Special Topic: Funerary Archaeology of Later Prehistoric Europe - ARC00104H

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Module summary

What would it be like to handle the bones of your relatives? Or fashion them into jewellery? Do the different grave goods accompanying men and women mean they had the same genders as the modern world? Or were Bronze Age warriors more interested in how they looked, than violence? While long studied monumental architecture can give the impression that later prehistoric burial was just about the elites, new methods have revealed that we are only just getting to grips with the complexity of funerary practices in the past. This module focuses on the evidence for funerary practice across the Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age of Europe.

Related modules

A directed option - students must pick a Special Topic module and have a choice of which to take

Module will run

Occurrence	Teaching period
A	Semester 1 2025-26

Module aims

Special Topics focus upon the archaeology of a well defined time, space or theme and the modules seek to allow students, in small groups to focus upon primary source material and to apply to it the theoretical and thematic perspectives learned over your first and second years. The aim is to facilitate the acquisition of deeper knowledge of one aspect of the past than has been possible in more general courses.

Specifically this module aims:

• To examine the broad range of burial practices in later prehistory in Europe from the Neolithic to the Iron Age, including inhumations, cremations, secondary burial rites, and monumental architecture.
• To evaluate the appropriateness of the current scientific methods and theoretical approaches applied to burial evidence.
• To develop an understanding of key interpretations, and their limitations, of funerary practices in issues of gender, personhood and social identity, social organisation and inequality, and belief systems and cultural change.

Module learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• demonstrate a broad and comparative knowledge of death and burial in the later prehistory of Europe, focusing on the Neolithic to Iron Age.
• be aware of the scientific methods and theoretical approaches applied to burial evidence in later prehistory.
• critically assess and discuss the key interpretations and their limitations
• critically evaluate the primary data and evidence
• communicate an in-depth, logical and structured argument, supported by archaeological evidence

Module content

In this module, we will explore why death and burial is so prominent in the archaeological record for Later Prehistory (Neolithic to Iron Age). We will examine how new techniques are opening up new avenues of interpretation, but also have limitations. The module will also explore how easily the evidence can be misused in modern political debates about identity and belonging, and challenge you to suggest your own interpretations.

The lectures and seminars will take a thematic approach, exploring an issue relating to funerary archaeology in later prehistory through comparing and contrasting different cases studies. Drawing on a range of evidence from across Europe, we will explore the application of ethnography to interpret death and burial; landscapes and monuments; identities and grave goods; treatment of the body from inhumation, cremation, to disarticulation and secondary burial rites; ancient DNA and isotopic studies; social inequalities and structures; and the evidence for deviant burial rites. Case studies will come from the Neolithic to the Iron Age, introducing you to the major sites and types of evidence found in Europe, from Neolithic plastered skulls in the Near East and the iconic monuments of Britain, such as Stonehenge, to the Bog Bodies and Princely graves of the Iron Age. We will also explore some case studies that you may not be familiar with, giving you the chance to explore some of the less well known, but no less fascinating aspects of European Prehistory.

Indicative assessment

Task	% of module mark
Oral presentation/seminar/exam	100.0

Special assessment rules

None

Indicative reassessment

Task	% of module mark
Oral presentation/seminar/exam	100.0

Module feedback

Formative: oral feedback from module leaders in class

Summative: written feedback within the University's turnaround policy

Indicative reading

Nilsson Stutz, L. & Tarlow, S. (eds). 2013. The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Death and Burial. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Parker Pearson, M. 1999. The archaeology of death and Burial. Stroud: Sutton

Scarre, C. & Badbury, J. (eds). 2017. Engaging with the dead: exploring changing human beliefs about death, mortality and the human body. Oxford: Oxbow books.