Gravfund fra Stubberup, Lolland

Resumé

A grave from Stubberup on Lolland

Human sacrifice and cannibalism in the Bronze Age

The Stubberup grave. In 1958, at Stubberup near Nysted on Lolland, a grave was investigated in the centre of a former tumulus, then completely levelled by the plough. Under a carpet of stones lying at surface level there were found traces of a hole, about 4 metres long, 3 metres wide and 80 cms. deep, full of large cobbles. Among these stones lay the bones, complete or fragmentary, of at least three individuals. The bones were scattered, so that the bodies must have been reduced to skeletons before the bones were buried (Figs. 1-3).

At the bottom of the hole there was a channel, free of stones, in which lay the remains of a completely decomposed wooden coffin; the form of the channel suggests that the coffin was a hollowed oak trunk. In the coffin was a double burial, both skeletons lying on their backs, but with their heads at either end of the coffin and their legs intertwined (Figs. 4-6).

Together with one of the skeletons (skeleton A) were found a flint dagger and a bone pin. In addition there lay in the coffin, above the legs of the bodies, the foretooth of an ox and a human thighbone, completely undamaged except for the upper part of the joint which was missing. All these items were clearly separated from the human bones which were found in the heap of stones above the burial, as, in contrast to these bones but like the skeletons A and B, they lay in the greasy humus layer which was all that was left of the coffin.

The scattered and, in many cases, fragmentary bones lying in the fill above the double grave might be thought to come from earlier, disturbed graves, but this explanation is contradicted by the discovery of a similar fragmented human bone in the oak-tree coffin itself, into which it cannot have been introduced accidentally. The human bones in the stone heap must therefore be assumed to belong to the grave and to be the remains of some burial ritual. Nor are the circumstances entirely without parallel.

The grave-goods and their dating. The flint dagger (Figs. 7-8), of Forssander's Type VI, dates the burial to the beginning of the Bronze Age, to Periods I-II 3). The bone pin is the first one to be found belonging to the Early Bronze Age in Denmark 9), but this may be due to the fact that it is exceptional for bone to be preserved in graves from this period. From the shape of the pin and its position in the grave it must have been a dress pin, and as its head pointed downward it would have slid out of the material of the dress unless it had been secured by a lacing passed through the eye of the pin and tied to the point, where the pin emerged from the material. It would thus appear to be an ancestral or parallel type to the Scandanavian bronze hooped pin, the hoop of which -as Sophus Müller emphasized 10)- is an imitation in metal of a cord or leather lace which held the pin in place.

The Scandinavian hooped pin (safety pin) cannot, however, have originated solely as a translation into metal of such a Scandinavian bone pin with a lacing, but must also have been due to foreign influences. Thus the pins of the early hooped pins show considerable resemblance to the contemporary dress pins of the tumulus culture (Fig. 9). On the other hand it seems impossible, on chronological grounds, that the Central European fibulae, which first appear at a time corresponding to the end of our Period II, can have played any part in the development of the earliest Scandinavian hooped pins, which appear at the beginning of Period II 11-12). Quite another point is that in the later Scandinavian hooped pins it is possible to find features which reveal influence from the Central European fibulae.

The two other items in the grave furniture, the ox tooth and the human thighbone, appear to be of ritual significance. There are other examples in Bronze-Age graves of animal teeth apparently employed as amulets 13-16), and the human bone must be seen in connection with the corresponding human bones above the coffin (vide infra).

The form of burial. Parallels are known both to the actual shape of the grave 17) and to the double burial 18). In respect of the human skeletons above the coffin other cases are discussed where the bodies are buried in different fashions in the same grave, cases, in other words, where it appears likely that an ordinary burial is accompanied by a sacrificial victim. Examples are known of graves of this type in which both bodies are uncremated 23), and of graves where the one body is uncremated while the other, the sacrificial victim, is burnt (the Egtved type). This latter type is represented by several known burials 24-35), The rule appears here to be that the person buried is a woman, and that the victim is a child, though one case is known where the person buried was a man, and one where the victim was an adult. Burnt bones found together with an uncremated burial can also belong to a sacrificed animal 37).

The closest parallel to the Stubberup burial is, however, a Swedish burial of Period IV from "Kung Björns hög" at Håga in Uppland 42). Here, outside the coffin (both above and below it), lay the scattered bones of several domestic animals and of three human beings. There seems to be no doubt that they were the remains of feasts held in connection with the burial. One of the human bones, for example, has been split for extraction of the marrow (Fig. 10).

In Czechoslovakia, too, Bronze-Age discoveries showing evidence of cannibalism have been made. For example, at Cezavy bones of animals and human beings, broken and split for marrow extraction, have been found in a pit 50). Several of the human bones, which belonged to four children aged 2-17 years, showed undoubted marks of cutting (Fig. 11).

It would be natural, against this background, to explain the scattered and in some cases broken human bones above the Stubberup coffin, and the thighbone within the coffin, in the same way as the bones in the Håga tumulus, as evidence of cannibalism in association with the burial. It must, however, be recorded that, even though the bones found at Stubberup are in fragments, they do not provide any incontrovertible evidence for cannibalism, as no marks of hammering or cutting have been observable on the bones. This may, however, be due to their poor state of preservation.

Early Bronze-Age cremation burials. H. C. Broholm has expressed the opinion that graves of Period II containing burnt bones represent graves of the Egtved type 59), whereas C. J. Becker and G. Kunwald maintain that they form a quite considerable body of cremation burials even as early as this period 52-53). Unfortunately the available information concerning many of these burials is too incomplete to allow us to decide whether they are true cremation burials or graves of the Egtved type. However, among the graves for which we do have detailed information the same types occur as those we know from Period III, the grave in adult length with burnt bones scattered over the whole of the bottom of the grave 62), and the grave with adult furniture, where the grave itself is considerably smaller than adult length 63-65). In particular this latter type, which usually has been dated to the transitional period between Early and Late Bronze Age 66), seems only to be capable of explanation as true cremation burials.

Ebbe Lomborg