Grave goods: objects and death in later prehistoric Britain

这个项目的重点是在新石器时代，青铜时代和铁器时代的英国，c坟墓（和其他正式的丧葬环境）的物质文化。公元前4000年至公元43年。许多史前英国最令人印象深刻的手工艺品都来自坟墓--从Duggleby Howe的抛光海狸门牙，到Bush巴罗丰富的金饰板和别针收藏，进口青铜匕首，化石石锤头和雕刻的骨轴装饰品，再到Wetwang村的珊瑚镶嵌的齿轮。对于英国新石器时代、青铜时代和铁器时代的大部分地区来说，关注埋葬是必要的，因为定居点可能很难在考古学上确定，确保太平间的证据往往是最好的，有时是唯一可用的信息。在这一时期，墓葬成为社区协商社会政治变革的一个关键竞技场。了解人与物的生活是如何交织在一起的，将有助于我们研究材料和技术在塑造史前生命和死亡中的动态作用。目前，英国史前史学家对墓葬物品如何随时间变化只有一个大致的概念：在新石器时代，墓葬很少与物质文化联系在一起;早期青铜器时代见证了坟墓物品数量和重要性的急剧上升;铁器时代见证了新的和更多样化的物品的引入，但也是考古学上看不见的埋葬的重要空白点。Grave Goods项目旨在将我们对这一广泛序列的理解从印象主义转变为基于对记录的坚实的经验主义理解。该项目还试图更全面地评估和理解“日常”墓葬物品的性质和作用，以及经常引起考古学关注的壮观物品。我们将通过构建在英格兰，苏格兰和威尔士的六个关键案例研究区域内的新石器时代，青铜时代和铁器时代正式太平间环境中发现的所有物质文化的数据库来实现这一点（请参阅案例支持详细信息）。一旦利用地理信息系统绘制地图并进行分析，这些信息将使人们能够对这一时期的埋葬习俗以及物质文化变化的兴衰有一个新的认识。在数据库提供的大规模图片的基础上，我们将继续调查特定的次区域，遗址和坟墓作为案例研究。我们将为这种材料带来一种复杂的新理论和方法论方法，开创了丧葬解释的黄金标准。我们的研究成果将是一本关于史前英国晚期物品和死亡的权威而详细的书，以及学术论文和两次会议。坟墓物品数据库将是一个宝贵的，丰富的资源，供其他人使用，在未来的学术研究项目中，也在商业遗产领域。我们的研究将对规划决策，区域政策文件和博物馆实践产生影响。我们将传播我们的研究结果，以更广泛的公众在未来几年内，通过使用我们的研究，告知英国后来的史前画廊在大英博物馆（推出了一个公共会议）和会谈在英国各地的地区博物馆展示的重大重新设计。此外，我们亦会制作六个学校有关史前墓葬的资料套。此外，一个小型项目将涉及国际知名的儿童诗人迈克尔罗森谁将产生三首诗的灵感来自史前埋葬和墓葬用品，以捕捉成人和儿童的想象力。通过这些外展途径，我们也希望开始打破英国公众对死亡的当代文化沉默，通过反思过去人类应对死亡的方式。最终，坟墓物品项目将彻底改变考古学和公众对物质文化在史前英国晚期的生与死中所扮演的角色的理解。

This project focuses on material culture in graves (and other formal mortuary contexts) in Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age Britain, c. 4000 BC to AD 43. Many of prehistoric Britain's most impressive artefacts have come from graves - from the polished beaver incisors at Duggleby Howe, to Bush Barrow's rich collection of gold plaques and pins, imported bronze daggers, fossil stone macehead and carved bone shaft-decorations, to the coral-encrusted chariot-gear of Wetwang Village. For large parts of the Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Ages in Britain, a focus on burial is a necessity, as settlements can be difficult to identify archaeologically, ensuring that mortuary evidence is often the best and sometimes only information available. It is also the period when burials became a key arena through which communities negotiated socio-political change. An understanding of how the lives of people and objects were intertwined will help us to investigate the dynamic role of materials and technologies that shaped prehistoric life and death.At present, British prehistorians have only an approximate idea of how grave goods changed through time: during the Neolithic burials were only rarely associated with material culture; the Early Bronze Age saw a dramatic rise in the quantity and significance of grave goods; the Iron Age witnessed the introduction of new and more varied classes of objects, but also significant blank spots where burial is invisible archaeologically. The Grave Goods project aims to shift our understanding of this broad-brush sequence from one that is impressionistic to one based on a solid, empirical understanding of the record. The project also seeks to evaluate and understand more fully the character and role of 'everyday' grave goods, in addition to the spectacular objects that so often capture archaeological attention. We will do this by constructing a database of all material culture found in formal mortuary contexts during the Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age within six key case study regions across England, Scotland and Wales (see Case for Support for details). Once mapped and analysed using a GIS, this information will enable a new level of understanding of burial practice, and the ebbs and flows of material culture change, over that period. Building on the large-scale picture that the database provides, we will move on to investigate specific sub-regions, sites and graves as case studies. We will bring to this material a sophisticated new theoretical and methodological approach, pioneering a gold standard of funerary interpretation. The culmination of our research will be an authoritative and detailed book about objects and death in later prehistoric Britain, as well as academic papers and two conferences.The Grave Goods database will be an invaluable, rich resource for others to use, in future academic research projects but also in the commercial heritage sector. Our research will have an impact on planning decisions, regional policy documents and museum practice. We will disseminate our findings to the wider public for years to come by using our research to inform a major re-design of the British later prehistory gallery displays at the British Museum (launched with a public conference) and talks in regional museums across Britain. We will also produce six schools' information packs on prehistoric burial. In addition, a mini-project will involve internationally renowned children's poet Michael Rosen who will produce three poems inspired by prehistoric burial and grave goods to capture the imagination of both adults and children. Via these outreach pathways, we also hope to begin to breach the British public's contemporary cultural silence on mortality, by reflecting on past humanity's ways of coping with death.Ultimately, the Grave Goods project will revolutionise archaeological and public understandings of the role that material culture played in life and death in later prehistoric Britain.