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Scotland
Cladh Hallan Round HousesAncient Village / Settlement / Misc. Earthwork
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This site has been the subject of an hour-long TV programme which centred on the presentation of evidence for mummification of the burials in the roundhouses. This is summarised in Miscellaneous below. ----------------- A recurring theme of the Uist postings is the way in which important sites are badly signposted (if at all) and poorly presented. Perhaps you could argue that this leads to lower visitor numbers which helps with preservation and this site certainly needs all the help it can get. Excavated out of a sand dune the sides of which are currently restrained by decaying plastic matting, it can only be a short time before windblown sand once again recovers the site - one which has produced a tantalising glimpse of life in late bronze age Britain. This is not at all a criticism of the excavators who have done an excellent job in partly restoring the site when backfilling it might have been an easier option. Presumably there was just no local money available to make the job a more permanent one. Strange. You would have thought that mummification is one of the few things that gets the general public interested in prehistory. Visited 28 July 2004 |
Posted by greywether9th August 2004ce Edited 15th September 2004ce |
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This is a brief summary of the points made in the Cladh Hallan tv programme. I'm sure it does not do justice to all the interesting points the excavator, Mike Parker Pearson, was making. -------------------- The roundhouses date from about 1000bce. In the NE quadrant of all three of the houses, burials had been interred. Sheep and dogs were in the upper levels but human burials were at the lowest level. The human burials were articulated but crouched with the knees drawn tightly up under the chin. Radio carbon dating showed that, in two cases, the individuals had died up to 600 years before interment in the houses. A number of scientific tests led to the view that these individuals had been preserved in a mummified state prior to their burial. Careful use of the acid in peat was a factor in the mummification process. The mummification was more likely to have been of the South American "in the open" type rather that in tombs like Egyptian mummies. It was thought that these ancestors were preserved so that they could be brought out for important ceremonies or perhaps consulted in some way. The bodies were eventually buried as part of a change in belief systems possibly introduced by newcomers to the area. |
Posted by greywether 9th August 2004ce |
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Cracking the puzzle of the Cladh Hallan BodiesThis is a YouTube video of Kerri Brown explaining about recent DNA sampling of the Cladh Hallan burial. |
Posted by Kammer23rd September 2011ce |
University of SheffieldThis set of pages about the 'Prehistoric Village at Cladh Hallan' include a lot of detail about the site and a photograph of one of the Cladh Hallan 'mummies' (on page III). |
Posted by Kammer 5th July 2006ce Edited 5th July 2006ce |
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