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Houses for the dead...what about the living?
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Sanctuary
Sanctuary
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Re: Houses for the dead...what about the living?
Sep 09, 2010, 06:08
BuckyE wrote:
Sanctuary wrote:
... a Chieftain that had died about 20 years previously and was propped up in a makeshift chair on this shelf of stone outside...


Not having seen the show, I don't know exactly what this means. But it doesn't sound like the sadly disarticulated ancestors were living in the house, right? So, even in this intimate situation, the ancestors had their own place, so to speak! Kind of a mother-in-law apartment type of arrangement?

So even here the dead have their place, and the living theirs. There aren't many extant examples of Neolithic houses, but comparing the couple I've seen (Scara Brae, Cambous) to barrows (West Kennet, Isbister, Stony Littleton, multiple sites in Brittany, etc.) the actual construction doesn't really seem that similar. It's perhaps reminiscent, in the sense it may use similar techniques, but to me the barrows don't look like particularly nice houses.


Yes BuckyE, the dead ancestors were outside. The tribe lived at the base of this mountain/hill which had a shelved section (natural I assumed) about 6' above the ground only yards away from the huts they lived in. It was the most bizzare and sort of spooky thing to witness these three ancestor's remains in varying states of disarticulation just sitting (well one was) with the others just piles of bones on the ground.
They quite obviously had a strong belief in the Afterlife to still be talking to a dead person like he was still alive. I must try and find out what the programme was called as it was quite something to watch.
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