Whose Was it, Anyway?

Archaeologists find someone long dead (as in, thousands of years) with lots of grave goods, some of which were very old when they were buried with the individual. One of the questions that is arising more and more often for the oldest graves is, “Where they personal goods or office goods?” Did they actually belong to the deceased, or were they group property that belonged to anyone in that office within the clan/tribe/sept/whatever they called it. For a long time, European and American archaeologists tended to assume that goods buried with someone were personal belongings, private property, that the deceased was supposed to take with him or her. Now … we’re not so certain.

Why people bury things with the deceased seemed to (and seems to) vary. If the belief is that the dead take a journey to reach another life or the place of punishment/reward, or to reach the ancestors, then sending the person with food and drink, perhaps spare shoes and things to mend worn clothes makes sense. If a person’s tools and everyday possessions can absorb a bit of the individual’s spirit, then it might be safer for the group to bury/burn those items with the dead, so the spirit doesn’t return looking for them.

Over time, it seems that some people were buried with more (or at least more durable) goods. And with more people, servants, slaves, wives, concubines, warriors to defend the dead person in the after life. The assumption had been, based on classical sources and later accounts, that these gems, chariots, horses, serving tools, jewelry, musical instruments, fancy fabrics and tapestries, and so on, belonged to the individual and so had been sent with him or her into the next world. King Tut’s tomb and Mesopotamian finds are probably some of the things that strongly pushed interpretation of other finds, like the kurgan mound burials of the steppes. Only powerful people could amass all the stuff, so if someone was buried with the stuff, it had to be their personal stuff. And a spirit that didn’t get enough stuff might come back and no one wanted that! Or so a lot of archaeological books, displays, and the like assumed.

It was probably true in some cases. But in others, archaeologists found things that didn’t fit. Why would a petite female or a male child be buried with a strong-man’s weapons? A 12-14 year old could not possibly have earned or traded for all the goods found in some of the graves. Not could the small adult woman have used a weapon that long and heavy. (In that case, the remaining bones didn’t show the changes associated with training for swordsmanship, which is another CLUE.) What if … the goods were not for the individual but for the rank? And the burial wasn’t just “send the dead on their way” but “marking our territory and showing the Ancestors that we still honor and respect them and their teachings and guidance.” Not all cultures consider the dead in the same light.

One question that bubbled up in Europe had to do with Neolithic and Chalcolithic blades and pottery being deposited in Late Bronze Age graves. Why was this spear-blade or arrow head here? Why had it been preserved? Some might have been the individual’s accidental find that he or she kept as a novelty. Others might have been associated with ritual power, something known to be ancient and magic-touched. Or it might have been a sign of the Ancestral authority that had been passed down and was now being returned to the Ancestors, or even to the gods? Think of Britain, and the tiny stone hunting points called “elf shot.” They were associated with the Good Folk, and explained certain mysterious aches and pains, or ill-fortune. This is after Christianity had taken strong root. What about pre-Christian places, or still-pagan places? Why not bury a shaman or person-of-power with things of power? Besides, it might be safer for the community not to have magic-touched goods in the hands of those who didn’t know how to channel or control the magic. (When a Comanche medicine-practitioner dies, his or her spirit bundle is immersed in running water to remove the puha before it is disposed of.)

All the neat stuff in those rich graves could well be group goods, sent along to show the other spirits, or the gods, or someone else how strong, rich, and well-connected the group was during the life of the deceased. As well as a bribe to keep him or her dead and his spirit far, far from the living.