Tombs and cemeteries are often important archaeological sites. In many cases, people buried their dead with goods to take with them to the next world. Unlike many of the other artifacts uncovered in other sites, grave goods are often unbroken and may give archaeologists information about everyday life as well as beliefs about the afterlife.
Burial sites also provide some insights into social organization. In the Earlier Neolithic period in Britain, a period which began about 4000 BCE with the transition to farming, there was a collective disposal of the dead in communal tombs. After 2200 BCE in Orkney there was a change in burials: bodies were no longer placed in communal tombs, but instead were either placed cists made of stone slabs set in the ground or cremated. This indicates a change in beliefs. Archaeologist Francis Pryor, in his book Britain BC: Life in Britain and Ireland before the Romans, writes:
“The dead are now seen to play less of a role in the here-and-now. Instead of being transformed by defleshing or decomposition into a more generalised, representative state of symbolic being, they retain their personal identity on burial, and continue a parallel existence, as individuals, in their own realm, which is that of the ancestors.”
Shown below are photographs of some of the displays about burials in the Orkney Museum in Kirkwall.
Regarding the Scar Viking Boat Grave, Julian Richards reports in his book The Vikings: A Very Short Introduction:
“The boat was a small rowing vessel which—from the presence of igneous rock particles in the caulking—must have been built in Norway, and brought to Orkney by a larger vessel.”
This grave contained the remains of three people: an elderly woman (estimated to be in her seventies), a middle-aged man (estimated to be in his thirties), and a child (estimated to be about 10-years-old). They were buried according to pagan tradition and were accompanied by things they would need in the next life. According to Julian Richard:
“Although the objects would place the burial in the late 9th century, radiocarbon dating suggests a date closer to the mid-10th century, indicating that many of the objects were heirlooms and that this group was maintaining an old cultural and religious identity in the face of growing Christianization of the Norse colonists.”
With regard to Viking burials, some bodies were laid out in boats, fully clothed and armed with weapons, while others were buried in stone lined pits. According to the display:
“Warriors were armed with swords, axes and shields, but only the metal parts survive. The leather scabbards for the swords have rotted away. The wooden hafts for the axes are gone, and all that remains of the big circular shields are the iron bosses which protected the hand-grips. Iron arrowheads survive, but not their feathered shafts, quiver or bow.
Women were often buried with domestic tools for spinning, weaving and sewing. Everyone needed an all-purpose knife, a whetstone to sharpen it, a bone comb and brooches or pins to fasten their clothing. The position of these objects on and around the skeleton tells us about clothing and belts. Traces of textiles often remain on metal objects—wool, linen and silk threads.”
The first Vikings who settled in Britain were pagan, but in Orkney and Shetland they encountered a strong Christian tradition. By the end of the tenth century, pagan burial rituals had been abandoned. In the eleventh century, a special gravestone known as a ‘hogback’ began to appear in Orkney. This type of gravestone first appeared in Yorkshire and then diffused north. Hogback gravestones were carved to resemble houses with wooden tiles.
Among the early Christians in Orkney, like Christians elsewhere at this time, the bones of saints were felt to have special spiritual power. In Kirkwall the St. Magnus Cathedral contained the bones of St. Magnus.