Społeczne hierarchie i archeologiczne rankingi grobów. Dyskusja w oparciu o analizy dwóch cmentarzysk z końca epoki brązu w Polsce południowej Social hierarchies and archeological rankings. Discussion based on the analysis of the two Late Bronze Age cemeteries of Southern Poland
Sources and methods. There are some different methods
used by archaeologists in order to establish a ranking
of grave assemblages, ordered by their more or less subjectively
estimated “richness”. The scope of presented paper
is an evaluation of these techniques. For this purpose more
then 500 grave inventories were analysed, originating from
two large cemeteries dated back to the Late Bronze Age
– Early Iron Age transition and located in Southern Poland
(Fig. 1). Four absolute methods of scoring (total number of
objects made of stone, metal or bone, number of functional
categories, “quantity index” – subjective scoring based
on the criterion of production cost, approximate weight
of metal objects) as well as two relative ones (“splendour
index”, “scarcity index”) were subsequently implemented
and compared one another.
Results. Results obtained by using all techniques are
comparable. Correlation indexes counted separately for
pairs of different rankings fluctuate usually from 0.8 to
0.9 (Fig. 4-6). It allows us to claim, that in the case of both
cemeteries the largest and the most internally diverse grave
assemblages, contain also the rarest, the heaviest and the
most laborious and material consuming objects. It allows
us also to distinguish four separate groups of “richness”,
represented
on both cemeteries (Fig. 4-5). The “poorest” one
is represented by the majority of inventories (about 60%),
which may be seen as a “norm” and were equipped with 3-4
vessels of different functional types and sometimes additionally
small metal objects (e.g. earrings) as well as burials
completely devoided of equipment (about 20-30%). Subsequent
analyses showed that number of vessels occurring in
grave inventories does not correlate in any way with indexes
of their “richness”. However, other interesting correlation is
possible to find. Namely, the number and quality of vessels seems to alter among subsequent age categories of deceased
(Fig. 9). Particularly, a tendency is observed, that children
older then four years are supposed to be equipped often with
the whole “adult” set of vessels (cup, bowl, pot and sometimes
vase), whilst younger ones got no pottery or only one
or two cups. Planigraphy of the sites (Fig. 11-12) showed that
burials representing first three groups of “richness” tend to
concentrate in small clusters, despite of the facts that they
are not restricted to any individual part of the cemeteries.
Discussion and conclusions. The last part of of the
paper discusses the reliability of grave analyses as a source
for studies on social hierarchies within past societies. In relation
to cemeteries in question the following interpretation
is proposed (with reference to the costly signaling model).
All additional objects within grave inventories (i.e. those,
which exceeded the “norm”) ware not only the equipment
of deceased, but can be linked to conspicuous behaviours
in which the giver displayed to the audience (participants of
the burial ceremony), that he or she posses an important, but
normally hidden attribute. During this ceremonies the precious
gift – the token was irreversibly exchanged for immaterial
symbolic capital. Although the person of giver is hidden
to us, we may speculate about his or her motivation by
tracing what was given (the nature of objects which played
the role of grave-gifts), to whom was it given (what kind of
social relation was supposed to be emphasised by giver) and
where, or better in front of whom the giving was performed?
On the methodological level, obtained results allow to stress
the advantages of both relative methods („splendour index”
and “scarcity index”), which combined each other provide
the most complementary picture of diversity patterns within
collections of grave assemblages.
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