Damsgård. A ploughed-over barrow from Early Bronze Age Per. III with stone cist and pyre-pit

Abstract

Damsgård

A ploughed-over barrow from Early Bronze Age Per. III with stone cist and pyre-pit

At the site of Damsgård, Thy, in the north western part of Jutland (fig. 1), an Early Bronze Age cremation burial with the remains of the actual pyre has been excavated in a ploughed-over barrow. Similar finds from Thy and the island of Sylt show that this is not an isolated phenomenon and confirm earlier evidence of cultural connections between the two areas.

Damsgård

The Damsgård barrow was situated on a ridge, 1 km broad, bordered to the east, south and west by meadows and bogs (fig. 2). The barrow had two phases and achieved a maximum diameter of 15 m (fig. 5). Apart from a small secondary grave from the Late Iron Age, only the primary grave was preserved. This was a stone cist, oriented ESE-WNW, measuring 0.2x0.7 m internally and 0.3 m deep. The cist was located south of the centre of the barrow, and immediately to the north of it was a shallow pit (fig. 3 and 7a-b), measuring 2.8x1.2 m and 0.28 m deep, oriented NE-SW with the northern end lying directly in the centre of the barrow.

The cist contained cremated bones together with a bronze fibula, a small bronze knife and a plain bone pin (fig. 8a-c). On top of the bones and grave goods was a 2 cm layer of yellowish ash containing charcoal.

The pit also contained ash, mostly of a reddish and yellowish colour with large whitish­grey patches, together with charcoal, cremated bones and two bronze objects. At the northern end there were fragments of the cranium, and at the southern end fragments of bones from the legs and feet. In the middle there was a bronze armring with a fragment of a limb­bone, presumably from the arm, adhering to the inner side (fig. 8d). Close to the arm-ring there was a small bronze spiral, probably a finger ring (fig. 8e). At the bottom and along the sides of the pit, below the ash-layer, there was a compact layer of black, charred organic material, interpreted as poorly-burnt peat (fig. 10-13).

Analysis of the cremated bones from the cist and the pit, respectively, showed without any doubt that they came from the same person -an adult 25-35 years of age- since fragments of the cranium from the cist could be fitted together with fragments from the pit (fig. 14; appendix 1). The grave goods show that the deceased was a woman. The armring, as well as the small bronze spiral and fragments of one or more bone pins (fig. 8f), all from the pit, agree well with the grave goods from the cist, dating both to per. III of the Early Bronze Age.

Analysis of charcoal from the pit shows that most pieces come from branch-wood of ash, with small amounts of aspen. Remains of trunk-wood or of other tree species were not found (appendix 2).

Macrofossil analysis of the black, charred material from the pit showed that it consisted of peat taken from shallow heathland peat deposits and had burned poorly (appendix 3).

Pollen analysis of samples of barrow fill and of the old subsoil beneath the barrow showed that the Early Bronze Age landscape around the barrow had been virtually treeless apart from perhaps some scrub woodland. No pollen from ash or aspen were found, meaning that most of the firewood had been transported over some distance, probably from the wetland areas beyond the ridge on which the barrow was situated. The peat used as fuel probably also came from these areas.

The area around the barrow was mainly used for grazing and a little arable agriculture. The proportion of ribwort plantain-pollen in the barrow fill was greater than in the old sub­soil, suggests that the sods for the barrow had been taken from an area that was more heavily grazed than the actual spot where the barrow was erected (appendix 4; Andersen 1995).

The fuel used in the pyre pit from Damsgård demonstrates the importance of wetlands as a source of fuel in the open Early Bronze Age landscape of Thy. The archaeobotanical analyses of the material from Early Bronze Age per. III at Damsgård provide us with the earliest archaeological evidence of peat digging for fuel from Denmark.

Parallel finds

Four other finds from Thy, and two finds from the island of Sylt in the Wadden Sea are interpreted as parallels to the Damsgård grave and pyre.

Nørhå

At Nørhå in central Thy (fig. 1), at the site of a totally obliterated ploughed-over barrow, a stone cist was found measuring 1.1x0.4 m internally and 0.25 m deep (fig. 17a-b). The sole contents were cremated bones. In continuation of the cist there was a trough-shaped pie, 0.8x0.6 m, of which the southern end seems to have been destroyed in the construction of the cist. The pit contained a fill which was both reddish (probable exposure to high temperature) and charred (fig. 18) with a few cremated bones. Osteological analysis showed it likely, but not absolutely certain, that the bones from the cist and the pit come from the same individual -an adult person, probably a woman, 18- 35 years of age. Among the bones from the pit and the cist were unidentifiable animal bones. The find is interpreted as a pyre and corresponding grave of the same type as the Damsgård find. It can be dated to c. per. III of the Early Bronze Age, based on the type and size of the cist.

Villerup

At Villerup in southern Thy (fig. 1) a partly over-ploughed barrow was excavated which contained 6 graves, of which the three oldest, belonging to the two first phases of the barrow, are also interpreted as parallels to the Damsgård find.

Grave 1, the primary grave, which had been covered with a small mound only 4,1 m in diameter and 0.5 m high, was a small irregular stone cist, measuring 0.3x0.2 m internally (fig. 21-22). The cist was constructed in the southern end of an oval pie, 1.1x0.6 m. The cist contained cremated bones, a fragment of woollen cloth and a bronze tutulus (fig. 23), whereas the pit only contained various layers of organic fill, some with charcoal. At the bottorn of the pit, red-burnt patches were seen in the subsoil. The cremated bones in the cist came from an infant 7-13 months old, and the grave can be dated to per. II of the Early Bronze Age on the basis of the tutulus.

Graves 2 and 3 both belonged to the second phase of the barrow, and were probably constructed in per. III of the Early Bronze Age. Grave 2 (fig. 24-26) was an oval pit, 1.0x0.6 m, the sides and bottom were covered with a thin layer of charcoal beneath a layer of reddish/yellowish, probably burnt, fill. On the bottom of the pit was a small concentration of cremated bones and an irregular stone-setting with an empty clay vessel (fig. 27). The bones carne from an infant 12 months old. Based on stratigraphical evidence, the grave cannot be later than per. III of the Early Bronze Age.

Grave 3 was a stone cist measuring 0.75x0.35 m internally (fig. 28-30). It contained cremated bones and a badly preserved bronze fibula. The cist had been constructed in a shallow pit, very similar to the one in grave 2, which it almost totally occupied. Like the latter, it contained a thin, reddish/yellowish, probably burnt layer with charcoal at the bottom and along the sides. By accident, the cremated bones from the grave became mixed with bones from some of the other graves and could therefore not be identified. Based on the fact that all three pits showed traces of fire they are interpreted as pyre-pits like the on from Damsgård, but unlike the latter, the Villerup pits seem to have been emptied completely before the grave was constructed.

Sylt

On the island of Sylt, two of the numerous graves from the Early Bronze Age show similarities to the graves with pyre-pits from Thy (Aner & Kersten 1973-1990 vol. 5, nos. 2707 and 2766).

At Keitum, a grave consisting of an oblong pit, was found in a ploughed-over barrow (fig. 31). The pit measured 2.5x0.7 m and the fill was rich in charcoal, especially close to the bottom where red-burnt patches could be seen in the subsoil. At one end of the pit was a pile of cremated bones from an adult, with a bronze finger ring and some sherds. The grave is dated to the Early Bronze Age.

At Wenningstedt a pit of similar dimensions, 2.1x0.75 m, was found beneath the surface, between two closely adjacent barrows (fig. 32). The fill was fine, yellowish/brown sand with many pieces of charcoal, up to 1 m long, the largest lying at the bottom. At one end of the pit stood an urn in a small stone-setting. It contained cremated bones and a thin, twisted neck-ring of bronze with hook-shaped ends,

dating the find to per. III of the Early Bronze Age. Both finds are interpreted as pyre-pits containing the actual graves as well as remains of the pyre.

Pyre-pits

The custom of erecting a pyre in or over a low pit is a geographically widespread phenomenon. At the museum of Hollufgård on Funen, an experiment was carried out where the corpse of a pig was burned on a pyre, erected over a pit dug into the subsoil (Henriksen 1993). Subsequent excavation of the pit showed a stratigraphy very similar to that at Damsgård:

On the bottom there was mainly charred, not properly burned fuel and the upper part comprised ash containing cremated bones. The remains of the pyre after the cremation were almost exclusively confined to the pit.

Conclusion

The Damsgård find, thanks to an excellent state of preservation, can be without any doubt

interpreted as the remains of a pyre, erected over a shallow pit, with the stone cist containing the greater part of the bones and grave goods. The 4 other finds from Thy and the 2 finds from Sylt are likewise interpreted as pyre-pits with the corresponding graves showing, however, a number of different characteristics:

Most of the graves from Thy have stone cists or stone-settings, the graves from Sylt have a heap of bones and an urn in a stone-setting respectively. At Villerup, the pits seem to have been emptied, whereas the pits from Damsgård, Nørhå and the two from Sylt contain remains of the pyre. At Villerup and in Sylt the graves are constructed within the pits, whereas the cist at Damsgård is placed outside the pit, and the cist at Nørhå has obliterated part of it.

Notwithstanding these differences, the finds of pyre-pits from the Early Bronze Age are seen as evidence of a more or less general practice which so far is known only from Thy and from Sylt. Other evidence from the Bronze Age, especially per. III, likewise indicates close contacts between the two areas (Kersten & La Baume 1958, 47, 54; Olsen 1992, 150).

Anne-Louise Haack Olsen, Jens-Henrik Bech, Pia Bennike, Kjeld Christensen, David Earle Robinson & Svend Th. Andersen.