Archaeologia Polona

Ethnology and archaeology of death: from the illusion of references to the use of a terminology

Bruno Boulestin and Henri Duday

There exist a real divide between ethnology and the archaeology of death that arises from the impossibility to pass directly and without subjective interpretation from observations made in the field to the construction of practices and then on to the thought processes that guided these practices. This difference has important consequences for archaeological and funerary vocabulary that comes from a typology referenced essentially from ethnological observations. The authors propose to reconsider the use of certain terms so that they conform more to the tools necessary in our research.

Keywords: funerals, funerary archaeology, funerary ethnology, primary burial, secondary burial

Language: English