Burning and "burying" houses in Bronze Age Scandinavia

Angela

Angela

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See:
https://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2017/04/can-houses-die-iron-age-longhouses-were.html

"From the Bronze Age until the Viking Age, burial mounds could be placed on top of the remains of three-aisled longhouses. The internal posts that served as roof-supporting beams were sometimes removed before the house was set on fire. Once the house had burned to the ground, one or more burial mounds were placed on top of its remains."

"The custom of setting houses on fire and placing burial mounds over of the house remains may be reminiscent of a cremation. Eriksen argues that the burial mounds may equally well mark the cremation and burial of a house – not necessarily a human being.

"In some cases we have been unable to find human remains, even in places where we could expect such remains to have been preserved. Nevertheless, archaeologists have more or less implicitly assumed that somewhere or other, there must be a deceased individual."

"This connection between bodies and houses may have led them to think that a house has some kind of essence, some kind of soul, Eriksen says.

This may have been the reason why people at that time wanted to give their house a proper funeral when it had served its purpose, and that is perhaps why it was set on fire."

Could this be connected to the burning of houses in the Balkans?
 
We don't know enough about the motivations of either cultural group to argue for much of a connection, beyond the behavior of both cultures perhaps being informed by animism. In the most general terms it could be suggested that both cultures may be providing a funeral for an inanimate object that has become sufficiently human through habitation to require mortuary rites.
In more concrete terms, a wood-frame house has a finite lifespan. This can be extended through maintenance, but it is not uncommon for poorly maintained frame homes, often inhabited by elderly persons financially or physically incapable of providing appropriate maintenance, to be condemned and demolished. The absence of involved family members is often a factor. Perhaps the burning of longhouses in a funeral context was the accepted method of removing decayed structures which were only inhabited by traces of former inhabitants.
 
wicket said:
We don't know enough about the motivations of either cultural group to argue for much of a connection, beyond the behavior of both cultures perhaps being informed by animism. In the most general terms it could be suggested that both cultures may be providing a funeral for an inanimate object that has become sufficiently human through habitation to require mortuary rites.
In more concrete terms, a wood-frame house has a finite lifespan. This can be extended through maintenance, but it is not uncommon for poorly maintained frame homes, often inhabited by elderly persons financially or physically incapable of providing appropriate maintenance, to be condemned and demolished. The absence of involved family members is often a factor. Perhaps the burning of longhouses in a funeral context was the accepted method of removing decayed structures which were only inhabited by traces of former inhabitants.
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We have to keep in mind that it is very difficult to burn just one house in a village safely. It is easier to burn the whole village at once.
 
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