Microtaphonomy and interpretation of reopened graves

It is frequently the case that human remains which have been buried in graves are not left to `rest in peace` eternally. There are a wide range of documented historical and ethnographical reasons and circumstances for the reopening of graves. For example, graves have been reopened as part of funerary rituals, for the removal of grave goods or body parts for symbolic reasons, as part of ancestral rites, or simply in order to be `robbed` for materialistic reasons. The methodological objective of this project is to develop a new taphonomy-based method for the archaeological analysis of reopened graves. This method will in turn be used to analyse records from previous excavations and to offer new, evidence-based, interpretations of reopened graves. The starting point of the project is the view that the reopening of graves provides a valuable archaeological and historical source, which informs us about past attitudes and beliefs relating to graves and the objects and human remains they contain. The aim of the project is to improve our understanding of prehistoric and early historic people by investigating the phenomenon of grave-reopening and its background diachronically in the respective archaeological and historical settings. The investigation`s focus will be recently excavated reopened graves from the late Neolithic to the early Medieval periods in central Europe and in particular, the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age as well as the late Roman and early Medieval periods in eastern Austria. A large number of reopened inhumation graves have been found from this period, most of which have had grave goods removed - hence the common label being `grave-robbery`. The project is multidisciplinary, synthesizing science and humanities-based objectives and research methods. It will proceed on the basis that an understanding of a grave`s microtaphonomy is a crucial element of the research on reopened graves: taphonomy includes all natural and human processes that form archaeological evidence. The methodological part of the project will include fieldwork to investigate what can be learnt from the archaeological evidence of reopened graves where graves are excavated with a specific focus on reopenings. Results of the method of `Anthropologie de Terrain` (now called `Archaeothanatology`, Duday 2009) will also be integrated into the methodology.

The project Microtaphonomy and interpretation of reopened graves investigated practices of reopening graves in the archaeological record of early Bronze Age and early Medieval period in central Europe. In the early Bronze Age and the early Medieval period people were buried in often quite large inhumation cemeteries, in graves often elaborately furnished with grave goods. Many of these graves were reopened not a long time after the dead were buried, and in most cases grave goods were removed and sometimes the human remains were manipulated. For a long-time this phenomenon was interpreted as evidence for past looting of graves, driven by a quest for raw material and objects for resale. The aim of this project was to thoroughly investigate the archaeological evidence of reopened graves to challenge previous interpretations and to find out more about the different backgrounds and motives for reopening graves in these periods. The reopening practices were used as evidence to explore past peoples attitudes and beliefs related to graves as well as the objects and the buried human body in graves. Case studies included central European cemeteries of the early Bronze Age so-called Wieselburg-Gta culture, as well as early Medieval cemeteries dating to the 6th c. AD which have often been associated with the so-called Langobards. The results from early Medieval reopened graves show that not all grave goods were removed from graves, but only selected ones, while other grave goods were frequently left behind. The results suggest a cultural practice of grave good removal, with little evidence for exploitation of graves for raw material. Evidence for increased manipulation of skulls during reopenings was also found. For the analysis of reopened graves, an understanding of the taphonomy that are the human and natural processes that formed the archaeological evidence, is very important. For example, the time that passed between the burial and the reopening of a grave can be estimated based on information preserved in the archaeological evidence. To improve our understanding of taphonomic processes, a reopened early Bronze Age grave from Weiden am See, Burgenland was excavated with a lot of detail to maximise data for the reconstruction of the formation processes. Many specialist analyses were carried out, for example, thin sections of soil were produced for analysis under the microscope to find out more about how the different layers in a grave can be distinguished and how formation is influenced by natural factors. The results of the fieldwork were integrated into existing methodologies and used to analyse case studies based on original documentation of previous excavations and published records.