Om käkar kunde tala : En studie om käkar, tänder och betar som gravföremål i gropkeramiska gravar på Gotland

Sammanfattning

The aim of this thesis is to broaden the knowledge of the Neolithic culture, the Pitted Ware Culture (PWC), by examining selected goods in the graves. These goods consist of mandibles and teeth from boar, seal and hedgehog, but also tusks from boar and spines from hedgehog. The focal point of the thesis is PWC sites on the Baltic Island, Gotland, focusing on three sites: Ajvide (Eksta parish), Ire (Hangvar parish) and Västerbjers (Gothem parish). By studying the mentioned animal bones found in graves, how they were organized and positioned in relation to the buried individuals, patterns emerge and thereafter questions arise: why do some individuals have certain animal bones buried with them and why are they placed in a certain way? To widen the possibilities of understanding how and why the PWC people did and apprehended things in different ways, ethnoarchaeological comparisons are made with cultures of Melanesia and their way of boar husbandry, depictions of Ibn Fadlans meeting with the rus’, but also iron age graves from Germany are being discussed. It is also being discussed whether the boars of Neolithic Gotland were wild or domesticated, as well as if the boars and the hedgehogs made their own way or if they were artificially imported to Gotland. The impact these factors may have had on the PWC people and their relation with these animals could therefore possibly have been expressed in different ways. The symbolic meaning of the bones is being discussed as well - are they referred to something hunting-related, such as a trophy, maybe the bones were bearers of magic and warding power? Or maybe these goods didn't equalize sacred meaning at all. Perhaps the goods were seen as something more profane; such as food waste or aesthetic aspects such as clothes and jewelry. However, the main question comes down to why these animal bones were chosen and their placement in relation to the buried individuals in the graves. These questions have only been briefly discussed in earlier studies, but focus seems more to be aimed on different manners. However, what we do know for certain is that the people of PWC seemed to have chosen certain objects carefully with the purpose to be deposited in the graves and the object of this thesis is therefore to further speculate and make way for conclusions.