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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Oliver Craig
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Ancient Egyptians are thought to have been the only people in the Old World who were practising mummification in the Bronze Age (c. 2200-700 BC). But now a remarkable series of finds from a remote Scottish island indicates that Ancient Britons were performing similar, if less elaborate, practices of bodily preservation. Evidence of mummification is usually limited to a narrow range of arid or frozen environments which are conducive to soft tissue preservation. Mike Parker Pearson and his team show that a combination of microstructural, contextual and AMS 14 C analysis of bone allows the identification of mummification in more temperate and wetter climates where soft tissues and fabrics do not normally survive. Skeletons from Cladh Hallan on South Uist, Western Isles, Scotland were buried several hundred years after death, and the skeletons provide evidence of post mortem manipulation of body parts. Perhaps these practices were widespread in mainland Britain during the Bronze Age.
Author(s): Pearson MP, Chamberlain A, Craig O, Marshall P, Mulville J, Smith H, Chenery C, Collins M, Cook G, Craig G, Evans J, Hiller J, Montgomery J, Schwenninger J-L, Taylor G, Wess T
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Antiquity
Year: 2005
Volume: 79
Issue: 305
Pages: 529-546
ISSN (print): 0003-598X
ISSN (electronic): 1745-1744
Publisher: Antiquity Publications Ltd.
