Graves, landmarks, or sacrificial monuments? the human osteology and paleopathology of the bronze age burial cairns in finland

AbstractDuring the Bronze Age (ca. 1800-500 BC), cremation became the dominant burial practice in Finland. These Bronze Age (BA) cremations have been excavated from burial cairns in Finland for more than 150 years. This work provides new information on human osteology from this previously understudied area in northeastern Europe. The results cover the earliest period in Finnish prehistory for which large-scale human osteological assemblages are available. In this article, we present a comprehensive human osteological study on the curated bone collections of the National Museum of Finland and other provincial museums, and provide new radiocarbon datings of the cairns. The results show that the cairns were most often used for single burials, without accompanying animals or artefacts. Double and multiple burials became more common in the Iron Age. Porotic hyperostosis was a common finding. Signs of osteoarthritis are more common in the central Satakunta region, where Iron Age burial practices first emerged already during the Late Bronze Age. These observed changes can be connected to changes in subsistence strategies that also enabled permanent settlements
Source: International Journal of Osteoarchaeology - Category: Science Authors: Tags: RESEARCH ARTICLE Source Type: research