Re: The Glorantha Digest V7 #404

From: aelarsen_at_facstaff.wisc.edu
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 18:00:42 -0600

>From: Joerg Baumgartner <joe_at_toppoint.de>
>Subject: Re: Newgrange
>
>I said
>>>If so, no evidence for use as a grave has been found for Newgrange
>>>proper (dunno about Knowth and Dowth, but I suppose they were graves).
>
>and was corrected by Andrew E. Larsen:
>> Untrue. When Michael O'Kelly conducted a series of annual digs at
>> Newgrange from 1962 to 75, he found the remains of 2 bodies in the
>> main chamber, whose bones were scattered about, suggesting that
>> they might have been moved in there sometime after the site was
>> built or disturbed at some point by grave robbers. He also found
>> the cremated remains of at least 3 and possibly more people, as
>> well as several pendants and other items.
>
>This for a site which had ample space for many bodies. Do you have dates
>for these finds? It is possible that later groups used the earlier
>monument as a place to bury their dead. This still doesn't mean that
>Newgrange was primarily a grave - otherwise all of christianity's great
>cathedrals would have to be categorized as monuments to the dead buried
>within as well.

        I do not know if any dates have been assigned to those bodies, but it would be a moot point, since the dating of Newgrange itself is vague. The size of the monument in comparison to the number of bodies is isn't a real indicator, since the Pyramids were built to house just one body.

        However, you're right that there is nothing to prove that Newgrange was built to act as a tomb. The bodies could significantly postdate the structure. However, this is also true of many other neolithic sites. Most passage graves *could* have been built for other purposes. My understanding is that most archaeologists consider Newgrange (and Knowth and Dowth) to be cemetaries.

>> Remember that many burial bounds become megaliths after the dirt
>> has worn away and the stone structure remains.
>
>Only if megalithic techniques were used to build the mounts, which is
>what I doubt. Mounds like that of the Oseberg ship used different
>methods, and would yield no great stone remains.

        Agreed. But the vast majority of neolithic sites that I have seen in the British Isles (excluding stone circles) originated as grave structures, from which the dirt and burials have subsequently vanished, leaving odd arrangements of stones.

Andrew E. Larsen

---