Grave goods: objects and death in later prehistoric Britain

Metadata

Title:

Subtitle:

Schools Resources

Downloads:

Prehistoric_Burial_class_handout.pdf (4 MB) :	Download
Prehistoric_Burial_info_pack.pdf (9 MB) :	Download

Licence Type:

ADS Terms of Use and Access

Publication Type:

Monograph

Abstract:

This information pack (and associated classroom handout) is designed to facilitate the teaching of prehistory (Stone Age to Iron Age) in primary schools (ages 7-11). It focuses on prehistoric burial and the often spectacular or intriguing objects placed with the dead. The pack includes three specially commissioned poems by children's poet Michael Rosen - inspired by three real prehistoric burials - as well as a series of imaginative reconstruction illustrations. General background information about the Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age across Britain (and burial during those times) is also included.The Grave Goods project focused on material culture in graves and other formal mortuary contexts in Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age Britain, c. 4000 BC to AD 43. Britain is internationally renowned for the high quality and exquisite crafting of its later prehistoric grave goods. Objects from burials have long been central to how archaeologists have interpreted society at that time. Interred with both inhumations and cremations, they provide some of the most durable and well-preserved insights into personal identity and the prehistoric life-course, yet they also speak of the care shown to the dead by the living, and of people’s relationships with ‘things’. Objects matter. This project sought to transform current understandings of mortuary practice and material culture in later prehistoric Britain.

Author:

Melanie Giles

Duncan Garrow

Anwen Cooper

Neil Wilkin
Catriona Gibson

Publisher:

University of Reading
University of Manchester
British Museum Press

Year of Publication:

2019

Subjects / Periods:

Iron Age (Auto Detected Temporal)

later prehistoric (Auto Detected Temporal)

Stone Age (Auto Detected Temporal)

prehistoric (Auto Detected Temporal)

Neolithic (Auto Detected Temporal)

Bronze Age (Auto Detected Temporal)

4000 BC to AD 43. (Auto Detected Temporal)

GRAVE (Monument Type England)

burial (Auto Detected Subject)

burials (Auto Detected Subject)

graves (Auto Detected Subject)

mortuary (Auto Detected Subject)

grave (Auto Detected Subject)

cremations (Auto Detected Subject)

GRAVE GOODS (Object England)

Source:

ADS Library (ADS Library)

Relations:

Project archive:

https://doi.org/10.5284/1052206

Created Date:

28 Oct 2019

Giles, M., Garrow, D., Cooper, A., Wilkin, N. and Gibson, C. (2019). Grave goods: objects and death in later prehistoric Britain. London: British Museum Press.

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