SourceProof that pre-historic people placed bunches of flowers in the grave when they buried their dead has been found for the first time, experts have said.
Archaeologists have discovered a bunch of meadowsweet blossoms in a Bronze Age grave at Forteviot, south of Perth.
The find is reported in the journal "British Archaeology", out this week.
Pollen found in earlier digs had been thought to have come from honey, or the alcoholic drink mead but this find may finally rule that theory out.
Dr Kenneth Brophy, from the University of Glasgow, said the flowers "don't look very much. Just about three or four millimetres across."
"But these are the first proof that people in the Bronze Age were actually placing flowers in with burials."
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4,000-year-old flowers found at grave site
- Rowan
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4,000-year-old flowers found at grave site
When I first came across this article I thought it was too morbid to post here, but then I realised that it is ultimately historical news. History is partly why we're all a part of this forum.
Posted by Rowan
I don't find it morbid, Rowan, but rather moving to think that over thousands of years our experience of sorrow for people we lose to death remains the same, and that we want to honour them in simlar ways.When I first came across this article I thought it was too morbid to post here, but then I realised that it is ultimately historical news.
- LoveHistory
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- SarahWoodbury
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- LoveHistory
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- SarahWoodbury
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This has the anthropologist in me going. . . there are footprints left behind in volcanic strata (the Laetoli footprints, they're called) that are 3.8 million years old. They show two hominids, one larger and one smaller, walking side by side. Within the footprints of the larger hominid are the much smaller footprints of a child, hopping along behind. Anthropologists view this as a family group, and I find it incredibly cool to think of that ancient child, walking in the footprints of his/her father . . .
- Anna Elliott
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[quote=""SarahWoodbury""]This has the anthropologist in me going. . . there are footprints left behind in volcanic strata (the Laetoli footprints, they're called) that are 3.8 million years old. They show two hominids, one larger and one smaller, walking side by side. Within the footprints of the larger hominid are the much smaller footprints of a child, hopping along behind. Anthropologists view this as a family group, and I find it incredibly cool to think of that ancient child, walking in the footprints of his/her father . . .[/quote]
There is also that scene in Dragonfly in Amber with the male and female skeletons in the cave--which I believe Diana Gabaldon based on an actual archaeological find? I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere.
There is also that scene in Dragonfly in Amber with the male and female skeletons in the cave--which I believe Diana Gabaldon based on an actual archaeological find? I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere.
Author of the Twilight of Avalon trilogy
new book: Dark Moon of Avalon, coming Sept 14 from Simon &Schuster (Touchstone)
http://www.annaelliottbooks.com