Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T09:16:43.573Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Mortuary Houses and Funeral Rites in Denmark

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Poul Kjærum
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In 1954 a stone and timber-built mortuary house belonging to the Funnel-Beaker (TRB) culture was excavated at Tustrup, in the county of Randers in Eastern Jutland. At that time such structures were unknown in the area of the Funnel-Beaker culture, but, five years later, a very similar mortuary house was found at Ferslev, just south of the Limfjord, in the neighbouring county of Aalborg. From the archaeological evidence Tustrup dates from the very beginning of the period when Passage Graves (Jættestuer) were being built in Denmark. The structure and the ritual carried out in both the mortuary houses, as it could be deduced from the content and disposition of the grave goods, adds very considerably to our knowledge of the burial practices of the megalith builders of Denmark. Quite apart from this, the discoveries at Tustrup and Ferslev provide us with good fixed points in the relative and absolute chronology of the Funnel-Beaker culture since each house contained a large number of highly ornamented pots as well as charcoal from the walls and roofs of the houses, which could be dated by the C14 method.

Type
Articles
Information
Antiquity , Volume 41 , Issue 163 , September 1967 , pp. 190 - 196
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1967

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

Notes

[1] Kjærum, P., ‘A Neolithic Temple’, Kuml, 1955, 7 Google Scholar.

[2] Marseen, O., ‘The Ferslev House’, Kuml, 1960, 36 Google Scholar.

[3] Kjaerum, , ‘Megalithic Tombs at Tustrup’, Kuml, 1957, 9 Google Scholar.

[4] Berg, H., ‘Klintebakken’, Maddelelser fra Langelands Museum, Rudkøbing, 1951.Google Scholar Summary of the MN TRB periods in Bagge-Kaelas, L., Die Funde aus Dolmen und Ganggräbern in Schonen, Schweden I–II, Stockholm, 1950 and 1952Google Scholar.

[5] Th. Mathiassen, Bundsø, Arbøger for nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie, 1939, and Bagge-Kaelas, Die Funde. ...

[6] Forssander, J. E., ‘Skånsk megalitkeramik och kontinentaleuropeisk stenålder’, Meddelanden fran Lunds universitets historiska museum, 1935, 16 Google Scholar.

[7] Nordman, C. A., ‘Studier öfver ganggriftkulturen i Danmark, Arbøger ’, 1917, 304 Google Scholar; ‘The Megalithic Culture of Northern Europe’, Finska Fornm. Tidsskr., xxxix, 1935, 29 Google Scholar; Thorvildsen, K., ‘Grønhøj’, Arbøger, 1946, 73 Google Scholar, with bibliography.

[8] K. Thorvildsen [7].

[9] Jordhøj by Mariager, Co. Randers, excavated by the author, 1963–4.

[10] Rosenberg, G., ‘To Jaettestuer’, Fra National-museets Arbejdsmark, 1933, 1 Google Scholar, and Jordhøj, Mariager.

[11] Chmielewski, W., ‘Zagadnienie Grobowcow Kujawskich’, Bibliotheka Muzeum Archeologicznego W Lodzie, 2, 1952 Google Scholar, with French summary.

[12] Fischer, U., ‘Die Gräber der Steinzeit im Saalegebiet’, Vorgeschichtliche Forschungen, 15, 1956, 99, pl. 25Google Scholar.

[13] Piggott, S., Neolithic Cultures of the British Isles, 1954, 50 Google Scholar; ‘ “Unchambered” Long Barrows in Neolithic Britain’, Second Atlantic Symposium (Groningen), forthcoming.

[14] van der Waals, J. D., Prehistoric Disc Wheels in the Netherlands (1964), 17, 52 Google Scholar; van Giffen, A. E., ‘Een Vlakgraf van de Trechterbekerkultuur gesneden door een Standkuil van Hunebed D 32 te Odoorn’, Helinium, I, 1961, 1, 39Google Scholar.

[15] ‘Les Civilisations Atlantiques’, Travaux du Laboratoire d’Anthropologie Préhistorique de la Faculté des Sciences de Rennes, 1963, 22 Google Scholar.