Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T04:21:24.661Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Burnt mounds as saunas, and the prehistory of bathing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Lawrence Barfield  and
Mike Hodder
Lawrence Barfield
Affiliation:
Department of Ancient History and Archaeology, University of Birmingham, PO Box 363, Birmingham B15 2TT
Mike Hodder
Affiliation:
Sandwell Borough Council, Penny Hill Lane, West Bromwich, West Midlands, B71 3RZ
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The physical scale of buildings like the Baths of Caracalla give the clearest indication of the importance of bathing in the classical order of things – though whether what Romans did in the bath was always clean and decent may be an open question. But what about the prehistory of bathing, and particularly of bathing in steam? An answer is given here which links the historical and ethnographic record to burnt mounds, among the more common and puzzling types of north European site.

Type
Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 61 , Issue 233 , November 1987 , pp. 370 - 379
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1987

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bamford, H.M. 1982. Beaker domestic sites in the Fen edge and East Anglia. East Anglian Archaeology Report 16.Google Scholar
Barfield, L.H. & Hodder, M.. 1980. The excavation of two burnt mounds in south Birmingham>: an interim report, West Midlands Archaeology 23: 15–26.Google Scholar
Barfield, L.H. & Hodder, M.. 1981. Birmingham’s Bronze Age, Current Archaeclogy 78: 198–200.Google Scholar
Bocquet, A. & Houot, A.. 1982. La vie au Néolithique, Charavines, un village au bord d’un lac il y a 5000 ans, Dossiers, Histoire et Archéologie 64.Google Scholar
Bradley, R. 1978. The prehistoric settlement of the British Isles. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Briggs, C.S. 1976. Notes on the distribution of some raw materials in later prehistoric Britain, in Burgess, C. & Miket, R. (ed.), Settlement and economy in the third and second millennia BC: 267–82. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. British Series 33.Google Scholar
Burgess, C. 1980. The age of Stonehenge. London: Dent.Google Scholar
Coles, J. 1979. Experimental archaeology. London: Academic.Google Scholar
Curle, A.O. 1939. A Viking settlement at Freswick, Caithness, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 73: 71–110.Google Scholar
Curman, C. 1905. Det romerke bad og den finske badstue. Kra.Google Scholar
Curwen, C. 1934. A late bronze age farm and neolithic pit-dwelling on New Barn Down, Clapham, near Worthing, Sussex Archaeological Collections 75: 137–70.Google Scholar
De Min, M. 1984. Adria Antica, in Aspes, A. (ed.), II Veneto nell’antichità:: 809–30. Verona.Google Scholar
Fenton, A. 1976. Traditional elements in the diet of the Northern Isles of Scotland, in The second international symposium for ethnological food research, Helsinki. Lerwick: Shetland Times.Google Scholar
Graves, J. 1854. Transactions of the Kilkenny Archaeological Society 3.Google Scholar
Gustawsson, K.A. 1949. Kokstenhögar, Fornvännen 44: 152–65.Google Scholar
Hedges, J. 1974–5. Excavation of two Orcadian burnt mounds at Liddle and Beaquoy, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 106: 38–98.Google Scholar
Heizer, R. (ed.) 1978. Handbook of North American Indians 8. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Henslow, G. 1899. Medical works of the fourteenth century. London: Chapman and Hall.Google Scholar
Hodges, H.W.M. 1955. The excavation of a group of cooking-places at Ballycroghan, Co. Down, Ulster Journal of Archaeology 18: 17–36.Google Scholar
Huxtable, J., Hedges, J.W., Renfrew, A.C., & Aitken, M.J.. 1976. Dating a settlement pattern by thermoluminescence: the burnt mounds of Orkney, Archaeometry 18: 4–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lane Fox, A.H. 1875. On early modes of navigation, Journal of the Anthropological Institute 4: 399–437.Google Scholar
Lucas, A.T. 1965. Washing and bathing in ancient Ireland, Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 95: 65–114.Google Scholar
Maloney, S.J. 1982. The medieval fortress of Mietlica in Poland, Archaeology 35: 26–32.Google Scholar
Milligan, S.F. 1889. The ancient Irish hot-air bath, Journal of the Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 9: 268–70.Google Scholar
Nixon, M. 1980. Burnt mounds in the south Birmingham area, West Midlands Archaeology 23: 9–11.Google Scholar
O’Kelly, M.J. 1954. Excavations and experiments in ancient Irish cooking places, Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 84: 105–55.Google Scholar
Ott, V. 1948. Die Sauna, ihre Geschichte - die Grundlagen ihrer Wirkung, ihre Anwendung zur Prophylaxe and Therapie. Basel.Google Scholar
Pétrequin, P. 1984. Gens de l’eau, gens de la terre. Paris: Hachette.Google Scholar
Ramseyer, D. 1980. Un atelier de taille de bois de cerf, Archeologia 145: 60–6.Google Scholar
Romero Masia, A. 1976. El Habitat Castreno (Santiago de Compostela), Publicacions de colexio de arquitectos de Galicia.Google Scholar
Rowe, F.W. 1977. Extinction: the Beothuks of Newfoundland. Toronto: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Shetelig, H. & Falk, H.. 1957. Scandinavian archaeology. Oxford.Google Scholar
Stanley, W.O. 1868. On the remains of ancient circular habitations in Holyhead Island, Archaeologia Cambrensis 14: 385–400.Google Scholar
Steensberg, A. 1980. New Guinea gardens. London: Academic.Google Scholar
Strahm, C. 1965–6. Ausgrabungen in Vinelz, Jahrbuch Bernischen Historisches Museum 45/6: 283–320.Google Scholar
Talve, I. 1960. Bastu och torkhus i Nordeuropa, Nordiska Museets Handlingar 53.Google Scholar
Thrane, H. 1975. Stenhoje fra broncealderen Grave fra en broncealderbygd i Jyderup Skov, Odsher-red, Nationalmuseets Arbejdsmark 172–82.Google Scholar
Torbrugge, W. 1970–1. Vor- und friihgeschichtliche Flussfunde, Bericht der Römisch-Germanischen Kommission 51/2: 1–146.Google Scholar
Urquhart, D. 1856. The Turkish Bath, with a view to its introduction into the British dominions. Bryce.Google Scholar
Vahros, I. 1966. Zur Geschichte und Folklore der grossrussischen Sauna. Helsinki: FF. Academia Scientiarum Fennica Communications 197.Google Scholar
Way, A. 1868. Notice of relics found in and near ancient circular habitations explored by the Hon. W.O. Stanley MP in Holyhead Island, Archaeologia Cambrensis 14: 401–33.Google Scholar
Wehrli, G.A. 1927. Die Bader, Barbiere und Wundärtze im alten Zurich, Mitteilungen der Antiqua-rischen Gesellschaft, Zurich 30.Google Scholar
Winham, P. 1978. Sampling populations of sites: a case study from Shetland, in Cherry, J.F., Gamble, C. & Shennan, S. (ed.), Sampling in contemporary British archaeology: 105–20. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports 50.Google Scholar
Wood Martin, W.G. 1902. Traces of the elder faiths of Ireland: a folklore sketch. London: Longmans, Green.Google Scholar
Wright, L. 1980. Clean and decent. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar