Aleksander Pluskowski - The Ritual Killing and Burial of Animals

Published by

Oxbow Books, Oxford, UK

Oxbow Books and the authors, 2012

ISBN 978-1-84217-444-9

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The ritual killing and burial of animals: European perspectives / edited by Aleksander Pluskowski.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-84217-444-9

1. Animal sacrifice--Europe. 2. Animals, Fossil--Europe. 3. Animal remains (Archaeology)--Europe. 4. Human-animal relationships--Europe. 5. Europe--Antiquities. I. Pluskowski, Aleksander.

BL795.A54R57 2012

203.4--dc23

2011040891

Cover image: Burial of a man accompanied by a horse from an Early Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Eriswell (RAF Lakenheath), Suffolk. Copyright Suffolk Co. Council

Background image: Horse motif comparanda. Redrawn after Mller-Wille 1971/2; Bruce-Mitford 1978.

Printed in Great Britain by

Gomer Press

Llandysul, Ceredigion

Contents

S ECTION 3: W ESTERN E UROPE

Contributors

L SZL B ARTOSIEWICZ

Institute of Archaeological Sciences

Eotvos Lorand University

Budapest, Hungary

School of History, Classics and Archaeology,

University of Edinburgh, UK

M INDAUGAS B ERTAIUS

Department of Philosophy and Cultural Science

Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania.

L EE B RODERICK

School of Applied Sciences

Bournemouth University, UK

C HRIS F ERN

Fern Archaeology/Department of Archaeology

University of York, UK

M AAIKE G ROOT

Faculteit der letteren

Vrije Universiteit

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

T NDE H ORVTH

Hungarian Academy of Science

Institute of Archaeology

Budapest, Hungary

A NDRZEJ K UCZKOWSKI

Department of Archaeology

Koszalin Museum, Poland

K AMIL K AJKOWSKI

Department of Art and History

West-Kashubian Museum in Bytw, Poland

R NAR L EIFSSON

Faculty of History and Philosophy

University of Iceland

J ACQUI M ULVILLE

School of History, Archaeology and Religion

Cardiff University, UK

R ICHARD M ADGWICK

School of Applied Sciences

Bournemouth University, UK

O LA M AGNELL

Historical Osteology, Department of Archaeology and Ancient History

Lund University, Sweden

M ARK M ALTBY

School of Applied Sciences

Bournemouth University, UK

J AMES M ORRIS

Museum of London Archaeology, UK

A DRIENNE P OWELL

School of History, Archaeology and Religion

Cardiff University, UK

M IKE P ARKER P EARSON

Department of Archaeology

University of Sheffield, UK

A LEKSANDER P LUSKOWSKI

Department of Archaeology,

University of Reading, UK

F RANK S ALVADORI

Department of Archaeology

University of Siena, Italy

N ICOLE R EYNAUD S AVIOZ

ARIA-SA, Archologie et Recherches

Interdisciplinaires dans les Alpes, Switzerland

K ARLHEINZ S TEPPAN

Albert-Ludwigs-Universitt Freiburg, Institut fr

Archologische Wissenschaften, Abteilung fr

Urgeschichtliche Archologie, Germany

R ADOSAW S ZCZODROWSKI

Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toru

(UMK), Poland

The editor would like to thank the reviewers of the contributions presented in this volume

S ECTION 1

I NTERPRETATIVE F RAMEWORKS

Introduction: The Ritual Killing and Burial of Animals in the Past

Aleksander Pluskowski

The killing and burial of animals in ritualistic contexts is encountered across Europe from Prehistory through to the historical period. The term ritualistic is an ambiguous and controversial one, but in this context most commonly refers to the slaughter of animals as part of religious or cult praxis. Archaeologically, such animals are most frequently encountered in funerary contexts, often in association with human remains, where they are typically interpreted as sacrifices. Written sources from historical periods indicate incredible diversity in the form and function of animal sacrifice, from basic slaughter through to burning and living burial. Deeper in the past, where we rely almost exclusively on interpreting deposited animal remains and (where available) zoomorphic iconography, the range of treatments of the ritually slaughtered and deposited animals is equally diverse.

The aim of this volume is to present the state of research across Europe, to illustrate how comparable interpretative frameworks are used by archaeologists working with both prehistoric and historical societies. This is a topic which is widely encountered in the study of past European societies, and one which would benefit from a comparison of techniques, interpretations, theoretical frameworks and critiques. Key questions include: How easy is it to identify ritually killed animals in the archaeological record? Can we tell if an animal has been killed specifically for such a purpose? Is it possible to reconstruct the rites associated with their deposition? Is it possible to reconstruct or re-contextualise the value of ritually killed animals? What insights can be gained about the religious paradigms and ritual systems of the societies engaged in animal sacrifice? How specifically can we understand the cultic praxis behind the sacrificial killing of animals? Why are some species used in sacrificial contexts and not others? What can this tell us about human-animal relations in the past? How much similarity is there across European societies in the treatment of animals made sacred? How long were specific rites in use and why? Although animal sacrifices are typically interpreted as substitutes or surrogates for people, how does the ritualistic treatment of animal bodies compare to similar treatments of humans? Many of these questions are tackled by the sixteen papers in this volume, sub-divided into interpretative and regional studies. Together they represent a snapshot of the current state of research on this fundamental, recurring and spectacular aspect of human societies in the past.

Associated Bone Groups

The horse skeleton on the cover of this volume, referred to in Chris Ferns contribution, evokes the most common impression of ritual killing and burial; animals that have been buried whole with or nearby humans, often within a definable cemetery and assumed or ascertained to be deliberately killed for this purpose, rather than buried after naturally expiring. James Morris introduces the volume with a survey of how archaeologists have identified the remains of animals that have been slaughtered within a ritualistic context, defined as Associated Bone Groups (ABGs). This terminology is now widely used in the zooarchaeological and archaeological literature; many of the contributors have framed their interpretations in reference to this definition. The idea of an ABG is that it immediately identifies a carcass that was not fully processed for food or raw materials in manufacturing. However, assigning an interpretation to an ABG is largely a product of the archaeological milieu, formed by expectations and assumptions regarding the context. Moreover, the dichotomy between ritual/sacred and mundane/profane is something that remains widely used by European archaeologists, despite attempts at developing new interpretative frameworks. Part of the problem, when grappling with these juxtapositions, is that zooarchaeologists naturally begin and end their investigations with the animal remains, rather than adopting a more holistic approach to religious practices or world-views. Given the nature of the discipline this is not always possible and in some cases even these ABGs are divorced from their immediate material context (Groot this volume); several contributions call for better documentation and publication of animal deposits. However, by viewing such deposits as human constructs as material culture as all of the contributors have done, a different perspective becomes available, one that draws its inspiration from the biographical approach to objects and monuments. In fact, zooarchaeologists are familiar with a life history perspective on deposited faunal remains through the study of taphonomy, which represents a major theme in this volume.