Individuality and Society : status of individuals of the Bell Beaker Culture at the burial ground in Popůvky (Moravia, Czech Republic)

Authors

ČEREVKOVÁ Alžběta ZDENĚK Hájek

Year of publication 2019
Type Appeared in Conference without Proceedings
MU Faculty or unit

Faculty of Arts

Citation
Description The burial ground of Bell Beaker Culture at Popůvky is a newly discovered site found during salvage excavation. Within the excavation 78 burials were found. This amount alone puts the site to one of the largest cemeteries of the Bell Beaker Culture known in Moravia. The burials were highly varied in regard to age, sex, and state of preservation of buried individuals, construction of the burial pit and also attested grave goods. We are currently focused on the question of the social status of the buried individuals within the local community and possibly to understand their potential contacts with the outer environment. Based on that research attention is given to the character of lithics (so-called “archer kit”) and metal artifacts. The provenience of raw material, production technology, and life cycle of artifacts (via traceology) are of interest. Bone artifacts and artifacts made of amber are also analyzed in more detail. Variability of archeological remains of individual burials points out to the stratification of the society reflecting the individuality of a person. The main research question is how much are we able to define the relationship of the individual to the community and his/her status based on preserved burial rite, also how could this society function as a unit in a larger social environment of that time. Following these findings a preliminary model of the social-economic stratification of the population at Popůvky will be created, which will be tested on selected burial grounds of the Bell Beaker Culture in Central and Western Europe.
Related projects:

You are running an old browser version. We recommend updating your browser to its latest version.