This essay concerns the osteological cremated skeletal remains from Broe, Halla parish, Gotland of The Late Iron Age. The focus of this essay is to determine the position of the corpse on the pyre, whether the cremated bones were crushed after or prior to the cremation and if the individual was buried in the pyre. In addition the species, age, sex and skeletal abnormalities of the bones in question will be studied. The result of the research has yielded that the cremated bones did not need to be crushed to result in the small fragment sizes. Crushing of the bones may have happened during the cremation, this conclusion has been drawn through the comparison of a pyre experiment were bone fragmentation is evident with cremated foxes, and dogs in the cremation graves from Broe. The construction of the pyre and the position of the corpse could not be determined through colouring and fragmentation of the bones. The human's were commonly buried in the pyre, and in some cases it is possible that the "grave" in fact is the remainder of a pyre. The species found are dog, horse, cow, sheep/goat and bear. The unburnt human bones in the cremation graves come from children. Of the cremated human’s, ages range from 18-44 to 50-79 occur. Three probable men and two probable women have been estimated, but there is no clear segregation between the sexes on the grave field, which is evident on some medieval church graveyards. Skeletal abnormalities in humans are found on the cranium, more specific senile osteoporosis, and on the dog’s osteophytosis.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:hgo-1083 |
| Date | January 2007 |
| Creators | Johansson, Ida |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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