Reading the Silhouettes of Burnt Dead: Using Elemental Analysis (Pxrf) to Identify Late Bronze and Early Iron Age Urn Cenotaphs
The result's identifiers
Result code in IS VaVaI
<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F49777513%3A23330%2F18%3A43951013" target="_blank" >RIV/49777513:23330/18:43951013 - isvavai.cz</a>
Alternative codes found
RIV/61989592:15310/18:73587263
Result on the web
<a href="http://puvodni.mzm.cz/Anthropologie/issue.php?Year=2018&Volume=56&Issue=1" target="_blank" >http://puvodni.mzm.cz/Anthropologie/issue.php?Year=2018&Volume=56&Issue=1</a>
DOI - Digital Object Identifier
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.26720/17.08.28.1" target="_blank" >10.26720/17.08.28.1</a>
Alternative languages
Result language
angličtina
Original language name
Reading the Silhouettes of Burnt Dead: Using Elemental Analysis (Pxrf) to Identify Late Bronze and Early Iron Age Urn Cenotaphs
Original language description
Deposition of empty urns or urns containing only non-representative amounts of bones is highly sophisticated and enigmatic symbolic act among prehistoric funeral practices. Low presence or absence of bones in burnt burials can be the result of intentional activity of past populations, or high fragmentation of bones, which are then likely to be lost. The aim of this study consists in applying analytical methods (pXRF) to determine whether cremation urn infills contained bone remains, as well as to approach their initial amount. For the purpose of the study we analysed urn infills, bones and surrounding subsoil (total of 35 samples). Discriminant analyses (DA) were carried out in order to identify the elements which best separate soil and the elements which separate infills on the basis of bone amount. Infills of urns without bones differed significantly from those with bones in amounts of P, Al, Ca, and Pb, and were similar to subsoil samples in some aspects. This indicates there have never been any bones in "empty" urns. In our study, we were able to distinguish urn cenotaphs from decomposed burnt bodies and showed that burnt bones chemically affected surrounding soil. The non-destructive pXRF showed itself to be an adequate technique for the analysis of elemental composition of soil and bone samples. © 2018 Moravian Museum, Anthropos Institute, Brno. All rights reserved.
Czech name
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Czech description
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Classification
Type
J<sub>imp</sub> - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database
CEP classification
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OECD FORD branch
60102 - Archaeology
Result continuities
Project
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Continuities
I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace
Others
Publication year
2018
Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů
Data specific for result type
Name of the periodical
Anthropologie (International Journal of the Science of Man)
ISSN
0323-1119
e-ISSN
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Volume of the periodical
56
Issue of the periodical within the volume
1
Country of publishing house
CZ - CZECH REPUBLIC
Number of pages
14
Pages from-to
39-52
UT code for WoS article
000442361300004
EID of the result in the Scopus database
2-s2.0-85044266843