The grim secret of Stone Age burials in Orkney
STONE Age Orkney islanders chopped up their dead relatives before mixing the remains in communal pits, a study reveals.
A new forensic study of human remains on Orkney has found ‘chop marks’ and ‘scrape marks’ which proves deliberate dismemberment and ‘defleshing activities’.
Academics believe the butchering of deceased loved ones around 6,000 years ago was done to remove their identity as individuals because dead ancestors were regarded as a collective group.
Chopping up remains and mixing them together – ‘an expression of shared ancestral belonging’ – also meant islanders could overcome the different rates at which the bodies of individuals tended to decay.
The grim new insights into the business of death in Stone Age Orkney have been revealed by Dr Rebecca Crozier, based at the University of the Philippines. The
‘An expression of shared belonging’
archaeologist, who previously studied at Edinburgh University, is a specialist in human osteology, forensic archaeology and mortuary analysis.
The Orkney Islands are home to at least 72 tombs, known as ‘cairns’, dating back as far as 4,000BC. The ancient burial sites have been the focus of dozens of archaeological studies over the years – with experts debating the details of how the ancient islanders buried their dead.
Dr Crozier’s study of two ancient tombs at Quanterness and Quoyness involved re-analysing more than 12,275 bone fragments previously excavated from the tombs on mainland Orkney and Sanday.
Previous archeologists found the bones of the dead Orcadians mixed together at the two sites rather than intact skeletons.
They concluded that the bodies had been burned or buried until the flesh was decomposed, before a selection of certain bones were moved to a tomb.
But in her study, Fragments of Death, published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, Dr Crozier found evidence that bodies were brought to the tombs where mourners chopped them up and scraped their flesh from their bones in a violent ceremony.