Abstract
This chapter explores the connections between mortuary ritual and anxiety as a psychological response to death. Focus is placed on understanding the ritual response itself, both as practice and as an outlet for anxiety generated by the ambiguous threat of the unknown and uncontrollable, i.e., death. The chapter examines to what extent we are able to trace the presence of anxiety in the archaeological remains of mortuary rituals among the Mesolithic hunters and gatherers around the Baltic Sea. The work builds on an archaeothanatologically based reconstruction of the ritual practices of the treatment of the dead human bodies, combined with an explicit consideration of psychological theories of anxiety. By drawing on theories from ritual studies, which view these practices as central social and cultural phenomena, and from psychology, where ritual behaviors are commonly associated with anxiety, the study identifies ways to access the emotional state of anxiety through archaeological sources.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Albrethsen, S. E., & Brinch Petersen, E. (1977). Excavation of a Mesolithic cemetery at Vedbæk, Denmark. Acta Archaeologica, 47, 1–28.
Anastasi, M. W., & Newberg, A. B. (2008). A preliminary study of the acute effects of religious ritual on anxiety. Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 14(2), 163–165.
Appleby, J. E. P. (2010). Why we need an archaeology of old age and a suggested approach. Norwegian Archaeological Review, 43(2), 145–168.
Beck, A. T., & Emery, G. (2005). Anxiety disorders and phobias: A cognitive perspective. New York: Basic Books.
Bell, C. (1992). Ritual theory: Ritual practice. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Bell, C. (1997). Ritual: Perspectives and dimensions. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Boyer, P., & Liénard, P. (2008). Ritual behavior in obsessive and normal individuals: Moderating anxiety and recognizing the flow of action. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 17(4), 291–294.
Cauwe, N. (1998). Sépultures collectives du Mésolithique au Néolithique. In J. Guilaine (Ed.), Sépultures d’Occident et génèse des mégalithismes, 9000-3500 avant notre ère (pp. 11–24). Paris: Editions Errance.
Cauwe, N. (2001). Skeletons in motion, ancestors in action: Early Mesolithic collective tombs in southern Belgium. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 11(2), 147–163.
Duday, H. (2009). The archaeology of the dead: Lectures in archaeothanatology. Oxford, England: Oxbow.
Eberhards, G. (2006) Geology and development of the paleolake Burtnieks during the Late lacial Holocene. In L. Larsson & I. Zagorska (Eds.) Back To the Origin. New research in the Mesolithic-Neolithic Zvejnieki cemetery and environment, northern Latvia (pp. 25-51). Lund: Almqvist & Wiksell International.
Fahlander, F. (2009). Reala kroppar och dödens realitet. In F. Ekengren & L. Nilsson Stutz (Eds.), I tillvarons gränsland. Perspektiv på kroppen mellan liv och död (pp. 106–145). Lund, Sweden: Acta Archaeologica Lundensia, Series altera in 8°, nr 60.
Fowler, C. (2004). The archaeology of personhood: An anthropological approach. London: Routledge.
Freud, S. (1907). Obsessive actions and religious practices. London: Hogarth Press.
Gray Jones A. (2010, September). The ‘loose human bone’ phenomenon: Complexity in Mesolithic mortuary practice in north-west Europe. Paper presented at the Mesolithic in Europe conference, Santander, Spain.
Hallgren, F. (2011). Mesolithic skull depositions at Kanaljorden, Motala, Sweden. Current Swedish Archaeology, 19, 244–246.
Homans, G. C. (1941). Anxiety and ritual: The theories of Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown. American Anthropologist, 43(2), 164–172, Part 1, New Series.
Kannegard Nielsen, E., & Brinch Petersen, E. (1993). Grave, mennesker og hunde. In S. Hvass & B. Storgaard (Eds.), Da klinger i muld…25 års arkeologi i Danmark (pp. 76–81). Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus Universitetsforlag.
Kristeva, J. (1980). Le pouvoir de l’horreur. Paris: Editions du Seuil.
Kus, S. (1992). Toward an archaeology of body and soul. In J.-C. Gardin & C. Peebles (Eds.), Representations in archaeology (pp. 168–177). Bloomington: University of Indiana Press.
Larsson, L. (1988a). The Skateholm project: Man and environment (Regiae Societatis Humaniorum Litterarum Lundensis LXXIX). Lund, Sweden: Almqvist & Wiksell International.
Larsson, L. (1988b). Ett fångstsamhälle för 7000 år sedan. Boplatser och gravar i Skatehom. Kristianstad, Sweden: Signum.
Larsson, L. (1990). Dogs in fraction—Symbols in action. In: P. Vermeersch, & P. Van Peer (Eds.), Contribution to the Mesolithic in Europe (Vol. 5, pp. 153–160). Papers presented at the Fourth International Symposium ‘The Mesolithic in Europe’. Leuven, Belgium: Studia Prehistorica Belgia.
Larsson, L. (2010). A double grave with amber and bone adornments at Zvejnieki in Northern Latvia. Archaeologia Baltica, 13, 80–90.
Malinowski, B. (1992). Magic, science and religion, and other essays. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press.
Meskell, L. (1994). Dying young: The experience of death in Deir el Medina. Archaeological Review from Cambridge, 13, 35–45.
Meskell, L. (1999). Archaeologies of social life: Age, sex, class et cetera in ancient Egypt. Oxford, England: Blackwell.
Nilsson Stutz, L. (2003). Embodied rituals and ritualized bodies: Tracing ritual practices in late Mesolithic Burials (Acta Archaeologica Lundensia Series in 8°, Vol. 46). Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International.
Nilsson Stutz, L. (2006). Unwrapping the dead. In L. Larsson & I. Zagorska (Eds.), Back to the origin: New research in the Mesolithic–Neolithic Zvejnieki cemetery and environment, Northern Latvia (Acta archaeologica lundensia series in 8°, Vol. 52, pp. 217–233). Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell International.
Nilsson Stutz, L. (2008). Capturing ritual practice: An attempt to harmonize archaeological method and theory. In L. Fogelin (Ed.), Religion, archaeology and the material world (pp. 159–178). Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
Nilsson Stutz, L., Larsson, L., & Zagorska, I. (2008). More burials at Zvejnieki. Preliminary Results from the 2007 excavation. Mesolithic Miscellany, 19(1), 2–6.
Nilsson Stutz, L., Larsson, L., & Zagorska, I. (2013). The persistent presence of the dead. The significance of place and time revealed by the recent excavations at the hunter-gatherer cemetery at Zvejnieki (Latvia). Antiquity, 1016–1029.
Nyberg, J. (2010). A peaceful sleep and heavenly celebration for the pure and innocent: The sensory experience of death during the long eighteenth century. In F. Fahlander & A. Kjellström (Eds.), Making sense of things: Archaeologies of sensory perception (Stockholm studies in archaeology 53). Stockholm: Stockholm University
.
Öhman, A. (2008). Fear and anxiety: Overlaps and dissociations. In M. Lewis, J. M. Haviland-Jopnes, & L. F. Barrett (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (3rd ed., pp. 709–729). New York: Guilford Press.
Schmidt, R. (2000). Shamans and northern cosmology: The direct historical approach to Mesolithic sexuality. In R. Schmidt & B. Voss (Eds.), Archaeologies of sexuality (pp. 220–235). London: Routledge.
Schmidt, R. (2001). Sex and gender variation in the Scandinavian Mesolithic. Ph.D. thesis, University of California, Berkley.
Shack, W. A. (1971). Hunger, anxiety and ritual: Deprivation and spirit possession among the Gurage of Ethiopia. Man, 6(1), 30–43, New series.
Strassburg, J. (2000). One hundred generations of undead subversion in Southern Scandinavia 7000-4000 BC (Stockholm studies in archaeology). Stockholm: Shamanic Shadows.
Sylvers, P., Lilienfeld, S. O., & LaPrairie, J. L. (2011). Differences between trait fear and trait anxiety: Implications for psychopathology. Clinical Psychology Review, 31, 122–137.
Tarlow, S. (1998). Romancing the stones: The gravestone boom of the latter eighteenth century. In M. Cox (Ed.), Grave concerns, life and death in post-medieval England 1700-1850 (pp. 33–43). York, England: CBA.
Tarlow, S. (1999). Bereavement and commemoration: An archaeology of mortality. Oxford, England: Blackwell.
Tarlow, S. (2000). Emotion in archaeology. Current Anthropology, 41(5), 713–746.
Tarlow, S. (2012). The archaeology of emotion and affect. Annual Review of Anthropology, 41, 169–185.
Thorpe, N. (1996). The origins of agriculture in Europe. London: Routledge.
Tilley, C. (1996). An ethnography of the neolithic: Early prehistoric societies in Southern Scandinavia (New studies in archaeology). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Williams, H. (2007). The emotive force of early medieval mortuary practices. Archaeological Review from Cambridge, 22(1), 107–123.
Wolpe, J. (1987). The promotion of scientific psychotherapy: A long voyage. In J. K. Zeig (Ed.), The evolution of psychotherapy (pp. 133–142). New York: Routledge.
Zagorska, I. (2006). The history of research on the Zveinieki site. In L. Larsson & I. Zagorska (Eds.), Back to the origin: New research in the Mesolithic–Neolithic Zvejnieki cemetery and environment, northern Latvia (Acta archaeologica lundensia series in 8°, Vol. 52, pp. 5–24). Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell International.
Zagorskis, F. (2004). Zvejnieki (Northern Latvia) Stone Age cemetery (BAR international series 1292). Oxford, England: Archaeopress.
Zvelebil, M. (1993). Concepts of time and ‘presencing’ the Mesolithic. Archaeological Review from Cambridge, 12(2), 51–70.
Zvelebil, M. (2008). Innovating hunter-gatherers: The Mesolithic in the Baltic. In G. Bailey & P. Spikins (Eds.), Mesolithic Europe (pp. 18–59). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Stutz, L.N. (2016). The Importance of “Getting It Right:” Tracing Anxiety in Mesolithic Burial Rituals. In: Fleisher, J., Norman, N. (eds) The Archaeology of Anxiety. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-3231-3_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-3231-3_2
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-3230-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-3231-3
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)