calibration plot there is a direct relationship between the gradient of a plot and the density of the number of radiocarbon dates. A best fit line drawn through the centre of the calibration plots of a set of events which are dated many times within a short period will have a

Defined / undefined decoration The importance of a boundary around a motif, or zone of decoration, has been commented upon by a number of post-structuralist writers including Ian Hodder (1982) and Margaret Conkey (1982).The dating of the use of definition around decoration, or the leaving of

Defined / Undefined Start Date Range at 95.4% (68.2% in brackets) End Date Range at 95.4% (68.2% in brackets) Defined Undefined

2216-2086BC (2175-2112BC)

1737-1616BC (1729-1656BC)

2205-2061BC (2160-2083BC)

1687-1562BC (1665-1596BC)

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Table 5.7 OxCal 4.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2015) calibrated ranges (Reimer et al. 2013) for the Start and End dates of Defined / Undefined decoration from single burial tradition funerary vessels at 95.4% and 68.2%, using dating samples directly associated with the vessels

Figure 5.2 OxCal 4.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2015) multiplot of the calibrated ranges (Reimer et al. 2013) of dates associated with vessels displaying Defined Decorative Motifs. Red line shows a best fit line through the calibrated ranges.

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland steep gradient. If this event is less frequently occurring then the best fit line will be more shallow. When the calibration plot of the dates for defined decoration is examined and a best fit line drawn through the data, it can be seen that there is a gradient change, to a shallower gradient, about 1900BC. This shows that this decorative attribute, the defining line top and bottom, is less common after this date. Undefined decoration seems to be consistently popular throughout the era.

collared urns, and to a lesser extent cordoned urns only a few vessels have defined motifs, most are undefined. This appears to explain the slight lessening of the gradient of the sequence plot for the defined decoration vessels after about 1900BC as these vessel types become common.

An examination of the types of vessels with defined and undefined decoration appears to show that in each broad vessel class there are examples which display both defined and undefined decoration. However for

Dating cist and polygonal cist burials

The chronology of funerary ritual and grave attributes

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OxCal 4.2 sequencing estimates that typical rectangular or near rectangular cists commence between 2215

Figure 5.3 OxCal 4.2(Bronk Ramsey 2015) multiplot of the calibrated ranges (Reimer et al. 2013) of dates associated with cist burials. Red line shows a best fit line through the calibrated ranges.

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Chapter 5 Radiocarbon Dating the single burial tradition

Cists

Polygonal Cists Pits

Start Date Range at 95.4% (68.2% in brackets)

End Date Range at 95.4% (68.2% in brackets)

2138-1929 BC(2060-1972BC)

1926-1712BC(1881-1786)BC

2215-2111BC(2184-2129BC)

2262-1949BC (2131-1986BC)

1731-1589BC (1726-1631BC) 1705-1388BC (1655-1515BC)

Table 5.8 OxCal 4.2(Bronk Ramsey 2015) calibrated ranges (Reimer et al. 2013) for the start and end dates of cists and pits at 95.4% and 68.2%, using dating samples directly associated with the vessels.

and 2111BC and continue to, at the earliest 1731 and possibly 1589BC (Table 5.8 and Appendix 2 Table 14). As noted above this places cist burials as older than the earliest estimate of the entire single burial tradition of 2184BC, which obviously cannot be the case. This is an effect of the smaller data set for cists as opposed to all burials, the boundary command lengthening the range by several decades. It does however demonstrate that cists are the earliest type of single burial tradition burial and appear to be older, possibly by a century, or even more, than pit burials and polygonal cists (Appendix 2 Table 15). It can be seen from an ordered plot of the calibrated ranges of dates from cists (Figure 5.3) that they are, more or less, uniformly common from their inception until approximately 1900BC or just before, when, although they continue, the changing gradient of the plot suggests that they are less popular than they were previously.

Examining cist dates by province By sequencing the dates associated with cists for each province separately it is possible to see if there is any indication of an area with earlier, or later, cist burial use. Unfortunately there were too few pit burial dates to attempt a similar provincial analysis for that type. The modeled Start date ranges (Table 5.9 and Appendix 2 Table 17) seem to indicate that cists may have appeared at about the same time in Ulster and Connacht. The date range for Connacht is based on a sample of dates which is much smaller than for Ulster or Leinster and this may be somewhat lengthening OxCal 4.2’s estimation of the Start boundary, effectively overstating the significance of a single date OxA-2664 from Grange, Co. Roscommon. The figure for Munster looks, at 95.4%, to also be earlier than anywhere else in Ireland, however the sample is even smaller than Connacht and it is probably, again, the effect of lengthening modeled calibrated ranges with small samples. The 68.2% calibrated range for the Munster cist dates suggests that it is likely that the beginning of the use of cists is later in Munster than in the other provinces. This seems to match the probable later start date generally for the single burial tradition ritual in Munster discussed above (see Section 5.3.2).

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Dating pits Unfortunately there are far fewer good pit burial dates available to use to create a pit burial date sequence than are available for cist burials leading to a wide estimate by OxCal 4.2 of the likely Start range for pit burials (Table 5.8 and Appendix 2 Table 16). This gives the impression from these sequences alone that pit burials may have begun at about the same time as cist burials, although as can also be seen from Table 5.8 and Appendix 2 Table 14, it is possible that pit burials did not emerge until more than a century after cists. Perhaps looking at the 68.2% modeled ranges can help. This suggests that it is possible that pit burials and cist burials may have emerged at about the same time but probable that pit burials appeared after cist burials, possibly more than a century after the earliest cist burials. In this calculation pits with urns have deliberately been left out because it seems likely that, in some cases at least, they are not directly comparable.

Ulster Munster Leinster Connacht

Dating inhumation and cremation When all the inhumations with reliable dates were collected and modeled in Oxcal 4.2 the estimated start range for inhumation was 2228-2112BC, very similar to the date range for the earliest cists (Table 5.10 and Appendix 2 Tables 18 and 19). The start range for the earliest cremations however was 2155-2038 BC. The small overlap between these 95.4% date ranges making it probable that inhumations pre-date cremations. This seems to be confirmed by the 68.2% estimations. Of course, there are, relatively, fewer inhumation and cremation dates, when modeled separately, than for the

Start Date Range at 95.4% (68.2% in brackets) 2227-2045BC(2175-2089BC) 2318-1794BC(2103-1899BC) 2216-2041BC(2167-2075BC) 2282-2048BC(2211-2075BC)

End Date Range at 95.4% (68.2% in brackets) 1867-1551BC(1856-1632BC) 1851-1232BC(1714-1434BC) 2004-1767BC(1931-1826BC) 2008-1780BC(1949-1852BC)

Table 5.9 OxCal 4.2(Bronk Ramsey 2015) calibrated ranges (Reimer et al. 2013) for the start and end dates of cists by province at 95.4% and 68.2%, using dating samples directly associated with the vessels.

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland

Inhumation Cremation

Start Date Range at 95.4% (68.2% in brackets) 2228-2112BC(2200-2137BC) 2155-2038BC(2134-2052BC)

End Date Range at 95.4% (68.2% in brackets) 1682-1547BC(1636-1590BC) 1732-1618BC(1717-1654BC)

Table 5.10 OxCal 4.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2015) date ranges for the start and end of single burial tradition inhumation and cremation

single burial tradition burials as a whole and, as noted above, this will lengthen the estimation of start and end dates. The start date for inhumations must actually be about 2184BC or later, with a corresponding shift for cremations to later than about 2111BC.

calibrated ranges of dates from inhumations) possibly ceasing entirely for a time about 1800BC. Inhumation appears then to become somewhat more popular again after 1700BC. One of these dates, GrA-19180, comes from the ‘Tara Boy’ very unusual burial of an adolescent male from the Mound of the Hostages, Tara, Co. Meath, who was buried with an opulent assemblage of grave goods including a bronze knife, bronze wire, a large assemblage of beads of bronze, bone, faience, amber and tubular bronze. The unusual nature of this burial has been noted (Sheridan et al 2013), its exotic grave goods and the isotopic analysis of the interred youth, who was not local to the Tara area and possibly came from

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While cremations, once they actually commence, continue at a similar rate throughout the Early Bronze Age, inhumation burials appear to do something a little more interesting. After approximately 1900BC, the frequency of inhumation burials decreases, as can be shown by the gradient change just after about 1900BC in Figure 5.4 (an OxCal multiplot of the ordered

Figure 5.4 OxCal 4.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2015) multiplot of the calibrated ranges (Reimer et al. 2013) of dates associated with inhumation burials. Red line shows a best fit line through the calibrated range

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Chapter 5 Radiocarbon Dating the single burial tradition

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Munster. It has been suggested (Sheridan et al 2013) that he was a member of an elite group which had close connections with Wessex. The others dated examples are Poulawack Grave 1, Co. Clare, the burial of an adult male at the edge of the cairn with no pottery or grave goods, Drumahoe Grave 1, Co. Derry / Londonderry, the burial in a cist of a child of about ten years of age, and Redmondstown Grave 3, Co. Westmeath, a cist burial of

a child aged about five, with an unusual ‘anomalous’ Bowl. Bayliss and O’Sullivan (2013: 83-4) also look at the date ranges of cremation and inhumation burials. They date the start of inhumation to 2215-2095BC, very similar to the range presented above. They suggest that inhumation largely comes to an end in Ireland between

Figure 5.5 OxCal 4.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2015) multiplot of the calibrated ranges (Reimer et al. 2013) of dates associated with cremation burials.

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland 1925 and 1845BC, seeing Burial 30, the ‘Tara Boy’ as an unusual outlier. They accept that aspects of their analysis are tentative because they are only looking at burials accompanied by vessels. This study does however look at the wider radiocarbon landscape and can identify that, chronologically at least, the Tara Boy is not an outlier but part of a group of late inhumations.

in a pit from Keenoge has been left in. The un-calibrated radiocarbon date for this date is a clear century older than any of the other pot-less burials, and would be the only dated inhumation in the database (out of 27 others) with a radiocarbon age before 3630BP to be without an accompanying funerary vessel. These burials start between 2156 and 1966bc (20761988bc, 68.2%) and end between 1678 and 1459BC (1640-1531BC, 68.2%). These dates are interesting for two reasons.

Bayliss and O’Sullivan (2013) further suggest that there must be a gap of between 40 and 295 years between Burial 30, the ‘Tara Boy’ and the next latest burial at the Mound of the Hostages. This is not borne out by analysis of this data set which suggests there is no significant gap between single burial tradition burial in Ireland as a whole and the group of late inhumations. This does not negate the importance of the gap in burial at the Mound of the hostages which was identified by Bayliss and O’Sullivan, but it means that this can not be taken as a countrywide gap in burial at this time.

Firstly the date range for pot-less burials shows that they commence after 2156BC, probably after 2076BC. This suggests that the earliest burials in the single burial tradition probably all contained pottery vessels. The idea of burying an individual without a pot only appears sometime after the introduction of the single burial tradition. How long after the commencement of the single burial tradition is probably indicated by the difference in the 68.2%% estimation of the start of the single burial tradition as a whole (2157-2123BC) and the 68.2% estimation of the start of the pot-less burial phenomenon (2074-1982BC), which indicates a period of probably not less than fifty and possibly as much as 178 years between the commencement of the single burial tradition and pot-less burials. Secondly they demonstrate that, once they had appeared, potless burials continued through the latter half of the Early Bronze Age, which is in sharp contrast to what was believed previously and adds an extra dimension to the already complex funerary ritual of the latter half of the Early Bronze Age.

They date the start of cremation as 2095-2010BC, slightly later than the range suggested in this study, however Bayliss and O’Sullivan (2013) note that their estimation may be up to several generations too late. They note a sharp decline in cremation however, between 1860 and 1760BC before a slight recovery petering out in the 16th century BC. This is not found with this study however, possibly because the Bayliss and O’Sullivan (2013) focus on burials with associated funerary vessels, missing the important pot-less burials (see Chapter 5: Dating graves which contain no pottery). Dating graves which contain no pottery, pot-less cists and Pits

Conclusions

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There are a significant number of cist and pit burials which contain no pottery. As cist burials in particular are so strongly associated with bowls and vases it is almost natural to date, by extension, these pot-less burials, especially those found in cists, to the earlier part of the Late Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age. Potless cists were discussed by Waddell (1990: 14) and tentatively had been assigned to the bowl tradition although he admitted that he was not certain of his conclusions. Is this the case?

From an analysis of the radiocarbon dates within the single burial tradition database, using OxCal 4.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2015) it is possible therefore to make a number of assertions regarding the chronology of various aspects of the single burial tradition. These can be summarised as follows: Examining the single burial tradition as a whole • The single burial tradition commences in the twenty second century BC, probably between 2157 and 2123 BC. • When Single Burials are looked at in their entirety by province, it seems probable that the single burial tradition becomes established in Ulster, Connacht and Leinster at about the same time.

An examination of the dates of the relatively small number of these graves that have radiocarbon dates shows that they continue through the Early Bronze Age (Table 5.11 and Appendix 2: Table 20). A single date from the unusual grave at Keenoge GrA-2157 has been left out of the estimation, although another inhumation

Pot-less cists and pits

Start Date Range at 95.4% (68.2% in brackets) End Date Range at 95.4% (68.2% in brackets) 2156 and 1966BC (2076-1988BC, 68.2%) 1678 and 1459BC (1640-1531BC, 68.2%)

Table 5.11 OxCal 4.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2015) date ranges for the start and end of pot-less burials

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Chapter 5 Radiocarbon Dating the single burial tradition

• Munster is the latest place for burial in the single burial tradition to appear, emerging probably about a century after it appears in other provinces, but possibly more than two centuries later.

meaning initially single burial tradition burials were exclusively inhumations. • The rate of inhumation burial appears to drop off after 1900BC, probably ceasing completely after about 1800BC, but there appears to be a flurry of inhumation burials again after about 1700BC. • Pot-less burials do not belong to the earliest phase of the single burial tradition, they appear, probably in the mid twenty first century BC and continue being used for the remainder of the era.

Examining single burial tradition Pottery • Bowl pottery appears with the start of the single burial tradition in the twenty second century BC. • Vase pottery may appear at the same time as bowls, but it is more likely to appear several decades later. • Encrusted urns have an unfortunately wide Start date range, due to the small data set of dated vessels of this type. This range is definitely too wide however and it is likely that in broad terms encrusted urns are contemporary with the start of vase urns, probably after the late twenty first century BC. • Collared urns appear possibly as early as the twentieth century BC, but more probably in the nineteenth or eighteenth centuries BC, with cordoned urns possibly appearing very shortly after, but more probably with a delay of fifty to 100 years. • It is possible that all the urn types were in use together in the nineteenth and eighteenth centuries BC. Alternatively is possible that the encrusted, vase urn and collared urns were in contemporary use but that the encrusted urn was passing out of use as the cordoned urn was appearing. • Of three main decorative techniques examined, cord, comb and incised, it seems likely that they all appeared at about the same time, with the introduction of the single burial tradition and continue through the entirety of the Early Bronze Age. • Defined motifs may be earlier, by a few decades, than undefined motifs, appearing at the start of the single burial tradition. Defined motifs seem to become less common after about 1900BC.

Phasing the Irish single burial tradition The Irish single burial tradition burial practices can be divided into three discrete phases (Figure 5.5). Phase A commences with the earliest single burial tradition burials In Ireland, in the decades after 2200BC. Phase A, which is typified by cist burials (and after an interval of about 50 years pit burials), containing inhumations only, and where accompanying pottery

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Examining single burial tradition Funerary Ritual • It appears that cists predate pits, possibly by 100 years or more, with cists first appearing, probably in Ulster with the earliest single burial tradition burials in the twenty second century BC. • Cist burials continue through the Late Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age but become less common after about 1900BC. • It is almost certain that inhumation predates cremation, possibly by as much as 150 years,

Figure 5.6 Phasing scheme of the single burial tradition, with Needham’s (1996) scheme for the British Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age and O’Brien’s Irish Chalcolithic scheme.

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland vessels are probably always present. This phase is broadly the same as O’Brien’s Late Chalcolithic (2012: 220). In Britain, Needham’s (1996) Phase 2, commences about 2300 and continues to about 2050BC. Within this period Needham notes what he calls a ‘fission horizon’ from circa 2250 to 2150BC, when beaker pottery spreads and diversifies across Britain. It is interesting that the appearance of the single burial tradition in Ireland occurs around the time of this fission horizon. It is probable that these two events are related.

Phase C, commencing around, 1950BC, was typified by the main in-urn cremation traditions (vase urns, encrusted urns, collared and cordoned urns) but with the continuation of a large number of pot-less burials also. Grave goods accompanying burials become more common in this phase. Phases B and C are broadly contemporary with Needham’s Phase 3 and 4, although in Needham’s scheme the significant division is seen as being at 1700BC, when collared and cordoned urn burials become dominant and British beaker and beaker-derived burials become much less common. In an Irish context the presence of encrusted urns and vase urns and the presence of significant numbers of pot-less burials through both phases, leads to a different chronological phasing.

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Phase B is distinguished from the earlier phase by the introduction of cremation, probably between 2134 and 2052BC. In this phase the inclusion of a pottery vessel is increasingly an option rather than a given and pot-less burials become common.

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Chapter 5 Radiocarbon Dating the single burial tradition

Figure 5.7 Oxcal 4.2 multiplot showing the radiocarbon dates of all vessels with reliable dates in the data set.

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Chapter 6 Analysis presented in Figure 6.1. The grave types can be divided in several different ways, and have been treated differently where there has been a necessity to do so. Nine separate basic grave types were encountered in the single burial tradition in Ireland. Because some pits, polygonal cists and cist-like burials seem to have dimensions which may simply reflect the size of the urn they are intended to contain, these have been subdivided up into urn containing and non- urn containing classes for the purposes of this calculation. The nine basic grave types are: cist, cist-like, cist-like (urn), pit, pit (urn), polygonal cist, polygonal cist (urn), bone patch, and unprotected body laid within a mound.

Introduction This chapter examines the data set statistically, looking at its overall composition, using basic descriptive statistics, and interrogating the data for specific correlations using cross-tabulation tables with chi square and Cramer’s v significance tests and finally looking for meaningful groups of burials using cluster analysis. Below are presented the results of the statistical analysis of the information contained within the data set. The analysis covers a number of broad themes and areas and generally attempts to discuss similar topics in the one place. However this can prove difficult and sometimes there is a degree of recapping and occasionally certain statistical tests may appear a little out of sequence; this is unavoidable when dealing with the cross-tabulation based tests. For instance if reporting on the cross-tabulation of sex with grave type, should one group the results with other tests involving the sex of human remains, or should one group them along with tests looking at grave morphology?

As can be seen from Figure 6.1 the cist is the most common type of single burial tradition burial in the data set. Just over half (51%, n=256/493) of all the single burial tradition types in the database are stone cists. The next most common grave form is the pit (22.1%, n=109/ 493) followed by the pit (urn) (14.0, n=69/ 493). After these most common burial forms other types are much less frequent. Patches of cremated bone, bone patches, are found in 17 cases (3.4%, n=17/493) and polygonal cists account for 15 cases (3.0%, n=15/493), with polygonal cists (n=17/493) accounting for 16 cases (3.2%, n=16/493).

This chapter also discusses the 61 other types of grave goods, apart from the main classes of funerary vessels, which are included in the database and the contexts in which they have been found and their associations. Relative frequency of grave types, their size and shape

Cist and pit shape Excluding polygonal cists, which can be considered a separate type, stone cists can be shown to be broadly rectangular in shape. Of the 253 cists in the database, 80% (n=202/253) are rectangular, the remainder mostly almost rectangular, sub-rectangular or trapezoidal. There appears to be no significance in the construction of a trapezoidal cist, it seems simply to be a slightly imperfect rectangular cist. In many cases the shape of single burial tradition burial pit and pit (urn) is not explicitly stated by the excavator. Dimensions are provided in some reports and they are typically sub-circular.

Frequency of basic grave classes

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The relative frequency of the basic grave types encountered amongst the single burial tradition is

Cist area

Figure 6.1 Frequency of single burial tradition grave type

Cists come in quite a wide range of sizes. Ideally the best way to compare the size of cists is by volume but, unfortunately, in many excavations, while there is either a plan of the cist or measurements of its length and breadth, no depth dimension is given for the cist or no section from which to measure it. Consequently area, as opposed to volume, has been used to compare cist sizes. Below (Figure

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Chapter 6 Analysis

6.2) is a histogram of cist area. The mean cist area is 0.42m2. This is an interesting graph in a number of ways. It is not a normal distribution. The curved line in the centre of the histogram is what a normal distribution for this variable should look like. There are quite a lot of small values, cists with a size less than 0.3m2, also there is also a small group of large cists in excess of 1m2. This will be discussed in more detail below but it may be a functional distinction, cist size related to the size of the human remains it needs to contain.

Figure 6.3 Histogram of pit areas (no urns) (with a normal distribution represented by black line running through graph).

Capstone area A similar distribution to that of cist area is also observed when the frequency of capstone areas is displayed as a histogram (Figure 6.5). This is perhaps not surprising given that there must be a direct relationship between cist area and capstone area but nevertheless it reinforces the scale, and the effort of construction, of some of the largest cists.

Figure 6.2 Histogram of cist areas (with a normal distribution represented by black line running through graph).

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Pit area (pits without urns) Pit area, for pits not containing urns, seems in some ways to match what is seen with cist area. Like cist area it does not conform to a typical normal distribution (Figure 6.3). There are a large number of small pits, and a smaller number of very large pits. The division between the two reinforced by the fact that there is an actual gap in the distribution between 0.79 m2 and 1.58m2. This is based on a much smaller sample size however, archaeologists have been much poorer at accurately recording the size of pit burials. Pit (urn) area Again, with pits which contain urns there is deviation away from the normal distribution (Figure 6.4). In this case, however, there are a number of pits which are larger than is simply required for the placement of an urn in the ground. As such it is harder to dismiss this with a simple functional explanation, however the number of examples is small.

Figure 6.4 Histogram of pit areas (urns only) (with a normal distribution represented by black line running through graph).

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland the size of (and more than two standard deviations larger than) its nearest neighbour, is unusual. However this polygonal cist, Gortcorbies 2 Grave 1, Co. Derry / Londonderry (McL May 1947), is unusual, irregular cist might perhaps be a better term, and it is probably not directly comparable with the others Polygonal cist (urn) This burial type does not follow the trend observed in the other burial type area frequency distributions noted previously (Figure 6.7). It is closer to a normal distribution with no extra-large outliers. This is closer to what would be expected if the size of the pit was related to the function of the pit as a container for an urn.

.

Figure 6.5 Histogram of capstone areas (with a normal distribution represented by black line running through graph).

Figure 6.7 Histogram of polygonal cists areas, for those polygonal cists which contain a funerary urn.

Burial in the landscape

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The height of single burial tradition burials above sea level (OD) The mean height of sites of single burial tradition Burials in the database above Sea Level is 107m (Figure 6.8). Almost all sites are situated at or below 300m with a single site, Slieve Gullion, Co. Down, located at an altitude of 525m above sea level. There is no evidence for any particular type of single burial tradition burial favouring any particular altitude. The pattern is similar to that uncovered by Mount (1997: 114). By examining a GIS map of all the sites in the database overlaid upon a relief map of Ireland (Figure 4.1), it can be seen that in most areas single burial tradition burials avoid the lowest points in the landscape. This is especially true

Figure 6.6 Histogram of polygonal cists areas, for those polygonal cists which do not contain a funerary urn (with a normal distribution represented by black line running through graph).

Polygonal cist area

As with the other burial types so far discussed the area of polygonal cists follows the same pattern of a nonnormal distribution with a large number of smaller than expected polygonal cists and a small number of larger than expected examples (Figure 6.6). This is a small data set but the large cist outlier, at more than twice 62

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Chapter 6 Analysis

of the Shannon river system, the lowest lying land in it seems devoid of any single burials whatsoever. Similarly the Upper and Lower Bann Valley and Lough Neagh basins seem largely absent of single burials. An interesting cluster of burials is found in the Midlands, in Co. Westmeath. Given the absence of burials in the vicinity of the river system to the west, people are either not utilising / living in the low lying riverine areas, or are alternatively eschewing them for burial purposes. If they are living in the river basins it also implies that they may be transporting human remains for considerable distances before burial, something recently discussed in an analysis of isotopes of late Neolithic burials in Northern Ireland by Snoeck et al (2016). An exception to this seems to be an area of low lying land in north Galway / south Mayo (Figure 6.9), to the east of Lough Mask and Lough Corrib, which has a group of 12 burial sites. This is an unusual region. Of these burials five are tumuli or multiple cist cairns, which effectively raise the burials above the ground surface and groundwater.

Figure 6.8 Height above sea level of Early Bronze Age burial sites

Distance to water of single burial tradition burial sites

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There were sites situated anywhere from 10m to 1000m from water, with the mean distance to water being 306m and the modal value a similar 300m (Figure 6.10). There were a greater than expected number of sites closer to water and a small, but larger than expected, group at a much greater distance from any water source.

Figure 6.9 Sites in the database displayed on a background relief map of Ireland. Westmeath group circled in red, Galway / Mayo group circled in blue.

Figure 6.10 Distance to water of single burial tradition burial sites

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland and gravel or sandy gravel 12.6%. Clays made up 19% of the subsoil in which single burial tradition burials are found. There seems to be no significant difference between the variant of single burial tradition burial and the subsoil type chosen, just a general preference for sands and gravels. Aspects of ritual In some of the statistical tests below urn burials have been examined separately from other burials. This was done partly because it allowed graves to be easily separated chronologically, although as was uncovered by the radiocarbon analysis of pot-less burials (see Chapter 5), this is less than perfect. Also when, for instance, comparing inhumations and cremations, it was felt the presence of urn burials, which are almost entirely cremation burials, could skew a crosstabulation. Later urn burials are looked at on their own, separate from other burial types. There was also a decision taken to not include multiple burials in some of the tests presented in this section. This is because multiple burial adds an extra variable to the statistical analysis, beyond the control of the experimenter. Is the pot really associated with skeleton 1 or is it with skeleton 2? Is the cist large simply because it contains two skeletons? As such, multiple burials are examined in a section of their own. It is noted in the relevant sections if urn burials or multiple burials have been excluded from the analysis.

Figure 6.11 Direction of slope of single burial tradition burial sites

Direction of slope of the land upon which single burial tradition burial sites are placed A slight preference for burial on the west, south or southwest was observed for sites in the database (Figure 6.11), with burial also occurring on flat sites with no great degree of slope in any direction. Slopes to the north and east were less common. Mount noted a similar pattern of direction of slope (1997: 115). Sub-soil types of single burial tradition burial

The relative frequency of inhumation versus cremation in the data set

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Cremation is, across the entire Early Bronze Age, the most common method of the disposal of human remains within the data set. As can be seen from Figure 6.13, it is, across the entire era, about three times as common as inhumation.

Figure 6.12 Type of subsoil at single burial tradition burial sites

The geological and soil preferences of single burial tradition Burials have been discussed by Mount (1997: 116), however he concentrates on data from soil maps and solid geology maps. The preference of cist burials for sand or gravel subsoils has been noted by many writers since the 19th century (Waddell 1970: 102). The soil descriptions given in excavation reports substantiate this (Figure 6.12). Gravel subsoil accounts for 27.6% of all single burial tradition burials in the data set, sand 23%, and soils described as mixtures of sand

Figure 6.13 Frequencies of graves containing cremation (C) and inhumation burial (I), empty graves (E) and graves containing both inhumations and cremations (B).

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Chapter 6 Analysis

It was noted however in Chapter 5 that inhumation burial fluctuated in popularity throughout the era. It was common in the early part of the single burial tradition and may pre-date the introduction of cremation by up to approximately 150 years (Table 5.10). Also inhumation became less common, as can be seen in the gradient of the slope of Figure 5.4, after approximately 1900BC, with a small flurry of inhumation burials after 1700BC.

resolution, it might be possible to see that even for a time before 1950BC cremation was already the dominant ritual but that this is obscured by the century or more where inhumation appears solely to have been practised. To do this, however, would reduce the numbers of cases available for each chronological category, bringing any correlations below the level of statistical significance.

It is worth while trying to split up single burial tradition burials into early and late parts to observe, more closely, the changing proportions of inhumation and cremation. One approach which might be possible would be to isolate all the graves accompanied by urns of one type or another. This would result in a data set which probably dated to after approximately 1950BC however it would also exclude those burials of bowl and vase variants which date to after about 1950BC and those later cist and pit burials without pottery, pot-less burials, which we now know is a previously un-recognised cultural phenomenon. Six of the eleven dated pot-less burials date to after about 1900BC. Also simply to use the urn as a proxy for date would necessarily mean an over emphasis on cremation in this era.

Relationship between the use of cremation or inhumation and the placing of the remains in a cist or pit

An alternative is to look at the subset of burials which have been radiocarbon dated and examine the percentage of burials within this data set that are variously cremated or buried unburnt. The easiest way to do this is to use SPSS’s crosstabulation function to examine the relationship with having a reliable radiocarbon date before or after circa 1950BC and the presence of a cremation (C)inhumation (I), or both (B) within the grave. To do this any site with a radiocarbon date before 3585 BP was considered, for the purposes of this exercise, to be earlier than 1950BC and any site with a radiocarbon date after 3585BP was considered to date after 1950BC. No sites which had been flagged as having problematic radiocarbon dates in Chapter 4 were used. This is, of course, less than perfect, a radiocarbon date of 3585±30 BP calibrated in OxCal 4.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2015) using the IntCal 13 radiocarbon calibration curve (Reimer et al 2013)would have a 95.4% probability of being between 2029 to 1880BC and a 68.2%% probability of being between 1972 to 1893BC and if the laboratory error was larger the range would be larger again, but it does fairly neatly divide the radiocarbon dates in the data set into two and is probably the easiest way of establishing some sort of calendrical axis.

As discussed briefly above the urn burials differ from the non- urn funerary rituals of the single burial tradition since, by definition, there is at least one pottery vessel (the funerary urn) in each urn burial. The urn is the container for the remains, where in the case of non- urn burials, the funerary vessel is an optional extra. Single burial tradition burials, apart from urn burials, are typically, although not always, accompanied by a pottery vessel, and occasionally more than one. The frequency of occurrence of pottery in differing grave types is interesting. So as to avoid potential complications of multiple burials, such as trying to establish which individual a vessel was interred with or if a vessel, or more than one, was meant to represent more than one individuals, it was decided for these tests only to look at graves where there was one individual interred. There is also a significant relationship between inhumation and cremation and the number of pots in a grave with an apparent correlation between inhumation and the presence of a pottery vessel, and cremation and the absence of pottery in these non-urn burials (Appendix 3: Table 8). The function of these vessels is open to considerable speculation but as noted some indications may be provided by a beaker vessel from Ashgrove, Fife which contained honey or mead flavoured with meadowsweet, and a vase from North Mains, Perthshire which contained an organic residue possibly either a cereal based porridge or an alcoholic ale, also flavoured with meadowsweet (Sheridan in Waddell and O’Ríordan 1993: 69). These examples seem to indicate that, in some cases at least, an offering of food or drink, possibly alcoholic, is being placed in the grave. This interpretation also fits the morphology of these ‘Food Vessels’ well.

To look at this relationship it was necessary to exclude all urn burials, as the prevalence of this burial type would skew the results since cremation is practised in almost all cases where an urn is utilised as a funerary vessel. Multiple burials were left out of the crosstabulation also. There is a significant, relationship between inhumation and deposition in a cist and cremation burial and the use of a pit to place the remains in (Appendix 3: Table 5). The presence of pottery in single burial tradition burials (excluding the urn tradition)

The cross-tabulation (Appendix 3: Table 4) of date pre or post 1950BC and cremation / inhumation shows that, while cremation and inhumation are practices in both parts of the single burial tradition the emphasis shifts from a pre-1950BC era, where cremation and inhumation are equally common, to a post 1950 era, where cremation is much more common. If it were easy to look at this problem with more chronological 65

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland Cists are more likely to contain a pottery vessel, pits are more likely to be absent of pottery

• The decision to use a cist or a pit. • The decision to cremate or leave human remains unburnt. • The decision to include a pottery vessel (or, occasionally, more than one pottery vessel), in the grave.

As can be seen from the table (Appendix 3: Table 6), with single interment cist burials 55.6% of graves are accompanied by a single vessel but 40.5% are not accompanied by any pottery vessel. There are small numbers of graves with more than one vessel accompanying them.

There are a number of possible combinations of these variables.

When pit burials, of single interments, are examined the number of burials without a pottery vessel is 55.3% with only 36.5% accompanied by a single vessel and smaller numbers with multiple vessels (Appendix 3: Table 7).

There can be: • • • •

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The significance of this can be established through cross-tabulation of cist and pit against number of pots in a grave with SPSS (Appendix 3: Table 8), which reveals a significant relationship between cists and the presence of a pot, and pits and their absence. Of interest also are the small number of burials which seem to buck the trend. There are a small group of pits, seven, which have more than one pottery vessel, as opposed to only six cists with more than one vessel. There are too few dates from pits without pots for any meaningful sequencing and estimate of start and end boundaries, but a visual examination of the dates seems to indicate that they encompass the Early Bronze Age in a manner similar to the dates from the pot-less cists.

pits with cremations (PC). pits with inhumations(PI). cists with cremations(CC). cists with inhumations(CI).

When these categories are cross-tabulated against the number of pottery vessels in the grave (Appendix 3: Table 10) the results were, again, very interesting with a significant relationship between the categories and the presence of a pottery vessel in the grave. Cists with inhumations (CI) are more likely to have a pottery vessel, cists with cremation (CC) burials have approximately as many pottery vessels as would be expected from an even distribution of pottery vessels across all types of burial, as do pits with inhumation burials (PI). Pits with cremation burials (PC) are much less likely to be accompanied by a pottery vessel. There may be inferences as to the nature of social organisation to be gleaned from this but it must not be looked at synchronically, there is a process at work over a number of centuries. It is probable from the radiocarbon examination of pot-less cists, as discussed in Chapter 5: Dating graves which contain no pottery, that many of these cists and pits, which do not have a pot, date to after 1950BC. This makes pot-less cists and pits an additional form of burial to add to the various types of urn burial which are usually seen as typifying burial after 1950BC. In agreement with this the radiocarbon analysis has also informed us that cremation emerges possibly by as much as 150 years after inhumation burials, suggesting that it may not just be that (nonurn) cremation burials are more likely to be without an accompanying vessel, rather that (non-urn) accompanying vessels become less common with time, in step with cremation becoming more popular.

A very interesting and related statistic is the number of empty cists, that is ones without any trace of human remains, which contain pottery. Empty cists, ones which appear to have been empty in antiquity, rather than ones which have been rifled or damaged in more recent times, are not uncommon, with 29 examples in this data set. Some of these are undoubtedly inhumation graves where all trace of the interred has rotted away, however that is not necessarily always the case. Cists (empty), and pits (empty), with no human remains found within them, along with pits and cists containing a single individual, were cross-tabulated against number of pots in the grave (Appendix 3: Table 9). The results show a significant relationship with empty cists much less likely to have pottery within them than cists which contain a single individual. There was no relationship between empty pits and numbers of pots in the grave. This implies that some cists were built but never used, and may suggest that cists were prepared in advance of burial, but that pits were not.

Relations between cist size and inhumation, cremation and number of pottery vessels

The relationships between the use of a cist or pit, inhumation or cremation of the remains and the presence of a pot or pots in the grave

So as to examine the relationship between the area of a cist and its contents, specifically whether it contained an inhumation or a cremation burial, or the number of pottery vessels it contained, a new variable, cistsize, was created. It was created by dividing up cist areas into five categories based on the frequency distribution of the cist

With Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age single burial, excluding urn burials, there are a number of variables involved in a series of possible relationships: 66

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Chapter 6 Analysis

areas. Five variables were chosen because it allowed the division of the data set up to allow for the extra large cists noted as being outside the normal distribution curve. The cists were divided into five equal cistsize categories, small(S), medium(M), large(L), very large (V) and extra large (X). There is a significant relationship between cistsize and the presence of inhumation or cremation within it as can be seen in Appendix 3: Table 11. The relationship between inhumation and larger cists and cremation and smaller cists is a very strong one, with small (S) and medium (M) sized cists significantly overrepresented amongst cremations and very large cists (V) and extra large cists (X) significantly over-represented amongst inhumations. It may not necessarily be a distinction linked to status or ritual however. It may be a simply functional one, cremation burials need less space for their successful interment.

The relationship between the class of funerary vessel and the use of inhumation or cremation There is a significant relationship between some classes of funerary vessel and inhumation or cremation (Appendix 3: Table 14). Simple bowls and tripartite bowls are much more likely to be buried with unburnt remains, with bipartite bowls more likely to be buried with unburnt remains. Cordoned and encrusted urns, perhaps not unexpectedly, are much more likely to be associated with cremation burials, and collared urns, more likely to be associated with cremation. Bipartite vases and ribbed bowls seem to be spread across both cremation and inhumation with no relationship apparent. As with the relationship discussed earlier between combinations of cist, pit, inhumation and cremation and the presence of pottery, many of these relationships between funerary vessel type and cremation or inhumation probably reflect change through time rather than actual distinctions in ritual practice within a single time period. As we have seen from the radiocarbon dating chapter (Chapter 5) it is difficult, from the relatively small numbers of dates for each sub-variant of bowls and vases, to obtain a reliable estimate for their date ranges. There is, however, strong evidence from their association with respectively inhumation, and cremation burials that simple bowls, bipartite and tripartite bowls are the earliest funerary vessels of the era, belonging to Phase A , followed by ribbed bowls and bipartite vases, which are found with both inhumation and cremation burials somewhat later, in Phase B.

The relationship between cistsize and the number of pots in a burial was then examined (Appendix 3: Table 12). There was a significant relationship. It indicated that, again, the largest cists (X) were much more likely to have a pot with them and the smallest cists (S) were much more likely to be without an accompanying pottery vessel. However, as we have already seen potless cists frequently accompany cremation, so it may be that the pottery is not absent from the burial because of the small size of the cist. It is perhaps more likely that the pottery is absent from the burial because the burial is a cremation. This is consistent with the evidence from radiocarbon dating which shows that pot-less cists continue through the Early Bronze Age, and that cremation becomes the dominant funerary ritual (See Chapter 5). This view, that there is no true relationship between pot numbers and cist size, may be supported by the absence of multiple vessels from the largest cists, which is what might be expected if, for example, one hypothesised that the presence of one or more pots and larger cists, were indicators of status. It is the implication of this that cist size is functionally linked to the requirements of the accompanying burial and not linked to status.

Is there a relationship between the presence and number of grave goods and inhumation and cremation? There is no relationship between the presence or number of grave goods and the use of inhumation and cremation (Appendix 3: Table 15). However there is an interesting spike in the data. There are 15 examples of cremations with two grave goods, where a normal distribution of the data would only have expected 10 cremations to have had two grave goods interred with them. The adjusted residual shows this to be 2.4 times the expected standard deviation for this cell, which would suggest that this spike, alone amongst the relationships in the table, is a significant over-representation. The number of inhumations with two grave goods is, of course, similarly depleted. When looked at in more detail we can see that of these fifteen cremations with two grave goods, eleven were not accompanied by any pottery. As we have seen it is possible to demonstrate using radiocarbon evidence that many cists, especially cists without pottery, are in fact rather late in the Early Bronze Age and the apparent prevalence of rather more cremations than inhumations with two grave goods may suggest that these are also quite late in the era, after about 1950BC, at a time when greater numbers of

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The relationship between the class of funerary vessel and the use of a cist, pit or polygonal cist There is a significant relationship between type of funerary vessel and use of a cist, pit or polygonal cist. Bipartite vases, ribbed bowls and tripartite bowls are significantly over-represented in cists (Appendix 3: Table 13). Also collared and cordoned urns were significantly over-represented in pit burials. Vase urns are significantly over-represented in polygonal cists, although many polygonal cists do not contain vase urns.

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland grave goods were becoming more common. Again the determining factor may be chronology.

The correlation between vessel class and the number of additional vessels in urn burials

There are no indications of any relationship whatsoever between the number of grave goods in a grave and whether the grave is a cist or pit, or dependent upon the size of the cist, as represented by the categorical variable cistsize. There is also no relationship between the number of pots within a grave and the number of grave goods.

There is significant relationship between vessel class and the number of pots in a grave (Appendix 3: Table 16). In most urn burials the urn itself is the only vessel in the grave. However, there is a significant relationship between encrusted urns and the occurrence of additional vessels in the grave. When this is looked at in a little more detail there are some interesting associations between the encrusted urn burials, the additional vessels and the human remains and grave goods accompanying them (Appendix 3: Table 17). Mount (1997: 140) had looked at this and noted, for southeast Ireland, the association between encrusted urns and ‘Vase Food Vessels’, ‘pygmy cups’ and ‘Food Vessel Urns’. To this can now be added a simple bowl with herringbone decoration from Corradoon, Co. Waterford and a number of other sites with tripartite and bipartite vase associations.

Aspects of burial ritual for urn burials

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It is important to give attention to urn burials separately from the rest of the data set. Including them, with other burial types, can skew the overall impression of burial ritual in the Early Bronze Age, for instance, as discussed above, (almost) all urn burials are cremations. To include urn burials in an examination of the prevalence of cremation and inhumation in single burial tradition burial as a whole would, in some ways, give a misleading result. Of course urn burial is not really a single burial type, there are several variants of urn burial, some, such as vase urns and encrusted urns have already been noted as having much in common with bowl and vase traditions and as discussed in Chapter 7 below, encrusted urns and vase urns probably form a tradition on their own separate from the collared and cordoned urns.

The relationship between different urn types and the type of grave they are placed in, cist, pit or polygonal cist As noted above there is a statistically significant relationship between type of vessel and grave type (Appendix 3: Table 13). Vase urns are significantly overrepresented in polygonal cists, with encrusted urns overrepresented in polygonal cists, but just below the level of statistical significance; encrusted urns also being over-represented in pits, but again below the level of statistical significance. Encrusted urns are significantly under-represented within cists. Also cordoned urns are significantly under-represented amongst cists and significantly over-represented in pits. Pit burials are overrepresented as the basic burial type for collared urns but the chi square and Cramer’s V values fall just below statistical significance.

The nature of cremation burial makes the task of the osteoarchaeologist or anatomist more difficult than it would be with a well preserved inhumation burial. Consequently most of the cremated remains associated with urn burials have only a minimum of anatomical or paleopathological information available. While information on the age at death of most (about 76%) of the cremated remains was available, only about of half of the cremated remains could be identified to sex, and build / stature estimations were only made for about 5% of the available cremated remains. There was no clear statistical correlation between age and any urn type, nor was there any correlation between stature or build. Most urns had a single set of human remains placed within them, multiple burials were not uncommon either (19%), but there was no relationship between urn type and the likelihood of a multiple burial. There were initially some slight indications of a relationship between the sex of the deceased and the type of burial urn, with a suggestion that men were more likely to be buried in a cordoned urn and that female burial was more common in encrusted urns. However, the data set has a large number of remains of indeterminate sex which may be clouding the issue. When the remains of indeterminate sex were removed and the test rerun with only human remains of determinable sex no relationship between sex and urn type was found.

Urn type and grave area Since most urns are utilised in more than one grave type, when attempting to look at the relationship of urn type to grave area, it was important to find a way to make the relative areas of the different grave types comparable. To do this the areas of each grave type being analysed, cist, pit and polygonal cist was divided into a series of area categories, comparable with each other, but tailored for each burial type. To do this the frequency of the area for each type of burial, pit, cist, polygonal cist was separately calculated and SPSS asked to split the areas for each type into four equal groups, small (S), medium (M), large (L) and very large(V). Because of the relatively small number of cases available, a fifth category - extra large (X) - was not, in this case, used. The size categories for each type was then recorded in a single area category variable for all urn burials. When this was correlated with urn type (Appendix 3: Table 18) there was no relationship, although the overall 68

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Chapter 6 Analysis

cross-tabulation chi square and Cramer’s V values fell just short of being significant. Encrusted urns were very over-represented in the very large (V) burial category, also vase urns were over-represented amongst the small burials. These are probably functional distinctions, vase urns are frequently smaller than other urn types and encrusted urns are generally large, and as noted above, sometimes have accompanying vessels.

Stone grave goods from the data set Flint flakes The most common class of stone grave good from the data set is flint or chert flakes, with 24 known from 17 graves (Figure 6.14). Although flint flakes are found in both cist and pit burials, and there are too few for statistical significance testing, they are more common in cist than pit burials (eleven cists to three pits).

.

Other grave goods accompanying burials in the data set

At Tonyglaskan, Co Fermanagh (Hurl and Murphy 2004), there was an inhumation burial of an older child in a cist, unaccompanied by a pottery vessel, and with a single retouched flint flake. At Fassaroe, Co. Wicklow, also, the cremated remains of an adult male were placed in a cist and accompanied only by a single flint flake. These contrasts with the burial at Ballybrennan, Co. Westmeath (Harnett and Prendergast 2011), of a mature adult male with a bipartite vase, who was accompanied by two flint flakes, one chert flake and three flint scrapers.

There are 61 separate types of non ceramic grave goods found within the data set, made from 30 different types of material. Many of these grave goods occur only once in the data set, others on more than one occasion, with a number occurring very frequently. In addition there are six so called ‘pygmy cups’ or miniature vessels in the data set. These will be noted here with other grave goods rather than with the classes of ceramic funerary vessels, partly because their small number does not lend them to the kind of statistical analysis other vessels received. The most numerous class of grave good are the stone cutting tools including, 24 flint / chert flakes, 17 scrapers, four flint knives, and 13 plano-convex flint knives.

At Ballybrew, Co. Wicklow (Martin et al. 1943), an adult female was buried, unburnt, in a cist, accompanied by a tripartite bowl, a flint flake and a lignite bead. At Ballynagross, Co. Down (Evans and Gaffkin 1935) the cremated remains of an adult male was placed in a cist with a ribbed bowl and a single flint flake.

There are fewer items of copper and copper alloy / bronze objects from burials in the data set. These include, using the simplified classification for Irish copper and bronze knives and daggers proposed by Waddell (2010), five of Waddell’s Class 2 and six of Waddell’s Class 3, bronze blades. There are also seven razors, two tanged and five riveted, seven awls according to the excavator’s own descriptions, probably in actuality representing five awls and two pins, and one halberd. In addition there are a set of tubular bronze beads. Related to the copper and copper alloy objects are two hone stones.

At the Mound of the Hostages, Co. Meath (O’Sullivan 2005), there were two cremation burials in a double cist arrangement, one within an encrusted urn and one within a collared urn, one of which contained a single chert flake, unfortunately which is uncertain. The collared urn also contained a bone pin / needle with a perforated end. At Fourknocks II, Co. Meath (Harnett and O’Sullivan 1971), an inhumation burial of an adult female was placed in a cist, without an accompanying vessel, but with a flint flake, copper / copper alloy awl, a planoconvex knife, and a piece of waste flint ‘chunk’.

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A number of objects were made from bone, these included; eight bone pins, two bone toggles, three bone cylinders, four bone tubes and a number of fragments of bone which may have been food offerings. A number of bone objects of uncertain form were found also.

These account for 17 separate grave goods contained in only 6 graves. There are a number of observable themes, although the numbers are too small for meaningful statistical analysis. Firstly, of the six burials, five are cist burials, also they are, with one exception cremation burials. In fact the only inhumation burial is the only burial not in a cist.

Several beads and sets of beads were found in the graves within the data set. These included two unusual burials from the Mound of the Hostages, Tara, Co. Meath where necklaces, one of jet and the other of jet, bone, amber and bronze tubes were found. While it is accepted that these objects can be grouped by ‘Items of Equipment’ and ‘Items of Personal Adornment’, in the manner of Woodward et al. (2015), this is also seen as potentially problematic. Items can have elements of both utility and adornment, and instead the objects are here grouped by material and then by artefact type.

Flint scrapers A cremation of an adult male from a cist at Carricknab, Co. Down (Collins and Evans 1968), contained a ribbed bowl, a copper / copper alloy dagger, a copper / copper alloy awl and two flint scrapers (Figures 6.15 and 6.16).

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland

Figure 6.14 Distribution map of flint flakes from the database.

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A cremation burial of an adult male from Ballybrennan, Co. Westmeath (Harnett and Prendergast 2011), with a bipartite vase contained three scrapers, a disc scraper, a notched scraper and a side scraper. He was also accompanied by two flint flakes and a chert flake. An inhumation of an adult female in a pit from Keenoge, Co. Meath (Mount and Buckley 1997), contained two scrapers, along with a bipartite bowl, a bronze razor, the tip of an arrowhead and a flint knife and chert blade.

Interesting is the absence of any flint scrapers from collared urns in Ireland. In Britain flint scrapers have been found in 19 collared urn burials in sites from the English midlands northwards (Longworth 1984: 66). This may reflect the earlier emergence of collared urns in Britain, Longworth’s Primary Series. It also implies, as already seen from an analysis of the radiocarbon chronology (see Chapter 5: Dating single burial tradition funerary pottery) for encrusted urns, that they commence earlier than the Irish collared urns, probably closer in date to Longworth’s Primary Series of British collared urns, which Sheridan suggests appeared in southern England after 2100BC, reaching Scotland perhaps around 1950BC (2007: 165).

An adult female cremation within an encrusted urn and with a bipartite vase, placed in a cist, from Burgage More, Co. Wicklow, contained two end scrapers. A cremation, of unknown age and sex, placed into a pit at Edmondstown, Co. Dublin (Mount and Harnett 1993), with no accompanying vessel, contained no less than four round scrapers and an end scraper. At Currandrum, Co. Galway (Costello 1934), a cremation of uncertain age and sex was placed in a cist, accompanied by a tripartite bowl, a flint scraper, a flint javelin head and what was described by the excavator as a bone handle.

Flint knives There are three flint knives and thirteen plano-convex flint knives in the data set (Figure 6.17). The three flint knives were found in three inhumation burials, placed in pits and cists, adult and adolescent, females and burials of indeterminate sex, with a ribbed bowl, bipartite vase and a bipartite bowl. 70

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Chapter 6 Analysis

Figure 6.15 Cremation burial of an adult male from Carricknab, Co. Down (Collins and Evans 1968) a. burial cist, b. ribbed bowl, c. bronze awl, Thomas Type 1b d. two flint scrapers e. bronze dagger, Waddell’s Class 2 ‘ Corkey Type’.

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland

Figure 6.16 Distribution map of flint scrapers and arrowheads from the database.

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Plano-convex knives are almost exclusively found with cremation burials, twelve out of the thirteen burials. All of these interred individuals appear to be adults, six males, three females, four of indeterminate sex. These knives are found in encrusted urns (4), collared urns (2), vase urns (1) and with a bipartite vase (1). A burial from the Mound of the Hostages was accompanied by a planoconvex knife, an encrusted urn and a bipartite vase. Four were found in burials unaccompanied by pottery vessels.

was accompanied by a plano-convex knife and three bipartite vases. In two cases, both burials in burial mounds, one a passage tomb, the other a multiple cist cairn, planoconvex knives were found accompanied by copper / copper alloy objects. At Knockast (Hencken and Movius 1934), the cremated remains of an adult man, placed in a cist, were accompanied by a copper blade, with two rivets, possibly a razor (discussed further below) and a plano-covex knife. At Fourknocks II (Harnett and O’Sullivan 1971) the cremated remains of an adult female were found in a cist, with no pottery vessel, accompanied by a copper / copper alloy awl and a plano-convex knife. Brindley has noted the occurrence of plano-convex flint knives along with copper / bronze objects and cremations in cordoned urns. She suggests that it is improbable that the slug knife is an Irish degenerate version of the bronze razor by stating that this is unlikely in a country with known significant production of metalwork (Brindley 1980: 198).

With the bulk of the burials, the plano-convex knife was the only non-ceramic grave good. In a few cases there were burials with other grave goods also. In one case, at Caltragh, Co. Galway (Lucas et al. 1961), a cremation placed in a polygonal cist, was accompanied by a vase urn and a generic urn of uncertain type, a burnt bone, a ‘crutch-headed’ pin, and a plano-convex knife. At Ballyveelish 2, Co. Tipperary (Doody 1988), the cremated remains of an adult male in an encrusted urn, was accompanied by a plano-convex knife, two pygmy cups and a fragment of a saddle quern. The cremation in a cist of an adult female at Bredagh Glen, Co. Donegal, 72

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Chapter 6 Analysis

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Figure 6.17 Distribution map of flint knives from the database.

The plano-convex knife is a quite common find from Irish single burial tradition funerary contexts, they are also found in beaker burials in the south of England and also in British collared urn burials (Longworth 1984: 67), although in only one case did a collared urn with a bronze knife or dagger of any form, also contain a plano-convex knife (Longworth 1984: 57).

hole, a bipartite bowl, a flint side scraper, a thumbnail scraper and a chert blade. At Newtownstewart, Co. Tyrone (Ó Baoill 2005), a hollow based arrowhead was found with the cremated remains of an adolescent, of indeterminate sex, accompanied by a bipartite bowl, placed within one side of a double cist, the other side of which contained the cremated remains of a woman of about 40 to 50 years of age.

A plano-convex knife was also found with the cremated remains of an adult male, two children and an infant at Edmondstown, Co. Dublin (Mount and Harnett 1993). They were found within an encrusted urn, set into a pit, accompanied by the plano-convex knife, a bone tube and a bone pin.

A leaf shaped arrowhead was found at Rathmoon, Co. Wicklow (Lucas et al. 1960), accompanying the cremated remains of three adult females a child and a neonatal infant. Although it is difficult to make definitive statements based on only three cases it is intriguing that in each burial accompanied by a flint arrowhead was a double / multiple burial with at least one adult female.

Flint arrowheads There were only three burials with flint arrowheads from the data set. At Keenoge (Mount and Buckley 1997) a flint arrowhead tip was found with a double inhumation burial of an adult female and an adult of uncertain sex. It was accompanied by a possible knife / razor with a single rivet-

Copper and bronze grave goods from the data set Bronze daggers and knives There are eleven bronze daggers accompanying burials in the data set, five of Waddell’s Class 2 and six of 73

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland Waddell’s Class 3, with two additional fragments of what are, probably, Waddell’s Class 2 daggers (Figure 6.18).

calibrates in OxCal 4.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2015), using Intcal 13 (Reimer et al 2013) to 2010 to 1667BC (95.4%) and 1897 to 1745BC (68.2%%).

Class 2 daggers / knives A small simple dagger/ knife with a single rivet, measuring 88mm by 35mm by 1mm, was found, in corroded condition, at Carricknab, Co. Down (Collins and Evans 1968). It was found in a cist, accompanying a cremation of an adult male, with a bronze awl and two flint scrapers. The excavator described it as a bronze ‘knife-dagger’, it is probably a Waddell’s Class 2, ‘Corkey type’, dating to between 2200 and 1900BC. Given that this is a cremation burial, it is likely that it dates to after circa 2100BC (see Chapter 5).

Class 3 daggers At the Mound of the Hostages a dagger with a midrib and three rivets was found with a cremation of indeterminate age and sex, placed within a collared urn. The dagger, measuring 103mm by 33mm by 4mm, appears to be of Waddell’s Class 3, and similar to Needham’s Series 4, which, if found in a British context would probably date to 1950 to 1700BC (Needham in Woodward and Hunter 2015: 23). A radiocarbon date was obtained from cremated bone from this grave, GrA17321, 3445 ± 35. This calibrates, in OxCal 4.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2015), using Intcal 13 (Reimer et al 2013) to 1881-1665 (95.4%) and 1780-1691BC (68.2%%). It is also interesting that the dagger is found with a plano-convex knife in a collared urn, something almost unknown amongst British burials, there being only one example, a plano-convex knife with a tanged dagger(Longworth 1984: 57), of Needham’s Series 1, which would predate the radiocarbon date from the Mound of the Hostages burial by at least two centuries.

At Knockast, Co. Meath (Hencken and Movius 1934) a dagger / knife, measuring 44mm by 25mm, was found with the cremation of an adult male, in a cist, in a multiple cist cairn, accompanied by a plano-convex knife. This blade also appeared to be of the ‘Corkey type’, Waddell’s Class 2, similar to Needham’s Class 2 (Needham in Woodward and Hunter 2015). It is distinguished by the lozenge incised decoration in the blade centre. Also at Knockast, a knife, with a single rivet hole, measuring 65mm by 25mm, was found with the cremated remains of an older adult male within a cordoned urn. This appears to be a blade of the Waddell Class 2 ‘Corkey Type’.

Also at the Mound of the Hostages a dagger with three ribs and four rivets, measuring 123mm by 36mm by 4mm, was found in a collared urn with the cremated remains of an individual of indeterminate age and sex and accompanied by a battle axe of marble. The dagger probably can be classified as Waddell’s Class 3, but can also be paralleled to Needham’s British Series 4, of flat daggers with ribs (Needham in Woodward and Hunter 2015: 35). Bone from this grave has been radiocarbon dated, GRA-17232, which in OxCal 4.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2015) calibrates (Reimer et al 2013) to 1877-1641BC (95.4%), and 1862-1685BC (68.2%%). It also has a 63.5% chance of falling between 1772 and 1685BC, suggesting that the dagger, and the rest of the grave contents, may well date to the latter part of Needham’s date range for similar British daggers.

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Two knives were found in a grave with several sets of cremated remains; at least two adults and an adolescent, placed in a vase urn, set into a multiple cist cairn, at Kilmore, Co. Westmeath (Lucas et al. 1960). The knives, leaf shaped blades with two rivet holes, one measuring 90mm by 25mm by 3mm and the other 65mm by 12mm by 2mm, fit generally into Waddell’s Class 2, ‘Corkey Type’. They are also similar to Needham’s Series 7 of small blades, which he dates from his Period 2 right through to his Period 4, an era spanning, potentially, 2300 to 1500BC.

At the wedge tomb at Harristown, Co. Cork (Hawkes 1941), in a secondary context, just inside the kerb of the cairn, a dagger with a central rib, was found with the cremated remains of a young man, inside a collared urn, accompanied by a sandstone bead. The dagger, measuring 100mm by 20mm, was of Waddell’s Class 3, although no rivets were shown in any of the description or illustrations in the excavation report (Hawkes 1941). Two radiocarbon dates have been obtained, one from the cremated remains. Both of these dates have been excluded from analysis however for reasons detailed in Chapter 5.

At Rahinashurock, Co. Westmeath (Danaher 1965), a heat damaged small knife, with two rivets, possibly of ‘Corkey Type’, measuring 75mm by 25mm by 2.5mm, was found with the cremation of an adult of indeterminate sex. The cremation was also accompanied by a crutch-headed bone pin, and a bone object with four perforations. A small fragment of a, flat knife, possibly Waddell’s Class 2, measuring 17mm by 23mm by 2mm, was also found, at the Mound of the Hostages (O’Sullivan 2005), with a cremation of indeterminate age and sex, from a vase urn, accompanied by a bone pin and a perforated pumice stone. A radiocarbon date was also obtained for bone from this burial GrA-17198, 3500 ± 60BP. This

A flat triangular dagger, measuring 198mm by 67mm, attached to its hilt with 4 rivets, of Waddell’s Class 3, was found with the unburnt remains of an adult male within a cist at Drumahoe, Co. Derry/Londonderry 74

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Chapter 6 Analysis

Figure 6.18 Distribution of daggers and knife-daggers in Ireland (two of the daggers represented in this map are not in the database, Corkey, Co. Antrim- the most northerly of the Class 2 daggers, and the probable Class 3 amber dagger pommel from Liscahane, Co. Cork)

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(Donnelly and Ward 2010). The dagger was within a leather sheath and clasped at the deceased’s chest. A pig’s foreleg, was also found within the cist. A radiocarbon date, UBA-13453, calibrated in Oxcal 4.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2015) unsing Intcal 13 (Reimer et al 2013) gives a calibrated range of 2010-1786 BC (95.4%) and 1938-1891BC (68.2%%), making it likely that this burial took place around 1900BC.

and 1877-1750 BC(68.2%%). The blade had been folded, before being placed in the Urn. This is the only example of this practice in the database. It has been noted in Britain (Needham in Woodward and Hunter 2015: 40) as a practice more common with (British) Series 1 and 3 daggers. A very similar burial, not included in this database because of the brief nature of the original excavation report, but placed on the location map below, was found at Topped Mountain, Co. Fermanagh where a dagger with a gold pommel mount and a vase were found along with an inhumation, and a cremation placed between two stone slabs, in a cist. A number of radiocarbon dates were obtained from this burial by Anna Brindley in preparation for her book on the dating of funerary vessels (Brindley 2007). These dates vary widely and Brindley, probably correctly, suggests contamination as a likely cause. One date, from the cremation sandwiched between the slabs in the cist GRA-1461, 3570 ±40, which calibrates, in OxCal 4.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2015), using Intcal 13 (Reimer et al 2013), to 2029-1774 (95.4) and 2010-1881

At Grange, Co. Roscommon (Ó Ríordáin 1997), a grooved dagger, with six rivets was found with the cremated bones of a young adult male within a vase urn deposited in a pit set into a multiple cist cairn, which had been in use for centuries. The dagger, measuring 180mm by 60mm, was of Waddell’s Class 3, and showed similarities to Armorico-British daggers of Wessex 1 (Ó Ríordáin et al 1997). The Grange dagger is directly comparable to Needham’s Series 3, Armorico-British daggers. A deposit of short lived charcoal from the pit was radiocarbon dated GRA-9709, 3480±35BP. This date calibrates, in OxCal 4.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2015), using Intcal 13 (Reimer et al 2013) to 1894-1693 BC (95.4%) 75

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland (68.2%), she believed to be reliable. It was the opinion of the excavators that the dagger was contemporary with the inhumation, so this date cannot be said to directly relate to it, but given that the cremation is placed in the same grave must date to the same era.

At Keenoge, Co. Meath (Mount and Buckley 1997) a blade with a single rivet-hole was found with a double inhumation burial of an adult female and an adult of uncertain sex. It was accompanied by a bipartite bowl, flint arrowhead tip, a flint side scraper, a thumbnail scraper and a chert blade. Unfortunately the knife / razor is in poor condition but it certainly could be an example of Needham’s Series 7 blades, which are known to in some cases date to Needham’s (1996) Phase 2, which commences about 2300 and continues to about 2050BC.

A probable seventh Type 3 dagger, not recorded in the database, but placed on the location map below, came from Liscahane, Co. Cork. The evidence for it comes from an amber pommel of a probable dagger found during the excavation of a ringfort and in close proximity to an encrusted urn (Cahill 2006: 271).

Two very badly corroded razors were found in two cordoned urn burials from Cush, Co. Limerick (Rynne and O’Sullivan 1966). Both sets of cremated remains were of uncertain age and sex. One of the burials was accompanied by a flint fabricator as well.

It is noticeable that all of these dagger burials, of both Class 2 and Class 3, where the sex of the interred was identifiable, were burials of males. This is what has generally been observed for British burials, where all dagger burials, where it has been possible to identify the sex of the interred, have been burials of males (Baker et al. 2003: 111).

A probable razor is also known from the ‘Tara boy’, from the Mound of the Hostages (O’Sullivan 2005), however it is in poor condition and it is not entirely certain if it is tanged or riveted, although the likelihood is the latter (Sheridan et al. 2013: 211). The presence of the razor in this burial (as well as the awl) has been argued as suggesting a burial breaking gender rules, with small riveted razors often associated with female burials (Sheridan et al. 2013: 211). The evidence of the ‘Tara boy’ perhaps suggests that burials of both sexes contain these blades, although how this reflects to perceived gender is more open to debate.

Small blades and razors There are nine small blades, many of which may be considered razors, within the database (Figure 6.19). At Knockast, Co. Meath (Hencken and Movius 1934) two small blades, both possibly razors, were found. A tanged, decorated, knife was found with a cremation of an adult male contained in an inverted urn of uncertain type in poor condition and also accompanied by an inverted tripartite bowl. The knife had been folded five times prior to its placement in the urn. A second small blade with no tang, but two rivets, was found with the cremated remains of an older man placed within a cordoned urn. This blade is probably a Needham Series 6 blade, most of which were probably razors (Needham in Woodward and Hunter 2015: 25).

The question of which of these blades were utilised as razors is an interesting one. Kavanagh (1991: 78) considered form as the most likely indicator of a razor. An extremely sharp blade, curved sides, and the absence of a point are elements she picks out. She also suggests that tanged or tanged and riveted small blades are more probably razors than blades relying primarily on rivets to attach the handle. She does warn against an overly reductive approach noting how the riveted small blade from a cordoned urn at Knockast, could be seen, on account of its rivets and absence of a tang, as a knife, but that closer examination reveals it to be a repaired tanged blade, and therefore more likely to be a razor.

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At Carnfanny Tumulus, Co. Galway (Riley 1936), a bronze tanged blade, was found within a cordoned urn, which also contained the cremated remains of a person of indeterminate age and sex. This also is an example of Needham’s Series 6 blades. At Carrowbeg Tumulus, also in Co. Galway (Willmot 1939), a similar tanged blade with a single rivet, was found with a cremation of an adult male, although without a pot.

Most of the blades can be fitted into Needham’s Series 6 ‘Tanged Small Blades’ (Needham in Woodward and Hunter 2015: 25), which he describes as ‘small knives and razors’. These blades have a tang, some quite long, sometimes supplemented by a single rivet. Blades with long tangs, such as that from Knockast, can probably be reasonably identified as razors, however examples with shorter tangs, accompanied by rivets are less certain and may in some cases be knives(Waddell 2010: 151).

At Kilcroagh, Co. Antrim (Williams 1992), a tanged blade with three rivet holes, and one surviving rivet, was found with the double cremation of an adult male and female within a cordoned urn. It was also accompanied by a segmented faience bead. Bone from this burial was radiocarbon dated GrA-14816, which calibrated in Oxcal 4.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2015) using Intcal 13 (Reimer et al 2013) to give a date range of 1890-1668BC (95.4%), 1877-1696BC (68.2%). The straight sides of this blade perhaps indicate that it was a knife and the small tang and rivets place it perhaps closer to Needham’s Series 7 than Series 6 blades.

In each case where a clearly Series 6 razor was found and the sex of the remains could be identified, the remains were male. In a British context these would 76

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Chapter 6 Analysis

be dated from Needham’s Period 2 onwards, the associations in Ireland seem to be probably later, given their association with cordoned urns.

the small sample size these lack of associations may not be significant. All of the awls were found in cists, except the Mound of the Hostages pit burial of the adolescent, ‘Tara Boy’, which had an unusually opulent grave assemblage.

One case, the burial in a cordoned urn at Kilcroagh, had a small blade which had a residual tang, supplemented by three rivets, one of which survived. Morphologically it seems to sit between Needham’s Series 6 and Series 7. This may be a small knife rather than a razor and it was found in a multiple burial with the remains of an adult female and young adult male.

An awl was found accompanying the burial of an adult woman in a cist at Fourknocks II, Co. Meath (Harnett and O’Sullivan 1971). It measured 41mm by 1.5mm, and had a central swelling of square section, with two narrow ends of circular section. A flint flake, plano-convex flint knife and a flint chunk were found also with the body. The awl is of Thomas Type 1B (Woodward and Hunter 2015: 89).

Copper / bronze awls There are seven bronze awls from the data set (Figure 6.20). Before discussing them it is worth distinguishing them from copper / bronze pins. Awls have central swellings, sometimes with a tang, sometimes with two points, but this thickening distinguishes them from a headed pin.

At Stranagalwilly, Co. Tyrone (Waterman and Waddell 1993) an awl, measuring 47mm by 2mm, was found with the inhumation burial of an older male in a cist. It was single pointed, with a thickened mid section, surmounted by a tang. The excavator noted the ephemeral traces of a wooden handle which was recorded in the field but not suitable for conservation (Waterman and Waddel 1993). Awls of this type are known from several locations in England (Thomas

They were found with male and female burials, unburnt and cremated, with and without accompanying vessels, although none have been found within urns, and none found accompanying children’s burials, although given

Grave

Blade type

Dimensions

Small riveted blade, probable razor

65mm x 25mm

Small tanged blade, single rivet, probable razor

85mm x 25mm

M

Small tanged blade- 3 rivets, probable knife

58mm x 18mm

1M and 1F Cordoned urn

Small tanged blade, one rivet, possibly a knife

58mm x 18mm

?

Bowl

Mound of the Hostages Small tanged blade, probable razor. ‘Tara (Mound of the HosBoy’. tages Grave 6 in EBA Database)

38mm x13mm x1mm

M(?)

None

Series 6

Tiny fragment

32mm x 22mm x 4mm

I

Cordoned urn

?

Fragment with Single rivet

15mm x 10mm x 2mm

I

Cordoned urn

?

I

Cordoned urn

Series 6

Knockast, Cremation No. 14 (Knockast Grave 17 in EBA Database) Knockast, Cremation No.36

(Knockast Grave 39 in EBA Database) Carrowbeg North Tumulus 1 Grave 1 Kilcroagh Grave 2 Keenoge

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Grave 3

Cush

Grave 1 Cush

Grave 2

Carnfanny

Small tanged blade, probable razor

Sex

100mm x 37mm M

Tanged blade

Pot

Needham’s Typology

Cordoned urn

Series 6

None

Series 6

Urn of uncertain type

Table 6.1 Dimensions of small blades and razors from the database

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Series 6

Series 6 or 7,tang is almost residual. Series 7

Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland in Waterman et al 1993). Chemical analysis has been undertaken of this awl which would suggest that it is made of tin bronze (Waterman et al 1993: 50)

loom weight (Figure 6.21). The awl, 46mm by 2mm, was of Thomas’ Type 2a, with a, probably hammered, chisel tang end and a round section point. There are two radiocarbon dates available for this burial GrA14604 3550 ±50 and GrN-11446 3570 ± 45. GrA-14604 calibrates in Oxcal 4.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2015) using Intcal 13 (Reimer et al 2013), to 2024 to 1751BC (95.4%) and 1956 to 1776BC (68.2%). GrN-11446 calibrates, in Oxcal 4.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2015) using Intcal 13 (Reimer et al 2013), to 2032 to 1771BC (95.4%) and 2015 to 1830 (68.2%) with a further 58% possibility that the date fell between 1980 to 1879BC.

At Drung, Co. Donegal (Rynne 1963), the burial of an adult woman in a cist was accompanied by an awl and a piece of rock crystal. The awl, which measured 82mm by 3mm, had a square sectioned end transforming, imperceptibly, into a round point. It was of Thomas’ Type 2C (Woodward and Hunter 2015: 89). At Carricknab, Co. Down (Collins and Evans 1968), the cremation burial of an adult male with a ribbed bowl in a cist was accompanied by a double ended awl, 40mm by 3mm, with circular sectioned points and a square sectioned midriff of Thomas Type 1b. Also within the grave was a ‘Corkey’ type dagger, and two flint scrapers (Figure 6.15).

There are two awls known from burials at the Mound of the Hostages, Co. Meath. The first burial is the burial of a person of indeterminate age and sex, found with a simple bowl accompanied by a jet, v -perforated button and an awl measuring 40mm by 2mm. The second is the very interesting ‘Tara Boy’ burial (Sheridan et al. 2013). This, possible fragment of an awl, measuring 16mm by 1mm, was found with the body of an adolescent, probably male, inhumation burial, accompanied by a

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At Tremoge, Co. Tyrone (Foley 1985), the cremated remains of an older female burial were found with a bipartite vase accompanied by an awl and a ceramic

Figure 6.19 Distribution map of razors from the database.

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Chapter 6 Analysis

Figure 6.20 Distribution map of bronze awls from the database.

previously proposed, and that they could only have worked the finest, softest materials. They instead propose that awls may have been used in scarification or tatooing.

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small knife, which could be a razor, and a multi-bead necklace threaded on bronze wire. In Britain awls tend to be found with female burials, with 10 out of 14 burials with awls, where the burial could be sexed, being female (Woodward and Hunter 2015: 89) and Sheridan (ibid) has suggested that the examples from Carricknab, and in particular ‘Tara Boy’ are interpreted in this context, the placement of awls in male burials being considered unusual, perhaps even transgressive. The finding of an awl, with the inhumation of an older man, at Stranagalwilly, Co. Tyrone, confidently identified by three medical anatomists, with considerable experience examining archaeological remains, tends to weaken this assumption. While most awls in an Irish context may indeed be found with female remains there are enough found with male burials in Ireland to suggest that, perhaps unlike in Britain, the association with males is not exceptional.

The suggestion has also been made that the inclusion of awls within Irish graves is declining around 2000BC. This may be the case, certainly the few funerary vessels associated with awls would show that some date to this era, but the radiocarbon dates from the burial at Tremoge and the ‘Tara Boy’ do suggest that they continue after this time, and the realisation that potless cists continue to be constructed right to the end of our era at least opens up the possibility that awls are routinely, if only occasionally, deposited in Irish burials, right until the end of the Early Bronze Age. Copper / bronze Pins There are two copper / bronze pins in the data set. A portion of a copper pin, twisted and burnt, was found at Coolnaboy, Co. Wexford (Cahill and Sikora 2011) with the cremated remains of an adult male, within a vase urn.

An interesting suggestion has been made by Woodward et al. (2015: 96) that awls are, in general, too fine to have been the for working leather and similar materials 79

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland

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Figure 6.21 Tremoge, Co. Tyrone, the cremated remains of an older female, found with a bipartite vase, accompanied by an awl of Thomas’ Type 2 and a ceramic loom weight (After Foley 1985).

At Drumahoe, Co. Derry (Donnelly and Ward 2005) a cist containing the cremated remains of two individuals, a male and a female, one of at least 35 years old, was found with a small fragment of a copper pin beneath it.

cremation pyre. O’Flaherty (2010) has cast doubt on whether it is an actual halberd.

Other copper / bronze Items Halberd: A possible halberd was found in a cist with a cremation burial at Moylough Co. Sligo (Morris 1929). The halberd, fractured and bent, had been subject to great heat, probably the result of being placed on the

Manufactured bone objects, such as pins, toggles, cylinders and tubes have also been found at a wide range of burials in the data set. A number of deposits of un-worked bone, such as the bird bones and a pig’s foreleg discovered in cist 2 at Drumahoe, Co. Derry

Bone objects

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Chapter 6 Analysis

(Donnelly and Ward 2010) may have been the remains of food deposits placed within the grave.

tube has a superficial resemblance to the bone tubes, many of them whistles, discussed by Woodward and Hunter (2015: 115). This possibility is discussed by the excavator, who also suggests that it has potential as a decorative item (Donnelly and Ward 2010: 67).

Bone Tubes There are five bone tubes within the database (Figure 6.22).

At Knockroe, Co. Tyrone (Williams and Wilkinson 1988), a fragment of bone tube, 23mm by 8mm, was also found with a plano-convex knife and a second flint knife, accompanying the cremated remains of an adult male, an adolescent female and three young children, contained in a vase urn, placed within a cist. The intact end of the bone tube seemed to have been worked to make something similar to a mouthpiece.

At Drumahoe, an incomplete, burnt, worked bone object, possibly a bone tube, fractured into several segments was found in a pit with the cremated remains of an adult and a juvenile, along with a plano-convex burnt knife. Also at Drumahoe a second burial included a fragment of a worked and decorated bone tube, 50mm by 6mm. The cremated remains of three children, one older child, perhaps aged 10, and two younger children were placed within a tripartite vase, and accompanied by a second miniature vase. A plano-convex knife was also found with the burial. The illustration in the excavation report would suggest that the bone

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A fragmentary bone tube, measuring 84mm by 16mm, described as a cylinder by the excavator (Ó Floinn 2011: 258), was found at Baggotstown, Co. Limerick with the cremated remains of an adult and a juvenile accompanied by a ribbed bowl. It appears to have been bevelled at one end. A single date was obtained from

Figure 6.22 Distribution map of bone tubes, toggles and cylinders from the database.

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland the cremated bones from this burial, GrA-24177, this was calibrated, in Oxcal 4.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2015) using Intcal 13 (Reimer et al 2013), to give a date range of 1923 to 1695 BC (95.4%) and 1881 to 1770 BC (68.2%).

had the appearance of being made of whipped cord. It measured about 18mm long and 5mm wide. Presumably it was a skeumorph of an actual whipped cord toggle or connector. It was found with the cremation of an adolescent of indeterminate sex, accompanied by a simple Bowl and, even more unusually, a stone toggle, almost identical in form but complete, with two loop ends with a carved stone cylinder, grooved to resemble whipped cord, connecting them. It measured 40mm by 5mm. The similarity of toggles of this sort to segmented beads has been commented upon by Piggot who dates them to about the same era as Wessex I (Piggot 1958).

From Edmondstown, Co. Dublin (Mount and Harnett 1993), a bone tube, measuring 80mm by 10mm, split and distorted by the cremation process, but with clear evidence of polish, was found accompanying the cremation burial of an adult male, two children and an infant. The cremated remains and the bone tube were contained within an encrusted urn placed in a pit. A bone pin and a flint planoconvex knife were found in the burial as well.

A bone ‘toggle’ was also found at Carrigeens, Co. Sligo, in a collared urn with the cremated remains of an adolescent of indeterminate sex. This object is reminiscent of the much earlier toggle from Hemp Knoll, Wiltshire (Woodward and Hunter 2015: 121). It also resembles an antler bead from Crosby Garrett (Woodward and Hunter 2015: 188). Toggles have been found in Britain on the left hand side of inhumation burials, on occasion in association with bracers, and the suggestion has been made in these cases that they are part of some apparatus associated with hunting (Woodward and Hunter 2015: 123).

The common factor that all of these burials have in common is that they all include the burials of children, in one case the multiple burial of only children. It has been suggested that bone tubes in Early Bronze Age burials are probably whistles (Woodward and Hunter 2015: 117) and it is perhaps not unreasonable to suggest that these are considered items specifically associated with children, possibly toys.

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Bone cylinders At Knockast, Co. Meath (Henken and Movius 1934), four intact bone cylinders, and a fragment of a fifth were found with cremated bones of an adult male placed into a cavity in the cairn surface. Each of the intact cylinders measured between 18 and 23mm long by 15mm wide and about 1.5mm thick. Each cylinder had multiple narrow cuts or incisions made into the ends of the cylinders (about 24 each end), giving a kind of denticulated appearance to each cylinder. One of the cylinders has two opposed perforations, 3mm in diameter. It has been suggests that the femur of a goat or dog is the likely source of the bone to produce these cylinders (Henken and Movius 1934: 252, n. 22). Hencken and Movius (1934: 252), quote Adolf Mahr, who suggested that the cylinders might be whip mounts. They are also somewhat reminiscent of the bone ‘shaft mounts’ from Bush Barrow (Woodward and Hunter 2015: 245) although rather thinner. These could have functioned in a similar way, as mounts on some kind of wooden pole, or wand, although the denticulations are very different on the Bush Barrow bone mounts and this does not explain the perforations on one of the Knockast cylinders.

Bone pins The bone pins in the database are all, with the exception of one uncertain example noted below, examples of decorative dress pins (Figure 6.23). At Coolnahane, Co. Cork (O’Kelly and Shee 1974), a bone pin was found with the cremated remains of an adult male, placed within an encrusted urn, unaccompanied by other grave goods. A crutch-headed pin was found at Caltragh, Co. Galway (Lucas et al. 1961), within a cremation of an adult of uncertain sex in a vase urn, accompanied by a fragmentary smaller urn of uncertain type, in a polygonal-cist. A flint plano-convex knife also accompanied the burial. A similar crutch-headed pin, with evidence of polish was found at Rahinashurock, Co. Meath, with the cremated remains of an adult, placed in a pit. It was found with a perforated bone object of uncertain type and a small blade with two rivets, of Waddell’s Class 2 ‘Corkey Type’.

In a cremation pit from Drumahoe, Co. Derry / Londonderry (Donnelly and Ward 2010) the remains of a bone cylinder, described in the excavation report as being similar to the bone cylinder from Knockast, was found along with the cremation burial of an adult and juvenile of indeterminate sex.

A spatula-headed bone pin was found at Edmondstown, Co. Dublin (Mount and Harnett 1993) with the cremated remains of a man of uncertain age, two children aged 5 to 12 and an infant, set into an encrusted urn, placed, inverted, within a pit. The remains were also accompanied by a bone tube and a flint plano-convex knife.

Bone toggles At Graney West, Kildare a fragment of an unusual bone toggle was found. It had a loop at one end, described as ‘racquet shaped’ (Mount 1998: 39), and

A curved eyed ring-headed pin was found at the wedge tomb at Harristown, Co. Waterford (Hawkes 1941). It was found with the cremated remains of a young man, placed in a cordoned urn, set into a pit, just inside 82

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Chapter 6 Analysis

Figure 6.23 Distribution map of bone and copper / copper alloy, pins and needles from the database.

the kerb of the cairn, along with a bronze knife with a central rib and a perforated sandstone bead. The curved nature of this pin might suggest that it may have been a simple needle.

fragment of a bronze dagger and a perforated pumice stone. A date from the burial GrA-17198, calibrated in Oxcal 4.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2015) using Intcal 13 (Reimer et al 2013), to give a date range of 2010 to 1667BC (95.4%) and 1897 to 1745BC (68.2%)

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There were three burials accompanied by bone pins from the Mound of The Hostages, Co. Meath (O’Sullivan 2005). Each of these was a cremation burial with an individual of indeterminate age and sex.

A third burial, was found in a vase urn, with a tripartite vase, and was accompanied by a ring-headed bone pin, and a flint scraper. A date from the burial GrA-17161, calibrated in Oxcal 4.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2015) using Intcal 13 (Reimer et al 2013), to give a date range of 1936 to 1641BC (95.4%) and 1881 to 1689BC (68.2%).

One burial, found within a polygonal cist, unaccompanied by a pottery vessel, was accompanied by two bone pins, one with an hourglass perforation and one with a biconical perforation. A radiocarbon date from this cremation, GrA-17299 calibrated in Oxcal 4.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2015) using Intcal 13 (Reimer et al 2013), to give a date range of 1980 to 1693BC (95.4%) and 1878 to 1747BC (68.2%)

There are only three reliable radiocarbon dates, from one site the Mound of the Hostages (O’Sullivan 2005), to date the occurrence of these bone pins in Irish burials. What can be said is that they occur with a number of other objects which can be dated, such as daggers and funerary vessels. The presence of a Corkey Type dagger / knife with a bone pin is not inconsistent with the known dating of these blades, which Waddell estimates

A second burial was found within a vase urn, placed in a pit, accompanied by a fragment of a bone pin, a 83

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland at 2100 to 1900BC. Nor is the dating of the Mound of the Hostages bone pins inconsistent with the dating of encrusted urns such as that from Edmondstown or the dating of cordoned urns, such as from Harristown. What it does suggest however is that the earlier half of the radiocarbon calibrated date ranges obtained from the Mound of the Hostages radiocarbon dates for burials with bone pins, i.e. from circa 2000 to 1800 BC, might be the actual period of the use of these artefacts as grave goods in an Irish context.

the Mound of the Hostages (O’Sullivan 2005), from their associated bipartite bowls, would seem to be in this range, probably towards the later end of it. These buttons may have performed a number of functions. It has been suggested that single buttons may have been fasteners for pouches, paired buttons perhaps fasteners for leg wraps, with larger numbers of buttons perhaps having been used in some kind of shirt or jacket or having had a purely decorative function (Sheridan in Baker et al. 2003).

The function of these objects is not immediately apparent since all of the pins have been found in cremation burials and their original positioning on the body cannot be ascertained. Evidence from use wear analysis of British Early Bronze Age decorative dress pins shows that they were used with fabric, the assumption is that they were used to secure garments (Woodward and Hunter 2015: 175), and it seems reasonable to assume that some of these examples too were used to secure some kind of garment, or garments, possibly a cloak, as suggested for the pin found with the Amsebury Archer (Fitzpatrick 2013). In other cases the pin may have been a personal possession as is suggested for the bone ring-headed pin, found wrapped in cloth with a pair of bone tweezers and bronze dagger, from Grave 11, Barrow Hills, Oxfordshire (Brück 2004).

Stone beads A ‘lignite’ bead was found with an inhumation burial of an adult woman at Ballybrew, Co. Wicklow (Martin et al. 1943), accompanied by a tripartite bowl. A flint scraper was also found with the burial. A red sandstone bead was found at Harristown, Co. Waterford, accompanying the cremated remains of a young man, placed in a cordoned urn, set into a pit, just inside the kerb of the cairn, along with a bronze knife with a central rib and a bone pin (Hawkes 1941). A ‘bun shaped’ chlorite bead was found at Kilcroagh, Co. Antrim (Williams 1992), with the cremation of an adult female within a cordoned urn. It was also accompanied by bronze fragments and a segmented faience bead.

V-perforated stone buttons There were three burials with v-perforated buttons in the data set.

A small stone pendant, made of a smooth, dark stone, perforated at the thicker end, was found at Carrownacon, Co. Mayo (Movius 1934). It was found with cremated remains of an adult male and an infant in a small cist, attached to a larger cist which contained the unburnt burial of an older adult female.

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Two v-perforated jet / anthracite buttons in the database are from the Mound of the Hostages (O’Sullivan 2005). One was a jet or anthracite v-perforated button found with the unburnt remains of several individuals, including a robust adult, probably a male, an adolescent of indeterminate sex, and a third set of bones, now missing, and accompanied by a necked bipartite bowl, a simple bowl and a bronze awl.

At Grange, Co. Roscommon (Ó Ríordáin 1997), a small perforated bone object, which may be a pendant, was found in a cist with the cremated remains of an adult male and the rim sherd of a small, possibly miniature vessel. Faience beads There are nine faience beads from burials in the database. A pale green faience bead was found at Ballyduff, Co. Wexford (Harnett and Prendergast 1953) in a cist with the cremated remains of two adults, possibly, but not certainly, a man and woman, accompanied by a tripartite vase. The cremated remains were mixed with soil and the vase, on its side, was partially filled with this soil and bone mixture.

A similar v-perforated jet / anthracite button was found at the Mound of the Hostages with the inhumation burial of an adolescent male, accompanied by a necked bipartite bowl, a v-perforated jet button, and a shale necklace composed of 57 separate shale bead elements. A bone v-perforated button was found in one half of a segmented cist at Kinkit, Co. Tyrone (Glover 1975), with a bone pin / needle, accompanying the cremation of two adult individuals.

Two faience beads were also found at Kilcroagh, Co. Antrim (Williams 1991-2), both with cremation burials placed into cordoned urns, placed into pits within a ring ditch.

The dating of buttons of this type has been placed in the final centuries of the third millennium BC to, at the latest, the first century of the second millennium BC (Woodward and Hunter 2015: 467), before the commencement of Wessex 1. The two examples from

Kilcroagh burial 1 contained the cremated remains of a young adult male and female, and contained a 84

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Chapter 6 Analysis

segmented ‘whitish greenish’ faience bead, a bun shaped bead of chlorite, a tiny fragment of bronze and a flat, oval perforated bone object. Bone from this burial was radiocarbon dated GrA-14815, and calibrated in Oxcal 4.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2015) using Intcal 13 (Reimer et al 2013) to give a date range of 1661-1509BC (95.4%), 1625-1533BC (68.2%).

The series of dates from Kilcroagh are not in very good agreement with each other. In particular the two dates from Kilcroagh burial 2 are perhaps earlier than one might expect for a cordoned urn burial, especially one beside a similar cordoned urn burial with a significantly later date, perhaps the charcoal dates from Kilcroagh may be considered the result of ‘old wood’ (Warner 1990).

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Kilcroagh burial 2 contained the cremated remains of an adult female and a male youth of about 15 years. A single segmented faience bead, and a razor/knife were found with the cremated remains. Bone from this burial was radiocarbon dated GrA-14816, which calibrated in Oxcal 4.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2015) using Intcal 13 (Reimer et al 2013), to give a date range of 1890-1668BC (95.4%), 1877-1696BC (68.2%). Charcoal from the grave was also dated GrN-15378, which calibrated in Oxcal 4.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2015) using Intcal 13 (Reimer et al 2013), to give a date range of 1931-1744 (95.4%), 1889-1772 (68.2%).

Four segmented faience beads were also found at the Mound of the Hostages (O’Sullivan 2005), in an inhumation burial, placed in a pit, of a probably male adolescent, the ‘Tara Boy’. This will be discussed in more detail below. Other beads / pendants An unusual stone lined pit from Tomfarney, Co. Wexford held the cremated remains of no less than seventeen individuals, old and young, male and female. As such it is outside any practice observed in the Irish single

Figure 6.24 Distribution map of buttons and beads from the database.

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland burial tradition. It may perhaps be considered deviant, possibly the result the type of people being interred, the manner of their death or unusual circumstances of the time, such as war, disease or hunger. One object of personal adornment was found in this mass grave, a small biconical ceramic bead with a perforation running through its centre.

Pygmy vessels Six pygmy cups are known from the data set, four from cremations and two from inhumations. A single male inhumation in a cist, from Drung, Co Donegal (Rynne 1963), was unaccompanied by other vessels or grave goods, as was the inhumation of an older child, found in a cist at Church Bay, Rathlin, Co. Antrim (Wiggins 2000). Human bone from this grave was dated, OxA-2675, 3660 ± 70, which calibrated in Oxcal 4.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2015) using Intcal 13 (Reimer et al 2013), to 2280 to 1786 BC at 95.4%, or 2136 to 1948BC at 68.2%.

A second perforated flattish stone may have been a pendant also: it was not as smooth as many, although wear to the interior appeared to indicate it had been suspended (Cahill and Sikora 2011: 600).

A cremation burial of an older child from Harristown, Co. Waterford (Hawkes 1941), contained within a cordoned urn, was accompanied by a pygmy cup, placed within the urn. Kavanagh (1977) mixes this up with another burial at Harristown, which was associated with a bronze razor and a bone pin, the pygmy cup burial had no such associations however.

Necklaces A necklace of twelve ceramic beads, eight ‘barrel beads’ and four ‘bun’ shaped spacer beads, was found accompanying the cremation burial of a woman at Altanagh, Co. Tyrone (Williams et al 1986). A bronze boss, with two perforations and a crescent shaped fossil were also found with the burial. A radiocarbon date GrN-11449 from possible pyre material calibrated in Oxcal 4.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2015) using Intcal 13 (Reimer et al 2013) to 1750-1520BC (95.4%).

At Grange, Co. Roscommon (Ó Ríordáin 1997) the cremation burial of an adult male, in a vase urn, was accompanied by a pygmy cup.

At Keenogue Co. Meath (Mount and Buckley 1997) a necklace of 40 jet beads was found at the neck of the inhumation burial of a woman within a pit. There was no accompanying pottery or other grave goods.

At Clonshannon, Co. Wicklow (Mahr and Price 1932), the cremation burial of an older child was placed within a vase urn, accompanied by a pygmy cup placed within the urn. Bone from this burial was dated, GrA 14679, 3590 ±50, which calibrated in Oxcal 4.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2015) using Intcal 13 (Reimer et al 2013), to 2130 to 1773 BC at 95.4%, or 2022 to 1888BC at 68.2%.

Two burials stand out as having unusually diverse and opulent collections of beads associated with them, both from the same site, the Mound of the Hostages (O’Sullivan 2005), although they are not contemporary.

At the Mound of the Hostages, Co. Meath (O’Sullivan 2005) a cremation was found with a tripartite vase and a pygmy cup.

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The first burial (Burial 19 (LVII) in the excavators nomenclature) was the burial of an adolescent male with a necked bipartite bowl, accompanied by a v-perforated jet button, and a shale necklace composed of 57 separate shale bead elements.

Pygmy cups are quite a difficult topic. In Britain they are found first with collared urns. In Ireland they are found on their own, with tripartite vases, vase urns, encrusted urns and, occasionally collared and cordoned urns (O’Donnabhain and Brindley 1989). In Britain they are assumed to date to Wessex 1 and later (Burgess 1980: 97) but in Ireland the example from Rathlin, and possibly their vase urn associations, suggests that it is possible that Irish pygmy cups are significantly earlier, although Brindley (2007: 293) dismisses this from her dating of these vessels because she believes it is too early. Brindley does, usefully, suggest that there may be no real unity to the Irish pygmy cups, which could solve some of the dating problems. In Britain they have, in many cases, high status grave good associations (Burgess 1980: 98), in Ireland this is not the case.

At Burial 30(IV) (excavators designation), an inhumation burial in a pit of an adolescent of indeterminate but possibly male sex, the ‘Tara Boy’, was found. As well as the already mentioned faience beads, bronze razor / knife and possible awl, he was accompanied by an impressive collection of beads making up what appears to have been a necklace (Sheridan et al. 2013). The necklace was made from a single asymmetrical ‘jet’ bead, a bone bead, a set of four smaller and one larger amber beads, and a set of eight bronze tubes, the largest 21mm by 3mm. Isotopic analysis of the human remains indicate that a southwest Irish origin was most likely for the individual, but several aspects of the artefacts accompanying the burial may be suggestive of close contacts with Wessex, not least the faience, a large proportion of Britain’s Early Bronze Age faience having been found in the Wiltshire area.

Ó Donnabháin and Brindley (1989) note, in a general survey of burials with pygmy cups, that there is an overrepresentation of children, adolescents and younger adults, with pygmy cups, although they believe that it 86

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Chapter 6 Analysis

is inline with what they expect from Early Bronze Age demographics.

remains and 5.7% (n=75/496) have three sets of human remains. There are smaller numbers of graves with greater numbers of individuals buried within them, 1.4% have four sets of human remains(n=7/496), 0.6% five sets of human remains (n=3/496) with one burial (0.2%, n=1/496) having eight sets of human remains and one burial (0.2%, n=1/496, the very unusual burial pit from Tomfarney, Co. Wexford, having more than 17 sets of human remains. In addition 7.9% of burials contain no human remains (n=39/496). This is probably a combination of graves in which traces of human remains have decayed, and graves which were prepared for final burial, but into which the remains were never comitted.

The sample from this data set is interesting, but they are two few and too ritually diverse and geographically spread to allow for meaningful statistical analysis. Alex Gibson and Alison Sheridan (2004: 276-80) has made a number of suggestions concerning the function of these vessels. He also observes that these vessels may not be a unitary class, but were actually several similar, but different, pieces of funerary apparatus. He notes that some could have contained fluids, perhaps magical liquids, citing Garton Slack, Yorkshire, where a pygmy vessel was positioned so as to force the ingestion of its contents by the deceased, as evidence that they contained something intended for consumption. Others, he suggests, could perhaps have been burners for aromatic or narcotic substances. Gibson discusses the, somewhat disappointing, lipid analysis of pygmy vessels, pointing out that a few vessels may show evidence of having contained a substance similar to beeswax. Gibson also observes the poor firing of many of these vessels and proposes that some may have been actually fired during cremations, in a sense consigning the vessel, and its contents, to the spirit world along with the deceased.

The age profile of human remains found in single burial tradition Burials The scheme for codifying analysis of the Age of interred remains from single burial tradition burials has been discussed in the methodology section but briefly, young children are defined as 0-5 (YC), older children 6-12(OC), adolescents 13-17(ADL), adults 18-30(A), mature adults 30-50(MA) and older adults 50+(OA). Burials described simply as adult are categorised as (A), as child (C) and human remains which cannot be aged are categorised as indeterminate (I) (Figure 6.26).

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Figure 6.26 Relative frequencies of age categories in single burial tradition burials.

Young children (YC) make up 11.3% (n=63/557) of those human remains which could be aged, older children (OC) made up 8.1% (n=45/557), children of uncertain age 4.2% (n=23/557), adolescents (ADL) made up 8.5% (n=47/557), adults (A) 55.2%(n=308/557), mature adults (MA) 8.5%(n=47/557) and old adults (OA) 4.3%(n=24/557). There were 107 sets of human remains which could not be aged (I). When all children and all adults (adolescent and upwards) were calculated together children accounted for 23.6% of single burial tradition burials. Mount (1997: 160) found in his south east Ireland data set, that about 20% of human remains belonged to

Figure 6.25 Pie chart showing relative frequencies of number of individuals buried per grave.

Human remains from single burial tradition burials Frequencies of number of individuals found in burials Just 69% (n=340/496)of single burial tradition graves in the data set are single burials (Figure 6.25), that is burials with just a single set of human remains in the grave, while15.2% (n=28/496) have two sets of human 87

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland children and 80% to youths/adults, which he considered to show a significant under-representation of children in single burial tradition burials, compared to data sets of pre-industrial societies, which he suggested should be double what he had actually encountered.

Position of the body in inhumation burials of the Early Bronze Age This is largely based on the excavator’s description of the position of the bodies, unless they did not mention body position in which case the information was extracted from the site drawings and photographs. The dominant body position was the crouched inhumation (70.1%, n=68/97), with flexed inhumation the next most common (15.5%, n=15/97), followed by contracted inhumation (4.1%, n=4/97), the defleshed bundle (4.1%, n=68/97), where the position of the bones suggests that they did not rot in-situ, and disarticulated remains where the bones have may have been disturbed, or brought from elsewhere (4.1%, n=68/97). A small number of burials (2.1%, n=2/97) were extended (Appendix 3: Table 19). In reality contracted can probably be subsumed into the crouched category, it is only separately identified in a few cases at Keenoge, Co. Meath by Mount (1997) and even within this he uses the term inconsistently, describing the same burials as crouched and contracted. So in actuality there are really just three types of body position for burials in the database, crouched (74.2%), flexed (15.5%) and the defleshed bundle (4.1%), with only the disarticulated and disturbed remains making up the remaining 6.2% of the burials. Despite numerous cross-tabulation experiments there seems to be no relationship between the position of the body within the grave and any other type of ritual behaviour or subset of the human remains.

If the age categories in this study, presented above, were sorted into ‘bins’ in the manner carried out by Chamberlain 2006, 32.4% of the burials in the data set would be of children or adolescents. This is indeed about half of what Chamberlain suggests would be expected for 18th or 19th century subsistence agriculturalists (ibid, 90-91). On the other hand modern hunter gathers and forager farmers which have been studied by anthropologists have a mortality of children and adolescents around, or even below, 40% (Chamberlain 2006: 61). This might suggest that the degree of under-representation of children and adolescents in burials from the single burial tradition may have been overestimated in previous studies.

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Frequencies of sex of human remains Most human remains from single burial tradition burials are not capable of being sexed. This is to some extent the result of cremation being a common, and for much of the period the dominant treatment of the remains. Of all the burials in the data set 59% (n=392/664) could not be identified to sex and are indeterminate (I), 26.5%(n=176/664) were positively identified as male (M) and 12.3% (n=82/664)as female (F). Smaller numbers, were noted as probably female (F?), probably male (M?) and indeterminate but possibly male (IM?) (Figure 6.27).

Side human remains resting on in single burial tradition inhumation burials

Figure 6.28 Side / part of body which human remains are resting on.

In those examples of inhumation burials where details were available in relation to the side / part of the body upon which it rested (70 cases), 48.6% (n=34/70) of individuals, were set on their right side, 38.6% (n=27/70) on their left side and 10% (n=7/70) were lying on their

Figure 6.27 Relative proportions of male (M), female(F) and indeterminate (I) human remains from single burial tradition burials.

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Chapter 6 Analysis

Figure 6.29 Orientation of the body in single burial tradition inhumation burials.

back (Figure 6.28). There are indications, discussed below, that men may be more likely to be buried on their left side and women more likely to be buried on their right.

direction. In 46 inhumation burials it was possible to confidently detect which direction the skull was facing. Of these 39.3% (n=19/46) were facing in a generally easterly direction, 24% (n=11/46) in a generally westerly direction, with 21.7% (n=10/46) facing south and 15.2% (n=7/46) north. Put another way, 61% (n=29/46) faced south through to east while 39% (n=17/46) faced north through to west.

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Orientation of body in inhumation burials In the relatively small number of cases (n=81) where information on the orientation of the skeleton in an inhumation burial was reliably recorded, it can be seen that the cardinal points, North and South, were the most common orientation for the body, judged by the position in which a line was drawn through the body and the crown of the head. Due East was almost as common, followed by West, Southwest and Northeast. Northwest and Southeast were the least common orientations for inhumation burials (Figure 6.29).

Stature frequencies for males and females

A cross-tabulation of the sex of the interred against the orientation of the body has also provided a significant relationship (Appendix 3: Table 20). There is a significant over-representation of male burials amongst bodies orientated with their head pointing north, and an over-representation of male remains pointing west also. There was also a significant over-representation of women buried with their head pointing southwest, and an over-representation of burials of women with their head pointing south. Notably there was a complete absence of, and significant under-representation of, female burials orientated with their heads pointing north. The direction in which the head was facing was also examined and cross-tabulated against sex and other bodily attributes and aspects of ritual. There was no significant relationship. However there is a general tendency for more bodies to face in an easterly

Figure 6.30 Stature of single burial tradition female inhumation burials.

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland There were, in the database, only 16 skeletons of women, all inhumation burials, where it was possible to estimate the stature of the individuals. Of these the mean height was 160cm, however the modal height was somewhat smaller 155cm. The distribution of the female statures was slightly unusual with an outlying group of four women with heights of 167-169cm, although if part of this group had erroneously been estimated at 167cm, instead of 165cm, this would, no longer, seem like such a sharply distinct outlying group (Figure 6.30). There were somewhat more male burials, 35, where it was possible for the anatomist or osteoarchaeologist to make an estimation of the stature. The mean height was 171cm, with male skeletons from 153cm to 189cm in a spread of frequencies very close to a normal distribution (Figure 6.31). Geographic spread of Early Bronze Age funerary ritual practices There are a number of indications of strong regional patterning in the archaeological record of single burial tradition burial, revealed by crosstabulation and GIS analysis of the data set.

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Figure 6.31 Stature of single burial tradition male inhumation burials.

Figure 6.32 Distribution of inhumation burials from the database.

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Chapter 6 Analysis

Distribution of inhumation and cremation by province

Distribution of basic grave type (cist / pit/ polygonal cist / patch) by province

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There is a significant relationship between the prevalence of inhumation and cremation and location in different provinces (Figures 6.32 and 6.33). In particular inhumation burials are significantly under-represented in Munster, and cremation burials significantly overrepresented in Munster (Appendix 3: Table 21). There was also an over-representation of inhumation burials and an under-representation of cremation burials in Leinster, although this is below the level of statistical significance. It has been demonstrated in the radiocarbon chapter above that cremation probably begins later than inhumation burial in general across Ireland (see Chapter 5: Dating the single burial tradition across Ireland) and it has also been established that single burial tradition burials in Munster probably commenced some time after this tradition commenced in the other three provinces. It is likely that this distinction in Munster between the prevalence of inhumation and cremation reflects the later adoption / arrival of the single burial tradition in Munster.

There is a significant relationship between the province in which a burial is found and the likelihood of it being a cist, pit, polygonal cist, or an unprotected bone patch burial (Figure 6.34, 35, 36 and 37). Urn burials were not included in this cross-tabulation. When the data set is examined it can be shown that cists are over-represented in Connacht and very over-represented in Ulster. (Appendix 3: Table 22). There is an under-representation of cists in Munster and a significant under-representation in Leinster. It should be noted that of the 18 cist burials from Munster, only four contain pots, the remainder being pot-less cists (and presumably most of these pot-less cists date to after circa 1950BC). By contrast pits are very over-represented in Leinster, but very underrepresented in Ulster and Connacht. To check that real relationships were not being obscured by the long chronological continuance of pot-less cists and pot-less pits a new category of grave type and presence or absence of a pot (Cist_Pit_Pot_Potless) was cross-tabulated against province (Appendix 3:

Figure 6.33 Distribution of cremation burials from the database.

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland

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Figure 6.34 Distribution map of cists from the database.

Figure 6.35 Distribution of pit burials from the database.

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Figure 6.36 Distribution of polygonal cists from the database.

Figure 6.37 Distribution of bone patches from the database.

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland Table 23). It revealed how cists with pots are significantly over-represented in Ulster, as are polygonal cists with pots. It also showed how pot-less cists are significantly over-represented in Munster and how there is a significant over-representation of pits with pots in Leinster as well as a significant over-representation of pot-less pits in Leinster.

GIS based distribution maps of each pottery class also indicates some trends (Figure 6.38 to 6.45). Simple bowls seem to have a restricted distribution in Ulster and Leinster (Figure 6.38), with the bipartite bowls in this database similarly distributed (Figure 6.39). Tripartite bowls appear to have a wider distribution, pushing west into the midlands and Connacht. Ribbed bowls (Figure 6.40) have the widest distribution of any bowl type in this database, being found in all four provinces, including Munster.

When the distribution of basic burial types is looked at for urn burials no relationship between burial type and province is uncovered (Appendix 3: Table 24). Most burial types seem to be fairly evenly spread across Ireland with pit burials, not unexpectedly, being in the majority.

With vases the situation is somewhat different. Both classes of vase, the bipartite and tripartite vases, have a very similar distribution (Figure 6.42). They are also widely spread throughout Ireland, bipartite and tripartite vases are present in each of the provinces. As noted above (See Chapter 5: Dating single burial tradition Funerary Pottery) even a conservative analysis of the dating of bowls and vases, would suggest that vases appear a few decades after the appearance of bowls.

Distribution of funerary vessel types by province The cross-tabulation of funerary pottery class with province provided a statistically significant set of results (Appendix 3: Table 25), but with a cautionary note about the results of the distribution of collared and cordoned urn burials. There is a significant over-representation of bipartite bowls and simple bowls in Ulster, and an overrepresentation of tripartite bowls also.

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Looked at collectively the distribution maps of bowls and vases may indicate a spread of the single burial tradition through Ireland with simple bowls and bipartite bowls appearing first in eastern Ireland with

Figure 6.38 Distribution map of simple bowls from the database.

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Figure 6.39 Distribution map of bipartite bowls from the database.

Figure 6.40 Distribution map of tripartite bowls from the database.

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland

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Figure 6.41 Distribution map of ribbed bowls from the database.

Figure 6.42 Distribution map of bipartite and tripartite vases from the database.

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Figure 6.43 Distribution map of collared urns in the database.

tripartite bowls evidencing the enlargement of the area in which single burial took place to include Connacht. By the time ribbed bowls and bipartite and tripartite vases were coming into use, the single burial tradition was beginning to penetrate into Munster.

present in Ulster at all. However this distribution map does not include the overwhelming majority of encrusted urn finds from Ulster, which are scant antiquarian accounts and not included in our data set, again Kavanagh (1973: 617) shows a more complete picture.

The collared urn is found in all four provinces (Figure 6.43). Although, from the analysis of this data it appears in Leinster to be over-represented, and in Ulster to very under-represented, this is misleading and the result of the filtering out of many antiquarian accounts of the finding of single burial tradition burials. A simple glance at the distribution maps of Kavanagh (1976: 313) shows this. Kavanagh’s distribution map shows that the distribution of collared urns seems heavily weighted to the eastern, coastal, areas of the country.

Numbers of pots found in graves by province A cross-tabulation of the absolute numbers of pots, and the absence of pots, in graves by province has also revealed interesting geographic patterning of province and number of pots present in graves (Appendix 3: Table 26). Chi square and Cramer’s v testing of the significance of this cross-tabulation table reveals that there is no relationship for the table as a whole, however the values of the adjusted residuals for some of the cells within the cross-tabulation table reveal that there is some kind of significant relationship between certain variables. Ulster has a significant over-representation of pottery vessel in graves. Munster has a significant underrepresentation of pots in burials. Paradoxically however Munster has a significant over-representation of burials with two or more pots. This appears to be because of the numbers of encrusted urns in Munster, which are commonly found with additional vessels.

Cordoned urns are evenly spread throughout the country in this data set (Figure 6.44) and in Kavanagh’s distribution map (ibid). Similar comments must be made about the distribution of encrusted urns (Figure 6.45). Encrusted urns also show patterning in their distribution being over-represented in Leinster and Munster, absent from Connacht and barely 97

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland not established by significance testing. A statistically significant relationship was uncovered between the location of a grave within a cairn and sex, with female burials frequently being closest to the cairn centre (see below Chapter 6: Sex and position within a cairn or cemetery). Also there is a significant relationship between Sex and grave good class, (see below Chapter 6: grave good class and sex), male burials tending to be associated with graves containing grave good class (1) and grave good class (3) grave goods and female burials tending to be associated with grave good class (2) burials.

Sex and single burial tradition burial practices The relationship between the sex of the interred and other aspects of the burial and burial ritual has been mentioned already in passing but will be dealt with more fully here. The tendency for male skeletons to be buried with their head pointing north and the relationship between female skeletons and a southwest or southerly orientation has been noted above. There are with inhumation burials, slightly more males resting on their left side and slightly more women on their right, but significance testing shows no relationship. There are also intriguing hints of a relationship, below the level of statistical significance, between sex and pottery class (Chapter 6: Sex and pottery class and the presence of a pot in a grave) and between more profuse pottery decoration on the burials of men than women (see Chapter 6: Sex and pottery decoration). There is a similarly frustrating hint of a connection between pottery with defined or bounded decorative motifs and male burials, and undecorated vessels and female burials (see below Chapter 6: Examining bounded or defined motifs and their relationship with aspects of single burial tradition burial), but this also

Sex and pottery class and the presence of a pot in the grave

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There is no relationship between the sex of the interred and the class of vessel accompanying the deceased if all burials with pottery are examined. However the late Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age is a significant time span, with changing ritual evident. It makes sense to split up ritual activity into the two main types for analysis, interment with an accompanying vessel or interment in a vessel, i.e. an urn, since by definition all

Figure 6.44 Distribution map of cordoned urns from the database.

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Chapter 6 Analysis

Figure 6.45 Distribution map of encrusted urns and vase urns from the database.

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burials interned in an urn are accompanied by an urn. These urn burials are left out of further analysis.

the sex of the individual. Given that it appears from the radiocarbon evidence that pot-less cists and pits do not appear until the second phase, Phase B of the single burial tradition (see Chapter 5: Phasing the Irish single burial tradition and Chapter 7: Phase B), and that most or even all Phase A Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age burials (see Chapter 5: Phasing the Irish single burial tradition and Chapter 7: Phase A) are likely to have been accompanied by a vessel, it seems as if there is evidence of a changing attitude to women through the Early Bronze Age. It seems that women were being afforded a burial with a pot at the start of the era but were becoming less likely to be afforded a burial with a pot as the Early Bronze Age proceeded.

Crosstabulation analysis was then conducted of individuals which had been confidently sexed by an anatomist or osteoarchaeologist and the pottery classes of the funerary vessels accompanying the vessels, excluding urn burials. When the sex of an individual was compared to the presence or absence of an accompanying pot a significant relationship was found between the presence of a pot in a male grave and its absence from a female grave (Appendix 3: Table 27). This suggested that males (38%, n=32/84) were more than twice as likely to be buried with a non-urn pottery vessel as females (18%, n=6/32). This was a somewhat greater differentiation, than that noted by Mount for ‘Bowl Food Vessels’ who suggested 38% of males were buried with a ‘Bowl Food Vessel’ and 28% of females (Mount 1997: 163). The decision whether to include a pottery vessel with an individual does seem to have been influenced by a person’s sex but once that decision had been made the choice of which class of non-urn pottery vessel used in a single burial tradition burial does not seem to have been a decision based on

Sex and pottery decoration If pottery is split up into bowls and vases in one group and urns in the other, and the bowls and vases are looked at separately, there is no relationship apparent overall between the categorised number of decorated motifs on the vessel and the sex of the interred (N=no motifs, S= small number of motifs-up to 5, M=medium number of motifs up to 10 and L=large number of motifs, 99

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland above 10). However, looking at the adjusted residuals in the cells within the crostabulation there appears to be a significant over-representation of males and vessels with a large amount of decoration (L) and an over-representation of females and vessels with no decoration (Appendix 3: Table 28). However the other cells in the table show no relationship.

The age of human remains at death and single burial tradition burial practices There are significant relationships between the age of the interred at death and aspects of burial and associated ritual. Aspects of burial which appear to have no relationship with age are, the class of pottery found in the burials and the amount or placement of decoration on the pottery vessel. An apparent correlation between age and cremation / inhumation seems to merely be a reflection of the strong association of remains of indeterminate age being more likely to be cremated, cremation destroying vital information. There is also no correlation between age and body position or orientation for unburnt remains and no indication of correlations between age and the number of pottery vessels or grave goods in a grave. There is a significant relationship, however, between age and cist size, although its probably the result of children needing smaller cists to hold their remains than adults. There is a relationship between age and the presence or absence of a pottery vessel, although it is not statistically significant.

This cross-tabulation was repeated for urn burials but no indication at all of sexual differentiation in the number or placement of decorative motifs on urns was found. Sex and side upon which the body is resting With inhumation burials if sex is cross-tabulated against the side upon which the body is resting female skeletons are a little more likely to be found resting on their right side and males somewhat more likely to be resting on their left, however, while this is interesting, significance testing showed there to be no relationship, between these variables (Appendix 3, Table 29). Sex and direction head is facing In those burials where it was possible to identify the direction in which the skull was facing there was a clear majority of skulls facing in an easterly or southerly direction, with a minority facing in a northerly or westerly way. There was no indication however of any sexual differentiation in the way the burials faced, and both sexes seemed equally likely to face either direction.

Age and cist size There is a significant relationship between the age of bodies from inhumation burials and the size of cists and pits containing them (Appendix 3: Table 32). To reduce the complexity of the variables being examined age and CistArea were recoded in to two values AgeRecode and CistArea2. AgeRecode is a categorical recode of age using the categories outlined in Appendix 1 Table 3, Young children, were defined as 0-5 years (YC), older children 6-12 years (OC), adolescents 13-17 years (ADL), adults 18-30 years (A), mature adults 30-50 years (MA) and older adults 50+ years (OA). CistArea2 split up cist areas into four equal groups of increasing size. A significant over-representation is identified between the very large cists (CV) and the placement of adult (A) remains within them and also with large cists (CL) and the placement of adolescent (ADL) remains within them. Mature adults (MA)are very over-represented with cist of medium size (CM) as are the burials of older children (OC). Young children are very over-represented in the smallest cists (CS).

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Sex and cremation / inhumation It is difficult to estimate if there is any relationship between sex and cremation or inhumation because of the large numbers of individuals of indeterminate sex, because of the long chronological spread of the Early Bronze Age, and because of the use of both practices through long parts of that era. To attempt to bring some chronological resolution to this the data was subdivided into only those burials with reliable radiocarbon dates and further subdivided into single burials reliably dated to before approximately 1950 Cal BC, Phases A and B, and those which are dated to after that date, Phase C. When sex and cremation / inhumation are cross-tabulated for single graves reliably dated to before about 1950BC, it is clear that both males and females are equally likely to be cremated or interred unburnt (Appendix 3: Table 31). When the same cross-tabulation is carried out for sex and cremation / inhumation for burials reliably dated to after about 1950BC a very similar result is obtained (Appendix 3: Table 30). This demonstrates that the sex of the deceased is not a factor in the decision to carry out a cremation or an inhumation burial, throughout the Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age.

Interestingly there is no relationship when the estimated age of cremated remains are cross-tabulated against cist size. As we already have seen inhumation probably begins prior to cremation and it may be that there is an early practice of associating age with cist size which becomes less prevalent with time. Alternatively it may be that cist size simply reflects the size of the human remains interred. This would explain why there is, for inhumation burials, a significant relationship between small cists (CS) and younger children’s burials (YC), and adult burials (A) and the burials of older adults 100

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(OA) and the largest (CV) cists but it does not explain why mature adults (MA) are not equally represented in the largest CL and CV cists, however.

decorative motifs encountered on Late Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age funerary vessels were coded according to whether they were defined or undefined. This allowed its further examination in a number of ways. Firstly individual motifs could be categorised as to whether they were defined (D) or undefined (U). Secondly vessels could be split up into zones and the definition on the decoration or its absence looked at zonally, so a vessel could have a defined (D) upper body but an undefined (U) middle body, and a lower body with mixed defined and undefined decoration (M). Finally the vessel could be looked at as a whole allowing a vessel to be described in its totally as D (all defined motifs), U (all undefined motifs), E (empty – undecorated) or M (mix of defined and undefined motifs). A variant on this, used to reduce the number of categories in the cross-tabulation table, was to simplify this to vessels with some or exclusively defined motifs (D), vessels with exclusively undefined motifs (U) and vessels with no decoration (E).

Age and multiple burial There is a significant relationship between age and the likelihood of being interred in a multiple burial (Appendix 3: Table 33). The burials of young children (YC) are much more likely to be included in multiple burials. Four times as many young children (YC) were buried in multiple burials than in single burials, typically with an adult, sometimes with other children and more than one adult. Interestingly the burials of many adolescents (ADL) were over-represented in multiple burials, but older children (OC) were not. Age and pot presence There is a significant relationship between age and the presence or absence of a pottery vessel with a burial (Appendix 3: Table 34), when multiple burials, which can lead to confusion as to who a pottery vessel is interred with, are excluded. The burials of older children (OC) are much more likely to contain pottery vessels than any other age group. There are only two examples of a pottery vessel included in the burial of a young child (YC), Cloneen, Co. Mayo and Ballincalla, also Co. Mayo. Burials of adolescents are more likely to have vessels associated with them although at less than the level of statistical significance.

There was no relationship apparent between defined or undefined motifs and cremation and inhumation, the use of a cist or a pit or the area of a cist. This may be further confirmation that the size of a cist may be related to the necessary size to contain the human remains rather than related to any ritual or cultural practice. Defined motifs and sex No relationship was found between the presence of defined decoration (D), undefined decoration (U) or absence of any decoration on a vessel (E) and the sex of the interred (Appendix 3: Table 35). The adjusted residuals within the cross-tabulation table showed that there was an over-representation of male burials accompanied by funerary vessels which had defined decorative motifs (D) and female burials had a with no decoration at all (E), the relationship was not, however, statistically significant. Vessels with undefined decoration (U) were found with both sexes in numbers appropriate for their proportion of the data set.

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Pottery and aspects of the single burial tradition A number of statistical correlations between pottery and other aspects of single burial tradition burial practice have already been discussed, in particular the relationships between the presence of pottery and cist burials and the absence of pottery and pit burial, excluding urn burials. Correlations between the classes of vessel have been discussed, such as the tendency for bipartite vases, ribbed bowls and tripartite bowls to be found in cists, encrusted urns and vase urns to be found in cists and polygonal cists and for encrusted urns to be accompanied by second vessels. In addition the associations between some age groups and pot presence has been noted also. Most single burial tradition funerary pottery is decorated and this is a potential avenue for further investigation. The methodology for recording the decoration has been discussed in the methodology chapter (Chapter 4).

The position of the grave within the cemetery It is difficult to examine the use of space within most single burial tradition cemeteries because frequently excavation has only revealed a portion of the cemetery. Many finds of single graves may be parts of larger cemeteries, even some large excavations, which can establish the presence of a cemetery, may have difficulty establishing its size. There is a class of single burial tradition cemetery which makes the definition of the cemeteries edge easier and the analysis of the use of space possible, the cairn or cemetery mound. These come in several forms, the reused earlier burial cairn, be it an early Neolithic tomb or a wedge tomb, and the specially constructed single burial tradition cairn or cemetery Mound.

Examining bounded or defined motifs and their relationship with aspects of single burial tradition burial. The importance of definition, or bounding, around decoration or other artistic motifs has been noted by Hodder (1982 )and Conkey (1982). To that end all the 101

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland In order to examine the use of space within cemeteries an approach was used which attempted to split up the space within the cemetery in a manner which would allow comparison with other aspects of burial and burial ritual. There are two convenient ways in which space might be organised in a cairn, an angular measure, the number of degrees in rotation about an axis, and the radial distance from that axis, in other words a polar co-ordinate. To make this more manageable the number of degrees in angular rotation from the fixed axis could be grouped into four categories, quadrants, of 90° measured from north: 0 to 90° (Quad1), 90 to 180° (Quad 2), 180 to 270° (Quad 3) and 270 to 360° (Quad 4). The distance from the axis could also be split up into a number of categories; any burial at the dead centre of the cairn, the Bull’s Eye (B); an inner part of the cairn, up to ½ a radius from the centre (I); an outer part of the cairn, more than ½ a radius from the centre (O) and any burials clearly beyond to the cairn boundary (X).

ground surface, beneath the cairn. This could imply that it was constructed some time before the cairn, although without further stratigraphic information it is just as likely it was built as part of the process of construction of the cairn. The combination of quadrant, and radial distance, recorded in the cairn position was chosen to help identify what may be primary interments, and later interments placed beyond the perimeter of the original cairn. As will be noted below there are hints in the data, alas falling below the level of statistical significance, of an over-representation of female burials in the central ‘bullseye’ burial position within cairns. These may, of course, be primary depositions and may imply the deliberate choice of female burials to dedicate cemeteries, however the significance testing does not fully establish this. Frequency of burials by quadrant in single burial tradition burial cairns

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Although there were a number of significant relationships found between position within the cairn and different aspects of burial there were also many areas where no observation was observed. There was no relationship between cremation and inhumation and burial position within the cemetery. In most quadrants cremation and inhumation were found in numbers proportionate to that found in single burial tradition burial in general. In the quadrants where urns predominated there were more cremations, but this is a reflection of a wider change in funerary ritual rather than any specific decision to only bury cremations in certain parts of cairns or cemeteries. Also there appears to have been no relationship between either the number of grave goods found in a grave, or the presence / absence of grave goods from a grave and its position within a cemetery. There were suggestions of a relationship between quadrant and sex although, as on other occasions, the large number of remains of indeterminate sex frustrates the analysis and the hints fall frustratingly short of being statistically significant with the chi square and Cramer’s V tests showing no relationship. In addition there was no relationship between the age of the deceased and placement within the cemetery or cairn.

Some locations within the cairn or cemetery seem to have been preferred for burial. The single most popular burial location is Quadrant 2 Outer with 18% of graves (n=33/180), followed by Quad 1 Inner and Quad 1 Outer both with 12.7% of graves within them (n=23/140). Noticeable is how Quadrant 3, the southwest part of the cairn or cemetery has far fewer burials within it than the other parts of the cemetery (Figure 6.46). The quadrant position can also be looked at via its two components, the actual quadrant (Quad Factor 1, Quad 1,2,3 and 4) and the categorised distance from the centre of the cairn (Quad Factor 2; inner (I), outer (O), Bull’s Eye (B) and beyond the perimeter (X)). When this is done it can be seen that burial in Quadrants 1 (the northeast quadrant) 28.9% (n=52/180) and Quadrant 2 (the southeast quadrant) 29.4% (n=53/180) are more or less equally popular, with burial in Quadrant 4 (the northwest quadrant) a little less popular 20% (n=36/180), and quadrant 3 (the southwest) the least popular with only 13.9% (n=25/180) of graves (Figure 6.47). The most popular position, in terms of distance from the cairn centre, is more than ½ the radius from the centre, the outer sector (O) with 48.9% of burials (n=88/180), with the inner sector (I) having 37.2% (n=67/180), 10% of burials (n=18/180) at the centre (B) and 3.9% (n=7/180) beyond the apparent perimeter of the cairn (X) (Figure 6.48).

There is little evidence of significant pre-cairn activity in any of the multiple cist cairns and tumuli in the database, i.e. those cairns and mounds specifically constructed in the Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age to receive burials. In several cases, such as Moneen, Co. Cork (O’Kelly 1952), there is a clear primary interment at the centre of the cairn, but in almost all of these cases it can be stratigraphically demonstrated that this is a primary part of the construction of the cairn, not a pre-existing grave encompassed, at a later stage, by a cairn. An example where the evidence is less certain is Grange, Co Roscommon (Ó’Ríordáin 1997), where a single cist grave was found in a location below the

Pottery class and position in a cemetery There was no relationship between pottery class (including the absence of a pottery vessel) and whether or not the burial was placed within a cairn / cemetery 102

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Chapter 6 Analysis

Figure 6.46 Frequency of burials in cemeteries by quadrant

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Figure 6.47 Frequencies of burial by QuadFactor 1 (Rotational Quadrant: Q1 -1to 90°, Q2 --91 to 180°, Q3 -181 to 270°, Q4 -271 to 360°)

Figure 6.48 Percentage frequencies of Burial by QuadFactor 2 (Position from burial centre, B- Bullseye, I-Inner, O-Outer, X- Beyond defined edge of cemetery)

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland mound, although looking at the adjusted residual figures for individual cells in the table show some interesting correlations nevertheless. Burials without pottery are over-represented within cairns. Encrusted urn burials and vase urn burials are under-represented within cairns (Appendix 3: Table 36). Similarly bipartite bowls and tripartite vases are under-represented within cairns.

bowls. There were also two encrusted urn burials, two urn burials, where the urn could not easily be fitted into the current urn typology, and one collared urn. • Quadrant 4 Inner: most of the burials from this quadrant had no pottery associated, although three burials with bowls (all tripartite bowls) are known from this position and one vase (tripartite vase). • Quadrant 4 Outer: this quadrant had a proportional number of bowls and vases, but most of the burials had no pottery associated with them, the number of burials with no pottery being close to the number expected by chance in light of the size of the data set.

Interestingly a cross-tabulation of pottery class with quadrant revealed a significant relationship between the pottery type and its position within a cemetery, however there are very few cases in most of the cells for easy interpretation, the result of too many categories of information being spread too thinly for the amount of available data, and it might be problematic to place too much weight on this. To try and see if it was possible to address this problem the pottery class variable being used to analyse this data was recoded into a new GenericPotClass variable. This collapsed the bowl and vase variants into two simplified classes bowl and vase, although urn classes remained separate. When this new variable was cross-tabulated with quadrant the results were similar, demonstrating a significant relationship, but this time the individual cells had more identifiable relationships (Appendix 3: Table 37).

These results are interesting. Excluding burials with no vessels, bowls and vases seem more common on the north side of the cairns (Quadrants 1 and 4), Encrusted and vase urns on the south side of the cairn (Quadrants 2 and 3). Is this a chronological effect, is the north side of the cairn filled up first and then the south side filled up, or does belief, or the ritual expression of belief, change to make burial on the south side of the cairn now seem appropriate? Even if the effect is the result of the north sides of cairns being filled first why was the north chosen to be filled first?

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This revealed that in:

Grave type and position in cairn

• Quadrant 1 Inner: bowls (simple bowls, necked bipartite and tripartite bowls) were significantly over-represented, burials without any pot were more common but under-represented. In fact apart from Quadrant 3 Inner, all other quadrants had burials without pottery as the most common type. • Quadrant 1 Outer: collared urns and vases were over-represented, but this was not a significant relationship. • Quadrant 2 Inner: Proportions of all vessels, and burials with no vessel, proportionate with their overall proportion in the data set. • Quadrant 2 Outer: Vase urns were significantly over-represented, with four out of the five vase urns known from cairns and cemeteries found in this Quadrant. Also encrusted urns were significantly over-represented in this quadrant. • Quadrant 3 Inner: as mentioned above this was the only quadrant without a majority of burials being pot-less. There was only one burial without a pot from this Quadrant in the entire data set, making graves with pottery significantly over-represented, in this part of the cairns. Also although there were three bowls, in this quadrant, slightly above what chance would predict, they were all ribbed bowls, which are possibly slightly later than simple or bipartite

There is also a significant relationship between grave type, cist, pit or polygonal cist and quadrant of the cairn or cemetery (Appendix 3: Table 38). • Quadrant 1 Inner: pits and cists present in numbers roughly proportionate to their overall numbers in the data set. • Quadrant 1 Outer: pits and cists present in numbers roughly proportionate to their overall proportion in the data set • Quadrant 2 Inner: pits over-represented, but not significantly. • Quadrant 2 Outer: pits significantly overrepresented with a corresponding underrepresentation of cist burials. • Quadrant 3 Inner: cist burials over-represented but falling just short of statistical significance • Quadrant 3 Outer: pits and cists present in numbers roughly proportionate to their overall proportion in the data set. • Quadrant 4 Inner: cist burials over-represented but falls just short of statistical significance. • Quadrant 4 Outer: polygonal cists significantly over-represented, pits significantly underrepresented. • Bullseye: cists over-represented, pits significantly under-represented. 104

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Chapter 6 Analysis

This is reminiscent of the situation encountered with pots above. Here there also seems to be some kind of north / south side distinction in the cairn. Pits seem more dominant on the south side of the cairn, except for Quadrant 3 Inner where there is an over-representation of cists. On the north generally numbers of cists and pits are fairly balanced, apart from Quadrant 4 Outer where polygonal cists are in the ascendant.

the radius to the edge of the cemetery. Male burials are similarly over-represented in the Outer (O) burials, found more than ½ the radius distance from the centre of the cairn. Grave goods and status It is a reasonable position to suggest that there are grave goods which must be connected to the status of the interred and which therefore must, however indirectly and imperfectly, provide a lens through which we may glimpse the social structure of the society. Many authors have challenged the possibility, even the appropriateness, of linking burial ritual in any way to status, even though a significant body of ethnographic data (Brown 1995, Wason 1994 and Kamp 1998) seems to bear out the possibility of carrying out these kinds of analysis (Chapter 2: Critics of the ‘new archaeology’). Nevertheless, even though linking grave goods to status is possible, it is not always straightforward. It is easy to assume that modern concepts of status and status display are appropriate for the past. However, it is too much to expect that the categories, values and judgments of the present will be the same in ancient times. Even the oft made distinction between functional items and objects of personal adornment (Woodward and Hunter 2015) is a subjective one, which presupposes that adornment has no utility, reducing it to an epiphenomena. Initial statistical examinations were made looking at grave goods in terms of the numbers or presence or absence of grave goods, and various aspects of burial ritual and interred individual. There was an absence of significant correlations using these simple ways of looking at grave goods. An attempt was then made to look at variation of these aspects of burial ritual and the interred in terms of the categorisation of grave goods, grave good class, based on energy expenditure described in Chapter 4: grave good class.

Defined decoration / undefined decoration on funerary vessels and their position within cemeteries When the position of pots within cemeteries was cross-tabulated against the nature of their defined or undefined decoration, the vessels were looked at as whole entities. Vessels were described as D (some defined motifs), U (all undefined motifs) or E (empty – no decoration). This cross-tabulation provided some interesting correlations (Appendix 3: Table 39), although they fell short of being statistically significant, with chi square and Cramer’s V showing no relationship. The adjusted residuals within the cells however show that there are a number of interesting correlations between individual decoration types and some quadrants within the cairn. • Quadrant 1 (northeast): there was an overrepresentation of funerary vessels with defined decoration (D) in this quadrant. • Quadrant 2 (southeast): vessels with no decoration (E) were over-represented in this quadrant. • Quadrant 3 (southwest): vessels with undefined decoration were over-represented in this quadrant, but just below the level of statistical significance. • Quadrant 4 (northwest): vessels with D, U and E decoration were proportionally distributed in this quadrant.

Grave good class and age

The overall chi square and Cramer’s V result is just below the level of statistical significance, however these results are still interesting.

When age is cross-tabulated against grave good class the cross-tabulation table shows no relationship, between the variables as a whole. There are interesting correlations visible in certain individual cells, although they fell below the level of statistical significance (Appendix 3: Table 41). Older children are overrepresented amongst burials with no grave goods, grave good class (0), whereas adolescents (ADL), are underrepresented in graves with no grave goods. There is an over-representation of mature adults amongst those with grave good class (1) assemblages and an overrepresentation of adolescents with grave good class (2). Grave good class (3) assemblages are mostly shared between adults and those of indeterminate age who are over-represented, probably a reflection of the propensity for these grave good class (3) category burials to be cremated.

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Sex and position within a cairn or cemetery There were some interesting correlations observed when sex was cross-tabulated against QuadFactor2, which categorises the location of a burial within the cairn in accordance with its position relative to the cairn’s centre (Appendix 3: Table 40), although the chi square and Cramer’s V tests suggest that there is no significant relationship. Within the cells in the crosstabulation the adjusted residual shows that some sexes are over-represented in some quadrants. Female burials are over-represented in the ‘bullseye’ (B) position at the centre of a cairn. They are also over-represented amongst the burials in the Inner (I) group, which are less than ½ 105

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland no relationship between the variables, a similar pattern to the cremations without urns was observed, males over-represented with grave good class (1), females overrepresented with grave good class (2) and with males over-represented with grave good class (3). Proportionally there were again yet more burials with grave goods of any class, 36% (n=37/104) of burials. The number of burials with copper / bronze goods within them had increased from 5% to 13%.

Grave good class and sex Similarly, significance testing of the cross-tabulation table of grave good class and sex reveals that there is no relationship between these variables, there are again some interesting correlations visible in the adjusted residual values for individual cells (Appendix 3: Table 42). Burials without grave goods, grave good class (0), are spread fairly evenly between males, females and those of indeterminable sex. Males are significantly over-represented amongst burials with grave good class (1), females overrepresented amongst burials of grave good class (2) and males significantly under-represented amongst burials of grave good class (2). Burials with grave good class (3) were shared between all sexes.

Although these results fall short of statistical significance the fact that the similar associations of sex and status appear to be seen across several different sub-groups of single burial tradition burials, although not the inhumation burials, suggests that they may have some validity.

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This data set was spread over many centuries and different burial types and may not accurately reflect all single burial tradition rituals. To try and constrain variety, the same cross-tabulation was attempted with a data set containing no urn burials (Appendix 3: Table 43). Significance testing revealed that there was still no relationship, The adjusted residuals did reveal an overrepresentation of male burials and grave good class (1) and female burials and grave good class (2). A single female burial with grave good class (3) grave goods is problematic. Although there was a copper alloy razor discovered with a female inhumation burial, Grave 3 at Keenoge, Co. Meath (Mount and Buckley 1997), there was a disturbed secondary cremation burial inserted into this grave, which probably accounts for the razor.

Grave good class and inhumation / cremation Inhumation and cremation also share a significant relationship with grave good class (Appendix 3: Table 47), with inhumations much more likely to have no accompanying grave goods (grave good class (0)), although this relationship may be a simple chronological one, illustrating that increasing grave good status is a reflection of changing ritual practice through time, earlier burials being more modest in terms of their grave good assemblages. Grave good class and pottery class Similarly grave good class and pottery class have a significant relationship, again probably reflecting a change in ritual through time (Appendix 3: Table 48). Tripartite bowls and simple bowls are over-represented with grave good class (0) or no grave goods, whereas grave good class (1) assemblages are spread across all pottery types, grave good class (2) is very overrepresented amongst encrusted urns and over-represented amongst collared urns and bipartite vases. Grave good class (3) burials are much more likely to be associated with cordoned urns.

The data set was then split into two further groups, inhumation burials not associated with urn burials and cremation burials not associated with urn burials. These were each cross-tabulated with grave good class. When the sex of inhumation burials not associated with urn burials was cross-tabulated against grave good class, there were only 14.5% (n=14/ 96) which contained any grave goods (Appendix 3: Table 44), two of grave good class (1), seven of grave good class (2) and five of grave good class (3). Significance testing showed no relationships. Next the sex of cremation burials not associated with urn burials was cross-tabulated against grave good class, there were more grave goods, proportionately, 21% (n=22/104) buried with the remains (Appendix 3: Table 45). Although significance testing of this table showed no relationship, it should be noted that it missed the level of statistical significance (0.05) by the smallest of margins (0.062). There was an overrepresentation of males with grave good class (1) burials, an over-representation of females with grave good class (2) grave goods, and an over-representation of males with grave good class (3) grave goods.

Grave good class and cist / pit / polygonal cist Statistical significance testing found no relationship between these grave good class and the use of a cist, pit or polygonal cist, although the adjusted residual value for each individual cell did show up some interesting correlations between individual values. Grave good class (0) burials were over-represented amongst cists, grave good class (1) and (2) are spread evenly amongst pits, cists and polygonal cists. Grave good class (3) burials, however, are over-represented in pit burials, again this may, in part, be a reflection of ritual change over time and the association of cordoned urns with pit burials and grave good class (3) (Appendix 3: Table 49).

Finally the sex of cremation burials found in urns was cross-tabulated against grave good class (Appendix 3: Table 46). Although again, significance testing showed 106

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Chapter 6 Analysis

Grave goods are more commonly found with urn burials. When the definition or otherwise of motifs on urn burials was cross-tabulated with grave good class the results were also not significant but a similar pattern was observed. There was an over-representation of burials containing grave good class (3) grave goods and urns which had mixed defined and undefined decoration. There was also an under-representation of burials with no grave goods and these vessels. There was also an over-representation of urns with undefined decorative motifs and no grave goods. Although falling beneath the level of statistical significance these consistent crosstabulation over-representations and under-representations are indicative of the robustness of the categorisation of grave goods into grave good class (Appendix 3: Table 53).

Grave good class and position in a cairn or cemetery There is no relationship between the cross-tabulation of grave good class and placement in cairn / cemetery, which can be established by significance testing. It can be said however that grave good class (0) are overrepresented in cairns, and Grave good class (1) seem more or less equally likely to be found in a burial within a cairn. Grave good class (2) grave good assemblages are under-represented in cairns, which may be partly because grave good (2) grave goods are commonly found with encrusted urns. Grave good class (3) assemblages appear more or less equally likely to be found in a cairn as not (Appendix 3: Table 50). Using the quadrant system outlined above there are a number of correlations apparent in a cross-tabulation of grave good class and quadrant (Appendix 3: Table 51). The significance testing shows no relationship between these variables but it should be noted that the chi square and Cramer’s V values (0.078) fall just below the level required to be considered statistically significant. Burials without grave goods seem fairly evenly spread throughout the possible positions within a cemetery. Looking within the cross-tabulation the adjusted residuals suggest that grave good class (1) appears to be significantly over-represented in Quadrant 3 inner, the southwest central part of a cairn or other well defined cemetery. However, although this relationship has a large adjusted residual the numbers in the cell are small and as the overall table falls below the level of statistical significance, too much emphasis should not perhaps be placed on this result. With grave good class (2) there is, again, a spread throughout all the quadrants, but with grave good class (3) there is an over-representation in Quadrant 2 Outer, the southeast quadrant, the placement to the outside of the cemetery perhaps reflecting that many of these are later burials spreading out from the central area.

Grave good class compared with grave type and presence or absence of a pot or urn This cross-tabulation (Appendix 3: Table 54) revealed that there was a significant relationship between these variables. There was an over-representation of grave good class (0), no grave goods, with pot-less cists. Cists with pots had proportionate numbers of grave good class (0), (1) and (2) grave goods, but a significant underrepresentation of grave good (3) assemblages. Pits with cordoned urns were very significantly over-represented with grave good (3) assemblages and pits with encrusted urns very significantly over-represented with grave good (2) assemblages. Interestingly cists with encrusted urns did not share this association. Multiple burials Up until now many of the cross-tabulations which have been carried out have been limited to genuinely single burials, where there is only one individual interred in the grave. The reason for this is that in attempting to weigh the absolute importance and significance of different aspects of burial practice, multiple burials can be an additional complication: with which individual did the flint tool belong, with whom is the pottery vessel really associated? However, having examined burials of individuals and been able to observe correlations and make inferences from them, it is still necessary to look at multiple burials and it can be demonstrated that in some respects they, and the aspects of funerary ritual associated with them, differ from individual burials. Multiple burials are much more likely to be placed in cists (Appendix 3: Table 55) and also are much more likely to be cremated rather than buried unburnt (Appendix 3: Table 56). There is a significant relationship between the inclusion of two or three pots and being in a multiple burial, although many graves have no accompanying vessel (Appendix 3: Table 57). There is no single pot type which is particularly associated with multiple burials, and the significance test of the cross-tabulation table suggests

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Vessels with defined / undefined decoration and grave good class There are relatively few, 26, non-urn burials with pottery and grave goods amongst the data set. When the status of the grave goods of these burials was crosstabulated against the use of defined (D), undefined(U) or absent (E) decoration on the accompanying vessels no relationship was found for the whole table. However all the vessels with the highest grave good class (3) grave goods were found with vessels with defined decoration, and the adjusted residual for this cell suggested that this was an over-representation. Burials with no grave goods, grave good class (0) were overrepresented amongst vessels with undefined decorative motifs. The vessels with grave good class (2) and (1) were spread amongst all pots, with defined, undefined or absent of decoration. (Appendix 3: Table 52). 107

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland no relationship, but cordoned urns are much less likely to contain a multiple burial (Appendix 3: Table 58), which given their possible associations with high status grave goods may be significant. Interestingly, although there is a significant relationship between numbers of pots and multiple burials, there is no matching relationship between numbers of grave goods and multiple burial, perhaps suggesting that, in many cases at least, multiple burials are not indicative of status. Finally multiple burials seem to be differentiated from burials of individuals by being much less likely to be buried in a cairn or well defined cemetery (Appendix 3: Table 59). Numbers of multiple burials A clear majority of graves in the single burial tradition were the burials of individuals (67.5%, n=336/498) as opposed to multiple burials (22.3%, n=111/498) (Figure 6.49). However close to half of all the individuals (41%, n=272/664) interred in graves of the single burial tradition were actually interred in multiple graves (Figure 6.50).

Figure 6.50 Relative frequency of individuals buried in a multiple burial (y) as opposed to those buried in an individual burial (n).

Numbers of individuals interred in multiple burials The most common type of multiple burial (Figure 6.51) was the double burial which accounts for 18.6%(n=92/495) of all burials, with graves with three individuals accounting for 5.1% ( n=25/495). The numbers of burials with more individuals interred in them was much smaller with only seven graves with 4 individuals within them (1.7%n=8/495), three graves with five individuals (0.7%, n=3/495) and one burial with six individuals (0.3%, n=1/495). An outlier was the pit from Tomfarney, Co. Wexford, where the remains of 17 individuals were found within one pit (0.3%, n=1/495).

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Figure 6.49 Relative frequency of burials of individuals (I) to multiple burials (M), apparent burials with no human remains found within them (E).

Figure 6. 51 Frequencies of numbers of individuals buried in graves of the single burial tradition

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Chapter 6 Analysis

female or indeterminate. Burials occur of females with males, as well as females with females, and males with males. Unfortunately the number of indeterminate burials may be obscuring much information.

Frequencies of sexes interred in multiple burials Unfortunately most sets of human remains in multiple burials, as with other types of burial, were unable to be sexed (62.1%, n=169/272). Of those that were determinable males appeared to be the most common (24.6%, n=67/272), with females burials being less common (13.2%, n=36/272) (Figure 6.52).

The relationship between multiple burial and grave type It was a slight surprise to find that there is a significant relationship between multiple burials and grave type. There is a significant over-representation of multiple burial and placement in a cist and a corresponding significant under-representation of multiple burials in pits (Appendix 3: Table 55). Also observed was an overrepresentation of multiple burials in polygonal cists, but it was below the level of statistical significance. The relationship between multiple burial and cremation / inhumation There is a significant relationship between multiple burials and cremation / inhumation. Multiple burials are significantly over-represented amongst cremations. This is a significant relationship. (Appendix 3: Table 56). It may occur because some multiple burials seem to be cumulative with several insertions over a period of time. Since cremation becomes dominant as the Early Bronze Age progresses, this may explain why cremation is more common in multiple burial situations; simply the more times the burial is reused the greater the likelihood of a cremation being inserted into the grave.

Figure 6. 52 Frequencies of the different sexes in graves with multiple burials

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The distribution of combinations of sexes in the data set sexes is interesting (Figure 6.53). The graph shows the relative frequency of each combination of male,

Figure 6.53 Frequency of different combinations of sexes in multiple burials.

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland The relationship between multiple burial and the numbers of funerary vessels present in the grave and the class of accompanying vessel There also seems to be a significant relationship between multiple burials and additional funerary vessels in the grave. There is a significant over-representation of multiple burial in graves with two or three vessels (Appendix 3: Table 57). Most pottery types show no statistically significant association between pottery class and multiple burials, apart from cordoned urns which are statistically significantly under-represented amongst multiple burials (Appendix 3: Table 58).

•

The relationship between multiple burials and cairns

•

There is a significant relationship between multiple burial and placement, or not, in a cairn or cemetery mound, multiple burials being much less likely to be found in cairns than single burials. This is a statistically significant correlation, with only half the expected number of multiple burials actually occurring in cairns (Appendix 3: Table 59). Summary A number of conclusions can be drawn, about the nature of Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age single burial and its associated rituals, from a statistical analysis of their remains.

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Burial Ritual • Over the entire era cremation is about three times more common than inhumation. Before circa 1950BC inhumation and cremation were approximately equally represented, but after that date cremation dominates. Given that we already know, from the radiocarbon analysis, that inhumation probably predates the emergence of cremation in the single burial tradition by up to 150 years, cremation must actually become the dominant ritual sometime before 1950BC to have achieved parity in the statistics for the period up to 1950BC. • There is a significant relationship between inhumation and deposition in a cist on the one hand and cremation burial and the use of a pit to place the remains in. • When single (as opposed to multiple) burials are looked at, with urns burials excluded, it can be seen that just over half of all cists are accompanied by a funerary vessel (55%), and that less than half of all pits (45%) are accompanied by a funerary vessel. It must be remembered that pot-less cists (and probably pot-less pits also) have been shown by radiocarbon analysis to continue right through the Early Bronze Age,

•

•

•

with many pot-less cists dating to after circa 1950BC. This implies that having a funerary vessel accompanying a burial (initially an inhumation, becoming a cremation with time) in a cist or pit, was the most common funerary ritual of the first half of the Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age, with burial in a cist or pit without a pot occurring also. This also implies that being buried in a pot-less cist (and probably a pit also) was an important type of funerary ritual right up to the end of the Early Bronze Age, in an era where we typically think of burial in an urn as being the dominant burial type. With urn burials excluded from the data set it can be seen that cist burials with inhumations are most likely to have a funerary vessel associated with them, pits with cremation the least likely and cists with cremations and pits with inhumations having the expected number of associated vessels, proportionate with their numbers in the data set. When looked at diachronically, with the realisation that this statistic summarises seven centuries of information, it can be seen that it implies that at the start of the Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age, when inhumation burials were dominant, there was a greater representation of funerary vessels with cists. As the Bronze Age continued and cremation became the dominant ritual there seems to have been a period where this cist - pit: pot - no pot relationship continued. Eventually pot-less cists and pits became more common and stayed so until the end of the Early Bronze Age alongside cordoned, collared, encrusted and vase urn burials. There is probably no relationship between the size of a cist, or pit, and any other aspect of funerary ritual, except the functional. The burials of adults are in large cists, the burial of young children in very small cists, cremation burials are typically found in small cists, inhumations in larger cists. When urns are looked at in isolation from other single burial tradition burials it can be seen that collared and cordoned urns are, of course, typically inserted in a pit. Encrusted urns can be shown to have been significantly overrepresented in cists and vase urns in polygonal cists, and both significantly under-represented in pits. While collared, cordoned and vase urns seem to have been placed in pits whose size was related to the functional need to bury a large ceramic vessel, encrusted urns can be shown to have been buried in cists, typically ones much larger than what was needed for the burial of an urn. This is a reflection of a more expansive graveside

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Chapter 6 Analysis

ritual associated with the encrusted urn which is evidenced by the placement of additional vessels in encrusted urn burials. Mount (1997) had noted the presence of ‘Vase Food Vessels’ in association with encrusted urns and Waddell (1990) has explicitly linked the encrusted urn to the vase urn tradition suggesting both are developments of the vase tradition. In this data set there are a number of instances of vases and vase urns being found with encrusted urns, however there is also one instance of a simple bowl and one instance of a tripartite bowl found with an encrusted urn. Perhaps it might be better to say that the encrusted urn, rather than simply referencing the vase tradition, shows more continuity with earlier practices, such as the use of cists and older types of vase and bowl type funerary vessel. • There is of course a significant association between the placement of single burial tradition graves and the choice of sand and gravel and small stone based subsoils to dig them into. This has been noted before by Waddell (1990) and Mount (1997). This is not a chance association, these locations have been carefully chosen, reflecting the concerns and beliefs of the grave builders.

Although it must be emphasised that both of these associations are below the level of statistical significance they are intriguing. Shepherd (2012) has noted that eastern Yorkshire and northeast Scottish beaker burials tend to have males placed on their left side, their spine pointing east and their head facing south; whereas females are placed on their left side, with their spine pointing west and their head facing south. By contrast in Wessex she has noted male burials also placed on their left side, spine orientated north, and their head facing east; whereas females are placed on their right side, spine aligned south, and their head facing east. She notes also how the eastern British beaker burials are following burial conventions common on the north sea coast beaker burials where Wessex burials are using conventions the same as central European beaker burials. In addition she observes how there is a lessening of regularity of practice visible with time in east Yorkshire, but less so in northeast Scotland. If the associations of sex, body placement, orientation and direction of face, were statistically significant this could suggest that there was an element of central European practice in some Irish single burials. It is possible that both northern British / north sea practices (perhaps less observed by the time they reached Ireland) and Wessex / central European practices were brought to Ireland during the Chalcolithic period, the presence of two contrasting bodies of practice in the dataset perhaps making it more difficult to detect statistical trends.

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Human remains • Amongst inhumations the most common orientation for human remains are north, south and east, and points between: burials to the west, southwest and northwest are less common. • There is a significant over-representation of males with their bodies orientated north (in fact no female burial points north), female burials are most likely to be orientated south with a significant over-representation of female burials pointing southwest. • There are some indications of a preference for women resting on their right side and men resting on their left wide, although it s not statistically significant. This has been found also in northeast Scotland, Yorkshire and Wessex (Shepherd 2012) amongst beaker burials, although the relationship there is much stronger with a clear sexual differentiation. This may be partly because of the more confident sexing of human remains from that data set. In Ireland, even with the inhumations picked for this data set, 43% are of indeterminate sex. • With women pointing south, resting on their right side and the men pointing north, resting on their left side, it is likely many corpses would originally have faced in a roughly easterly direction. This matches the orientation of many Wessex beaker burials (ibid).

Geographic spread of aspects of single burial tradition burials • Inhumation is significantly under-represented in Munster, cremation is much more common. This is probably an effect of the, apparently, later commencement of Early Bronze Age single burial in Munster, as revealed in Chapter 4, when inhumation was declining in popularity. • Cists are significantly over-represented in Ulster and over-represented in Connacht, with a concomitant under-representation of cists in Munster, and a significant under-representation in Leinster. There are significantly more pits in Munster and Leinster. Pot-less cists are overrepresented in Munster • Ulster is the province where burials are most likely to be accompanied by a pottery vessel. Munster is the least likely although, interestingly, Munster is the province with the greatest number of burials accompanied by two pots. This is a reflection of the over-representation of encrusted urn burials in Munster and the 111

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland common practice, noted above, of additional vessels being buried with encrusted urn burials.

Quadrant 2 and vessels with undefined motifs were associated with Quadrant 3. Quadrant 4 had a mixture of defined and undefined motif pots. • There is an over-representation of women at the centre of cairns and in the inner portion of the cairn, less than ½ a radius length from the centre. Men are over-represented in burials more than ½ a radius from the cairn centre.

Sex and burial ritual • As noted above, in inhumation burials men are a little more likely to be buried on their left side, women on their right, although this was below the level of statistical significance. • When urn burials are excluded from the data set, men are much more likely to be buried with a funerary vessel and women much more likely to be buried without one. • When women are buried with a funerary vessel the vessel is more likely to have less decoration and men are much more likely to have funerary vessels with more profuse decoration.

Grave good class • Adolescent’s burials are more likely to be accompanied by assemblages of grave good class (2) and mature adults with grave good class (1) assemblages. Older children are over-represented in with grave good class (0) assemblages (no grave goods). • Inhumation burials are much more likely to have no grave goods, i.e. grave good class (0). Cremations are much more likely to be associated with grave goods and are significantly less likely to be found with no grave goods, grave good class (0). • Cremated males are more likely to be found with grave good class (1) and (3) assemblages and cremated females with grave good class (2) assemblages. This relationship was strongest when urn burials were examined separately from non-urn burials. • There are indications, for non-urn burials, of an association between pottery vessels with defined decorative motifs and high status grave good assemblages. Of the eight vessels associated with these grave good class 3 status burials, seven have defined motifs.

Age and burial ritual 1.

2.

Young children were much more likely to be included in multiple burials. Adolescents were also more likely to be buried in multiple burials, interestingly older children were not. When urn burials were excluded from the data set the burials of older children and adolescents were the most likely to be buried with pottery vessels.

Pottery decoration and burial ritual • Vessels which have decoration in which the motif is clearly defined or bounded are more likely to be associated with male burials, and vessels with undefined motifs are more likely to be female burials, although this relationship falls below the level of statistical significance.

Multiple burials

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Burial position within cairns and cemetery mounds

• Contrary to what Mount (1997) found there seems to be no under-representation of pots amongst multiple burials, in fact multiple burials are more commonly accompanied by two or even three vessels. There is no significant distinction in the number of remains from either single or multiple burials unaccompanied by a vessel. • Multiple burials are more commonly found in cists than pits. • Multiple burials are much less likely to be found in cairns than single burials.

• Quadrants 2 and 1 are the most popular for burial, followed by Quadrant 4, with Quadrant 3 which is much less popular. The single most popular location in Quadrant 2 Outer, followed by Quadrant 1 Inner and Quadrant 1 Outer. • Bowl burials, of all sorts, more likely to north side of cairns (Quadrant 1 and 4); urns, again all sorts, burials are more likely to the south side of a cairn (Quadrants 2 and 3); vase urns are significantly over-represented in Quadrant 2 Outer. • Cists are also more common on the north side and pits more common to the south. • There are correlations between the quadrant a burial was found in and the nature of the decoration upon it. Vessels with well defined motifs were associated with Quadrant 1, vessels with no decoration were associated with 112

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Chapter 7 Analysing Complexity in the Irish single burial tradition

Introduction

Phase A

In this chapter a chronological model of the development of Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age burial traditions in Ireland will be proposed, splitting the single burial tradition into three broad phases, ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’. Combined with this chronological model the results from the statistical analyses presented in Chapter 6 will be viewed in the context of the burial theories outlined in Chapter 2 and a series of successive models of the society of Late Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age Ireland will be presented.

This was the initial single burial tradition found in Ireland emerging in the twenty second century BC (see Chapter 5: Dating the single burial tradition across Ireland). The very earliest single burials appear to have been burials within cists and exclusively inhumations, frequently a single burial, but in some cases a small group of individuals. Pottery is probably always found within these burials, pottery types found being simple bowls, bipartite and tripartite bowls and possibly bipartite and tripartite vases also (see Chapter 6: The Presence of Pottery in single burial tradition Burials). After at least half a century of exclusively cist burials with inhumations, burials in pits, also inhumations, occur (see Chapter 5: Dating Pits), with a similar range of pottery vessels as found with the cist inhumations.

It will be shown, that there is evidence for society becoming more complex from Phase A to C, with an increasing ‘redundancy’ of burial ritual elements, as noted by Saxe hypothesis No. 5 (Saxe 1970) and Binford’s hypotheses No. 2 and 3 (Binford 1971), as indicators of a more complex society.

While there were numerous small choices, such as whether or not to decorate the pot, the choice of motif type, execution or definition of that decoration, and, in a very small number of cases, the decision to include grave goods, there seem only to be a limited number of choices which made a substantial contribution to the amount of effort or energy expenditure used in the burial. There seem to have been three main choices available to grave builders in this period;

Cluster analysis of burial attributes will also be undertaken and the resulting clusters statistically examined to find significant correlations between other non-clustered attributes, such as age, sex or the presence of grave goods A Chronological Model of the development of the Late Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age single burial tradition

1.

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The single burial tradition probably commenced in the decades just after 2200 BC and continued until about 1600BC. It was not unchanging however. Using the information obtained from the analysis of both the radiocarbon dates, and the grave forms, human remains and grave assemblages presented above, it is possible to propose a scheme of change and development in the tradition through time.

2. 3.

the choice of interring the remains in an individual or multiple grave, the choice of a cist or pit grave and the choice of burial location, whether to place the burial within a cairn / cemetery mound or in a grave or cemetery apparently unmarked above the ground.

These can be combined in eight possible ways. It seems from an analysis of the radiocarbon dates of pot-less cists (see Chapter 5: Dating graves which contain no pottery) that there are probably no pot-less burials until the succeeding Phase B (see Chapter 7: Phase B). This cannot be said with absolute certainty as the 95.4% Start Range estimate for pot-less burials does extend very slightly into Phase A, but this estimation is based on a small sample in an OxCal Sequence, utilising the Boundary command which, as is discussed in Chapter 5, may result in extended Start and End date ranges in such cases. It is likely that all Phase A burials were accompanied by pottery.

The single burial tradition underwent several major changes in ritual and practice which split the tradition into three broad phases: an early Phase A, which is typified by cist burials containing inhumations, and where accompanying pottery vessels are always present; a middle Phase B, where cremation becomes common, but where the inclusion of a pottery vessel is optional; and a late Phase C, typified by burials within urns but with a large number of pot-less burials also.

113

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland Others were placed in an oak tree coffin (Sørensen and Rebay 2007: 3-4). In Ireland it was not until the commencement of burial in encrusted and vase urns at the end of Phase B that a new departure for burial ritual really began. As Sørensen and Rebay note ‘The understanding of what constitutes a grave lags behind what constitutes a body’ (Sørensen and Rebay 2007: 3).

Phase B There was a major addition to the ritual practice of the single burial tradition with the appearance of cremation. Cremation probably became a ritual of the single burial tradition between the later twenty second and mid twenty first centuries BC, probably before 2052BC (see Chapter 5: Dating Inhumation and Cremation). During this phase the presence of a pottery vessel with the remains became optional with the first appearance of pot-less cists (see Chapter 5: Dating graves which contain no pottery).

Phase C Around or just before 1950BC there was another episode of change in burial ritual, but still retaining significant continuity with the past, with new urn burial vessels, which typically contained the cremated remains within the urn, which was placed, inverted, in the grave. It was also about this time that inhumation became less common, possibly ceasing in its entirety for a period, before a revival at the very end of the era (see Chapter 5: Dating Inhumation and Cremation). During Phase C a single burial tradition grave could take the form of a cist, pit or polygonal cist, although classic rectangular cist burials are becoming less common in this period (see Chapter 5: Dating Cist and Polygonal Cist burials). There were a number of different funerary vessels which could have been included in the burial, vase urns, encrusted urns, collared urns, and, as the nineteenth century BC progressed, cordoned urns. It is possible that all of these vessels were in contemporary use for a time. It has also been established, by radiocarbon analysis, that a majority of burials which contained no pottery vessel, pot-less cists and pits, probably date to this era (see Chapter 5: Dating graves which contain no pottery).

There was now a greater variety of choices for the burial ritual; 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

the decision to inter the remains individually or as part of a multiple burial. the ritual of cremation or inhumation. the choice of a cist or pit. the decision whether or not to include a pottery vessel in the grave. the choice of burial location, whether or not the burial was inserted into a cairn / cemetery mound or in a grave or cemetery apparently unmarked above ground.

These additional attributes considerably increased the number of potential combinations of burial ritual. These attributes could have been combined in a potential 32 different ways, although only 24 may actually have occurred in practice.

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The pottery vessels seem to have included all the bowl and vase variants found in Phase A, with ribbed bowls also seeming to become common at this time (see Chapter 6: The presence of pottery in single burial tradition burials). Further choices which could be made by those carrying out the burial, as with Phase A burials, might have included the specific motif, execution or definition of the decoration on funerary vessel/s, if present, although these seem to have been additions which do not have many significant correlations with other burial attributes. There were still only a small number of graves with grave goods in this phase.

There was not, as has been suggested in the past by Kavanagh (1976), Flanagan (1976) and Mount (1997), a gradual replacement of cists and pit burials by urn burials, rather there is a continuation of a cist and pit burial tradition in parallel with the various urn burial rituals right through the Early Bronze Age, the absence of bowls or vases from many of these later cists and pits having, until now, hidden their true date from archaeologists who assumed they were earlier. The wide range of choices available in this phase for burying the dead allows a large number of combinations of burial attributes. While only a small number of graves now appear to be inhumations, and these seem to concentrate at the end of the era (see Chapter 5: Dating inhumation and cremation), there is still the choice of several variations in burial ritual:

Despite the appearance of cremation in the single burial tradition at this time and the indications of a more complex set of burial ritual choices, which implies more social complexity, there is considerable evidence for continuity with the earlier Phase A burial tradition. This continuity is emphasised by the fact that despite the new ritual of cremation, the human remains are otherwise dealt with as if they were unburnt, something which has also been observed in Denmark when cremation began to replace inhumation (Sørensen and Rebay 2007). In a burial from Hvidegard in Denmark cremated remains were found in an elongated cist wrapped in a shroud.

1. 2. 3.

burying an individual on their own, or as part of a multiple burial, burying in a cist or pit, the choice of burial location, whether to place the burial within a cairn / cemetery mound or in a grave or cemetery apparently unmarked above the ground

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Chapter 7 Analysing Complexity in the Irish single burial tradition

4.

the choice of four different classes of funerary vessels and the option of a pot-less cist / pit an increasing number and opulence of grave goods codified into assemblages of grave good Status (0), or (1), (2) and (3).

into standard rectangular cists, four encrusted urns and three vase urns in the data set being found in rectangular cists. From this point forward encrusted urns and vase urns are going to be called the developed vase tradition.

There are potentially 64 different combinations of these funerary attributes, without considering distinctions between amount or type of pottery vessels, simply considering presence or absence of a vessel. This is a much more complex set of ritual practices than that displayed in Phase B. Phase C is not a homogeneous whole displaying variation within it however. Within Phase C there were two dominant themes. There were those burials which still seem to emphasise some kind of continuity with the past and those which seem like a novel departure.

Phase C Burial rituals which show little continuity with earlier periods of the Early Bronze Age

5.

There are elements of Phase C burial ritual, however, which seem like novel departures. Collared and cordoned urns, henceforth called the shows much less evidence for continuity with earlier burial traditions in Ireland. They do not strongly reference earlier Irish Chalcolithic or Early Bronze Age funerary vessels in their form or decoration, both being found in Britain also. They are almost always buried in pits, only one collared urn and no cordoned urns in the data set have been found in a rectangular cist and only one collared and one cordoned urn has been found within a polygonal cist. Collared urns are also, as discussed immediately below, particularly associated with high status grave goods. Collared urns, in addition, have a particularly eastern distribution within Ireland, most of these vessels having been found in a coastal strip along the east of the country, and they are not found with other Irish funerary vessels, in the way that encrusted and vase urns are sometimes found accompanied by vases and occasionally bowls.

Also of interest is a small, but distinctive, set of late inhumation burials (nine burials), some of which may date as late as the 17th or even 16th century BC. They are few in number, not accompanied by pottery vessels and, in one important case, accompanied by unusually opulent grave goods.

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Phase C Burial rituals showing continuity with earlier periods of the Early Bronze Age Pot-less cist burials had existed since Phase B and in some respects were a burial ritual with its roots in the earlier Phase A, utilising cists and still occasionally containing inhumation burials. Also showing continuity with earlier burial types are the encrusted urns and vase urns. Waddell (1990) has already stated how he believes that they were an evolution of the vase tradition, noting the similarities in form and decoration of these vessels with the vase tradition and observing how in many cases these burials were found accompanied by vases (Waddell 1990). Ó Ríordáin and Waddell (1993) note how vases, vase urns and encrusted urns are commonly found together, in contrast to collared or cordoned urns which are only very occasionally found with vases, and never with bowls. Vase urns and encrusted urns may also reflect a resurgence of earlier ritual, the placing of cremations within Carrowkeel Ware, at Monknewtown, Co. Meath (Sweetman 1976) and Ballynahatty (Hartwell 1998), and within grooved ware pots, placed within pits, from Lyrath, Co. Kilkenny (Carlin and Brück 2012: 196) and the small number of cases when cremations have been found inserted into, probably Phase B, bowls and vases (see below Chapter 8: Fundamental Change: Developments in Phase B).

Changing grave good associations in Phase C Phase C is distinct from the previous phases in that a much greater proportion of burials from this era are accompanied by grave goods and that these are of higher energy expenditure. In particular the highest energy expenditure grave goods, coded as grave good class (3) are typically found with cordoned urns. The somewhat lower energy expenditure, grave good class (2) assemblages are typically found with encrusted urns and collared urns (see Chapter 6: grave good class and pottery class, Appendix 3: Table 48). The pot-less cremations in pits and cists are typically found without grave goods (Appendix 3: Table 55), with only a small number, proportionate to their size within the overall data set, containing grave goods of any status, although a small number do have grave good class (2) and (3) assemblages. Summary of the Chronological Model of the development of the Late Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age single burial tradition chronological model

The information gleaned from the statistical analysis reinforces this view and also suggests that they are more widely related to the entire burial ritual of Phase A and B. Although encrusted urns and vase urns were typically placed in pits and polygonal cists, a small number of both types of vessels were placed

Phase A • Begins in the twenty second century BC • Inhumations only • Initially only cists then joined by pit burials • All burials accompanied by a pottery vessel 115

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland • Simple bowls, bipartite and tripartite bowls and possibly bipartite and tripartite vase • Cairns and flat cemeteries • Grave goods, apart from pottery, rare • Eight Burial Attributes Combinations

time went on. In the first Phase A period of the single burial tradition there were only eight combinations of the main funerary attributes available, by Phase B this had risen to 24, and in Phase C, 64 possible combinations of the main funerary attributes were available for the burial of the deceased. Saxe’s Hypothesis No. 5 (Saxe 1970) would suggest that the increase in complexity, what Saxe calls redundancy, in the burial ritual through the Early Bronze Age, would indicate a society which was becoming progressively more complex and more ranked.

Phase B • Begins by 2052BC • Inhumations and cremations, cremations gradually become dominant • Cist or pit burials • Cairns and flat cemeteries • Grave goods, apart from pottery, rare • Not all burials accompanied by a pottery vessel • Thirty two possible main burial attributes combinations

How complex and ranked however? Simply looking at the number of potential burial attributes would suggest, rather simplistically, that Phase B is a society three times as complex as Phase A and Phase C eight times as complex as Phase A. However the number of burial attributes is not likely to be a figure which directly reflects complexity.

Phase C • Begins around 1950BC • Inhumation declining in popularity, may cease entirely for a while before a revival late in the era • In-urned cremation becomes a common burial ritual • Cists and pits burials • Cairns and flat cemeteries • Pot-less cists and pits remain in use through Phase C • Grave goods becoming more common, and more high status. • Developed vase tradition, vase urns and encrusted urns, continuity with Phase A and B • Collared and cordoned urn tradition, less continuity with Phase A and B • Sixty four possible main Burial Attributes Combinations

One way of looking at this is with a graph of the logarithms of the number of possible burial combinations. The log, is a number which estimates underlying growth, not compounded growth, and is used, by economists for example, to see patterns of real growth and rates of change. Similarly the log of the numbers of burial attribute combinations will more directly reflect the underlying, percentage increase in social complexity, which through a compounding effect results in many more additional possible attribute combinations, than would be indicated by the percentage increase in complexity alone. Figure 7.1 shows the graph of the log of the number of possible burial attribute combinations for Phase A, B and C. What is remarkable about this graph is that it shows a near straight line relationship between the three phases, A, B and C. Suggesting that behavioral complexity from Phase A to C is increasing at a regular rate. It is reasonable to directly equate these behavioural concepts to social complexity and to suggest that this graph shows that social complexity rises at a regular rate during this era and that by Phase C society is roughly twice as complex a society as society during Phase A. We need to give a little thought, however, as to what ‘twice as complex’ actually means.

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Complexity and status in late Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age Ireland Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland was an agricultural society. Economically agriculture allowed the productive capacity of society to outstrip, at least sometimes, the necessary consumption. There was the possibility of a surplus, allowing the beginnings of the emergence of greater social complexity and ranking (Childe 1951: 33). Funerary archaeology is perhaps uniquely placed to examine complexity and ranking.

Status values How many distinct status based layers of society can be inferred from the evidence? Is there a way of trying to ascertain how many distinct social strata might be represented by the different combinations of attributes? It is clear that there cannot be a separate social stratum for each possible combination of the main funerary attributes of each phase, there are simply too many possible combinations, there cannot be 64 separate social strata during Phase C! A combination of

Looking at complexity and social structure as revealed in single burial tradition burials in greater detail As noted above (see Chapter 7: Phase A, Phase B and Phase C) there appears to have been an increase in the degree of complexity of funerary ritual through the later Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age, with successively more possible combinations of funerary attributes, burial attribute combinations, available as 116

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Chapter 7 Analysing Complexity in the Irish single burial tradition

Figure 7.1 Plot of the log of the possible number of burial attribute combinations against single burial tradition Phase.

attributes must be chosen from an available pallet for each deceased individual. These will not all be direct representations of the social status of the deceased. Attributes may perform multiple functions and in some cases have meaning beyond their material form (Brück 2004).

number of joules used in a given burial this information would not necessarily be useful, because it would be combining energy expenditure from categories which may be inalienable. If, for instance, it takes much more energy to burn a body, than to prepare a body for deposition unburnt in the ground, can this energy information simply be taken and combined with the energy expenditure utilised in the production of a bone pin, or a stone bead. This leaves no room for the effects of cultural significance of different types of funerary practice. In this evaluation of status value different categories of funerary practice must initially be looked at in isolation from other categories of funerary practice, the cumulative significance evaluated afterwards.

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However it is reasonable to expect that in most cases status will be displayed in the burial in some form (see Chapter 2). The display of status will be a product of feelings of what is appropriate for the deceased at that moment in time. Status will always be displayed in graves but the way in which it is displayed may vary through time and, as shown by Parker Pearson (1982: 102), indicators of status may change, be inverted or simply cease being indicators of status at all. This does not mean that status is no longer encoded in burial ritual, just that the symbolism of status changes.

Rather than attempt to evaluate quantitatively very precise levels of energy expenditure, or even less precise but multi-level qualitative evaluations, a simple binary approach is used. In most cases a score of 0 (less energy) or 1 (more energy) is given to each category of significant funerary activity. In the case of Phase C burials, because of the increasing importance of grave goods in these burials, and because these grave goods can be seen to exhibit several distinct levels of energy input into their manufacture, the concept of grave good class (see Chapter 4:grave good class) was utilised to score the grave goods category in the status value calculation, 0, 1, 2 or 3, instead of the simple 0 or 1 score for other categorical attributes.

Many of these possible combinations of burial attributes must therefore, from a social status perspective, be, more or less, equivalent. Below each major attribute of Phase A, B and C burial is looked at in more detail. It will be observed that each burial attribute can be thought of as a choice, in most cases a binary opposition. Using energy expenditure as a guiding concept, it is possible to see that most of these choices involve different levels of energy expenditure. These choices, these energy values, can be encoded. There are potentially many ways in which this could be carried out. It is possible to envisage complex schemes to evaluate the amount of energy used, the amount of effort put into the construction of the grave, the treatment of the body, any associated funerary vessels or other grave goods burial. Even if it were possible through a complex set of calculations to evaluate the

Once this has been done for each category of funerary activity the values of these binary choices can combined to give a score for each set of grave attributes found, allowing the differing energy expenditure for each combination of burial attributes to be evaluated. Because it is an underlying premise of this study that there is a direct relationship between the status of the 117

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland deceased and the energy expended in the funerary ritual, this value is called the status value, and because this is an evaluation of the entire burial ritual, not just one aspect of it, this should reflect vertical stratification within society.

of unrelated individuals, as noted in the ethnographic record by Hertz in Borneo (Hertz 2009: 53). The burial of the dis-articulated remains of two individuals, an adult and a young child, in a cist at Dungate, Co. Tyrone (Waterman and Brennan 1977), may hint at something different. Perhaps the remains of these individuals were stored until a secondary burial, which normally took place before the remains had fully decomposed, became possible or affordable. Also interesting is the burial of an adult female and male with an infant at Keenoge, Co. Meath (Mount 1997), where one of the adult burials was found dis-articulated. This has been interpreted by Mount (1997: 22) as a family group and the burial may be representative of one of two possibilities. Either the storage of the one adult until the burial of the entire group could take place or the disturbance of one adult when the second (or subsequent) burial took place. These two slightly atypical burials may not, however, be variations in the burial ritual connected with status or hierarchy, simply reactions to circumstance or perhaps influenced by the emotional impact of tragedy. Emotion may influence burial practice, even in ways which contradict the contemporary ideology, as has been discussed in the context of Post-Medieval cillini (Murphy 2011).

It is also realised that over an extended time period like the Late Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age, there is the likelihood that the indicators of status will change. Status values for each phase of the single burial tradition must be evaluated separately, as each has distinct variations in burial practice with categorical attributes which appear to have indicated status in Phase A or B, appearing not to reflect status so directly in Phase C. The calculation of status values will only use those burial attributes which the wider diachronic statistical analysis has shown to be directly linked to the status of the deceased for each phase. Examining Phase A funerary complexity It is possible to look at burial process as a series of choices. For Phase A the main choices can be envisaged as a set of binary oppositions: Multiple Burial : Single Burial, Pit : Cist, No cairn : cairn.

When the data set is examined for the entire era, young children were approximately four times as likely to be buried in a multiple burial as on their own. This may reflect several things, some very young children may have died with their mothers as a result of the trauma of childbirth and its immediate aftermath. In other cases, however, it may be that young children are being buried when there is a convenient adult death for them to share, or as is possibly seen at Dungate, Co. Tyrone (Waterman and Brennan 1977), where the dis-articulated remains of an adult and young child were found within a cist, being stored elsewhere until a suitable juncture. Interestingly there seems to be no relationship between older children and multiple burials, they are no more or less likely to be buried in multiple burials than chance would dictate. This may suggest that young children, six years and younger, are not considered, at this time, full members of the society, their final burial being conditional on the death of a full member of the society.

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Energy expenditure can be used to differentiate the opposed practices in each of these binary oppositions. Multiple burial : single burial The first choice is multiple burial : single burial. Multiple burial shares the effort needed to hold a funeral between several burials, or alternatively allows later burials to piggy-back on the efforts of earlier mourners. Using the energy expenditure concept the burials in a multiple burial should, in the main, be of a lower status than those buried individually. Although only about a quarter of burials are multiple burials (26.7%) almost half (48.3%) of all human remains in the single burial tradition, when examined as a whole, are found in multiple graves. It is likely that many of these burials are cumulative burials, with one burial inserted on top of an earlier burial as seen, for instance, at Straid, Co. Derry / Londonderry (Brannon and Williams 1990), and the very nature of cist burials in particular, where the heavy capstone can be slid back to re-open the grave, may facilitate this. Others, however, may have been contemporary insertions of more than one individual, such as at Graney Co. Kildare (Mount 1998), where perhaps members of the same family who died at the same time, or in close proximity, may have been buried together. Alternatively there is the possibility that within a community two or more family groups may combine to share the funeral burden for a number

Pit : cist Construction of a cist requires a significant effort and is a potential marker of status in the single burial tradition. It has been estimated that as many as eight persons may have been required to construct some of the larger cists (McAdam and Watkins 1974). The cist has previously been singled out by Mount (1997) as a possible status indicator. However the role of the cist is a complex one, which may subtly change through time. 118

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Chapter 7 Analysing Complexity in the Irish single burial tradition

It came as a surprise to find that 128 out of the 315 individuals in the data set, who were buried in cists, were multiple burials. This seems counter intuitive, a multiple burial is more parsimonious of energy than a single burial and a pit more saving of energy than a spendthrift cist. One might have expected to find multiple burials, which should be of lower status on account of their parsimony, in pits rather than cists. A likely explanation is that when several people, possibly within the same lineage, are being buried in the same cist then the expenditure on the final ceremony, to use Hertzian (2009) terminology, seems more attainable.

the case of inhumations, hastened decomposition, and ensured the availability of the spirit to be liberated. It may be that by placing the human remains in a cairn, the appropriate display, both for the deceased and for the ongoing honour of the descent lineage, has been fulfilled and an appropriate home for the bones of the deceased, liberated from the spirit, obtained. Single burial tradition cairns / cemetery mounds took the form of either a pre-existing cairn re-used, or a specially constructed cairn / cemetery mound. In this study no distinctions have been noticed in the burials of the single burial tradition found in either newly constructed or re-used cairns / cemetery mounds.

It was also surprising to find that there seems to be no evidence of any correlation between cist size and status, in fact the cist size seems to be entirely functional, linked to the size of deposit being placed within it (see Chapter 6: The Presence of Pottery in single burial tradition Burials, Appendix 3: Table 11).

Cists require more effort to construct than pits, but cairns / cemetery mounds require an entire scale of magnitude more effort than an individual cist and it is difficult to argue against a genuine relationship, at least at at the time of construction, between placement of the remains of an individual in a cairn and some status association. However the relationship is not a simple linear one. A reused Neolithic cairn may have been built a thousand years or more before the first cist burial is inserted in it. Even a multiple cist cairn of Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age date may only directly reflect the effort and energy of the first generation of users. These cairns are, however, more than the accumulated effort expended in their construction. They are the ultimate artefact, given meaning not just by the use of previous persons, but the continued use of the dead. They are also about controlling access, ownership of burial rights, limiting those burial rights to an important, possibly elite group, who either were or styled themselves the descendants of the cairn’s builders. It is likely that Late Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age burial in cairns was intended to show continuity with the past and the rights of access to resources in the landscape. The suggestion that those buried in these cairns in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland formed, at least in some phases, a high status group group is consistent with Saxe’s (1970) Hypothesis no. 8 that formal cemeteries were maintained by kin based descent groups who used the authority of the ancestors to control land and resources.

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Ordinary cemetery: cairn / cemetery mound If we accept, based on the energy expenditure arguments presented above, that multiple burials are, generally, an indicator of lower status, and if we also assume that burial in a cairn, which takes time and effort to construct, is, generally, indicative of high status then we should expect to find that the burial of multiple individuals in the same grave is less common in cairns. These assumptions seem borne out by the evidence. Single burials are much more common than multiple burials in cairns and this is statistically a significant over-representation. In fact there are only half as many multiple burials in cairns as would be expected by chance. This would seem strong confirmatory evidence of the differing status relationships of multiple burials and cairns, with multiple burial, in general, indicative of lower status and cairns higher status. This statistic is derived from an analysis of all non-urn burials within cairns, but there is no evidence that applies to Phase A burials less than later phases. The status associations of cists and pits within cairns is less clear cut. When the single burial tradition is looked at in its entirety it seems as if cists are slightly underrepresented in cairns. This is partly because cordoned and collared urns, which are sometimes found placed in cairns, are almost always inserted into pits. There are also many examples of unprotected cremated deposits, bone patches, placed in small pits in cairns and gaps between the stones. This may indicate that when a burial is placed within a cairn a cist is seen as less necessary for an appropriate burial. Partly this may be the materiality of stone itself, the cist is a stone tomb of sorts but the cairn is also of largely stone construction. Placement in stone may be the most appropriate destination for the deceased. Structuralist studies of funerary rituals often make a binary opposition of tomb (stone): bone (Metcalf and Huntingdon 1991: 114115). Placement in a dry stone cist, may also have, in

Grave goods and Phase A burials When, non-urn burials, mostly Phase A and B burials, are examined there is little evidence for the inclusion of non-ceramic grave goods in the burial. Amongst inhumation burials, which are mostly Phase A, only 14.5% had any grave goods associated with them, of which only 5% were the apparently higher status grave good class (3) objects (see Chapter 6: grave good class and Inhumation / Cremation). There appears, for nonurn burials, to be no relationship between grave good class and placement of the grave in a cairn (see Chapter 6: grave good class and position in a cairn or Cemetery 119

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland and Appendix 3: Table 50). Also there seems to be no relationship, for Phase A inhumation burials, between grave good class and burial type, pottery class, age or the sex of the deceased. For Phase A burials there are no indications of an association between the status of the interred individual and the presence of grave goods of any type. The placement of grave goods, in this era, may perhaps reflect the emotional involvement of mourners, or the membership of sodalities, more than the active recognition or creation of status (Brück 2004).

: Individual

Pit

:

Cist

Not in cairn

:

cairn

---------------------------------------------------------------------Less Energy / Status (0)

: More Energy /Status (1)

Table 7.2 Coding status / energy expenditure in Phase A burial attribute combinations

Phase A Burial attribute combinations Utilising the main choices available for funerary ritual during Phase A, there were eight possible attribute combinations in the data set (Table 7.1), henceforth called burial attribute combinations. For the purposes of this exercise, and the Cluster Analysis presented below (see Chapter 7: Cluster Analysis of Phase A burial attributes), Phase A burials have been taken to be all inhumation burials accompanied with a bowl or a vase, except for inhumations with ribbed bowls, which have been noted, from an examination of the radiocarbon dates, as probably belonging to Phase B.

Worked examples of calculation of status value for each burial attribute combination Cist, with individual burial, not in cairn Cist – score 1, with individual burial – score 1, not in cairn – score 0 Total Score = 2 Pit, with multiple burial, in cairn Pit – score 0, with multiple burial- score 0, in cairnscore 1 Total score = 1

These eight types of burial variation found during Phase A, do not, however, necessarily equate to eight distinct strata of society. There may be a status equivalence between different burial ritual practice; there may be different ways to appropriately conduct the burial of individuals of similar status. To begin to look at how many potential levels of status are represented by this information, it is necessary to calculate the status value for each burial attribute combination.

When this calculation is carried out it shows that there are, based on energy expenditure, four status values for Phase A single burial tradition Burials, status values 0 to 3. This might suggest that that there could be up to four distinct status levels within Phase A society, it does not give any indication however if these statuses are achieved or ascribed. Status values for Phase A burial attribute combinations

Calculation of status values for burial attribute combinations It is stated above that these burial types can be viewed as a set of choices from a list of binary oppositions. If each of these binary oppositions is coded as a 0 or 1 depending upon which is considered to reflect lower (0) and higher status (1), based on energy expenditure (Table 7.2), it is possible to score each of the combinations, creating a status value for each burial attribute combination (Table 7.3). Pit, multiple inhumation, not in cairn

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Multiple

Cist, multiple inhumation, not in cairn, occasional grave goods

Pit, individual inhumation, not in cairn, occasional grave goods. Pit, individual inhumation, in cairn

1 Pits with multiple burials, not within a cairn

status value = 0

3 Cist with multiple burials not within a cairn

status value = 1

5 Pit with individual burial, within a cairn

status value = 2

7 Cist with multiple burials in cairns

status value = 2

2 Pits with multiple burials, within a cairn

status value = 1

4 Pit with individual burial, not in a cairn

status value = 1

6 Cist with individual burial, not in a cairn

status value = 2

8 Cists with individual burials within cairns

status value = 3

Table 7.3 Phase A status values for burial attribute combinations

Cist, individual inhumation, not in cairn, occasional grave goods.

Cluster Analysis of Phase A burial attributes A Cluster Analysis of Phase A burial attributes was undertaken to help identify groups of burials of this era. This was done independently of the burial attribute combination, but it chose the same attributes as input

Cist, multiple inhumation, in cairn

Cist, individual inhumation, in cairn Table 7.1 Phase A burial attribute combinations.

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Chapter 7 Analysing Complexity in the Irish single burial tradition

variables. A Two Step Cluster of all the probable Phase A burials was carried out in SPSS 22 using as input variables, Multiple : Individual Burial, Pit : Cist, Not in cairn : cairn. Two Step Cluster Analysis was selected because it can use categorical variables, as opposed to the nominal and ordinal data used by other cluster analysis techniques. This produced a set of four clusters, which had a high average silhouette value of 0.8 suggesting that the clusters produced by the analysis are distinct and cohesive, and therefore more likely to be of interpretative value (Figure 7.2).

multiple burials, i.e. 70% are individuals. This means that this component contributes 70% of a 1 score, or 0.7, to the overall combined status value. When each of these values is added together, the resulting combined status value for Cluster 4 is 2.7. Pit : Cist- 100% Cist- Score = 1.0 Not in cairn : cairn- 100% cairn- Score = 1.0 Multiple Burial : Individual Burial – 70% Individual Burial- Score = 0.7 Combined status value score= 2.7

The fact that the cluster analysis identified four clusters, the same number of separate status value levels for the burial attribute combination is potentially independent confirmation of the validity of each approach.

Cluster 1: Pit : Cist- 100% Cist- Score = 1.0 Not in cairn : cairn- 0% cairn- Score = 0 Multiple Burial : Individual Burial – 100% Individual Burial- Score = 1 Combined status value score= 2

A cluster membership variable was produced for each of the cases within the cluster allowing each case to be identified to its cluster. This allowed the clusters to be cross-tabulated against other variables within the data set, which gives it much more analytical power than assessment of burial attribute combination status values.

Cluster 2: Pit : Cist- 0% Cist- Score = 0 Not in cairn : cairn- 36% cairn- Score = 0.36 Multiple Burial : Individual Burial – 73% Individual Burial- Score = 0.73 Combined status value score= 1.09

Calculation of status values for Phase A clusters So that the status of each cluster could be evaluated it was necessary to calculate a status value for Phase A clusters based on a simple accumulation of the 0:1 coded energy expenditure for Phase A (Table 7.2). Since cluster values potentially amalgamate together several different burial attribute combinations into a single group the method of the calculation of status value for a cluster must be slightly different than for a burial attribute combination.

Cluster 3: Pit : Cist- 100% Cist- Score = 1.0 Not in cairn : cairn- 0% cairn- Score = 0 Multiple Burial : Individual Burial – 0% Individual Burial- Score = 0 Combined status value score= 1

Worked examples of Phase A cluster status value calculations:

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Status value calculation for Cluster 4 (Figure 7.2) In this cluster all of the members of the cluster are cists, as opposed to pits, giving a status / energy expenditure of 1 for the Pit: Cist binary opposition (See Table 7.1). Also all of the members of the cluster are within cairns, as opposed to not in cairns, which also has a status / energy expenditure of 1, for the Not in cairn: cairn, binary opposition. However, when Multiple: Individual burials are considered 70% are not

Figure 7.2 Cluster analysis of Phase A burials.

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland Cluster

Number

Cist / Pit

Individual / Multiple

cairn

Status

Ages

Sex

4

10

Cist

Both

all

2.7

OC+

M-

11

Pit

Both

some

1.09

C+

F+

1 2 3

21 8

Cist Cist

Individual

none

Multiple

none

2 1

OC+

grave goods Class

F+ M- 2+

MA+OA+ M++

3+

Table 7.4 Phase A clusters ordered by status value, correlations with age, sex and grave good class and their associations with other burial attributes. A ‘+’ after a value, shows that a positive correlation observed between that cluster and a variable in a cross-tabulation table has an adjusted residual value of 1, meaning that it is significant at 68.2%. A ‘++’ after a value, shows that it has an adjusted residual value of 2, meaning it is significant at 95.4%, the usual threshold of statistical significance. A ‘-’ or ‘--’ value similarly means a negative correlation.

In Figure 7.2 each cluster is displayed with the relative percentage of their inputs for each cluster, the sizes of the cluster and the status value displayed in the description field also.

of mature adults (MA) and older adults (OA). The presence of children’s burials in the highest status groups is, at first sight, contradictory. Typically children in a nonranked society are not likely to have lived long enough to have achieved status, although the over-representation was below the level of statistical significance so it may be the product of chance.

Crosstabulation of the Phase A clusters with other burial information Because each individual burial in the cluster is identified by a cluster membership variable it is possible to crosstabulate the membership of each cluster against other attributes and aspects of burial ritual and the interred to look for significant correlations which might enhance our understanding of Phase A society.

Grave good class: There was, overall, no relationship between grave good class and Phase A Clusters, although there were individual relationships between particular values highlighted. There was an over-representation of grave good class (2) and Phase A Cluster 1, the second highest cluster, and surprisingly between grave good class (3) grave goods and the second lowest Cluster (2). However this correlation, which contained only two instances, one of which, Grave 3 at Keenoge, Co. Meath, which was burial accompanied by a bronze razor which was probably contamination from a later burial, meaning this apparent correlation should be ignored.

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There is, overall, no relationship, for the crosstabulation of Phase A’s clusters and Age (Appendix 3: Table 60), Sex (Appendix 3: Table 61) and grave good class (Appendix 3: Table 62). Although there are some interesting results for the individual cells within the crosstabulation tables there is no indication for the type of cross-cutting relationships of cluster and age / sex Wason (1994) would have expected a ranked society to display. These correlations are summarised in Table 7.4

Examining Phase B funerary complexity There are two main differences in the funerary ritual of Phase B, compared to the earlier Phase A ritual.

Sex: Although there was overall no relationship between cluster and sex, the number of human remains which could not be sexed possibly obscured some relationships. The cluster with the highest status value is Cluster (4). Only three of the ten burials in this class was male, less than the expected value, one female and six indeterminate, an under-representation of men, but not a statistically significant one. The third highest Cluster (2) had an overrepresentation of female burials while only the lowest status Cluster (3) had a significant over-representation of men.

• the addition of cremation as a burial option • pottery becoming optional rather than a necessary piece of funerary furniture These add a considerable amount of extra ritual complexity to Phase B burial which is consistent with Saxe’s Hypothesis No. 5 (Saxe 1970), which suggests that increase in redundancy indicates a society which is becoming more complex and ranked. Inhumation: Cremation Approximately 80 to 150 years after the initial single burial tradition burials (see Chapter 5: Dating Inhumation and Cremation), cremation first appears as a burial option, adding another level of ritual complexity. It is possible to view cremation as an indicator of status, certainly it fits with an energy expenditure model of status, cremation by its very nature needs a

Age: There was also no relationship between age and Phase A clusters. The highest two clusters, from a status value perspective, Clusters (4) and (1), contained an overrepresentation of older children’s remains, all in individual burials, but it was below level of statistical significance. The lower status two Clusters (2) and (3) contained only one child’s burial, but had a spread of adult burials, Cluster (3) having a small over-representation of burials 122

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Chapter 7 Analysing Complexity in the Irish single burial tradition

considerable energy input. However there may be other important considerations, in addition to status display. One problem with seeing cremation solely as a higher status form of burial is that it becomes the dominant mode of burial, especially in Phase C when, for a time, it entirely eclipses inhumation. Fear of pollution from the decomposing corpse, common in very many societies world wide (Hertz 2009), may have eventually caused cremation to have been seen as a necessary ritual for the benefit of the entire community, not directly linked to status at all. It is likely that initially, in Phase B, when it was one of two choices, cremation was a high energy, and high status, way of ensuring that the soul of the deceased made its journey to the other world swiftly and without complication. It, however, may have become by Phase C the normative ritual carried out through fear of the un-decomposed body.

complexity of the social persona, which is conditional on the complexity of the society. There are thirty two possible combinations of the main funerary attributes of which 25 combinations are actually found within the Phase B burial data set. As with the Phase A burials these can be considered as a set of binary oppositions which can have their energy expenditure / status modeled. :

Cremation

Pit

:

Cist

Multiple

:

Individual

Pot-less

:

Pot

Flat Cemetery

:

cairn

---------------------------------------------------------------

Pot: Pot-less During Phase A probably every burial in the single burial tradition contained a pottery vessel. During Phase B, pottery is no longer present in all burials. At some stage, probably in the decades after the early twenty first century BC, burials without pottery, potless cists initially, and later pot-less pits, appear (see Chapter 5: Dating graves which contain no pottery). This is a significant departure, adding another level of choice to the funeral ritual: whether to include a vessel or not. It is also a choice which has a clear energy implication, a pot takes energy to make, not including a pot in a funerary ritual takes no energy. While it has not yet been established with certainty, the radiocarbon evidence seems to point to a few of the pot-less cists dating to Phase B, but with most pot-less pits probably dating to Phase C. Unfortunately there are, as yet, few dates for what is a numerous burial type.

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Inhumation

Less Energy / Status (0)

: More energy / Status(1)

Table 7.5 Coding energy expenditure / status in Phase B burial attribute combinations

Again there are too many possible combinations to reflect the actual social structure of Phase B Early Bronze Age Irish society and it is necessary to try and reduce this complexity. As with Phase A burials two approaches will be used to do this. Firstly, by directly looking at the status values in the different burial attribute combinations, below, and through cluster analysis (Chapter 7: Cluster Analysis of Phase B burial attributes ). Calculation of status values for burial attribute combinations By coding, as with the Phase A burials, the binary oppositions as a 0 or 1 depending upon which has a higher energy expenditure, it is possible to add the energy value of each of these funerary attributes and obtain a status value, which should reflect the energy input / status of each combination of funerary attributes (Table 7.6).

Grave goods and Phase B burials As with the earlier Phase A, there are few indications of direct associations of grave goods with status during this phase. The bowl and vase burials of Phase A and B, show a spread of assemblages of grave good (0), (1) and (2) status, with an under representation of grave good (3) assemblages and the other apparent status indicators for Phase B, such as placement in a cist, a cairn or individual burial. Overall with Phase B, as with Phase A, grave goods do not seem to have been a mechanism for displaying status in burial.

This calculation shows six separate status values. The increasing number of energy levels, an increase from four in Phase A, may imply that society is becoming more complex. It seems that there is more differentiation in funerary practice between the sexes emerging at this time also. Where the sex of individuals could be ascertained, it has been observed for non-urn burials, that men are twice as likely to be buried with a pottery vessel as women (see Chapter 6: Sex and pottery class and the presence of a pot in a grave and Appendix 3: Table 27). If, as has been suggested above, that all Phase A burials were buried with pottery vessels then this contrast between men and women’s burials must be amongst the Phase B and later burials. This may suggest that during this period there is increasing inequality

Phase B burial attribute combinations Phase B burial has a much greater range of ritual possibility than Phase A. This is consistent with Saxe’s (1970) Hypothesis No. 5 which stated that there was a direct relationship between the redundancy of elements of the funerary ritual and the degree of complexity and ranking of a society and Binford’s hypotheses No. 2 and 3 which relate the complexity of the ritual to the 123

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland

status values for Phase B burial attribute combinations 1

Inhumations in Pit, multiple burials, no accompanying pottery vessel

status value = 0

3

Inhumation in Pit, individual burial, accompanying pottery

status value = 2

2 4 5 6 7 8 9

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

Inhumation in Pit, multiple burials, accompanying pottery vessel

Inhumation in Pit, multiple burials, accompanying pottery vessel, in cairn Inhumation in Pit, an individual burial, accompanying pottery, in cairn

Inhumation in Cist, multiple burials, without out accompanying pottery Inhumation in Cist, individual burial, without accompanying pottery

Inhumation in Cist, multiple burials, without accompanying pottery, in cairn

Inhumation in Cist, individual burial, without accompanying pottery, in cairn Inhumation in Cist, multiple burials, accompanying pottery vessel Inhumation in Cist, an individual burial, accompanying pottery

Inhumation in Cist, multiple burials, accompanying pottery vessel, in C cairn Inhumation in Cist, an individual burial, accompanying pottery, in cairn Cremation in Pit, multiple burials, accompanying pottery vessel Cremation in Pit, an individual burial, accompanying pottery

Cremation in Pit, multiple burials, accompanying pottery vessel, in cairn Cremation in Pit, an individual burial, accompanying pottery, in cairn Cremation in Cist, multiple burials, without accompanying pottery

Cremation in Cist, individual burial, without accompanying pottery

Cremation in Cist, multiple burials, without accompanying pottery, in cairn

Cremation in Cist, individual burial, without accompanying pottery, in cairn Cremation in Cist, multiple burials, accompanying pottery vessel Cremation in Cist, an individual burial, accompanying pottery

Cremation in Cist, multiple burials, accompanying pottery vessel, in cairn Cremation in Cist, an individual burial, accompanying pottery, in cairn

status value = 1 status value = 2 status value = 3 status value = 1 status value = 2 status value = 2 status value = 3 status value = 2 status value = 3 status value = 3 status value = 4 status value = 2 status value = 3 status value = 3 status value = 4 status value = 2 status value = 3 status value = 3 status value = 4 status value = 3 status value = 4 status value = 4 status value = 5

Table 7.6 Phase B status values for main burial attribute combinations

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between women and men in their access to energy, status and power, than previously in the ChalcolithicEarly Bronze Age.

belong. Only fifteen have any radiocarbon dating and of these only four are Phase B pot-less burials, nine Phase C and one whose calibrated range straddled the division between both phases. Consequently the cluster analysis was carried out without any pot-less burials, the underlying assumption made that pot-less burials, in most cases at least, collectively formed a small, but without further dates, largely invisible, part of the burial ritual of this phase.

Cluster analysis of Phase B burial attributes In a similar manner to Phase A, Cluster Analysis of Phase B burial attributes was undertaken to help identify groups of burials of this phase (Figure 7.3). This was, as before, done independently of the Phase B burial attribute combinations (Table 7.6). There was a difficulty in modeling the Phase B burials, Phase B being, in some respects sandwiched between Phase A and Phase C with sometimes less than perfectly clear boundaries between them. The pot-less burials appear, from the radiocarbon evidence, to commence in Phase B, but they continue through Phase C as well. In fact most potless burials probably date to Phase C. It is very difficult to tease out, in the absence of any pottery or more radiocarbon dates, to which era most of these burials

The cluster analysis used all the main Phase B burial attributes discussed above (Table 7.5), except the presence or absence of a pottery vessel, which was made redundant by the decision not to carry out cluster analysis on the pot-less burials, along with the other Phase B burials. Also although during this era cremation becomes the dominant ritual there are some inhumations continuing through Phase B. In addition, although there are too few individual cases of 124

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Chapter 7 Analysing Complexity in the Irish single burial tradition

radiocarbon dated variants of bowls and vases to allow useful estimations of the age ranges of these pottery sub-types to be made in Oxcal 4.2, it is nevertheless evident from a plot of radiocarbon dates firmly associated with vessels in the database (See Figure 5.6) that ribbed bowls probably only commence during Phase B. Consequently inhumation burials associated with ribbed bowls have been included in the Phase B cluster analysis.

children, and four burials of adolescents which is a significant over-representation. Cluster (4), the middle status cluster, had a spread of ages and a significant overrepresentation of individual adult burials (A). The two lowest status value clusters, Clusters (2) and (1) both had a spread of ages represented in multiple burials. Grave good class Grave goods were not very common in Phase B burials, only 21% of Phase B burials contained them. Of those that did, most were grave good class 1 and 2 assemblages, with only two grave good class 3 assemblages in the data set. There was a slight over-representation of grave goods assemblages of all types with Cluster 5, in which older children were also over-represented and adolescents very over-represented. The suspicion must be that these grave good assemblage associations are not necessarily status connected, but possibly an emotional response to the death of a youth (MacDonald 2001).

The average silhouette value for the Phase B cluster analysis is 0.7, placing it at the mid-range of good as defined by SPSS 22. A cluster membership variable was produced for each of the cases within the cluster allowing each case to be identified to its cluster. This allowed the clusters to be cross tabulated against other variables within the data set. Five clusters were identified by the cluster analysis (Figure 7.3). Status values were worked out for the Phase B clusters in the same manner as they were for the Phase A clusters. The Cluster with the highest energy / status value is Cluster (3), followed by Cluster (5), Cluster (4), Cluster (1) and Cluster (2).

Examining Phase C funerary complexity The funerary rituals of the latter part of the Early Bronze Age are even more complex that those that went before. Previously it had been believed that there was a move away from simple burials in cists and pits in the later centuries of the Early Bronze Age (Waddell 1990: 14). It was known that some cist burials continued as containers for encrusted and vase urn burials, with pit burials continuing purely as the receptacle for urns of each type. The radiocarbon review of pot-less cists and pits (see Chapter 5: Dating graves which contain no pottery) has shown that not only do pot-less cists and pot-less

Crosstabulation of the five clusters, excluding, of course, the pot-less burials, identified for Phase B against Age, Sex and grave good class revealed no relationship for the crosstabulation tables overall. However within the tables there were significant over-representations between certain values in the Cluster and Age crosstabulation (Table 7.7, and Appendix 3: Table 63, 64 and 65).

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Sex: Cluster (3), the highest status cluster, had an overrepresentation of male burials. Cluster (4), the middle status cluster, also had an over-representation of female burials, and the lowest status value cluster, Cluster (2) an over-representation of male burials. These were all below the level of statistical significance. Age: There were also interesting age associations for certain of these clusters. The highest status value cluster, Cluster (3) had a significant over-representation of mature adults. The second highest cluster, Cluster (5), contained an overrepresentation of older

Figure 7.3 Phase B Clusters

125

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland

Cluster Number Status

Ages

Sex grave goods

Cist/Pit

Individual / multiple

cairn

3

14

3.6

MA++

M+

proportionate

Cist

Mostly individual

Y

5

19

3

ADL++ and OC+

I+

Present+

Cist

Individual

N

4

14

2

A++ and MA-

F+

Absent+

Cist

Individual

N

1

9

1.66

Spread

I+

proportionate

Pit

Multiple

N

2

6

0.66

Spread

M+

proportionate

Pit

Multiple

N

Table 7.7 A summary of the Phase B clusters, status value, correlations with age, sex and their associations with other burial information. A ‘+’ after a value, means that a correlation observed between that cluster and a variable in a cross-tabulation table has an adjusted residual value of 1, meaning that it is significant at 68.2%. A value of ‘++’ means that it has an adjusted residual value of 2, meaning it is significant at 95.4%, the usual threshold of statistical significance.

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pits continue after circa 1950BC, but that probably most pot-less cists and pot-less pits date to this period. This completely changes our view of the funerary ritual of the period adding a whole body of extra funerary practice to an already complex picture.

It must be noted however that encrusted urns also seem to display the same distinction between encrusted urns in cists, which are typically poorer in grave goods and those found in pits which have an over-representation of grave good status (2) grave goods (Appendix 3: Table 54). It may also be the case that there is an element of chronological vagueness which is obscuring the development of these traditions through time. Pot-less burials seem to commence in Phase B as can be seen from the radiocarbon record, and most, but not all, of the earliest pot-less burial dates are cists (see Chapter 5: Dating graves which contain no pottery). Most, but not all, of the later dated pot-less burials are pot-less pits, although given the very small number of pot-less burials which have been dated, selection bias suggesting a spurious radiocarbon trend cannot be ruled out.

There seem to have been two, at least partly contemporary, funerary traditions running through Phase C; the developed vase tradition, which includes vase urns and encrusted urns and the collared and cordoned urn tradition. The developed vase tradition has links, both in terms of vessel style, form, and in funerary associations, with the earlier Phase A and B burials. The collared and cordoned urn tradition however seems less rooted in earlier practice. The difficulty comes with assigning those burials without pottery vessels, the potless burials. To which tradition/s do they belong, or are they a separate tradition? All three types of burial are, on occasion, present in the same cemetery. Although not entirely contemporaneous, their periods of use overlapped and it is possible that each of the main burial types were in contemporary use for an extended period, possibly centuries. In fact it is probable that even the pot-less burials are not one single tradition. As noted above (see Chapter 6: grave good class compared with grave type and presence or absence of a pot or urn ) potless cists are more likely to have no grave goods than pot-less pits. This could indicate that pot-less cists have more in common with the developed vase tradition, which continues in Phase C to use cists, and which is more parsimonious in its use of grave goods than the collared and cordoned urn tradition. Following on from this it seems reasonable to suppose that the pot-less pits could be considered part of the collared and cordoned urn tradition on account of their use of pits, as opposed to cists and their greater tendency to be accompanied by grave goods.

The developed vase tradition This tradition was a continuation of Phase A and B burial practice and included • Pot-less cist burials • Encrusted urn burials • Vase urn burials New vessels and cist forms The polygonal cist and encrusted and vase urns can be seen as evolutionary developments of elements already present in Phase A and B burials. The polygonal cist can be viewed as a variant of the rectangular cist. It takes some effort to make and in its material may allude to dryness, bone, completed, finalised death. Like the rectangular cist it has an over-representation of multiple burials within it, although the relationship is less than statistically significant (see Chapter 6: The relationship between multiple burial and grave type). The vase urns and encrusted urns are slightly different. Although a development of the vase tradition (Waddell 1990: 10-11) they are, unlike earlier vessels, usually the primary container of the human remains. The remains are inserted into the upright vessel before the mouth of the vessel is covered, the vessel inverted and placed

Also there is a very significant Leinster bias in the findspots of pot-less pits (see Section 6.8.4), as we see to some extent in the collared and cordoned urn tradition, collared urns in particular having a strong preference for the coastal parts of the east of the country (Kavanagh 1976: 313). 126

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Chapter 7 Analysing Complexity in the Irish single burial tradition

in the grave. This changes the relationship between the pot and the grave. Rather than an additional part of the burial ritual, perhaps a container for an offering, the urn becomes a central component of the ritual, the container of the deceased. Vase urns and encrusted urns have previously been associated with the earlier vase traditions by Waddell (1990: 10-11), based on the form of vase urns and associations between encrusted urns and vases in the same burial (Mount 1997: 140). Evidence from this data set shows that encrusted urns are at least occasionally also found with vessels of the bowl tradition, such as the simple bowl found with an encrusted urn at Corradoon, Co. Waterford (see Chapter 6: The correlation between vessel class and the number of additional vessels in urn burials and Appendix 3: Table 17). This reinforces the impression of a burial tradition with its roots in earlier times, rather than simply a continuation of the vase tradition alone. The origins of the concept of placing cremated remains within an urn may even reference earlier late Neolithic practices, such as the placing of cremated remains in grooved ware vessels as found at Lyrath, Co. Kilkenny (Carlin and Brück 2012: 196).

is greater than cists in Phase C, despite cists requiring more energy to construct. This is a reversal of the practice in earlier periods Phase A and B where status seems to have been associated with cist use. Also there seems, from the descriptive statistics presented already, to be no evidence of a relationship between grave good status in Phase C developed vase tradition burials and the placing of the grave in a cairn. When looked at as a whole burials with grave good class (3) assemblages are actually slightly less likely to be found in cairns (many of which are cordoned urn burials of the slightly different collared and cordoned urn tradition ), with grave good class (2) assemblages being slightly more common in non-cairn locations (Appendix 3: Table 50). Cairns may continue to be places of importance however, and it will be argued below from the results of the cluster analysis that access to some cairns is being controlled by a small elite group. Burial attribute combinations for the Phase C developed vase tradition burials Using an approach similar to that used for Phase A and B burials it is possible to arrive at a status value based on binary oppositions of aspects of the developed vase tradition burial rituals (Table 7.8). However it seems that there have been changes in burial ritual and its significance which have altered the appropriateness of different types of burial behaviour for inclusion in the calculation of status values. The binary opposition between No cairn: cairn may no longer be as significant, as direct an indicator of status, for the developed vase tradition. The indications are, from the crosstabulation of Phase C clusters of the developed vase tradition, discussed below, that pot-less cists, encrusted urns and vase urns are all under-represented amongst burials within cairns. Likewise while there is still use of cists and pits they no longer seem to have the energy : status relationship they once had. At least in part this may be connected to the change, from an inhumation based funerary ritual to a largely cremation (for a time entirely cremation) based funerary ritual and the conceptual changes accompanying it, as noted by Sørensen and Rebay (2007) in Denmark.

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As discussed above it seems reasonable to include potless cists as part of this developed vase tradition, as potless cists were present, at least in small numbers, during Phase B, and the other postulated Phase C tradition, the Collared and Cordoned urn Tradition, does not seem to show the same degree of continuity with the past. Phase C developed vase tradition grave good associations, and status indicators The use of grave goods in this Phase C developed vase tradition may be an interesting and illuminating example of the sort of change, through time, in the complex relationships between energy expenditure, status, and aspects of burial ritual, which Wason (1994) suggested could best be identified by diachronic studies, like this one. There is a significant relationship between grave good class, funerary vessel type and burial type, at this time. For instance, as noted above, pot-less cists can be shown to have been significantly more likely to have had no accompanying grave goods (See Chapter 6: grave good class compared with grave type and presence or absence of a pot or urn, and Appendix 3: Table 54), with, proportionately lower numbers of grave good class (1), (2) and (3) grave goods when compared with burials of the other Phase C burial tradition, the collared and cordoned urn tradition (which includes pot-less pits).

More energy is still required, pro rata, for the construction of a single tomb than one which is shared and there seem to be no inversions or adaptations of this aspect of burial ritual when it is examined diachronically so Multiple Burial : Individual burial can be evaluated. Pot-less : Pot is an option for a Phase C developed vase tradition burial and it has clear energy / status implications, pot-less cists being the least likely Phase C burial type to be associated with grave goods.

Likewise, encrusted urns, when placed in cists, seem to only very occasionally have been accompanied by grave goods. However encrusted urns placed in pits, as also noted previously, have a statistically very significant over-representation of grave good class (2) grave goods (Appendix 3: Table 54). It seems that the status of pits 127

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland There are three broad classes of grave good found with the developed vase tradition burials, grave good class (1) and grave good class (2), and grave good class (3) these have been ranked as 1, 2 and 3 for the purposes of this calculation. Multiple burial

: Individual Burial

Pot-less

: Pot

No grave good

: grave goods: GG status (1), GG Status (2) and GG Status (3)

Less Energy / Status

choices for burial in this tradition than there were in Phase B, 16 versus 24, but it must be borne in mind that this is only one of two contemporary burial traditions in Ireland at this time and also that some burial attributes, which did occur in Phase C developed vase tradition burials, such as burial in a cairn or not, and in a cist or pit, are not being included in the calculation of the status value for this burial tradition, because they did not correlate statistically with other status indications. It must be remembered that although it is tempting to look at the developed vase tradition as a totally distinct society, running in parallel to the collared and cordoned urn tradition, it not only exists at approximately the same time, but often in the same cemetery (examples being Edmondstown, Co. Dublin, Knockast, Co. Westmeath, Mound of the Hostages, Co. Meath and Scarawalsh, Co. Wexford), as the other Phase C burial tradition. They must be considered as part of the same society.

: More energy / Status

Table 7.8 Coding energy expenditure in Phase C developed vase tradition burial ritual attributes

As with the earlier phases it is possible to look at the combinations of attributes and calculate a status value for each of them. There are 16 possible combinations of these attributes, although three of these possible combinations have not been found within the data set (Table 7.9). This calculation appears to suggest that there are six distinct potential energy / status levels for the developed vase tradition, although there is no example of the potentially highest status value 5 in the data set. This is an increase on the four from Phase A and, potentially, the same as the six from Phase B burials. There are fewer main energy / status affecting

The collared and cordoned urn tradition This tradition appears to be a break from the earlier Phase A and ‘B’ burial traditions and consists of • Collared urn burials • Cordoned urn burials • Pot-less pit burials

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Status values for Phase C developed vase tradition burial attribute combinations 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Pot-less Cist, individual burial Pot-less Cist, multiple burials Pot -less Cist, individual burial, grave good Class (1) grave goods Pot- less Cist, individual burial, grave good Class (2) grave goods Pot- less Cist, individual burial, grave good Class (3) grave goods Pot-less Cist, multiple burial, grave good Class (1) grave goods Pot- less Cist, multiple burial, grave good Class (2) grave goods Pot- less Cist, multiple burial, grave good Class (3) grave goods - Not Present in data set Cist, a vase urn / encrusted urn, individual burial, Cist, a vase urn / encrusted urn, multiple burial Cist, a vase urn / encrusted urn, individual burial, grave good Class (1) grave goods Cist, a vase urn / encrusted urn, multiple burial, grave good Class (1) grave goods Cist, a vase urn / encrusted urn, individual burial, grave good Class (2) grave goods Cist, a vase urn / encrusted urn, multiple burial, grave good Class (2) grave goods Cist, a vase urn / encrusted urn, individual burial, grave good Class (3) grave goods – Not Present in data set 16 Cist, a vase urn / encrusted urn, multiple burial, grave good Class (3) grave goods – Not Present in data set Table 7.9 Phase C developed vase tradition burial attribute combinations.

128

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status value = 1 status value = 0 status value =2 status value =3 status value =4 status value =1 status value =2 status value =3 status value = 2 status value = 1 status value =3 status value = 2 status value =4 status value =3 status value =5 status value =4

Chapter 7 Analysing Complexity in the Irish single burial tradition

stone circles in northeast Scotland (Needham 2005), which can be compared with Munster examples. It is into this cultural melting pot that collared urns may have spread, to be reworked and rethought as cordoned urns then dispersing across Scotland and Ireland, using networks established by metalworkers, and traders.

Collared and cordoned urn burials There has been debate in the past over whether these vessels should be considered part of the same tradition. Kavanagh saw the cordoned urn as a variant of the collared urn, with the development taking place in Britain (Kavanagh 1976: 331), and being exported to Ireland via northeast Ulster and southwest Scotland. This view was challenged by Brindley (1980), who saw it as simplistic and pre-supposing that a British antecedent is necessary for innovation in Ireland. Longworth (1984) notes that there is probably evidence of a spread of collared urns to Ireland from Britain, with only a few Irish examples of collared urns of his Primary Series in Ireland but a greater number of the Secondary Series, with these vessels most similar to vessels of his Northwestern Group. Longworth however argues against a link between collared and cordoned urns. Waddell and Ó Ríordáin (1993) similarly dismiss any direct connection between collared and cordoned urns, noting the Irish / Scottish distribution of the latter and associating it with the spread of the copper trade. They also note the distinctive ‘beaker derived’ decoration on cordoned urns and their distinctive grave good associations.

A number of very interesting correlations have been observed between collared and cordoned urn tradition burials and other aspects of the burial record. Of the twenty five cordoned urn burials in the data set only two contained multiple burials, this is a significant under-representation of multiple burials amongst this burial type. With collared urns thirteen of the sixteen collared urn burials contained single burials but three contained multiple burials, although this relationship fell short of being statistically significant (Appendix 3: Table 58). Cordoned urns are significantly over-represented with grave good class (3) grave goods(Appendix 3: Table 54). This juxtaposition of individual burial and opulent grave goods with one vessel type, the cordoned urn, suggests that these burial attributes are likely indicators of status. These urns are found in flat cemeteries and in cairns / cemetery mounds (Appendix 3: Table 36). As with the developed vase tradition however, while burial in cairns was continuing this cannot be shown from the descriptive statistical analysis already conducted to have been as directly linked with status as previously was the case. Consequently burial in a cairn has been left out of calculation of status values for the collared and cordoned urn tradition, although the potential status associated with burial in a cairn will be returned to when discussing the results of the Phase C cluster analysis (see Chapter 7: The Cluster analysis of Phase C burials ), where there is evidence that suggests a small elite group may control access to some cairns at this time.

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Longworth and Waddell and Ó Ríordáin are correct in saying that collared and cordoned urns are distinct traditions, from a certain point of view. They have different distributions (collared urns are much more common in east coastal region than the midlands or west), different associations, and they are not entirely contemporary, although they probably overlap. However viewed juxtaposed with the other contemporary Irish burial traditions, they seem less distinct. They both are largely individual burial traditions, they are also almost always found inserted into pits, and they both have more, and higher status, grave good associations than encrusted urns or vase urns. The position taken in this study is that they are related burial types, called here the collared and cordoned urn tradition. This tradition displays less evidence of continuity with other, earlier, Irish burial traditions. The cordoned urn is not seen as degeneration of the collared urn but the product of change over time, absorbing new concepts and ideas. The link with beaker decorative forms noted by both Longworth (1984) and Waddell (1995), perhaps suggests that Scotland is the crucible where this tradition is being forged. Neil Wilkin (2011) has suggested that food vessel burials in northeast Scotland may indicate Irish settlement, leading in turn to the production of a new long necked beaker as a possible statement of identity by the indigenous beaker users. Waddell’s (1995) suggestion that the copper trade may be central, also chimes with the distributions of axes made from Irish copper in Scotland, and even the distribution of recumbent

Pot-less Pit burials Pot-less pit burials also seem to have been a significant part of this burial tradition. Pot-less burials come in two forms, the pot-less pits, which have a proportional number of grave goods Class 0, 1, 2 and 3 assemblages and the pot-less cists, which have a significant overrepresentation of grave good class 0 assemblages, in other words they typically have no grave goods (Appendix 3: Table 54). This over-representation of pot-less cists in burials with no grave goods probably indicates that these burials are closer to the developed vase tradition, while the association of the pot-less pits with proportionate amounts of each type of grave goods may indicate that they are part of the collared and cordoned urn tradition. While radiocarbon analysis would indicate that both of these types of pot-less burial are in contemporaneous use, the bulk of pot-less pits, 129

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland

Burial

Province Burial Sex Type

Age

Halverstown 2 Grave 2 Keenoge Grave 10

Leinster

Pit

M,M,F

A

Leinster

Pit

I

A

Keenoge Grave 12

Leinster

Pit

M,F,I

A,A,C

Keenoge Grave 13

Leinster

Pit

F

A

Keenoge Grave 4

Leinster

Pit

M

A

Martinstown Grave 2

Leinster

Pit

M, I

A, ADL

Ploopluck Grave 5

Leinster

Pit

I

Poulawack Grave 1 Munster

Pit

I

A

Mound of the Hostages Grave 6 (Grave 30 IV excavators designation)

Pit

M?

ADL

Leinster

grave goods

Within? Lab No.

C

14 Date

Calibrated Range in Oxcal

4.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2015) using Intcal 13 (Reimer et al 2013)

Jet Necklace

cairn Br. Knife?, cairn Awl, Br. Wire, faience, jet, bone, br. and amber, beads

GrA-2135

3630±35

2131-1896

GrA-2157

3730±35

2276-2028BC

OxA-3258

3310 ±60

1741-1451 BC

GrA-19180 3370 ±60

1874-1507BC

Table 7.10 Pot-less inhumation burials

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which have been dated, are after 1950BC (see Chapter 5: Dating graves which contain no pottery).

Burial attribute combinations for the Phase C collared and cordoned urn tradition As with the other burial traditions choices, the collared and cordoned urn tradition can be expressed as a number of energy / status based binary oppositions (Table 7.11).

Phase C Pot-less Pit inhumation burials There may be an occasional ritual of pot-less pit inhumation burials, usually found in Leinster, and some at least are contemporary with Phase C burials, which otherwise appear to be mainly cremations. Nine burials of this type are known, containing 14 individuals, two have been dated by radiocarbon dating to Phase C (Table 7.10), while two, both from Keenoge, have earlier Phase A/B dates, including the inhumation of a female with a jet necklace, however its date is a significant outlier from the rest of the pot-less dates. These burials are interesting. They seem to diverge from the typical burials of Type C, they are inhumations in an era which was dominated by cremation burial. One of the burials of this type is the youth of indeterminate sex from the Mound of the Hostages, the so-called ‘Tara Boy’, found with a magnificent set of grave goods including a necklace of numerous beads, copper tubes and a bronze knife. This burial was radiocarbon dated, GrA19180, which calibrated in Oxcal 4.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2015) using Intcal 13 (Reimer et al 2013), to 1874 to 1507BC at 95.4% probability (1746-1562 68.2%). The apparent richness of his burial, as well as the Leinster biased distribution of these burials, appears to indicate that they might be closely related to the collared and cordoned urn tradition.

Pot-less

:

Pot

Multiple

:

Individual burial

No grave goods

:

grave good Status(1), (2) or (3)

Less Energy / Status :

More energy / Status

Table 7.11 Coding energy expenditure in Phase C collared and cordoned urn tradition burial ritual attributes

There are 16 possible burial attribute combinations, with six energy / status values for this tradition. This is the same number of attributes, and energy / status values as for Phase B burial, however it must again be remembered that this is only one of two contemporary traditions in use during Phase C in Ireland, there is also the developed vase tradition, which also had 16 possible attribute combinations, and six energy / status values (Table 7.12). The presence or absence of the burials’ placement in a cairn has not been included in the burial attribute combination status value calculation because the results of the crosstabulation studies have been unable to establish that it is directly connected to status in Phase C. When the two Phase C funerary traditions are 130

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Chapter 7 Analysing Complexity in the Irish single burial tradition

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Suggested Increments of Status for the Cordoned and Collared Urn Tradition burials Pot-less Pit with multiple burial, GG Status 0 Pot-less Pit with multiple burial, GG Status 1 Pot-less Pit with multiple burial, GG Status 2 Pot-less Pit with multiple burial, GG Status 3 Pot-less Pit with single burial, GG Status 0 Pot-less Pit with single burial, GG Status 1 Pot-less Pit with single burial, GG Status 2 Pot-less Pit with single burial, GG Status 3 Pit, multiple burials in a collared / cordoned urn, GG Status 0 Pit, multiple burials in a collared / cordoned urn, GG Status 1 Pit, multiple burials in a collared / cordoned urn, GG Status 2 Pit, multiple burials in a collared / cordoned urn, GG Status 3 Pit with single burial in a collared / cordoned urn, GG Status 0 Pit with single burial in a collared / cordoned urn, GG Status 1 Pit with single burial in a collared / cordoned urn, GG Status 2 Pit with single burial in a collared / cordoned urn, GG Status 3

status value = 0 status value = 1 status value = 2 status value = 3 status value = 1 status value = 2 status value = 3 status value = 4 status value = 1 status value = 2 status value = 3 status value = 4 status value = 2 status value = 3 status value = 4 status value = 5

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Table 7.12 Suggested increments of status for the cordoned and collared urn tradition burial attribute combinations.

looked at collectively it is clear that there is a very large amount of redundancy in the burial ritual of this period, indicating a more complex and ranked society (Saxe 1970), than what had gone before in both Phase A and Phase B.

radiocarbon dating it is impossible to say exactly which pot-less burials are Phase B and which are Phase C, although radiocarbon dating the entire group seems to indicate that the large majority are Phase C (see Chapter 5: Dating graves which contain no pottery).

Mixing between the two Phase C traditions? There are, perhaps inevitably, a number of burials which seem to merge aspects of the two broad traditions, taking elements from both. There are a number of encrusted (11) and vase urn burials (8) which are contained, not within cists or polygonal cists, but within pits. These burials are much more likely to contain grave goods and in particular encrusted urns in pits with grave good Status (2) grave goods (Appendix 3: Table 54). There was also a single collared urn which was found in a rectangular cist. These seem to imply that, perhaps with the passage of time, some of the distinctions were being eroded, with burials attributes being chosen from a pallet composed of elements of both traditions. It is interesting that the movement seems more in the direction of the developed vase tradition adopting elements of the collared and cordoned urn tradition than the reverse. This may suggest, as will be developed below, that status distinctions may have occurred between, as well as internally within, the two traditions.

The cluster analysis used four attributes as inputs, Multiple Burial: Individual Burial, Pot-less : Pot, Grave good absence : Grave good presence and Cist : Pit. The results of the cluster analysis were very interesting. It divided the data set into thirteen clusters. The cluster analysis had an average silhouette value of 0.9, a very high value which indicates distinct and cohesive clusters which are likely to be of interpretative value. The results of the analysis are presented in Figure 7.4 and Table 7.13 below. The individual clusters were then given a status value, in the manner described above for the Phase A cluster analysis. The only divergence from the status value for the clusters, and that presented above for the developed vase tradition and collared and cordoned urn tradition s, is that grave goods were clustered as a simple absent or present, and as such can only have a value of 0 or 1. These cumulative status values can be used to examine the ranking of the individual clusters. In addition it is possible to examine, using cross-tabulation, the relationship of these clusters and their ranking with other burial information. A number of very interesting significant relationships were found and are summarised in Table 7.13. Details of the statistically significant cross-tabulations can be found in Appendix 3: Table 66, 67 and 68.

The cluster analysis of Phase C burials As with Phase A and Phase B, a cluster analysis was carried out on the Phase C burial attributes. This cluster analysis included all the developed vase tradition burials and the collared and cordoned urn tradition burials. It also included all the pot-less burials, whichever burial tradition they were attributed to. In practice this probably means that a few pot-less burials from Phase B were included in this Phase C cluster, but without

Note: No correlation was attempted between these Clusters and grave good class. This was because the status value attributed to the clusters was calculated differently from the other clusters because associations of grave good class with pits seem to indicate an 131

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland inversion of the status associations of cists and pits during Phase C (see Chapter 7: Phase C developed vase tradition grave good associations, and status indicators). To have then cross-tabulated Clusters with grave good class, and to then use status value to look at the grave good associations, would have created a circular argument where cluster status value (informed partly by grave good class) would be compared with grave good class.

The larger pot-less pit cluster, Cluster (8), had a significant over-representation of individual children’s (C) burials, unaccompanied by any grave goods. The multiple cremation burials in vase urns and encrusted urns placed within cists, with no grave goods, Cluster (10), had a significant over-representation of younger children’s (YC) burials. These burials were distinguished by being significantly over-represented in cairns.

Phase C clusters and associations with the age of the interred

With the same status value was Cluster (12), a cluster of individual pot-less cremations in cists with no grave goods and which had a roughly proportional spread of ages.

There are important relationships between Phase C clusters and the age of the interred (Appendix 3: Table 66). This crosstabulation was statistically significant, in fact the chi square and Cramer’s V value of 0.000 suggests that the chance of this being a chance relationship is less than 1 in 1000. The Clusters and their associations with age are presented below in order of cluster status value.

Also with the same status value was Cluster (1), multiple cremation burials in pot-less cists with an overrepresentation of generic child (C) and young child (YC) burials, and a significant over-representation of grave good Status (2) grave goods. The slightly lower status value cluster, Cluster (5), had a spread of ages represented amongst its members. This Cluster was composed of patches of cremated bone placed in often barely detectable depressions or grykes, frequently in cairns, in almost all cases unaccompanied by any funerary pottery. Most of these burials were not accompanied by grave goods but a small number had grave good class (3) grave goods.

The clusters with the highest status values have few children’s burials. The highest status Cluster 6, was composed of individual cremation burials within pits. They are all adult or adolescent burials, no children’s burials were found in this cluster. The next highest status cluster, Cluster (2), was made up of mostly individual burials, their cremated remains placed in encrusted urns within pits, and sometimes accompanied by grave goods. It had likewise no burials of children, but there was an over-representation of adolescent burials (ADL).

The clusters with the lowest status as calculated by the status value, were Clusters (7) and (11). Cluster (7) was composed of multiple cremation burials in a potless pit, unaccompanied by grave goods. There was a significant over-representation of young children (YC) and older children (OC) in this cluster. Cluster (11) was composed of multiple cremations placed in pot-less cists, unaccompanied by grave goods. Young children (YC) were significantly over-represented amongst this cluster.

There were some burials of older children (OC), and generic children (C), with Cluster (9), a cluster composed of individual cremation burials within urns of all types in pits, but with few grave goods. The number of children’s burials was roughly what would be expected by chance.

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Cluster (13), the same status value as Cluster (9), had individual cremation burials in encrusted and vase urns placed within cists, with no grave goods, had a significant over-representation of burials of older children (OC).

The association between certain clusters and the burial of children seems to be a strong one. The chi square and Cramer’s V value for the overall table suggests it is a very significant relationship and the adjusted residual values for each cell within the cross-tabulation table shows which individual relationships are significant. There seems to be a distinction to be drawn between the burial of children in individual burials and the burial of children in multiple burials. Amongst the individual children’s burials, the third highest cluster, Cluster (9), was the highest status cluster to have children’s burials and Cluster (13), just beneath it in status terms, had a very significant over-representation of older children’s (OC) burials. Two clusters, Cluster (4) and Cluster (8) were both clusters of individual burials of children in which generic child (C) burials, were significantly over-

Cluster (3), multiple cremation burials in collared, vase and encrusted urns in pits with an over-representation of grave goods of all types had a proportionate number of older children (OC) and young children (YC) and a spread of adult burials. Cluster (4), had a mix of individual and multiple burials, in pot-less pits, with an over-representation of grave good Status (1) and (3), grave goods and a roughly proportionate spread of ages including a number of generic children’s burials (C). 132

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Chapter 7 Analysing Complexity in the Irish single burial tradition

represented. In the case of the two child (C) burials from Cluster (4) both were accompanied by grave good class (2) grave goods.

Phase C clusters and placement in a cairn / cemetery mound Overall SPSS chi square and Cramer’s V tests judged the relationship between Phase C Cluster and cairn, examined in the crosstabulation of these two variables (Appendix 3: Table 68), to be a significant relationship.

Apart from these burials, all the other clusters, where the burials of children were over-represented, Clusters (10), (1), (7) and (11), in order of status value, were multiple burials. Of the multiple burials of children most are the burials of children accompanying one, or sometimes more than one, adult, although there are occasional examples of children buried along with other children, such as the burial of two older children (OC) with a younger child (YC), in a pot-less cist at Fourknocks, Co. Meath, unaccompanied by any grave goods.

The cluster with the highest status value, Cluster (6) was over-represented in cairn / cemetery mounds, although it fell short of being statistically significant. Cluster (8), a middling status value cluster, was significantly over-represented with cairns / cemetery mounds. This group also had an over-representation of male burials and a significant over-representation of children’s burials.

Phase C clusters and associations with the sex of the interred

Cluster (5) had a significant over-representation in cairn / cemetery mounds. This cluster also had a significant over-representation of grave good class (3) grave goods.

SPSS chi square and Cramer’s V tests judged there to be overall a significant relationship demonstrated by the crosstabulation of cluster and sex (Appendix 3: Table 67), despite the fact that in over half of the Phase C burials it was impossible for the specialist examining the human remains to make a determination of the sex of the individual. In most of the clusters there was no correlation between the cluster and either sex. In four clusters there were correlations, in two clusters significant relationships.

Overall the relationship shown by the crosstabulation of Phase C clusters and cairn / cemetery mound shows that the placement of remains in a cairn is still relevant for, and may still have status implications for, the collared and cordoned urn tradition at this time. It may be that burial in a cairn is being more closely restricted than previously, perhaps only members of certain chiefly lineages are granted the right to use cairns at this time. Perhaps the burials within Cluster (6), which otherwise have a high status value, and which are overrepresented in cairns, are examples of such a group.

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The highest status cluster of all those identified, Cluster (6) (individual cremations mostly within cordoned urns, placed in pits, accompanied by grave goods, often of grave good class (3)), had a significant over-representation of male (M) burials. Out of 25 burials in this cluster eleven were identified as male, three were tentatively identified as male, three positively identified as female and no identification of any kind could be made of eight sets of human remains. By contrast the other cluster with a statistically significant correlation with sex is Cluster (11), which has the lowest status value for any cluster, and in which female burials were significantly over-represented. Cluster (11) is a large cluster, 77 individuals, interred in multiple groups, within pot-less cists and accompanied by no grave goods.

Phase C clusters and pottery class To examine the types of vessels within each cluster the clusters were crosstabulated with pottery class. This had to be done carefully as presence or absence of a vessel was one of the clustering criteria, therefore the pot-less burials were removed from this crosstabulation. SPSS significance tests judged there to be overall a significant relationship demonstrated by the crosstabulation of cluster and pot class (Appendix 3: Table 69). This crosstabulation was statistically significant, in fact the chi square value of 0.000 suggests that the chance of this being a chance relationship is less than 1 in 1000. Some of the individual cells in the crosstabulation table showed very, very statistically significant results.

Cluster (9) also had an over-representation of female burials, but it stopped short of being significant. Cluster (9) is a cluster with the third highest status value, consisting of individual cremation burials, accompanied with funerary urns, placed in pits but with no associated grave goods.

For instance with Cluster (6) there were 13 cordoned urn burials, out of a total of 25 burials in the cluster. Chance would have expected 5.03 cordoned urn burials within this cluster. This very large over-representation results in an adjusted standardised residual of 3.55. An adjusted standardised residual value of 2.0 or greater is the usual threshold of statistical significance. This was therefore a very significant result. Most of the other

Cluster (8), a middle status cluster, composed of individual burials within pot-less pits, without associated grave goods, also had an over-representation of males, but it stopped short of being significant also. 133

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland

Cluster Number

Status

Ages

Sex

grave goods

Vessel

Cist/Pit

Individual / multiple

2

3.2

Ind

Spread

GG1,2

EncUrn+

Cist

I + a few M

6

25

9

47

3

13

19

3

Spread, OC++

4

21

2.2

Ind, C++

3 8

10 12 1 5 7

11

19

19 39 24 47 31 22 25 72

4

2.4 2 2 2 2

1.8 1 1

C-

Ind

Ind

A+ C++ YC++

Spread C+Y+

YC+OC+ YC++

M++

GG1,2,3

Cordoned++

Pit

F+

0GG

Cordoned Collared+ vase urn Pit

Ind

0GG

VaseUrn+EncUrn

Ind

GG1,3

Pot-less

Spread M+

Ind

Spread Ind Ind

Spread F++

GG1,2,

Collared++Enc

0GG

Pot-less

0GG GG2 GG0 0GG

Cist

I

Pit

MI

Pit Pit

Cist

Pot-less++occ Urns

Patch

Pot-less++

0GG

Pot-less++

cairn+

Pot-less Pot-less

cairn

I

VaseUrn++,EncUrn+ Cist

0GG

I

Cist Pit

Cist

M I

M

cairn+++

I

MI

cairn++

M M M

Table 7.13 A summary of the Phase C clusters, Status estimation and their associations with other burial information. Green bands are mostly developed vase tradition clusters, Red bands are clusters with mainly collared and cordoned urn tradition burials, Blue bands are clusters showing a mixing of elements of both traditions. Lilac the ‘apical’ class Cluster (6) is composed largely of cordoned urn burials.

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clusters produced statistically significant correlations with pottery type.

Cluster (2) had an over-representation of encrusted urn burials, but it was just below the threshold of statistical significance. Some unidentified urns occurred in this cluster also. Cluster (9) had an over-representation of

Figure 7.4 Phase C Cluster Analysis

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Chapter 7 Analysing Complexity in the Irish single burial tradition

collared urns, but just below the level of statistical significance. Cluster (13) showed an over-representation of developed vase tradition vessels, encrusted urns and vase urns and a under-representation of collared and cordoned urns. Cluster (3) mixed significant overrepresentations of collared and a proportionate number of encrusted urns, representing both Phase C traditions, whereas Clusters (4) and (8) were entirely Pot-less pit burials. Cluster (10) showed a statistically significant overrepresentation of vase urns and an over-representation of encrusted urns, although it was beneath the level of statistical significance.

Cluster and sex correlations • The cluster with the highest status value has an under-representation of male burials. • The cluster with the lowest status value has a significant over-representation of Male burials. Cluster and age correlations • The clusters with high status value have an overrepresentation of children’s burials. • The Clusters with low status value have no children’s burials. • Spread of adult burials through each cluster.

Clusters (12) and (1) were composed entirely of pot-less cist burials. Cluster (5) was dominated by pot-less burials, this time within pits, although there was one cordoned urn and a few sherds of unidentified urn within this Cluster. Cluster (7) was composed entirely of pot-less pit burials while Cluster (11) was similarly composed of potless burials, in this case placed into cists.

Phase B clusters • Five clusters from four input variables were identified by the analysis. Cluster and age correlations • The cluster with the highest status value has a significant over-representation of mature adults (MA) • The cluster with the second highest status value has an over-representation of older children’s burials (OC) and a significant over-representation of adolescents (ADL). • Middle status cluster had a significant overrepresentation of adult burials. • Clusters with lower status values have a spread of ages, including children and adults.

These results are summarised in Table 7.13. Summary of the results of the Custer analysis and its cross-tabulation with other burial attributes Phase A clusters

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• Four clusters from three input variables were identified by the analysis.

135

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland Cluster and Sex correlations

• Cluster (8) which had a middle status value had a slight over-representation of male burials, but it was below the level of significance

• The cluster with the highest status value has an over-representation of male burials. • The middle status cluster has an overrepresentation of female burials. • The Cluster with the lowest status value has an over-representation of Male burials.

Cluster and cairn / cemetery mound correlations

• Thirteen clusters from four input variables were identified by the analysis.

• Cluster with the highest status value, Cluster (6) has an over-representation of burials placed within cairns / cemetery mounds, below the level of significance. • The middle ranking status value, Cluster (8), was very significantly over-represented within cairns / cemetery mounds. This group also had an over-representation of individual burials, male burials and a very significant over-representation of children’s burials. • The quite low status value, Cluster 5, also had a slight over-representation of burials within cairns. This cluster also had a significant overrepresentation of grave good Class (3) grave goods.

Cluster and age correlations

Cluster and sex correlations

• The clusters with the two highest status values Cluster (6) and Cluster (2) contained no child burials, which was an under-representation, but not a significant one. There was an overrepresentation of adolescent burials in Cluster (2). • There were over-representations of older children in the upper middle status value Cluster (13), an over-representation of generic children’s burials in Cluster (8) and an over-representation of young children’s burials in Cluster (10). • There were over-representations of young children in the low status value Clusters (7) and (11). • The children’s burials in Cluster (13) were individual burials, the children’s burials in Clusters (8), (10), (7) and (11) were multiple burials, in almost all cases with one or more adults.

• Cluster (6) showed a very significant overrepresentation of cordoned urns • Cluster (9) had an over-representation of collared urns. • Cluster (13) showed an over-representation of developed vase tradition vessels, encrusted urns and Vase urns. • Cluster (3) significant over-representation of collared and a proportionate number of encrusted urns. • Cluster (10) showed a statistically significant over-representation of vase urns and an overrepresentation of encrusted urns.

Cluster and grave good Class correlations • The second highest status cluster, had an overrepresentation of grave goods assemblages. Older children were also over-represented and adolescents very over-represented in this cluster Phase C clusters

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Cluster and sex correlations • The cluster with the highest status value, Cluster (6) has a significant over-representation of male burials. • The cluster with the lowest status value, Cluster (11), has a significant over-representation of female burials. • Cluster (9) which was just below the highest status value clusters had an over-representation of female burials, but it was below the level of significance. • Cluster (9) which had a middle status value had a slight over-representation of female burials, but it was below the level of significance. 136

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Chapter 8 Discussion status funerals. While the association of older children with the two highest clusters in Phase A is less than significant, it is nevertheless interesting. It is exactly what MacDonald (2001) would expect in an un-ranked society, which other aspects of Phase A burial ritual suggest it may be.

Phase A social structure In Chapter 6 a series of burial indicators for various types of societies, using the terminology of multilinear social evolution, was proposed. Phase A seems to fit most closely with un-ranked societies, where an unlimited number of individuals can achieve status through personal qualities and accomplishments. Five criteria for an un-ranked society were proposed 1. 2. 3. 4.

It seems likely therefore that Phase A is a society where there is status inequality, but that it is not ranked, in that all persons with the appropriate qualities and accomplishments can achieve status.

There should be a limited redundancy of burial ritual, relative to other societies and periods Generally adults should be over-represented in the higher status groups as they have had time to achieve status. There should be an absence of burial attributes of status which crosscut age and sex. There may be evidence for membership of sodalities, through the presence of certain grave goods perhaps, which otherwise seem unrelated to status.

Phase B social structure The increasing complexity of Phase B burial ritual is suggested by; the greater number of possible burial attribute combinations (Table 7.5 and 7.5), the graph of the log10 of the number of burial attribute combinations against Phase (Figure 7.1) and the range of calculated status values for Phase B, compared with the earlier Phase A. Saxe’s Hypothesis no. 5 (1970) would suggest that this implies a more ranked society than found previously

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However, because society is not being propelled to reflect and recreate a potentially weak social order, there may be less urgency in implementing these practices in an un-ranked society, leading Ames (2015) to suggest that negative evidence, lack of strong associations and correlations, was indicative of un-ranked societies.

In Chapter 6 a series of possible identifiers of different types of ranked societies were proposed. These were: Burial indicators expected in a ‘big man’ type society 5. Adult males, in their prime, should be overrepresented in high status graves, 6. With a corresponding lessening of status visible in the burials of older males 7. Women and children excluded from the highest status graves 8. Otherwise few attributes should cross-cut age and sex 9. Little more redundancy in the funerary ritual compared with un-ranked societies.

In two, at least, of these categories Phase A burial seems to indicate an un-ranked society. Compared to Phase A and B there is a marked uniformity of ritual, there are no indications of significant relationships crosscutting age and sex and while there are occasional grave goods they do not appear to have status associations. The criteria for an un-ranked society which is not reflected in Phase A burials is the over-representation of adults in the burials with the highest status values. Instead there is a not significant over-representation of children. Firstly being not significant it is possible that this is simply chance. However it is also possible that the emotions of loss are leading to children being given a slightly higher status burial then might otherwise be the case. It has been suggested by MacDonald (2001) that the deaths of older children and adolescents elicit the strongest emotional response in many societies. He suggests that in ‘egalitarian’ societies, by which he means unranked, older children and adolescents will receive the most elaborate burials because of their lost labour and reproductory potential, noting that these societies typically do not elaborate the funerals of older adults and infants. In more complex societies MacDonald suggests that convention will lessen the emotional tendency to give older children and adolescents high

Burial attributes of ranked societies with office holders who achieve rank. 10. Societies, with permanent offices, display greater social complexity and thus greater burial ritual complexity (Binford 1971: 233), relative to un-ranked or ‘big man’ type societies. 11. Over-representation of adults in high status burials. 12. As successful adults achieve formal offices they may be less vulnerable to losing status with age, so older adults represented in highest status burials 13. Children are likely to be under-represented in the highest status burials. 137

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland Burial attributes of ranked societies in which ranking is ascribed 1. More complex burial rituals than achieved office societies. 2. Significant differentiation between the status of different groups in the burial record, superordinate and subordinate dimensions. 3. Burials of children in high status graves. 4. An ‘apical class’ of burials should be visible. This group should be small, male and opulent. 5. A correlation between ‘prestige goods’ and other indicators of high status burial.

these societies, either in the political or subsistence economies, there is no need for the structures of coercion, kinship and ideology, which are required for an ascribed rank society, a chiefdom. The suggested correlates for an achieved rank society, stated in Section 4.6 and repeated above, suggest that there should be a group of burials at the top of society which are adult and possibly in many cases older adults, as the prestige of the office will protect the occupier from being overthrown when a new, young, challenger appears. The significant over-representation of adolescents in the second highest cluster (Cluster (5)) and the over-representation (although not significant) of children in the same cluster is very interesting. As noted MacDonald (2001) has suggested that the emotional response to the death of older children and adolescents tends to be reflected, in ‘egalitarian’ societies by the presence of children in the highest status burials. However as societies become more complex convention mutes this response, with ascribed and achieved status, along with ideology, becoming the main determinant of burial ritual. With the significant over-representation of adolescents in the second highest status value cluster, Cluster (5), it seems likely that there is an emotional response to the loss of someone young, to their reproductive and labour potential, but that it is muted, compared to Phase A, by the emergent ranking in the society, which constrains individual behaviour.

Phase B does seem to display additional redundancy in the archaeological record, with pottery in graves now an option, and a ritual of cremation and inhumation in contemporary use. This is also reflected in the number of possible burial attribute combinations, the logarithmic graph of the number of burial attribute combinations for this phase and the range of status values for these combinations noted above. This probably indicates a greater increase in social complexity than would be likely to indicate a ‘big man’ type society, which is only marginally more ranked than an un-ranked society. In addition, although the highest social group has a less than statistically significant over-representation of men, it is not exclusively male and many of the cluster are mature adults, something which Wason (1994) suggests should be missing from ‘big man’ burial, as the big man’s power, not backed by ideology, kinship or force beyond his own abilities, will decline with age.

Phase C social structure The significance of the correlations between Phase C clusters and age and sex

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It also seems that there is little evidence of Phase B burials being indicative of ascribed ranking or chiefdoms having emerged in Ireland at this time. There is not evidence for an ‘apical class’ sitting above the rest of the burial groups. Also there were very few burials which contained anything which could be considered ‘prestige’ items and when they do they do not correlate with other potential status indicators. Perhaps most importantly there does not seem to have been a clear distinction between subordinate and superordinate groups of burials, there is status differentiation, but it is a continuum, with no sharp breaks.

The very high value of the average silhouette value for the cluster analysis, and the very low values of chi square and Cramer’s V shown in the crosstabulation tables between cluster and age, sex and presence or absence of a cairn demonstrates, to a high degree of certainty, that the cluster analysis has produced meaningful clusters which relate to Phase C society. It should therefore be possible to use these clusters and their statistical associations to examine Phase C society. In Chapter 6 a set of criteria for what should be expected in the burial rituals of a ranked society in which status was achieved was proposed.

A third possibility is that in Ireland during Phase B societies tended to be organised as achieved rank groups, with a limited number of permanent offices, where people compete to achieve these offices by their personal achievements and abilities, but where there is no kin based inheritance of office. The increased complexity demonstrated by the number of burial attribute combinations, compared to Phase A, and the wider range of status values for these burial attribute combinations, certainly suggests that this society has more structural complexity, and permanent achieved offices are consistent with that. However, as there is no widespread control of the means of production in

These were: Burial attributes of ranked societies with office holders who achieve rank 1. Societies, with permanent offices, greater social complexity and burial ritual complexity, relative to un-ranked or ‘Big man’ type societies. 2. Over-representation of adults in high status burials. 138

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Chapter 8 Discussion

3.

4.

As successful adults achieve formal offices they may be less vulnerable to losing status with age, so older adults represented in highest status burials Children are likely to be under-represented in the highest status burials.

Criterion No. 2 and 3 Peebles and Kus (1977) suggest that it should be possible to detect two broad classes of burial, a lower subordinate class and a higher superordinate class and that there should be some form of ranking pyramid, visible for the superordinate classes in a ranked society society, with the apical class smaller than lesser superordinate groups.

The numbers of burial attribute combinations in the two main burial traditions indicate that Phase C society was more complex than Phase B, this in itself is an indication of a society more ranked than the achieved ranking of Phase B. Looking at the results of the Cluster analysis and the resulting crosstabulation of age, sex and placement in a cairn also seem to confirm this. Criterion 2 and 4 for Achieved Ranking suggests that there should be adults but few children in high status clusters. There are high status clusters which have burials of children within them, and some which have an over-representation of children, such as Cluster 13, an upper middle cluster with a significant overrepresentation of older children, middle ranking Cluster 8 which had a significant over-representation of children, and middle ranking Cluster 10 which had a significant over-representation of young children.

If the status values of clusters are grouped together into ‘bins’ of status value 1-1.9, 2-2.9, 3-3.9 and 4, and the numbers of individuals in each ‘bin’ plotted, the resulting plot (Figure 8.1) does describe the ranking pyramid predicted by Peebles and Kus (1977), Criterion No. 3, with the frequency of each burial group decreasing from the middle status upwards. This suggests that there are three broad classes of burial in Phase C society: a low subordinate burial group with a status value of 1 to 1.9 which make up 28.5% of burials, a higher subordinate group status values 2 to 2.9 making 41.5% of burials, a superordinate group status value 3-3.9 making up 19% and an elite status value 4 which consists of 8% of burials. This elite group appears to be the apical class. Criterion no. 4 that there should be burials of children in high status graves also seems to be fulfilled. There are certainly clusters of high status value which contain children’s burials. In particular Cluster (13), has a significant over-representation of the burials of older children (OC). As status value drops there are the beginnings of multiple burials with children, such as Cluster (4). The burials of children in clusters of lower status value were typically multiple burials, often with adults.

A set of criteria were also proposed for ranked societies in which status was ascribed: Burial attributes of ranked societies in which ranking is ascribed 1. More complex burial rituals than achieved office societies. 2. Significant differentiation between the status of different groups in the burial record, superordinate and subordinate dimensions. 3. Evidence for a ranking pyramid. 4. Burials of children in high status graves. 5. An ‘apical class’ of small, male and opulent burials should be visible. 6. A correlation between ‘prestige goods’ and other indicators of high status burial.

Criterion No. 5 Peebles and Kus (1977) suggest that ranked chiefdoms, which are societies where status is ascribed, should have an ‘apical’ class, briefly mentioned above, at the very top of society which should be composed of adult males. Cluster (6), the cluster with the highest status value of any Phase C cluster, has a significant over-representation of male burials and contains no children’s burials within its membership. In addition, there was an over-representation of this cluster’s membership and placement in cairns, although it was just short of being statistically significant. This contrasts with Phase C burial as a whole. The, albeit not statistically significant, association of this mostly male, all adult cluster, with cairns, may suggest that access to these ancient places of burial was becoming restricted to a very small part of the community. Saxe’s hypothesis No. 8 (1970) suggests that formal cemeteries were maintained by kin based descent groups who use the authority of the ancestors to control land and resources. This may be evidence of a small, elite, group trying to appropriate cairns for this function.

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Can the clusters revealed by the cluster analysis of Phase C be matched to these criteria? When the clusters are sorted by their status value, it is clear that in many ways they can be. Criterion No. 1 The complexity of Phase C society, relative to Phase A and B, has already been addressed by the examination of the degree of redundancy in the Phase C burial ritual revealed by the number of possible combinations of burial attribute combinations, the plotting of log of the number of possible burial attribute combinations and the range of status values for each Phase. This suggests that there was an increase in social complexity from Phase A to Phase B, which increased further with Phase C. 139

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland

Figure 8.1 The Ranking Pyramid: Numbers of individuals for each status value in Phase C.

Criterion No. 6 Unfortunately, since presence of grave goods was one of the criteria used to calculate the clusters it is impossible to examine it statistically separate from the clusters themselves. However it is notable that the highest status value, Cluster 6, the apparent apical class, are all accompanied by grave goods are, in most cases the higher grave good class 2 and 3 grave goods.

Strauss 1963: 133). At Gallery Pond where the society was differentiated into two moieties O’Shea (1984) found that, the mortuary practice could be divided into two roughly equally sized groups, with similar demographic composition, with other classes of mortuary distinction cross-cutting the group with horizontal distinctions (such as fraternal organisations, sodalities, as opposed to vertical distinctions: social status, caste, class etc) represented by attributes of approximately equal energy expenditure.

A dual organisation type society?

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The cluster analysis seems to reinforce the suggestion that there are two broad, at least partly contemporary, burial traditions in use during Phase C, the developed vase tradition and the collared and cordoned urn tradition. Even though pottery type was not of itself a clustering criteria (just presence or absence of a vessel) many of the clusters are predominately of one or other burial tradition, with only two clusters composed of a reasonably equal mix of representatives of traditions. This also seems to strongly suggest that this cluster analysis is modeling the actual Phase C society quite closely. The coloured annotation of Table 7.13 shows the interleaving of these traditions in clusters with all levels of status value, apart from the highest, Cluster (6). There is duality to Phase C burial practice which must reflect some kind of duality within society.

In the context of Irish Early Bronze Age single burials there are a number of indications that in Phase C the collared and cordoned urn tradition burials had, collectively, a slightly higher status than the developed vase tradition burials. The highest status value cluster, Cluster (6), has a very significant over-representation of cordoned urns and is associated with placement in cairns and grave good class 3 grave goods. Also, as has already been noted, there seems to be a greater tendency for the developed vase tradition to adopt practices from collared and cordoned urn tradition than the other way around. The developed vase tradition, with grave good class (2) grave goods, being more likely to be found in pits, seems to point at the collared and cordoned urn tradition being the burial tradition of the dominant group. That is not to say that there are not developed vase tradition burials which display greater status that some collared and cordoned urn tradition burials, but the ‘apical’ class of Phase C Cluster (6) burials, individual male cremation burials, largely in cordoned urns, often with grave good class (3) grave goods, placed in a pit, sometimes placed within a cairn, is more a part of the collared and cordoned urn tradition, with 18 representatives in Cluster (6) as opposed to the seven developed vase tradition burials found within this cluster. This would be typical of dual organisation societies where one moiety is usually dominant (Levi Strauss 1963: 133 and Wason 1994). Levi Strauss(1963: 10) suggests a number of possible reasons for the emergence of dual organisation type societies:

A possible explanation for this is that for all or part of Phase C Early Bronze Age Society in Ireland was split into two separate groups, who practised slightly different burial practices, but lived in close proximity to each other, at least at some times, in some parts of the country. They would not have been part of separate societies however, they would have been two parts of a single society, a dual organisation type society (LeviStrauss 1963: 133). Burial variations are not unknown with a dual organisation type society. Amongst the Winnebago of the US Midwest, there were two exogamous moieties, who had prescribed rights and duties to the other including conducting the other moiety’s funerals (Levi 140

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Chapter 8 Discussion

• Migration of one group into the territory of another. • Infusion of two neighbouring groups. • An arrangement to ensure marriage partners. • A belief system organised around two sets of antithetical behaviour and rituals deemed essential for the functioning of society.

are over-represented in cairns, although falling below the level of statistical significance. This may nevertheless be important. It looks like what one might expect if access to certain cemeteries, specifically ancient ones, was being restricted by an elite group. Earle points out (1997) these are often inherently unstable societies, with elite groups trying to consolidate their power in the face of competitors. Attempts to restrict access to certain classes of cemeteries is simply another way of an established elite trying to reinforce their position by an appeal to the ancestors.

The two Phase C burial traditions, the developed vase tradition and the collared and cordoned urn tradition are differentiated by the much deeper roots of the developed vase tradition. As noted above there is much more continuity with earlier practice in Ireland with the Developed Urn Tradition. The collared and cordoned urn tradition have more recent links to burial practice within Britain. The links between Phase A, B and C, burial practice in Ireland and Britain is discussed in greater detail below but the concept of two broad groups in Ireland in Phase C, one with much stronger British links, by whatever mechanism, trade, peer polity interaction, or even migration, which become ‘infused’ to form a single dual organisation society, seems to fit the evidence well.

So what of the small number of Phase C burials which are sometimes placed in cairns but which do not have high status values? One cluster, Cluster (5), consists of 22 unprotected cremation burials placed within cairns, and a second cluster Cluster (8) mostly, cremations (33 cremations, 6 inhumations) in pits, unaccompanied by pottery vessels or artefacts. Some of the Cluster (5) burials, like the examples from Kilmore, Co. Westmeath (Lucas et al. 1960), are simply non standard burials of the cordoned and collared urn tradition, placed with grave good class (3) grave goods, but accompanied with a vessel, rather than placed in it. The burial at Kiltierny, Co. Fermanagh (Daniells et al. 1977) is for instance placed with a cordoned urn, rather than in it. There are two burials in this cluster from the tumulus at Loughrea, Co. Galway (Coffey 1904), both are unprotected. The first is a bone patch accompanied by a cordoned urn, the second is very unusual, an inhumation, laid beside an entire horse skeleton, it may be significantly later. The remainder of the Cluster (5) members are all patches of cremated bone placed into grykes within the cairns. There are no radiocarbon dates for Cluster (5) and it is possible that some of these small patches of bone inserted into the cairn are not part of the potless-pit burial class, but examples of later Bronze Age token cremation. Cluster (8) has within its membership a significant over-representation of children’s cremation burials, but there are also pot-less pit burials of cremated and inhumed adults also. The children’s burials can be explained as the burials of the children of the superordinate class this, however, does not explain the pot-less burials of the adults. There is only a single reliable radiocarbon date for any of these burials OxA3258 3310 ± 30, from Poulawack Grave 5 (Hencken and Movius 1935), one of the apparently late group of potless inhumation burials, which calibrated in Oxcal 4.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2015) using Intcal 13 (Reimer et al 2013), to 1661 to 1509BC (95.4%).

Phase C: a prestige goods chiefdoms based society?

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Earle (1997) in his discussion of the emergence of complex chiefdoms attempts to increase the utility of the very broad chiefdom class by suggesting a typology of various types of chiefdom. He suggests very simple warlike chiefdoms, which he calls Hillfort Chiefdoms; complex stratified chiefdoms based around control of the subsistence economy, called Staple Finance Chiefdoms; and a type of intermediate complexity called the Prestige Goods Chiefdom, a society where ranking is ascribed, and the ruling elite wield power through ideology, manifested in their control of the ‘political’ economy and the prestige goods which are its products. It is perhaps this middle group, the Prestige Goods Chiefdom which most closely compares to what is visible in Phase C. The degree of social complexity demonstrates that society was becoming more ranked than the simple ranking observed in Phase B. This is supported by the cluster analysis which shows an ‘apical’ class and two broad classes of burial below this. The distribution of high status grave goods within Phase C graves matches this model, with the graves of the elite group having many more high status grave good assemblages than the other groups. This suggests that ideological control is being asserted through the control of Prestige Goods. However there are indications that ideology is being used in other ways also. Initial statistical analysis revealed no link between status and placement of a body in a cairn or bounded cemetery in Phase C. The closer level of introspection allowed by the cluster analysis shows, however, that the highest status burials

Phase C conclusions Phase C seems to have had two broadly contemporary, parallel, funerary traditions, the developed vase tradition and the collared and cordoned urn tradition. In many areas these two traditions probably existed side 141

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland by side at the same time. Each of these traditions seems individually to be at least comparable with the degree of ritual complexity displayed in Phase B. Collectively however they suggest a society with a greater level of complexity than Phase B, which Saxe hypothesis No. 5 (1970) would suggest is consistent with a more ranked society.

Irish copper could have been brought into Scotland in the Chalcolithic Period, and Irish bowls. The era of the appearance of the single burial tradition in Ireland is the same approximate period as Needham’s (2005) fission horizon, when the previously constrained beaker styles of Britain split into a number of new variants. It is likely that the Irish single burial tradition emerged in the cultural milieu of metalworkers and traders moving between Ireland and Scotland at this time. The rich beaker grave, of a man, identified by isotopic analysis as being from northeast Ireland, at Culduthel, Inverness (Downes et al 2012: 22) is evidence of this kind of interaction, a person from Ireland buried in the local manner in Scotland. A radiocarbon date from the burial provided a calibrated date of 2280 to 2030 BC, which is broadly compatible with the era when the single burial tradition was first appearing in Ireland.

Cluster analysis appears to confirm this finding with thirteen different clusters identified. An analysis of the status value of these clusters indicates the existence of ‘superordinate’ and ‘subordinate’ classes, but with a clear ‘apical’ class of individual, male, adult, typically cordoned urn burials accompanied, in many cases, by high status grave goods. There is a ranking pyramid amongst the superordinate and apical class, with fewer numbers of individuals as status value increases. Phase C society in Ireland was probably organised into Prestige Goods Chiefdoms which were ranked and where status was ascribed.

Wilkin (2011) has speculated that there was actual Irish settlement in Scotland, identified by bowl burials, which, he believes, occasioned a reaction from locals who developed a form of elongated necked beakers in response. He may be accused of projecting recent history on to the past however, and seeing ‘pots as people’, without establishing the necessary theoretical framework for judging his assertion. He, nevertheless, highlights that there are groups moving between Ireland and Scotland, probably connected with the trade in copper, and adopting and creating new rituals and practices. The adoption of single burial and the use of vessels which seem to have some beaker heritage, at the approximate time of the Needham’s ‘fission horizon’, and their spread across parts of Ireland and Scotland in the years after 2200BC, is the likely origin of the Irish single burial tradition.

The parallel structure of this society with two broad burial traditions often existing side by side in the same region / polity, interleaved with each other in status value terms, may indicate some sort of dual organisation social structure, as described by Levi-Strauss (1963: 133), where society is divided into two moieties, with one moiety usually slightly dominant, with this moiety system replicated in chiefdoms across much, if not all, of Ireland. Continuity and change in the single burial tradition Why does the single burial tradition appear in Ireland at this time?

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The single burial tradition has clear similarities to the beaker burial traditions visible across north and west Europe. Irish beakers prior to the single burial tradition encapsulated elements of the Atlantic and North British beakers (Case 1995), but there is little evidence for beakers accompanying single burials. These Irish beakers were probably not the direct ancestors of the single burial tradition.

Fundamental change: developments in Phase B Phase B is the era of the first emerging complexity in the Irish Chalcolithic- Early Bronze Age, the era when cremation first appears in the archaeological record and the period when the single burial tradition first spreads to Munster. It is likely that each of these events is intimately intertwined. Until Phase B the single burial tradition seemed to avoid Munster, despite the important role that Munster must have played as the source of Ireland’s, and much of Britain’s, copper (O’Brien 2004, Northover et al 2001). In Phase B we see the spread of the single burial tradition to Munster, in an era of change in the single burial tradition, indicating broader change in Irish society at this time. As we have noted Phase A of the single burial tradition provides little evidence for ranking within society. It is not a society without social inequality, but status is probably achieved with as many offices of status as there are individuals qualified to fill them.

The single burial tradition, as we have seen above, appears first in eastern Ireland, possibly in Ulster. It is likely that the single burial tradition appears there because of interactions between Britain and Ireland. Wilkin (2011) has observed how there is a tendency for beakers and food vessels in eastern and central Scotland to avoid each other. Counties like Aberdeenshire have many beakers, but few food fessels, where as adjoining counties like Perth and Angus, all on possible routes through Scotland for Irish copper, are dominated by food vessel burials. He has also noted the similarity between globular short necked beakers from the Great Glen in Scotland, another route by which 142

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Chapter 8 Discussion

There is evidence that during Phase B there was a considerable increase in social complexity, consistent with a fundamental change in society. The cluster analysis of the burial record suggests that there is evidence for ranking. This is not a ‘big man’ type society but there are probably a limited number of permanent officeholders, who achieve their rank.

In Ireland the adoption of cremation does not appear to have been instant or absolute, although it is clear that in time cremation became dominant. A similar picture appears across Britain also, and much of western Europe (Wilkin 2015), with cremation gradually replacing inhumation as the dominant treatment of the dead. It is not inconceivable that, especially in northern parts of Britain, it may have been the intercourse between Ireland and Scotland across the North Channel which enabled the spread of ideas of cremation, at least in northern Britain. Why did cremation eclipse inhumation? It may have been a conceptual change. Hertz commented (2009: 43) that an advantage of cremation for many societies, was that it lessened the ‘Intermediary Period’ when a soul might be amongst mortals, with its attendant risks. Cremation could have become dominant within Early Bronze Age Ireland because it avoided the dangers associated with having the disembodied souls of the dead potentially within the realm of the living for an extended period of time. Cremation, while requiring a significant energy input, insured against this danger.

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William O’Brien (2012) has coined the term ‘Lunula Chiefs’, as a catchy label for more complex, ranked, groups in north / central Munster in his Late Chalcolithic, broadly the same as Phase A. He is rightly coy about whether the power emanating from Munster is the power of individuals or wider elite groups, but he distinguishes it from the segementary societies and small scale copper mining of southwest Munster. He sees the utilisation of metal, and its trade and exchange, as a source of power within Munster. These Munster groups in Phase A, eschew the single burial tradition and continue to utilise wedge tombs, practising a mixture of inhumation and cremation. During Phase B they adopt the single burial tradition, but the single burial tradition, at about the same time, begins to use cremation and shows the first indications of ranking.

There has been an assumption in Irish and British Archaeology that the practice of in-urned cremation is something which spread east to west from Britain into Ireland. While it is reasonable to assume that certain ceramic types which are used in in-urned cremation, such as the collared urn, did spread from Britain to Ireland, it is not the same thing to say that the practice of in-urned cremation necessarily arrived in Ireland from Britain. As noted above, the developed vase tradition shows a significant amount of continuity with earlier practices and may also pre-date the collared and cordoned urn tradition. There are in addition within the database a number of instances of vases and bowls actually being used to contain the cremated remains of the dead. At Ballyoskill, Co. Kilkenny, within a cist, an upright bipartite vase, contained the cremated remains of an adult of indeterminate sex, accompanied by a second bipartite vase and a third smaller bipartite vase, small enough to be considered a miniature vessel (Prendergast and Ryan 2011). A radiocarbon date GRA-14605, 3710 ± 50BP from the human remains calibrated in Oxcal 4.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2015) using Intcal 13 (Reimer et al 2013), to 2278 to 1954BC(95.4%). At Harristown Grave 3, Co. Waterford (Hawkes 1941), cremated remains of a mature adult male, were found in a cist within a bipartite vase. At Curglassan, Co. Tyrone the remains of a mature adult male were found in a pit within an inverted ribbed bowl. These might even be reviving earlier Irish traditions from the later Neolithic. Cremations in Carrowkeel Ware pots having been found at Monknewtown, Co. Meath (Sweetman 1976) and Ballynahatty (Hartwell 1998) and cremation burials within grooved ware pots, placed within pits, at Lyrath, Co. Kilkenny (Carlin and Brück 2012: 196).

It is unfortunate that there is not a more refined chronology available for wedge tombs. Two major studies have been conducted looking at the dating of this tomb type. Brindley and Lanting (1992), because of the technical limitations of the time, dated unburnt bone and charcoal, but not cremated bone. Schulting et al 2008 dated Largantea, Co. Derry / Londonderry, using both cremated and unburnt bone, but this study is restricted to one site, and may not be representative of the whole country. These studies collectively suggest that wedge tomb construction commenced around 2500BC, and in Munster at least, continued until about 2100BC. Brindley and Lanting’s (1992) dating of the ending of wedge tomb construction in Munster may fit the apparent absence of Phase A Single Burials from that province, suggesting that wedge tomb burial continues through what is Phase A of the single burial tradition in the rest of the country. Interestingly in a number of wedge tombs simple bowls have been found placed into the tomb in a similar manner to insertions of beaker pottery, perhaps emphasising the similarity of bowls and beaker pottery, allowing them to be, like beaker pottery, used in both megalithic and single burial rituals. It could be suggested that it is from a synthesis of the Phase A single burial tradition and the ‘Lunula Chiefs’ of Munster that the Phase B, all island, single burial tradition emerges, and with it the beginnings of a ranked society. The blending of these two different traditions leading to new social arrangements across the island. 143

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland Cremations have been found inserted into a small number of northern English food vessels also (Wilkin 2013: 131). It is unfortunate that there are not more radiocarbon dates available for these cremations within vases and bowls. The date from Ballyoskill certainly suggests that in-vessel cremation, in the Irish single burial tradition, may have had its origins somewhat earlier than we might otherwise think, probably in Phase B. It seems to be a reliable date, but further dates from similar burials are needed. Nevertheless it provides a possible start point for the consideration of in-urned cremation as a practice with deep roots in Ireland, and possibly north Britain also. Wilkin (2013) in his examination of food vessel and food vessel urn dates from Britain suggests that food vessel urns may have appeared in Scotland as early as the late twenty second century BC, (although Wilkins use of charcoal dates in some parts of his analysis may cause some of his suggested date ranges to err a little on the early side) which once again might suggest that interactions between Ireland and Scotland lead to similar and closely interrelated developments on either side of the North Channel at this time.

elements of these northwest English urns may bear influence from Irish and Scottish vases (ibid). Nevertheless, the interaction between Ireland and Scotland is likely to have produced the context in which collared urns spread to Ireland. Although in the past certain writers like Kavanagh (1976) have suggested settlers from Britain as the likely mechanism for the spread of ceramic types, a view roundly criticised by Brindley (1980), there is little evidence, apart from the presence of novel pot forms, to suggest large numbers of migrants arriving in Ireland from Britain. It has been noted above that the idea of in-urned cremation existed in Ireland before collared urns appeared. Chapter 5: Dating single burial tradition funerary pottery shows how cremation in encrusted and vase urns probably pre-dates collared urns and the apparently occasional practice of placing cremated remains within vases and bowls possibly pre-dates even that. That this is a practice possibly mirrored in northern England, reinforces and provides a context for this. It is likely, given that the conceptual framework for in-urned cremation may have already existed in Ireland, and the long standing interaction around the axis that is the North Channel, that new fashions like collared urns, may have found easy transmission, without large migrations. Their distribution within Ireland is, as Kavanagh noted (1976) an eastern and northeastern one and it is likely that it does mirror the locations of those groups who had most interaction with groups in Britain.

The first bronze chiefs: the emergence of a ranked society where status is ascribed in the Irish Early Bronze Age

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Phase C of the single burial tradition shows another increase in the level of social complexity in Ireland and cluster analysis reveals the signature of a society where ranking was ascribed, probably conforming to what Earle calls a Prestige Goods chiefdom (Earle 1997). This type of society typically has control over a political, prestige economy, but does not control the entire subsistence economy, which would be the indicator of a more complex type of stratified society. Phase C society had two broad burial traditions, the developed vase tradition and the collared and cordoned urn tradition co-existing, often in the same region, and even in the same cemetery. This may have been a dual organisation type society where many chiefdoms were subdivided into two moieties.

The era of the single burial tradition is a time when, generally, the archaeological record in Ireland and Britain begins to move closer together. Western Britain and Ireland have an oscillating relationship, periods when the archaeological record seems very similar and periods when it seems to diverge. Wilkin (2015) sees the bell beaker phenomenon as an interruption in a continuity of Irish and British interactions, a continuity present through the grooved ware era, and which returns to its long term norm, of broadly synchronous practices across the two islands during the Early Bronze Age.

Phase A and B have both demonstrated how Ireland was not isolated in this era. The initial emergence of the single burial tradition may have been the result of seamless interactions between groups in Ireland and Scotland, with individuals moving between both and the mutual adoption and adaption of styles and rituals, against a backdrop of the copper trade. It is likely however that the significance of the trade in copper between Ireland and Britain was decreasing by Phase C (Bray and Pollard 2012), yet there still seems to be evidence of interaction. Collared urns do seem to have been in use in Britain before Ireland, with the greatest similarity between Irish and Series 2 northwest English examples (Longworth 1984). Longworth entertains, before dismissing, the possibility that some decorative

Phase C is a period where there is the appearance of increasing complexity and ranking in British Early Bronze Age society, as well as in Ireland. In southwest England Burgess (1980) notes that the small number of very opulent graves scattered amongst a range of simpler grave types is in keeping with a ‘structured society’ which he goes on to describe as a chiefdom. Unfortunately there is little radiocarbon chronology available for these Wessex 1 burials. Bone from a single inhumation burial, West Overton G1, found with a razor / knife, a crutch headed bronze pin and a small bronze axe of Willerby type (Needham et al 2010), has been dated SUERC-26203 to 3550 ±35 bp, which calibrated in Oxcal 4.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2015) using Intcal 13 (Reimer et al 2013), to gives a date range of 2020 to 1710 BC 144

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Chapter 8 Discussion

(95.4%) or 1950-1780BC (68.2%). This range mostly falls within the first half of what would be Phase C in Ireland or Needham’s Phase 3 (Needham 1996).

Intcal 13 (Reimer et al 2013), to 1894-1693 BC (95.4%) and 1877-1750 BC(68.2%). At the Mound of the Hostages, Co. Meath (O’Sullivan 2005) a cremation burial of indeterminate age and sex was found placed in a collared urn accompanied by a dagger of Waddell’s Class 3, and a plano-convex knife. A radiocarbon date was obtained from cremated bone from this grave, GrA-17321, 3445 ± 35, which calibrated, in Oxcal 4.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2015) using Intcal 13 (Reimer et al 2013), to 1881-1665 (95.4%) and 17801691BC (68.2%).

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At about the same time burials quite similar to Wessex I burials are occurring in Ireland. A relatively recent excavation at Drumahoe, Co. Derry / Londonderry (Donnelly and Ward 2010) has uncovered the burial of an adult male in a cist accompanied by a sheathed bronze dagger of Waddell’s Class 3, a dagger class which resembles an Armorico-British dagger, a type which has been associated the Wessex I Culture. A radiocarbon date has been obtained from the human remains from the grave, UBA-13453, of 3565 ±21. This calibrated in Oxcal 4.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2015) using Intcal 13 (Reimer et al 2013), to give a range of 20101786BC (95.4%) and 1938-1891BC (68.2%), with a 91.8% chance of falling between 1976 and 1878BC. It is, more or less, contemporary with the Wessex 1 date from West Overton. An inhumation in a cist accompanied by a vase and a cremation sandwiched between two slabs, placed in a cairn, on the prominent Topped Mountain in Co. Fermanagh (Plunkett and Coffey 1898) is also reminiscent of Wessex I burials. It was accompanied by an Armorico-British style dagger and a fragment of a gold mount. A number of radiocarbon dates were obtained from this burial by Anna Brindley (Brindley 2007). These dates, however, varied greatly and Brindley, probably correctly, suggested that they suffer from contamination. Brindley believed that one date, from the cremation sandwiched between the slabs in the cist, was reliable: GRA-1461, 3570 ±40, which calibrates to 2029-1774 (95.4) and 2010-1881 (68.2%), broadly similar to the Drumahoe and West Overton dates..

At Harristown, Co. Cork, in a secondary context, in a wedge tomb the cremated remains of a young man, were found inside a collared urn, accompanied by a sandstone bead and a dagger of Waddell’s Class 3 (Hawkes 1941). Two radiocarbon dates have been obtained one from the cremated remains from this burial, GrA-14756 3760 ±40 and one from charcoal GrN-11032 3860±60 however both of these dates are problematic and have been excluded from analysis for reasons detailed in Chapter 5. Some, at least, of these in-urned cremations are contemporary with what, in southwest England, would be called Wessex I. The implication of these dates is that there is a time possibly around 1950BC, when there was opulent, initially inhumation, burial taking place in Ireland in a manner that was very similar to contemporary inhumation burials in Wessex. A century or so later these Wessex I style artefacts were still being deposited in funerary deposits but they are being used as part of in-urned cremations, often with grave goods like plano-convex knives, which would be unlikely to be found in a similar context in Wessex.

Wessex parallels are also possible for the apparently disturbed burial from Liscahane, near Macroom, Co. Cork where an amber dagger pommel was found, close to a fragmented encrusted urn (Cahill 2006). Amber is rare in Early Bronze Age Ireland, another example of a find of amber from an Early Bronze Age burial comes from Knockane, also in Co. Cork (ibid). The body was covered with a number of thin gold foil plaques, one of which has survived, each joined to the others by wire and mitre shaped amber beads. Here too the gold foil plaque is considered similar to Wessex examples of the Wessex Linear style of 1900 to 1500BC (Cahill 2006: 72).

While there is a degree of similarity in the burial practices at this instant, between Ireland and Wessex, there is no indication of precedence for either region. The two societies are broadly in step. Cremation may be becoming dominant in Ireland rather earlier than in Wessex, but the Irish high status inhumations like Drumahoe and Topped Mountain, on the cusp of Phase C, mirror the dagger burials of Wessex I. In times past the primacy of Wessex in the Early Bronze Age of these islands was accepted, largely because it was believed to be the funerary mounds of the builders of the later stages of Stonehenge (Burgess 1980). Now, however, that we know this stage at Stonehenge to be centuries earlier, we can see Bush Barrow and the other burials at Normanton Down as trying to appropriate the Stonehenge landscape (Needham et al. 2010). Their contemporaries in Ireland may have been, at the same time, appropriating already ancient monuments, like the Mound of the Hostages at Tara.

Cremation burials of this period also bear some comparison with Wessex I burials. Waddell’s Class 3 daggers have also been found with a number of cremation burials, including: Grange Grave 10, C. Roscommon (Ó Ríordáin 1997), where the remains were contained in a vase urn. A deposit of short lived charcoal from the pit was radiocarbon dated GRA-9709, 3480±35BP which calibrated, in Oxcal 4.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2015) using 145

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland Drumahoe and Topped Mountain, and the later inurned cremations with bronze grave goods, are an innovation in the Irish archaeological record that ushers in a new social structure of ascribed rank, which is demonstrated by the statistical analysis presented above. It also seems intuitively right. This is happening in a very similar manner in Wessex at about the same time.

pieces must be specialists, both to achieve the level of technical skill needed for the production of these objects and also to allow for the constriction of supply by the chiefly class. Phase C might be a time when we see a further increase in the population. The close interconnection of events in northern parts of Ireland and in Scotland has already been noted through this work. There is evidence for more concentrated upland settlement in Scotland in the Early Bronze Age than yet uncovered in Ireland. At Lintshie Gutter, Lanarkshire, in southwest Scotland (Terry 1995), there is a collection of 31 house circles, in an upland location, which excavations have revealed to date to the latter part of the Early Bronze Age. If some of the currently undated upland settlement in Ireland is similarly Early Bronze Age, especially if there can be shown to be considerable clusters of settlement as at Lintshie Gutter, then this would suggest the possibility for substantial population growth relative to the earlier Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods.

Why did ranking appear in Ireland at this time? Why did a society with ascribed ranking appear in Ireland (and for that matter in Britain) at this juncture? Many factors have been proposed by archaeologists as likely to encourage the emergence of complexity. Ames has recently summarised the major ones (2015), which often overlap. They included; sedentism, increasing population, specialisation and regional interaction, productive surpluses, feasting, heterogeneous environments, competition and warfare. It is clear looking at this list that many aspects of the period of the single burial tradition in Ireland would seem favourable to the development of complexity.

Yet this is the time when it is likely that Ireland’s primary copper mine at Ross Island was in decline: the period from which increasingly small percentages of Irish copper are found in British bronze and where Irish bronzes are increasingly recycled. Why is this the period where the complexity of society, reflected in burial traditions, increases?

There may be, as yet undiscovered evidence of increasing sedentism. While there are only a few definite Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age settlement sites known from Ireland, there are hints that there may be additional undiscovered upland settlement (Cooney and Grogan 1994: 104). The trading of copper, and the mining and manufacture and copper and bronze artefacts, also alude to increasing specialisation and wide scale regional interaction. Also, of course, since there has been agriculture since the Neolithic, there has been the possibility of surplus to be controlled, traded or stockpiled since the Neolithic period.

If there was a decline and then cessation of the production of copper at Ross Island after 2000BC what would have happened? It is likely that opportunities to trade would have been severely restricted. This would have limited the amount of gold and tin coming into Ireland and would have rendered existing stocks of bronze objects increasingly valuable, a finite resource. Paradoxically it is exactly this kind of event, a ‘copper crisis’, which could have been a factor stimulating the emergence of chiefdoms in Ireland.

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Yet despite some at least of the preconditions for the establishment of more ranked societies existing from the Chalcolithic period, initially, we see in the burial record very little evidence for ranking, and then, in Phase B, only a moderate degree of ranking. It is not until the beginning of Phase C, around 1950BC that, all of a sudden, there seems to be evidence, from the burials, for a society where there was ascribed rank, the beginnings of chiefdoms.

The first effect of a reduction in the copper trade would have been to reduce the power of the copper miners and smelters. The second effect would have been to weaken the power of traders. This would have led to a crisis in the achieved ranking societies that existed to that point. The achievements associated with advancing in offices, perhaps trade / business success or travel to distant lands would have become more difficult. Metalworkers themselves would not have seen their power diminish, however, their abilities to rework and recycle existing tools and weapons would have been at a premium. These metalworkers were also, unlike the miners or the traders, potentially at least, geographically unrestricted, they could pack up their tools and take their work anywhere. They could allow the emergence of new power structures, not linked to mines, or trade routes.

There is also an increasing range and sophistication in metal work at about this time. By Phase C spear heads appear. This possibly happens at the same time as ogival daggers, as is implied by a cache of bivalves for two spearheads, one with a tanged blade and one with a hollow socket, found with a mould for an ogival dagger near Omagh, Tyrone (Waddell 2010: 130-33). Weapons, like spear heads are, of course, a sign of increasing ranking in society. A weapon is a specialised tool for killing, the possession of a warrior class, the production and ownership of these objects possibly tightly controlled and the producers of these sophisticated 146

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Chapter 8 Discussion

Chiefdoms may have emerged at this point through action being taken to assert control of not just the production but the recycling of bronze, and other materials like gold, which would have been increasingly precious. Constriction of supply caused by the cessation of mining at Ross Island and the subsequent decline in trade, could have created the conditions for a prestige goods economy and a series of chiefdoms supported by it.

of such a chiefdom is Wessex I and it is a possible donor for such ideas, although in the absence of a more detailed chronology, it is possible that the beginning of chiefdom formation in these two areas is contemporary. There are other parts of Britain where Armorico-British Daggers of Wessex I vintage have been found (Jones and Quinell 2013), such as Yorkshire, although Wessex I is archaeologically the most visible Early Bronze Age British chiefdom. There seems greater similarity in burial types between Wessex and Armorica, with its large, sometimes wealthy, tumuli with a single inhumation (Coles and Harding 1977: 238), than with Ireland, where large individual tumuli are not common, perhaps suggesting that there is greater contact between Wessex and Brittany than Wessex and Ireland. Needham (2000), however, has noted possible Irish Killala style axe moulds and even possible Irish encrusted urns in Brittany, and it is not impossible that, in addition to direct contacts between elites in Ireland, Wessex, and other parts of Britain, there was some direct contact between Ireland and Armorica too. Needham (ibid) rejects ideas of peer polity interaction as explaining connections between Britain (and Ireland) and Brittany, believing there is not enough convergence visible in the societies for this. Peer polity interaction seems to make much greater sense between communities in Ireland and Britain however.

It is interesting that Timberlake (2016), who has argued, in agreement with Standish et al (2015), that Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age gold in Ireland is of southwest British origin, also proposes that later in the Early Bronze Age there is evidence for Irish gold production actually commencing, which would be a natural consequence of a decline in trade with Britain. In Chapter 2, Earle’s (1993: 6) four actions which emergent individualising chiefdoms (as opposed to group orientated chiefdoms (Renfrew 1974)) would be likely to take, were discussed. Earle’s four actions for individualising chiefdoms were: a. b.

c. d.

Seizing control of existing principles of legitimacy Creating or appropriating new principles of legitimacy, especially through ties to an outside ideology or the adoption of an ‘international style’ Seizing control of internal wealth production and distribution Seizing control of external wealth procurement

Earle’s action c), Seizing control of internal wealth production and distribution, is perhaps best evidenced by the deposition of bronze within a small subset of Irish Phase C burials, implying that control over prestige goods has been established by an elite group. As noted above the decline of the Ross Island mine may have provided the stimulus for this development. Although this work does not directly concern Wessex or the development of society within Britain, the contemporaneity of developments within Britain and Ireland must be addressed. How can a supply crisis in Ireland result in developments in Ireland which are broadly parallel to those in Britain? Part of the answer may come from chronology. We know that the Ross Island mine was in decline from about 2000 BC (Bray and Pollard 2012). There then appears to be an attempt to replace the lost copper both in Ireland, with other copper mines in the southwest, and also by new mines in Britain beginning around 1800BC (Timberlake 2016). This is potentially a lengthy time period between Ross Islands ‘peak copper’ and the time it took for sufficient new sources of copper to be prospected and brought into production, or imported from the continent, even in Britain. A ‘copper crisis’ could easily have had effects on both islands simultaneously and led to similar societal responses: more elite control of increasingly

Each of these actions may be apparent from the Phase C Irish single burial tradition.

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Action a) The use, by a very small number of elite (Cluster (6)) burials in Phase C, of earlier burial monuments, like the Mound of the Hostages, and the general absence of most other types of other Phase C burials from these monuments seems to match Earle’s first suggestion of an elite group seizing the principles of legitimacy, in this case by controlling access to pre-existing burial / ritual sites. Earle’s action b), the creation of new principles of legitimacy, seems to match the Armorican fashions in burial objects in both Wessex and also in high status Irish Phase C burials. The Waddell Class 3, Armorico-British daggers, found in Irish inhumation and cremation burials seem to be examples of reaching out for external legitimacy, either through association with a dominant chiefdom elsewhere, or association with an external belief system which buttressed the position of an external elite. The closest area which shows obvious development 147

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland scarce and valuable materials. It needs to be stated however that while a copper crisis is a possible proximate cause, the trigger, for a new stage in ranking in Ireland, and possibly Britain, it is not the only cause, sedentism and population growth may also have been significant factors.

Knockast, Kilmore and Rahinashrurock, produced between them five burials with Class 2 daggers in addition to a possible Class 2 blade fragment from the Mound of the Hostages at Tara. In the Knockast and Kilmore examples the knife / daggers were found with vase urns (Kilmore) and a cordoned urn (Knockast), suggesting that, although the proposed date range for Class 2 daggers is quite wide, 2200 to 1900BC (Waddell 2010), in these cases at least the knife / dagger burials are probably late Phase B through to Phase C burials.

Earle’s action d) Seizing control of external wealth procurement. Needham suggests that the relationship between Wessex and Brittany is one of the ‘procurement and control of spiritually powerful materials’ (Needham 2000: 190). ‘Tara Boy’ as Sheridan et al. (2013) have pointed out, may show connections with the Wessex world in the assemblage of grave goods he was buried with, albeit at a later date than the likely period of formation of initial Phase C chiefdoms in the decades leading up to 1950BC. The connections may not just be material alone and may have been examples of what the Sheridan et al. (2013) call ‘exotic objects and ideas, as a way of underlining and enhancing the status of the élite’. It is possible that the adoption of in-urned burial in Phase C may be an example of this also. Cremation, and possibly even cremation within vessels, were concepts already prevalent in Ireland during Phase B, perhaps the adoption of inurned cremation was used by a ruling elite as a way of differentiating elite and superordinate groups, from the subordinate classes, who increasingly were buried with no pottery or other grave goods at all.

It is possible to conceive of a Shannon based trade route, moving copper from Munster, and joining the Boyne system in the Midlands, with goods changing hands at that point, with one set of traders leaving Ireland for western Britain via the River Boyne and another travelling through Louth into Down and Antrim and on into Scotland to bring copper from the southwest to the northeast. The contact that ensues from this trade would, without any large migrations in either direction, result in the mutual emulation of fashions through peer polity interaction. In Scotland, Baker et al (2003) and Needham (2004) have suggested that the distribution of daggers, concentrated in the east central area, but with smaller numbers in the west and north, reflects trade in tin with southern England, the fashion for daggers spreading from the south. It seems a small step for a similar process to have happened in Ireland, with returning copper traders bringing new fashions for Class 2 knife / dagger burials into Ireland. The lack of penetration of the Class 2 knife / dagger burials into Munster may reflect not so much the prevalence of burial rituals in different parts of the country but the mechanisms of trade, with primary traders moving goods from Munster to the Midlands, and traders from there heading directly to southwest England or alternatively trading copper on to East Ulster traders who brought the copper to Scotland. The distribution of Class 2 knife / dagger burials reflecting the activities of traders who traded directly with Britain. These copper traders were the merchant who perhaps achieved rank through their abilities as traders and the prestige of the voyages they undertook.

The role of river communications and peer polity interaction

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Andrew Sherrat (1996) has speculated, quite convincingly, about the significance of rivers for communication in prehistoric Britain. He demonstrates how the long navigable stretches of the ‘three Avons’ could have facilitated links and trade between Brittany, Wessex and up into central and north Britain. It is similarly tempting to look at river catchments and dagger distribution in Ireland. Below is a distribution map of Class 2 knife / daggers and Class 3 daggers, overlaid with a river catchments map (Figure 8.2). This map may indicate some possible transport routes across Ireland and hint at some directions of interaction between Ireland and Britain. It is possible from this map to see how, by following the Foyle system, through the Erne, and onto the Shannon it is possible, for small craft at least, to make their way through Ireland from almost its most northerly point, down all the way into Munster. Both the Class 2 and Class 3 dagger burials seem to avoid the entire River Bann system, and the lower Shannon, parts of both of which are low lying and potentially waterlogged.

The distribution of Class 3 dagger burials across Ireland may also indicate connective routes with Britain. The burials with Wessex I style daggers from the Mound of the Hostages, Tara, Co. Meath, are located close to the Boyne, in a region which easily connects to the Irish sea and onwards to southwest Britain. The Wessex I style dagger burials of northwest Ireland: Drumahoe, Co. Derry / Londonderry, Topped Mountain, Co. Fermanagh and Grange Co. Roscommon, especially the two inhumations at Drumahoe and Topped Mountain are again very reminiscent of Wessex I burials. It is tempting to see peer polity interaction at work here.

There are two east Ulster Class 2 knife / daggers, Corkey and Carricknab. Three sites from the midlands, 148

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Chapter 8 Discussion

These burials however are perhaps the most distant, geographically, of all Irish Early Bronze Age burials from Wessex. It is tempting to see them interacting with a different source, perhaps in Scotland, where as Baker et all (2003) have shown dagger burials were more common than in Ireland, possibly having spread there from England during what would be the Irish Phase B. It would, however, be a mistake to underestimate the capability of elites in northwest Ireland to be in contact with all parts of western Britain and vice versa. The very nature of peer polity interaction requires several similar societies in regular contact, and the idea of an Irish Sea and North Channel being plied by little boats, bringing fertile interactions between these regions should not be dismissed.

this period. In the Boyne Valley, where some of the strongest evidence for ascribed ranking societies can be found, the Mound of the Hostages and Fourknocks are being used in the Early Bronze Age, but Newgrange, Knowth and Loughcrew do not seem to have been so utilised.

The size of emergent chiefdoms

The dagger burial at Drumahoe is located approximately 8km south east of Aileach, the central place of the Cénel nEogain from the seventh century AD and before that of the Dál nAraide, with a long prehistoric proto-historical tradition recounted in the Metrical Dinsenchas (Gwynn 1903).

Another burial within what may be a chiefly burial landscape is at Grange, Co. Roscommon. Here, in a multiple-cist cairn, a cremation burial was inserted, contained within an inverted vase urn, placed into a pit. The vase urn contained the crumpled remains of a Class 3 dagger. Grange is located only 6km from Rathcrogan, which is, of course, the proto and earlyhistorical central place of Connacht (Waddell 1983).

But what is the physical scale of these new polities? If we look at the geography of the Class 3 dagger burials a suggestion could be made that there are what, in modern terms, would be sub-provincial sized divisions. It goes without saying that we are unlikely to have discovered all, or even a majority, of the Phase C chiefly burials in Ireland. However it is perhaps likely that we have discovered a significant number of the cemeteries of these chiefdoms, even if we have not discovered many of the individual chiefly burials themselves.

The dagger from Topped Mountain Fermanagh is located roughly 12km from Cornashee, a mound within an earlier, possibly hengiform enclosure, surrounding it, which was the medieval inauguration place of the Fermnanagh Maguires (Fitzpatrick 2004). These sites are not located at the capitals of these later regions themselves, but there is no necessity for them to be, ritual landscapes can be spread out over quite wide areas, but that each of these monuments is located close to a later proto-historical or early-historical capital is very suggestive.

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Saxe’s hypothesis No. 8, which states that formal cemeteries are maintained by kin based descent groups who use the authority of the ancestors to control land, resources etc, suggests that chiefdoms will, typically, maintain defined cemeteries. Some of these may be defined by their physicality, specially constructed mounds, or reused tombs of greater antiquity: perhaps as in Wessex it is possible that the burial monuments will have been spread over a landscape. It is likely that in many parts of Ireland reverence for ancient monuments will have protected these monuments and many probably have survived. Given the antiquarian and later archaeological excavations which have taken place on many of the larger of these burial mounds and tombs, it is likely that a substantial, but ultimately unknowable, percentage of the chiefly Phase C cemeteries can already be identified.

The avoidance by burials of areas like the Upper Bann and Lower Shannon areas suggests that the size of polities must be larger than a few tens of kilometres. If the distribution of Class 3 dagger burials indicates the cemeteries of emergent chiefdoms, this would suggests that there are several ascribed chiefdoms in northwest Ulster and the west Midlands, with a number of similar polities in the south and southwest, and an important and powerful polity centred on the Tara area. The distances between these possible chiefly cemetries is smallest for the distance between Drumahoe and Topped Mountain, at 74km. Topped Mountain and Grange, are 80km apart, Grange and the Mound of the Hostages 110km apart, and Harristown and Liscahanne 138km apart, although the possibility of undiscovered chiefly cemetries in the Blackwater, or the Slaney catchments exists, perhaps is likely (Knockane, Co. Cork in the Blackwater valley is a possible, chiefly cemetery, where a body covered thin gold foil plaques joined by wire and amber beads was found in the 19th century (Cahill 2006: 270)). The other areas without

Some possible Phase C chiefly cemeteries The concentration of Class 3 dagger burials, and other clearly opulent burials like the ‘Tara’ boy, at the Mound of the Hostages suggests that this reused passage tomb is either a cemetery of the chiefly class of the Phase C Early Bronze Age, or perhaps, part of a landscape of chiefly burials around the immediate Tara area. The fact that not all earlier burial monuments have been utilised for Early Bronze Age burial emphasises that, there is some kind of overarching control of burial in 149

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland

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Figure 8.2 Map of Class 2 knife – daggers and Class 3 daggers, overlain on map of river catchment areas.

an obvious candidate for an undiscovered chiefly cemetery landscape are the northwest munster area, and east Ulster. Allowing for a few undiscovered chiefly cemeteries / cemetery landscapes, one can perhaps start thinking of something in the region of nine or ten chiefdoms across the island in the Early Bronze Age.

analysis confirms the likely southwest Irish origin of the youth, the similarities with the components of the necklace to similar objects from Wessex has been commented upon (Sheridan et al 2013). This burial was radiocarbon dated, GrA-19180, which calibrated in Oxcal 4.2 (Bronk Ramsey 2015) using Intcal 13 (Reimer et al 2013), to give the date range1874 to 1550BC at 95.4% probability, with a 68.2% probability range of 1746-1562 and a 90.5% chance of being between 1780 and 1507BC. Bayliss and O’Sullivan (2013) in their analysis suggest that this burial was probably buried between 1700 and 1600BC. This suggests that there is probably 200 years or more separating the Wessex I style Drumahoe burial and the ‘Tara Boy’ and possibly a century or more between him and the cremation

Tara Boy and the late Phase C inhumation burials A highly unusual burial, at the Mound of the Hostages, Tara, Co. Meath has drawn comparison with Wessex also. The ‘Tara Boy’ was found with a very opulent set of grave goods including a bronze razor / knife, an awl, and what appears to have been a necklace composed of jet, amber, faience and bronze tubes. While isotopic 150

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Chapter 8 Discussion

burials with Armorico-British daggers. The date range of the ‘Tara Boy’ is compatible for what is proposed for Wessex II burials (Needham et al. 2010), which, in Britain, are predominantly cremations. It has been suggested that the ‘Tara Boy’ may have acquired items while visiting Wessex, perhaps undertaking a pilgrimage to Stonehenge (Bayliss and O’Sullivan 2013) or by obtaining rare objects of spiritual significance, in the manner proposed by Needham (2000) for Armorican style objects in Wessex.

from around 500BC (Kirch 1991: 120). Polynesian society seems to have been structured into ‘simple chiefdoms’ before the expansion from the homeland across what is now Polynesia in the early centuries AD (ibid). Since that time the trajectory of society in each region of Polynesia has differed, with varying factors appearing to influence the direction of development of each of these related ranked societies (Kirch 2000). Kirch (1991 and 2000) used categorisation of chiefdoms into ‘Traditional’, ‘Open’ and ‘Stratified’ societies to examine the chiefdoms in each Polynesian region. Traditional chiefdoms were conservative, retaining the social organisation of the ancient pre-expansion Polynesian Society. These were societies in which the chief was the unchallenged hereditary ruler of a descent group, combining both secular and religious functions. He was believed to be a descendant of the Gods and providence and the fertility of the land flowed directly from the Gods, through the chief. The power of the chief was dependent on this flow of power into actual agricultural production. Long-range prestige goods exchange may have played a role in maintaining the prestige of these chiefs (Kircher 1991: 140).

It is worth noting that the ‘Tara Boy’ is one of a small group of late inhumation burials. As discussed in Chapter 5: Dating Inhumation and Cremation, inhumation burials appear to be less frequent from about 1900BC, with a possible gap in inhumation in the 18th century BC. Around 1700BC inhumation burials seem to commence once more. Of the six inhumation burials after this point one is the ‘Tara Boy’, who is an adolescent and two are the burials of older children. None of these other burials appear to be making any kind of ostentatious display. Given that the other inhumation burials show few indications of high status, it is possible that his inhumation, and the opulent grave goods associated with him, is not special treatment connected to any ascribed status within society. There may be other ritual explanations, although it must be accepted that his is a very special burial. To confidently assert that this is a high status burial would necessitate more similar burials to be found from this period at the end of Phase C.

Open societies differed in that the traditional ideological and religious power of the chief was in some way challenged. Open societies tended to have a dynamic relationship between the ascribed status chief and the achieved status military and religious leadership. In some, monumental and personal adornment was used to buttress the ideology of status, but in others there was development of feasting or ritual structures instead. Amongst the Open chiefdom societies were those on Mangaia, the Marquesas Islands, Rapa, Mangareva and the Pitcairn Islands, Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and the north and south islands of New Zealand. Each of these islands had developed since their colonisation, some form of food insecurity. The experience of regular famine within the Marquesas Islands seems to have eroded the power of the chiefs, through which, according to traditional Polynesian belief, fecundity flowed from the Gods to the land. This power became contested by the priestly class and war leaders. One medium for this competition was warfare with other tribes, the status of the chief, priest or war leader determined by the outcome of warfare. Feasting performed a similar, and related, role, with the captives of warfare often eaten in cannibalistic feasts.

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Later developments in Phase C and beyond Some insight into the range of possibilities for the organisation of Phase C society, and beyond into the later Bronze Age, might be found from an examination of the multiple varieties of chiefdoms in Polynesia. These societies are important, from the perspective of understanding the developments of chiefdoms more widely, because they allow archaeologists and anthropologists to see how, from a single donor culture, a wide variety of different types of chiefdom societies can spring. By looking at the differences between each of these societies, and the economy and environment of the regions in which they lived, insights into the possible trajectory of the development of other chiefdoms can be sought. Ethnographic accounts from the first European colonists in Polynesia, folklore of Polynesian populations, and archaeological survey and excavation, have been blended to build up a series of models of the pre-contact social structure in each of the Polynesian regions since their colonisation. All of the pre-contact societies in Polynesia were descended from an Ancient Polynesian Society which occupied a ‘homeland’ possibly in the Fiji, Tonga, Samoa region of Oceania,

Stratified societies in Polynesia, were defined (Kirch 2000) as ones in which the entire means of production become appropriated by the chiefly class, and where there was a clear break in status between the rulers and the ruled. Amongst the stratified Polynesian societies are Tahiti and the Society islands, Tonga and Hawaii. The most stratified region in Polynesia was Hawaii. It was also the largest Polynesian archipelago, 151

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland fertile, with a favourable climate, and a population of at least 250,000 in the pre-contact period. There is archaeological evidence of substantial increases in agricultural production and intensification beginning around 300AD with the island’s colonisation, and accelerating from about 1100AD, when field systems expanded and fish farms were constructed. There was a concomitant expansion in the degree of stratification of the chiefdoms on the islands from 1100AD onwards, with the surplus value of the increased agricultural expansion almost entirely taken by the chiefs. Two main processes seem to have driven this. In some western Hawaiian islands there was considerable centralised irrigation tied up with the increase in agricultural production, ideologically buttressed by the worship of a god of reproduction and water. Simultaneously on other islands there was territorial conquest, ideologically buttressed by the worship of a war god. By the time contact had been made with Europeans the chiefly class on Hawaii viewed itself as entirely separate from the commoner population.

weapon, and the halberd, difficult to wield, may have been at least in part used in a ritualistic manner, but the spear is a true weapon. Its appearance at this time may evidence the emergence of a professional fighting class within society. The question of a priestly class is more difficult. Some stone circles probably date to this broad period and it is possible that ritual activities carried out at these could have involved priestly functions. If there was a period in which there was an increase in the numbers of stone circles, it might be possible to draw the conclusion that this showed an increase in the power or influence of a priestly class, although alternative readings would be possible. Unfortunately we lack detailed dating information for most stone circles, some do seem to date to the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age, but some are later Bronze Age and without more chronological information it is difficult to say if there are periods of more intense construction. So while it is difficult to demonstrate a professional priestly class in Early Bronze Age Ireland it seems reasonable to assume that, perhaps towards the end of Phase C, there is an emerging warrior class, from the presence of new weapon types. The question is whether this warrior class always remained under the power of the chief. If it did it is a step on the road to a more totalising stratified chiefdom, if not the society could have become an Open type chiefdom, with competition between the chief and powerful private interests. In the Marquesas, and other Polynesian islands with ‘Open’ chiefdoms, food insecurity was the spur for these developments. Famine, weakened the power of chiefs, strengthening private interests of the warrior or priestly class, who used their capital, often hoarded food supplies, to strike bargains with commoners, usurping some of the authority of the chief. To suggest that an ‘Open’ chiefdom was developing in Ireland one would have to establish that there were episodes of food insecurity. There is no obvious evidence of food insecurity, in fact what evidence there is is for increasing agricultural activity and population

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The Polynesian traditional societies show how a simple form of chiefdom can continue over extended periods of time without substantial change, if there are no other significant changes or challenges, for instance if the population remains constant and there is no significant threat to food security. These are ranked societies, with ascribed chiefs and achieved offices for warriors and priests, but they never change into societies where either the chiefdom becomes totalising and takes over the entire, or most of, the means of production, or where the power of the chief becomes challenged by the achieved status office holders. In Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland the societies of Phase B show evidence for a society with some complexity and ranking but where ranking is achieved rather than ascribed. Looked at as a whole Phase C society seems to evidence a greater degree of complexity and ranking than Phase B, with evidence for ascribed rank, and a separate chiefly class. These, Phase C societies may resemble the traditional chiefdoms of Polynesia. However what about the office holders who held achieved rank in Phase B? Do they accept their new position? Could, at any stage during Phase C, there be the development of ‘Open’ Chiefdoms? The two types of actors noted as competing with the chiefs in the Marquesas Islands were the warriors and the priests. Can we see any evidence for groups like these emerging in Early Bronze Age Ireland?

There is evidence of considerable agricultural expansion late in the Early Bronze Age or Middle Bronze Age at Littleton Bog (Mitchell 1965 and Mitchell and Ryan 1997). Gill Plunkett (2008), from a wider study of Middle and Late Bronze Age environment, land use and cultural change, has noted a correlation between an expansion of human activity in the landscape, areas of agricultural intensification, and the Bishopsland metal work phase, commencing about 1400BC.

There is evidence for the first real weapons of war during this era. While daggers have been apparent in the archaeological record since possibly as early as 2400BC (Waddell 2010), and halberds since about 2200BC, the appearance of spearheads in Phase C may be of more significance. The dagger is a personal protection

The Middle Broze Age is also the period of the unprecedented village settlement at Corrstown, where from a small initial nucleus a village flourished for several generations from circa 1370 to 1250BC 152

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Chapter 8 Discussion

(McSparron in Ginn and Rathbone 2012), effectively encompassing the entire Bishopsland Metalwork phase. Towards the end of the Middle Bronze Age there also appears to be a concentration of agricultural production in food production centres (Plunkett 2008), which seems to match the centralisation of population seen at Corrstown, with the subsequent development of hillforts at some of these centres. The overall picture is one of a gradual intensification of agriculture, associated population increase and centralisation of society from Phase C, right through to about 1200BC.

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In the context of this continuum of gradual intensification, without the evidence for episodic crises, a similar intensification of political control, ascribed chiefdoms gradually becoming more totalising and stratified, seems probable. It does seem that the warrior class may have increased in importance as the Middle Bronze Age opened. During the Killymaddy metalwork phase around 1500BC, the first bronze dirks and rapiers start to be produced in Ireland, and spearheads are common, perhaps emphasising the further development of a warrior class. Perhaps the chiefs, increasing their hold upon agricultural production, needed increasing physical coercion, as well as ideological control. During this period there are changes in the burial tradition. Burial ritual, or those parts of it accessible by archaeology, becomes increasingly simple. Urns become plain, utilitarian vessels, grave goods are no longer included in the grave, and eventually, funerary vessels are dispensed with entirely and small, token burials, a few scraps of cremated bone, become the only burial ritual in many cases (Waddell 2010: 171). This period is not the focus of this study and to make firm conclusions an intensive study of the burial rituals of this period, such as they are, would have to be undertaken, but prima facie, the developments in burial ritual in the Middle Bronze Age suggests, not social upheaval, but an ideological inversion of the true social order, of the type proposed by Parker Pearson (1982). The likely catalyst for this is the emergence of a truly stratified chiefdom society where ideology acts to suggest that there is spiritual, if not material, equality in death between the individuals within society. It is probable that this ideology is physically buttressed by a warrior class controlled by the chiefs. Kamp (1998) suggests that only societies which are socially competitive, or where burial display has an opportunity to facilitate social competition, will use status driven funerary display. It may be that the degree stratification in the Middle Bronze Age is so great that, in addition to an ideology of equality in death and physical coercion, there is less motive to be expressive in burial ritual, because social competition is suppressed.

153

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Chapter 9 Conclusions This study is the first study to completely integrate the examination of the radiocarbon chronology of the single burial tradition in Ireland with the statistical analysis of the funerary rituals of the tradition. A careful analysis of how aspects of the single burial tradition, such as the introduction of cremation and the decline of inhumation, the currency of various vessels and urn types, and duration of burials which contained no pottery, had grown and declined through time, allowed the construction of a three phase chronology for the Irish single burial tradition.

chronological phase. The results of the cluster analysis and the crosstabulation of the cluster analysis with other burial attributes, were compared with these criteria. This analysis demonstrates that there was little evidence for ranking in the first phase of the Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age, Phase A, 2200 to 2050BC; followed by indications of achieved ranking in Phase B, the period 2050 to 1950BC; and then an explosion of complexity with ascribed ranking in the post 1950BC, Phase C, period.

With this refined chronology it was possible to look at burial practices through the late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age both synchronically and diachronically. This has helped identify how practices changed, how signifiers of prestige related to each other and also how what they signified changed through time.

The study finds, as has been suggested by other writers, that there are close links between the single burial tradition and contemporary burial practices in Britain, although it is believed that the relationship is more complex than a simple migration, or series of migrations into Ireland from Britain. This contrasts with most of the Chalcolithic period before the appearance of the single burial tradition, when burial practices in both islands diverged. The relationship with Scotland in particular seems of importance in Phase A and B. It seems likely that the single burial tradition emerged amongst groups of people living between the west of Scotland and northeast Ireland, probably trading copper from Ireland, into western, central and eastern Scotland. It was this interaction which led to a beaker inspired, but distinct, single burial practice to emerge in the decades after 2200BC in the cross North Channel region. It is almost trite to point out the proximity of Ireland and Scotland at this location, many archaeologists note it, but the profound implications are not always fully realised. In many respects we should see the parts of Ireland and Scotland close to the North Channel as an archaeological province in its own right, and it may be in this maritime province where Irish copper met British burial rituals, and in this ‘reactor’ (to continue Needham’s nuclear analogy) that the single burial tradition, as it manifests itself in Ireland, first emerged.

When each phase was looked at separately it was clear that there was a tendency towards increasing funerary complexity, the earliest Phase A burials simpler than the succeeding Phase B burials, which, in turn, were less complex than the Phase C burials. This ritual complexity is viewed as a proxy for social complexity and ranking. Crosstabulation was carried out of various burial attributes, using two different types of significance test, to look for significant correlations between variables in the data set. A large number of significant correlations were found. These were used, in combination with the radiocarbon chronology and theories of energy expenditure and status to identify how various burial attributes had changed as status indicators through the era.

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It was in this way possible to address many of the theoretical concerns of the post-processual archaeologists and their critiques of attempts to examine the complexity and social structure of ancient societies through analysis of burial practices.

In Phase C close interaction with Britain seems to have continued and it is suggested that there is broadly simultaneous emergence of ascribed rank societies, chiefdoms, on both sides of the Irish Sea, through a process of peer polity interaction. It is proposed that the conditions for chiefdoms to emerge may have been in place for some time, but that it was the decline in the availability of copper after 2000BC, as production at Ross Island ceased, which may have been the catalyst for the formation of chiefdoms across Ireland, and possibly in Britain too.

Cluster analysis of burial attributes was conducted for each chronological phase to identify groups of like burials. These clusters were then crosstabulated against status indicators, which were not used in their construction, and other aspects of the burials and the individuals interred within them, to identify social structural associations. The concepts of Tainter (1975), Peebles and Kus(1977), Wason (1994) and Ames (2015) were used to construct a set of criteria to assess the degree of ranking in each 154

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Chapter 9 Conclusions

The most important new information that is currently being added to our knowledge of the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age of these islands is the revelation that there may have been a significant alteration in the Y-dna of the inhabitants of Britain and Ireland, at this time. This information, if substantiated by further studies, may be sufficient of itself to explain the hiatus in continuity which appears sometime between the end of the Neolithic Period and the Later Chalcolithic in Ireland and in the break in the, until that point, close relations of grooved ware communities in Ireland and Britain. As the Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age progress this similarity seems to be renewed. Given the enormous upheaval which must be indicated by Olalde et al. (2018) or Cassidy et al. (2016) the fact that within a few centuries, at most, very similar burial practices are occurring on both sides of the North Channel, shows how geography is as important as pre-existing ties of culture or family, in linking Ireland and Britain.

have associated radiocarbon dates. Now that an outline chronology of ritual practice has been established, from the most reliable and best documented sites, it should be possible to take the additional dates from Brindley and integrate them with the information from the single burial tradition Database, to answer specific questions, such as, for example, questions about the dating and spread of specific ritual practices with which these vessels can be associated. One of the big drawbacks of the current data set is the large numbers of individuals of indeterminate sex. A reassessment of the sex of these individuals of indeterminate sex, using modern osteoarchaeological and DNA techniques could enhance the data set very considerably, possibly allowing previously unrecognised statistically significant correlations to be identified. The pot-less burial phenomenon has been overlooked by archaeologists. Because they have been assumed to be early, associated with the bowl and vase burials, it has not been realised how many are contemporary with later in-urned cremations. Nevertheless there are still few dated examples and further radiocarbon dates could provide a more refined chronology for these burials.

Directions for further research There are a number of areas where this study could be developed further. There are many ways in which the single burial tradition Database could be mined for further research material. Two main areas of work which could be undertaken without further data capture, apart from the addition of sites for which data has become available since the database was completed.

Moving beyond the current data set there is the potential to profitably expand the database to encompass parts of Britain. It would be very interesting to create a late Chalcolithic /Early Bronze Age single burial tradition database of Ireland and Scotland. It would be interesting to look at the Scottish food vessel burials and their Irish equivalents as if they were a single geographic area, united, rather than separated, by the North Channel.

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One area is pottery decoration. As outlined above a very large amount of detailed information describing the types of decoration and their positions upon the pottery vessels of the single burial tradition has been gathered and recorded in the database. Many of the most profusely decorated vessels occur in the earlier phases of the later Chalcolithic / Early Bronze Age. This is a period where society appears to be un-ranked. However it is likely that there may be sodalities which could be based on kinship, age or voluntary associations. It is possible that these may be reflected in aspects of the decoration of single burial tradition funerary vessels. Secondly geographic patterning of individual motifs in the landscape could also be rewarding, possibly using techniques of linear regression, coupled with radiocarbon dating, to spot the movement of motifs.

As noted above a likely ‘game changer’ in Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age studies is going to be DNA analysis of human remains. It will be interesting to see how the model proposed in this study compares with what DNA reveals. Will there be a near complete replacement of y-DNA in Ireland as seems to happen in Britain (Olalde et al. 2018)? Will there be regional patterning of y-DNA in Ireland? Will Munster’s copper let them ‘hold out’ genetically, perhaps explaining the late adoption of the single burial tradition in that province, and the subsequent adoption of cremation in the rest of Ireland?

In this study a fundamental way-point was the creation of a data set, from good, well documented excavation accounts, which would allow reliable comparison of attributes and features of burial rituals of the single burial tradition. To this end many accounts, mostly antiquarian accounts, but also some more modern, were rejected on account of the quality of the data, as a whole, within them. Because of the work of Anna Brindley (2007) dating, mainly, human bone associated with funerary vessels, many of these antiquarian accounts 155

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Bibliography Abercromby, A. 1912. A Study Of The Bronze Age Pottery Of Great Britain & Ireland And Its Associated Grave-Goods. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Allen, M., J. Gardiner and A. Sheridan (eds) 2012. Is there a British Chalcolithic? (Prehistoric Society Research Paper 4). Oxford: Oxbow. Ames, K.M. 2015. The Archaeology of Rank, in R.A. Bentley, H. Maschner and C. Chippendale (eds) Handbook of Archaeological Theories: Lanham, MD, Altamira. ApSimon, A.M. 1958. Food Vessels. Bulletin of the Institute of Archaeology 1: 24-36. Baker, L., A. Sheridan, and T. Cowie 2003. An Early Bronze Age ‘dagger grave’ from Rameldry Farm, near Kingskettle, Fife. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 113: 85-123. Baillie, M.L and Mundo M.A.R. 1988. Irish tree rings; Santorini and volcanic dust veils. Nature 332: 344-46. Bayliss, A. and M. O’Sullivan 2013. Interpreting chronologies for the Mound of the Hostages, Tara and its contemporary contexts in Neolithic and Bronze Age Ireland, in M. O’Sullivan, C. Scarre and M. Doyle (eds) Tara- from the past to the future. Dublin: Wordwell. Bell, D. and D. Brandherm 2014. The Carn Halberd: Use and Abuse. Journal of Irish Archaeology 22: 51-8. Binford, L. 1971. Mortuary practices: their study and their potential, in J.A. Brown (ed.) Approaches to the Social Dimensions of Mortuary Practice (Society for American Archaeology, Memoir 25): 6-29. Washington: Society for American Archaeology. Bloch, M. 1971. Placing the Dead: Tombs, Ancestral Villages, and Kinship Organisation in Madagascar. New York: Seminar Press. Bloch, M. and J. Parry. 1982. Death and the regeneration of life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bradley, R. 1984. The Social Foundations of Prehistoric Britain. London: Longman. Bray, P.J. and A.M. Pollard 2012. A new interpretative approach to the chemistry of copper-alloy objects: source, recycling and technology. Antiquity 86: 85367. Brannon, N.F. and B.B. Williams 1990. The salvage excavation of Bronze Age Cists, Straid Townland, County Londonderry. Ulster Journal of Archaeology 53: 29-39. Bray, P.J. and Pollard, A.M. 2012 A new interpretative approach to the chemistry of copper alloy objects:source recycling and technology. Antiquity 86: 853-867 Brindley, A. 1980. The Cinerary Urn Tradition in Irelandan alternative interpretation. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy Section C 80: 197-203.

Brindley, A. and J. Lanting 1992. Radiocarbon Dates from wedge tombs. The Journal of Irish Archaeology 6: 19-26. Brindley, A. 2007. Dating of Food Vessels and Urns in Ireland (Bronze Age Studies 7). Galway: National University of Ireland. Brophy, K. and G. Noble 2012. Henging, mounding and blocking: the Forteviot henge group, in A. Gibson (ed.), Enclosing the Neolithic: Recent Studies in Britain and Europe:21-36 Oxford: Archaeopress. Bronk Ramsey, C. 2000. Comment on The Use of Bayesian Statistics for 14C dates of chronologically ordered samples: a critical analysis. Radiocarbon 42 (2): 199-202. Bronk Ramsey, C. 2015. OxCal 4.2. Brown, J. 1995. On Mortuary Analysis- with special reference to the Saxe-Binford Research Program, in L.A. Beck (ed.) Regional approaches to Mortuary Analysis, 3-25 Brück, J. 2004. The relational construction of identity in Early Bronze Age burials in Ireland and Britain. Journal of Social Archaeology 4, No.3: 307-333. Brück, J. 2005. Experiencing the past? The development of a phenomenological archaeology in British prehistory. Archaeological Dialogues 12, No.1: 45-72. Bryman, A. and D. Cramer. 1998. Quantitative data analysis with SPSS for Windows. London: Routlidge. Buck, C.E., Kenworthy, J.B, Litton, C.D., Smith, A.F.M. 1991. Combining archaeological and radiocarbon information: a bayesian approach to calibration. Antiquity 65: 808-21. Burgess C. 1980. The Age of Stonehenge. London: Dent. Burl, H.A.W. 1970. The recumbent stone circles of northeast Scotland. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 102: 56-81. Cahill, M. 2006. John Windeleś golden legacyprehistoric and later gold ornaments from Co. Cork and Waterford. Proceedings of the Royal irish Academy 106c: 219-337. Cahill, M. 2015. Here Comes The Sun. Archaeology Ireland 29, No.1: 26-33. Carlin, N. 2018. The beaker Phenomenon, understanding the context and character of social practices in Ireland 2500 to 2000BC. Leiden: Sidestone Press. Carlin, N. and J. Brück. 2012. Searching for the Chalcolithic: continuity and change in the Irish Final Neolithic/ Early Bronze Age in M. Allen, J. Gardiner and A. Sheridan (eds) Is there a British Chalcolithic? (Prehistoric Society Research Paper 4). Oxford: Oxbow. Cahill, M. and Sikora, M. (eds) 2011. Breaking Ground, Finding Graves- reports on the excavations of burials 156

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland Essays in Honour of George Eogan: 56-60. Oxford: Oxbow Books. Eogan, J. and E. Shee-Twohig (eds) 2011. Cois tSiúre: nine thousand years of human activity in the Lower Suir Valley Archaeological excavations on the N25 Waterford City Bypass (NRA Scheme Monographs 8). Dublin: National Roads Authority. Evans-Pritchard, E.E. 1940. Burial and Mortuary Rites of the Nuer, African Affairs 48, No 190: 56-63. Evans, E. and M. Gaffikin. 1935. Bronze Age Cist Containing Food Vessel and Cremation Burial Found at Ballynagross, near Downpatrick, Co. Down, Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland (7th Series) 5, No. 1: 141-46. Fitzpatrick, E. 2004. Royal inauguration in Gaelic Ireland c. 1100-1600: a cultural landscape study. Suffolk: Boydell Press. Fitzpatrick, A.P. 2013. The Arrival of the Bell Beaker Set in Britain and Ireland, in B.Cunliffe and J.T. Koch (eds) Celtic from the West 2: Rethinking the Bronze Age and the Arrival of Indo-European in Atlantic Europe: 4170 . Oxford:Oxbow Fitzpatrick, A.P. 2015. Great Britain and Ireland in 2200BC, in H. Meller, H.W. Arz, R. Jung and R. Risch (eds), 2200BC Climate Breakdown as a Cause for the Collapse of the Old World. Barcelona: Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona. Flanagan, L. 1976. The Composition of Irish Bronze Age Cemeteries. Irish Archaeological Research Forum 3, No 2: 7-20. Flannery, K.V. and J. Marcus. 1993. Cognitive Archaeology. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 3, Issue 2: 260 -70. Foley, C. 1985. A Cist burial at Tremoge, County Tyrone, Ulster Journal of Archaeology 48 (3rd Series): 63-68. Foley, C. and M. MacDonagh 1998. Copney Stone Circles: A County Tyrone Enigma. Archaeology Ireland 12, No 1: 24-28. Frazer, J.G. 1911. The Golden Bough: a study in magic and religion. London: Macmillan. Fried, M.H. 1967. The Evolution of Political Society: An Essay in Political Anthropology. New York: Random House. Ginn, V. and Rathbone, S. 2012. Corrstown: A Costal Community. Oxford: Oxbow Books. Gibson, A. and D.D.A Simpson (eds) 1998. Prehistoric ritual and religion: essays in honour of Aubrey Burl. Stroud: Sutton. Gibson, C. 2013. beakers into Bronze: Tracing connections between western Iberia and the British Isles 2800 to 800BC, in T. Kock and B. Cunliff (eds) Celtic from the West 2 :rethinking the Bronze Age and the arrival of Indo-European in Atlantic Europe: 71-99. Oxford: Oxbow. Gibson, A. and A. Sheridan. 2004. Sickles and Circles: Britain and Ireland at the Time of Stonehenge. Stroud: Tempus.

Glazebrook, T. 2012. Why Read Heidegger on Science. Albany: State University of New York Press. Glover, W. 1975. Segmented Cist Grave in Kinkit Townland, County Tyrone. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 105: 150-55. Gwynn, E. 1903. The Metrical Dindshenchas. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy. Haberman, S.J. 1973. The analysis of residuals in crossclassified tables. Biometrics 29, 1: 205-20. Harbison, P. 1969. The axes of the early Bronze Age in Ireland’. Prähistorische Bronzefunde IX, I. Munich: C.H. Beck’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung. Harnett, P.J. and W. O’Sullivan. 1971. The excavation of Two Tumuli at Fourknocks (Sites II and III), Co. Meath. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy Section C 71: 35-89. Harnett, P.J. and E. Prendergast. 1953. Bronze Age Burials, Co. Wexford. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 83, No.1: 46-57 Hartnett, P.J. and E. Prendergast. 2011. 3.76 Ballybrennan, Co. Westmeath, E1162, in M. Cahill and M. Sikora (eds) Breaking Ground, finding Gravesreports on the excavations of burials by the NMI, 19272006 (NMI Monograph Series 4). Dublin: Wordwell. Hawkes, J. 1941.’Excavation of a Megalithic Tomb at Harristown, Co. Waterford. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 2, No. 4 (7th series): 130-47. Henken, H. and H. Movius. 1934. The cemetery-cairn of Knockast. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy Section C 41: 232-84. Hencken, H. and H. Movius. 1935. A cairn at Poulawack, County Clare: With a Report on the Human Remains. The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 5, No.2 (7th Series): 191-222. Hertz, R. 2009. Death and the right hand. London: Routledge (first published 1907, English translation 1960). Hodder, I. 1982. Symbols in action, ethnoarchaeological studies of material culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hurl, D. and E. Murphy. 2004. The excavation of a flat Cist cemetery at Tonyglaskan, County Fermanagh, and of a single Cist at Lislaird, County Tyrone. Ulster Journal of Archaeology 63 (3rd Series): 19-39. Jones, A.M. and Quinell, H. 2013. Daggers in the West: Early Bronze Age Daggers and Knives in the Southwest Peninsula. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 79: 165-91. Jones, C. 1998. The Discovery and Dating of the Prehistoric Landscape of Roughan Hill in Co Clare. The Journal of Irish Archaeology 9: 27-43. Jones, C.C. Carey, and C. Kennegar. 2011. Domestic production and the political economy in prehistory: evidence from the Burren, Co Clare. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy Section C, 111: 38-58. 158

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Bibliography

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland Tyrone. The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 83, No 2: 174-197. Meighan, I.G. 2011. The Sourcing of Ireland’s Bronze Age Gold. Archaeology Ireland 25, No 4: 31-32. Megaw, J.V.S. and Simpson, D.D.A. 1984. Introduction to British Prehistory. Leicester: Leicester University Press. Metcalf, P. and Huntington, R. 1991. Celebrations of Death: the anthropology of mortuary ritual. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Metcalf, P. 2005. Anthropology: the Basics. London: Routledge. Mitchell, G.F. 1965. Littleton Bog, Tipperary: An Irish Agricultural Record. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 95: 121-132. Mitchell, G.F. and M. Ryan. 1997. Reading the Irish Landscape. Dublin: Town House. Morgan, L.H.1877. Ancient Society. Chicago: Charles Kerr and Co. Morris, H. 1929. Prehistoric Cist Burials. Irish Naturalist’s Journal 2, No. 8: 154. Mount, C. 1991. Early Bronze Age Burials: The Social Implications. Archaeology Ireland 5, No 2: 21-23. Mount, C. 1997. Early Bronze Age Burial in South-East Ireland in the Light of Recent Research. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy: Section C: Archaeology, Celtic Studies, History, Linguistics, Literature 97: 101-193. Mount, C. 1998. Five Early Bronze Cemetries at Brownstown, Graney West, Oldtown and Ploopluck, County Kildare and Strawhall, County Carlow. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy Section C 98: 2599. Mount, C. and L. Buckley. 1997. Adolf Mahrs Excavations of an Early Bronze Age Cemetery at Keenoge, Co Meath. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy Section C 97: 1-68. Mount, C. and P.J. Hartnett. 1993. Early Bronze Age Cemetry at Edmondstown, Co. Dublin. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy Section C 93: 21-79. Movius, H. 1934. Bronze Age Burials from Carownacon, near Ballyglass Co. Mayo. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 4, No. 1: 72-85. Murphy, E.M. 2011. Children’s Burial Grounds in Ireland (Cilliní) and Parental emotions Toward Infant Death. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 11, No 3: 409-28. Needham, S. 1996. Chronology and Periodisation in the British Bronze Age. Acta Archaeologica 67: 121-140. Needham, S. 2000. Power Pulses Across a Cultural Divide: Cosmologically Driven Acquisition Between Armorica and Wessex. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 66: 151-207. Needham, S. 2004. Migdale Marnoch: Sunburst of Scottish metallurgy in I. Shepherd and G. Barclay (eds), Scotland in Ancient Europe: The Neolithic and Early Bronze Age of Scotland in their European Context.

Edinburgh: Society of Antiquaries of Scotland: 21745 Needham, S. 2005. Transforming beaker Culture in North-west Europe; Processes of Fusion and Fission. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 71: 171-217. Needham, S., M. Parker Pearson, A. Tyler, M. Richards and M. Jay. 2010. A first ‘Wessex 1’ date from Wessex. Antiquity 84: 363-73. Needham, S. 2012. The Case and Place for the British Chalcolithic in M. Allen, J. Gardiner, and A. Sheridan (eds) Is there a British Chalcolithic? (Prehistoric Society Research Paper 4): 1-26. Oxford: Oxbow. Needham, S. and P. Bray. 2015. Daggers and Knives, in A. Woodward and J. Hunter (eds), Ritual in Early Bronze Age grave goods. Oxford: Oxbow. Needham, S. 2016. The Lost Cultures of the Halberd Bearers: a non-beaker ideology inlater 3rd millennium Atlantic Europe, in B. Cunliffe and J.T Koch (eds) Celtic From The West 3: Atlantic Europe in the Metal Ages. Oxford: Oxbow. Northover, J.P.N, O´Brien and Stos, S. 2001. Lead isotopes and Metal Circulation in Beaker / Early Bronze Age Ireland. Journal of Irish Archaeology 10:25-47. Ó Baoill, R., E. Murphy and D.G. Moore 2005. The Excavation of a segmented Bronze Age Cist at Newtownstewart Castle, County Tyrone, Ulster Journal of Archaeology, 3rd Series, 64, 26-42. O’Brien, W. 2000. Megalithic Tombs, Metal Resources, and Territory in Prehistoric South-west Ireland, in A. Desmond, G. Johnson, M. McCarthy, J. Sheehan and E. Shee Twohig (eds). New Agendas in irish Prehistory: Papers in commeration of Liz Anderson: 161176. Dublin: Wordwell. O’Brien, W. 2001. New Light on beaker metallurgy in Ireland, in F. Nicolais (ed.). Bell beakers Today:pottery, people, culture, symbols in prehistoric Europe: proceedings of the International colloquium, Riva del Garda: 561-76. Trento: Provincia Autonoma di Trento. O’Brien, W. 2011. Prehistoric Copper Mining and Metallurgical Expertise in Ireland, in C.M.B. Martins, A.M.S. Bettencourt, J.I.F.P Martins, and J. Carvalho (eds). Povoamento E Exploracao doe Recursos Mineros na Europa Atlantica Ocidental: 337-57. Porto: CITCEM. O’Brien, W. 2004. Ross Island: mining, metal and society in early Ireland. Galway: National University of Ireland. O’Brien, W. 2012. The Chalcolithic in Ireland: a chronological and cultural framework, in M. Allen, J. Gardiner and A. Sheridan (eds), Is there a British Chalcolithic? (Prehistoric Society Research Paper 4):211-25. Oxford and Oakville: Oxbow Books. O’Connell, M. 1990. Early Land Use in North-East County Mayo: The Palaeoecological Evidence, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy Section C 90: 259-279. Ó Drisceoil, C. 2009. Archaeological Excavations of a Late Neolithic grooved ware Site at Balgatheran, County Louth. Journal of the County Louth Archaeological and Historical Society 27, No. 1: 77-102. 160

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Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland Riley, T.F. 1936. Excavations in the Townland or Pollacorragune, Tuam, Co. Galway. Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society 17, No. 1/2: 44-54. Roche, H., E. Grogan, J. Bradley, J. Coles, and B. Raftery. 2004. From Megaliths to Metals, essays in honour of George Eogan. Oxford: Oxbow. Ruggles, C.L.N. and H.A.W. Burl. 1985. A New Study of the Abberdeenshire Recumbent Stone Circles, 2: Interpretation. Archaeoastronomy 8: 25-60. Rynne, E. and OSullivan, J.C. 1966. Two Urn-burials from Cush, Co. Limerick. North Munster Antiquaries Journal: 103-07. Rynne, E. 1963. Bronze Age Burials at Drung, Co. Donegal. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 93, No. 2: 169-79. Saxe, A.A. 1970. Social Dimensions of Mortuary Practice. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan. Schulting, R., A. Sheridan, S. Clarke and C. Bronk Ramsay. 2008. Largantea and the Dating of Irish wedge tombs. The Journal of Irish Archaeology 17: 1-17. Service, E.R. 1962. Primitive Social Organisation: An Evolutionary Perspective. New York: Random House. Shanks, M. and C. Tilley. 1987. Social Theory and Archaeology, Cambridge: Polity. Shepherd, A. 2012. Men, women and their beakers in time and space in M. Allen, J. Gardiner and A. Sheridan (eds). Is there a British Chalcolithic? (Prehistoric Society Research Paper 4): 257-280. Oxford and Oakville: Oxbow Books. Sheridan, A. 2004. Scottish Food Vessel Chronology Revisited, in A Gibson and A Sheridan (eds) Sickles and Circles: Britain and Ireland at the Time of Stonehenge: 243-69. Dubai: NPI Media. Sheridan, A. 2007. Dating the Scottish Bronze Age: There is clearly much that the material can still tell us, in C. Burgess P. Topping and F. Lynch (eds) Beyond Stonehenge: Essays on the Bronze Age in Honour of Colin Burgess: 162-85: Oxford: Oxbow. Sheridan, A. 2008. Towards a fuller. more nuanced narrative of Chalcolithic and Early bronze Age Britain 2500-1500BC. Bronze Age Review 1: 57-78. Sheridan, A. 2013. Contextualising Kilmartin: building a narrative for developments in western Scotland and beyond, from the Early Neolithic to the Late Bronze Age, in A.M. Jones, J. Pollard, M..J Allen and J. Gardiner (eds), 2012. Image, Memory and Monumentality, archaeological engagements with the material world: a celebration of the academic achievements of Professor Richard Bradley (Prehistoric Society Research Papers No. 5): 163-83. Oxford and Oakville: Oxbow Books. Sheridan, A. and A. Bayliss. 2008. Pots and Time in Bronze Age Ireland, Antiquity 82: 204-8. Sheridan, A., M. Jay, J. Montgomery, M. Pellegrini, and J.C. Wilson, J.C. 2013. ‘Tara Boy’: local hero or international man of mystery?, in M. O’Sullivan, C.

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McSparron, Cormac. Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland, Archaeopress, 2021. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/wisc/detail.action?docID=6647703. Created from wisc on 2024-03-01 16:12:15.

Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland describes and analyses the increasing complexity of later Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age burial in Ireland, using burial complexity as a proxy for increasing social complexity, and as a tool for examining social structure. The book commences with a discussion of theoretical approaches to the study of burials in both anthropology and archaeology and continues with a summary of the archaeological and environmental background to the Irish Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age. Then a set of criteria for identifying different types of social organisation is proposed, before an in-depth examination of the radiocarbon chronology of Irish Single Burials, which leads to a multifaceted statistical analysis of the Single Burial Tradition burial utilising descriptive and multivariate statistical approaches. A chronological model of the Irish Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age is then presented which provides the basis for a discussion of increasing burial and social complexity in Ireland over this period, proposing an evolution from an egalitarian society in the later Chalcolithic Period through to a prestige goods chiefdom emerging around 1900 BC. It is suggested that the decline of copper production at Ross Island, Co. Cork after 2000 BC may have led to a ‘copper crisis’ which would have been a profoundly disrupting event, destroying the influence of copper miners and shifting power to copper workers, and those who controlled them. This would have provided a stimulus towards the centralisation of power and the emergence of a ranked social hierarchy. The effects of this ‘copper crisis’ would have been felt in Britain also, where much Ross Island copper was consumed and may have led to similar developments, with the emergence of the Wessex Culture a similar response in Britain to the same stimulus. Cormac McSparron studied Archaeology and Modern History at Queen’s University Belfast, graduating with a BA in 1989. He was awarded an MPhil in 2008 and a PhD in 2018. Since 2002, he has worked at the Centre for Archaeological Fieldwork at Queen’s and has directed and published a large number of important excavations in Northern Ireland.

Copyright © 2021. Archaeopress. All rights reserved.

Series editors: Eileen Murphy, Colm Donnelly, Sarah Gormley and Cormac McSparron The Queen’s University Belfast Irish Archaeological Monograph series is designed as a publication venue for excavation reports, proceedings volumes and postgraduate theses relating to all aspects of Irish archaeology from the first settlers of the Mesolithic through to the twentieth century. The volumes encompass a range of approaches from fieldwork through to specialist artefact studies, and the application of scientific techniques to the study of the past. Submissions are welcome that showcase the diversity of archaeological research being undertaken across the island and among the Irish diaspora.

Archaeopress Archaeology www.archaeopress.com McSparron, Cormac. Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland, Archaeopress, 2021. ProQuest Ebook Central, McSparron cover.indd 1 http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/wisc/detail.action?docID=6647703. Created from wisc on 2024-03-01 16:12:15.