Bones were instrumental in Bronze Age
BRONZE Age people kept bones of relatives and other important people in their lives as relics, a study suggests.
The findings indicate a tangible way of honouring and remembering recently deceased people more than 4,000 years ago, experts said.
Led by the University of Bristol and published in the journal Antiquity, the study used radiocarbon dating and CT scanning to analyse bones found at Bronze Age sites.
Researchers found that Bronze Age people seem to have curated the remains of people who had lived within their lifetimes and who likely played an important role in their lives or their communities – including relatives, a tradesperson, a friend or even an enemy – so they had a relic to remember them by.
In one example from a Wiltshire Bronze Age site, a human thigh bone had been crafted into a musical instrument and buried alongside a man found close to Stonehenge.
The carved and polished instrument was found with other items including stone and bronze axes, a bone plate, a tusk, and a ceremonial pronged object.
Dr Thomas Booth, the study’s lead author, said: “Was this someone who they learned to play the musical instrument from and then were they essentially trying to inherit their skills by turning their bone into a musical instrument?”
Bones from other people were not only buried with bodies but also displayed in people’s homes and buried under house floors.
Professor Joanna Bruck, principal investigator on the project and visiting professor at the University of Bristol’s department of anthropology and archaeology, said: “This suggests that Bronze Age people did not view human remains with the sense of horror or disgust that we might feel today.”
The same human bones may have circulated among communities for long periods of time.
Bones may also have been kept “as a means of humiliating and intimidating a perceived enemy”, researchers suggested.