The Palaeolithic Origins of Human Burial - Softcover

Pettitt, Paul

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0415354900 ISBN 13: 9780415354905

Publisher: Routledge, 2010

Synopsis

Humans are unique in that they expend considerable effort and ingenuity in disposing of the dead. Some of the recognisable ways we do this are visible in the Palaeolithic archaeology of the Ice Age. The Palaeolithic Origins of Human Burial takes a novel approach to the long-term development of human mortuary activity – the various ways we deal with the dead and with dead bodies. It is the first comprehensive survey of Palaeolithic mortuary activity in the English language.

Observations in the modern world as to how chimpanzees behave towards their dead allow us to identify ‘core’ areas of behaviour towards the dead that probably have very deep evolutionary antiquity. From that point, the palaeontological and archaeological records of the Pliocene and Pleistocene are surveyed. The core chapters of the book survey the mortuary activities of early hominins, archaic members of the genus Homo, early Homo sapiens, the Neanderthals, the Early and Mid Upper Palaeolithic, and the Late Upper Palaeolithic world.

Burial is a striking component of Palaeolithic mortuary activity, although existing examples are odd and this probably does not reflect what modern societies believe burial to be, and modern ways of thinking of the dead probably arose only at the very end of the Pleistocene. When did symbolic aspects of mortuary ritual evolve? When did the dead themselves become symbols? In discussing such questions, The Palaeolithic Origins of Human Burial offers an engaging contribution to the debate on modern human origins. It is illustrated throughout, includes up-to-date examples from the Lower to Late Upper Palaeolithic, including information hitherto unpublished.

About this title

About the Author:

Paul Petal is Senior Lecturer in Palaeolithic Archaeology at the University of Sheffield, UK. He has degrees from the universities of Birmingham, London and Cambridge, and was Senior Archaeologist in the Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit at the University of Oxford and Research Fellow and Tutor in Archaeology and Anthropology at Keble College, Oxford. His research interests focus on the European Middle and Upper Palaeolithic. He has published over 190 papers in scientific journals and edited volumes, including chapters on the Neanderthals (in the Oxford Handbook of Archaeology) and the rise of modern humans (in Scarre (ed.) The Human Past. In 2003 he co-discovered Britain's first examples of Palaeolithic cave art at Creswell Crags, where he currently excavates.

Review:

'This volume by Pettitt, which represents the first comprehensive survey of Palaeolithic mortuary activity in the English language..., is a long overdue, and very welcome, addition to the large corpus of literature on the subject... [it] forms a useful scholarly text; both for the Palaeolithic student and researcher, and on discussion with colleagues, those interested in burial archaeology as a whole. While the title suggests a clear focus on Palaeolithic human burial, this actually undersells the scope of the volume, whose striking feature is the consideration of the full range of past hominin mortuary activity.' - Archaeological Review from Cambridge

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0415354900
• ISBN 13: 9780415354905
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320