Sanctuary
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Houses for the dead...what about the living?
Sep 06, 2010, 07:54
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I was giving thought to Long Barrows such as the WKLB and how chambered tombs such as this are regarded as 'houses for the dead', but I wonder if there has ever been evidence to show that initially they were actually built as houses for the living before taking on another role?
If you conside the original ground plans for these chambered tombs they are very practical for daily use having in the main a 'living area' coupled with the 'side chambers/rooms' for storage or in fact 'bedroom' space etc. Before being capped with stone they may have been roofed with thatch as in a proper house/hut type construction of the time. Thoughts?
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tiompan
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Re: Houses for the dead...what about the living?
Sep 06, 2010, 08:25
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Sanctuary wrote: I was giving thought to Long Barrows such as the WKLB and how chambered tombs such as this are regarded as 'houses for the dead', but I wonder if there has ever been evidence to show that initially they were actually built as houses for the living before taking on another role?
If you conside the original ground plans for these chambered tombs they are very practical for daily use having in the main a 'living area' coupled with the 'side chambers/rooms' for storage or in fact 'bedroom' space etc. Before being capped with stone they may have been roofed with thatch as in a proper house/hut type construction of the time. Thoughts?
Can't think of any such evidence and pretty difficult to imagine what it would comprise of to distinguish it from barrow activity .A hearth and rubbish would both be seen as being related to funerary rites /deposits etc . Mesolithic middens were found under Ascott & Hazleton and signs of cultivation e.g. ard marks (previously considered "ritual " ) have been found under some Long Barrows . The little we do know in relation to time for build show that they were done quite quickly and in use for only 1-3 generations .
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wideford
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Re: Houses for the dead...what about the living?
Sep 06, 2010, 11:03
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Though neither function is known to have been combined in prehistory they are now coming round that it cuts both ways i.e. tombs have mimicked houses and houses tombs - one measures a circle starting anywhere apparently
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StoneGloves
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Re: Houses for the dead...what about the living?
Sep 06, 2010, 13:00
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MPP conducted excavations of roundhouses (somewhere in Scotland) and reported that there was a buried corpse beneath the doorway, in one of them. That's about as close as it gets.
It's quite easy to envisage a long barrow's appearance as a woolly thatched longhouse. And very literal too.
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tiompan
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Re: Houses for the dead...what about the living?
Sep 06, 2010, 13:12
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StoneGloves wrote: MPP conducted excavations of roundhouses (somewhere in Scotland) and reported that there was a buried corpse beneath the doorway, in one of them. That's about as close as it gets.
http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/6447/cladh_hallan_round_houses.html
Burials within the settlement area and under houses is the norm for the period 7000-6500 BC in the SE Europe .
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moss
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Re: Houses for the dead...what about the living?
Sep 06, 2010, 13:31
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wideford wrote: Though neither function is known to have been combined in prehistory they are now coming round that it cuts both ways i.e. tombs have mimicked houses and houses tombs - one measures a circle starting anywhere apparently
Something about that in Bradley's book, Significance of Monuments, studies elsewhere in Europe show longhouses and the theory put forward, that the long mounds are copies of the long houses. 'House of the living' sometimes lying by 'houses of the dead'
or perhaps the local leader dying and the house that he lived in will be left to rot around his body...
The habit of burying something in your house foundations, walls, etc has a long history...
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StoneGloves
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Re: Houses for the dead...what about the living?
Sep 06, 2010, 13:34
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Here's another link for the mummies ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2003/mar/16/science.highereducation ).
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faerygirl
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Re: Houses for the dead...what about the living?
Sep 06, 2010, 13:41
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How about the use of barrows as tripping chambers. There is a reasonable amount of evidence that caves were used to experiment with mushrooms and psycadelic plants, but what if there arn't any caves close by??? MAKE SOME!
It makes sense that barrows and things would be used before they became houses for the dead. This is why I have a problem with the dates put on burial chambers and stone monuments. Basing the age of something on the age of the corpse inside seems a bit silly to me; you could bury me in my house, it wouldnt make this Victorian house 28years old!
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Sanctuary
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Re: Houses for the dead...what about the living?
Sep 06, 2010, 13:43
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StoneGloves wrote:
It's quite easy to envisage a long barrow's appearance as a woolly thatched longhouse. And very literal too.
I was thinking along the lines of the possibility of a roofed long barrow being the original home of a leader/chieftain and his family and as they died off were laid to rest in the side chambers then when 'full' the whole thing becoming just a stone capped chambered tomb as we know it today.
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Sanctuary
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Re: Houses for the dead...what about the living?
Sep 06, 2010, 13:47
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faerygirl wrote: How about the use of barrows as tripping chambers. There is a reasonable amount of evidence that caves were used to experiment with mushrooms and psycadelic plants, but what if there arn't any caves close by??? MAKE SOME!
It makes sense that barrows and things would be used before they became houses for the dead. This is why I have a problem with the dates put on burial chambers and stone monuments. Basing the age of something on the age of the corpse inside seems a bit silly to me; you could bury me in my house, it wouldnt make this Victorian house 28years old!
Good point...now I hope you're not lying about your age?? heh heh
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