TRACELESS DEATH. MISSING BURIALS IN BRONZE AND IRON AGE ESTONIA
TRACELESS DEATH. MISSING BURIALS IN BRONZE AND IRON AGE ESTONIA

Summary/Abstract: The article proceeds from the observation made long ago that the major part of people who once lived and then died have ‘disappeared’ for any archaeological investigation. The research into the Early Bronze Age has yielded no burials at all, for instance, but it is clear that even in the following periods, with their remarkable stone grave structures and large numbers of buried people, not all members of past communities were buried in a way, which left observable traces. Although a few cases with alternative burial customs are reported, it seems that the main reason for the absence of burials was the treatment of the dead in some not-preservative way. The latter was a cultural choice in a similar, although opposite way to erecting imposing stone graves for some remarkable persons.

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