From plastered skulls to palliative care: what the past can teach us about dealing with death.

Modern, advanced healthcare detects and monitors long-term and life-limiting illness more comprehensively than ever before. However, death is now often considered medical failure, and is a virtually taboo topic of conversation in daily life. At a time when the societal relevance of archaeology is under scrutiny more than ever before, the AHRC-funded Continuing Bonds Project – a collaboration between archaeology and palliative care – explores the potential of the past to promote discussion. Not only does archaeology illuminate the diversity of practice surrounding death, the past provides a safe, distanced platform for considering death, dying and bereavement today. Through archaeological and ethnographic case studies, health and social care professionals and students consider topics such as place, choice and identity, in both personal and professional life. This article examines participant responses to a variety of archaeological material and presents post-workshop reflections which demonstrate the success of archaeology in opening up conversations and increasing confidence in discussing this most enduring and problematic of life events

Mediating worlds : the role of nurses as ritual specialists in caring for the dead and dying

Rituals are central to the everyday life of the nurse, yet the fundamental roles that rituals play in caring for the dead and dying has often been neglected. This paper explores modern palliative and post-mortem care – its practices, practitioners and arenas – against the background of long-held, global concerns regarding the dead and dying. Comparison with the archaeological and ethnographic records demonstrates©the ubiquitous and enduring practices surrounding death, and the centrality of ritual specialists to this complex social and biological process. This deep-time perspective highlights the importance of nurses, and their associated nursing rituals, in the transition of patients between life and death, and the difficult journeys that nurse, patient and family undertake in this mediation between worlds. Such a perspective not only empowers nurses in their daily practices, and places nursing rituals firmly at the centre of modern palliative care work, but demonstrates the value of archaeology and ethnography in contextualising the challenges of today

Redefining the timing and circumstances of the chicken's introduction to Europe and north-west Africa

Little is known about the early history of the chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus), including the timing and circumstances of its introduction into new cultural environments. To evaluate its spatio-temporal spread across Eurasia and north-west Africa, the authors radiocarbon dated 23 chicken bones from presumed early contexts. Three-quarters returned dates later than those suggested by stratigraphy, indicating the importance of direct dating. The results indicate that chickens did not arrive in Europe until the first millennium BC. Moreover, a consistent time-lag between the introduction of chickens and their consumption by humans suggests that these animals were initially regarded as exotica and only several centuries later recognised as a source of ‘food’

Inhabiting Broxmouth : a biographical approach to Iron age roundhouses

Les roundhouses (« maisons rondes ») constituent l'un des bâtiments caractéristiques dominants de l'âge du Fer en Grande-Bretagne. Les premières recherches sur ces habitats étaient jusqu'ici axées uniquement sur les aspects structurels et économiques, mais leur importance dans la vie sociale, voire la cosmologie de leurs habitants, est de plus en plus reconnue. Cet article montre le potentiel des approches biographiques concernant l'étude des roundhouses de l'âge du Fer de Broxmouth (sud-est de l'Écosse). Ce site servira de cas d'étude pour illustrer le rôle central de ces structures dans la construction identitaire des populations locales. Roundhouses are the dominant feature of the Iron Age in Britain. Early research focused only on structural and economic aspects, but it is increasingly recognised that roundhouses were also important in the social and cosmological lives of their inhabitants. This article demonstrates the potential of biographical approaches to the study of roundhouses, and uses the Iron Age settlement at Broxmouth (south-east Scotland) to illustrate the centrality of these structures to household identity

Materialising memories : Inheritance, performance and practice at Broxmouth hillfort, south-east Scotland

Gardening may seem worlds away from Nuraghi and brochs, but tending a garden is a long process involving patience, accretion and memory. Scholars argue that memories are also cultured, developed and regained. The monuments in Scotland and Sardinia are testament to the importance of memory and its role in maintaining social relations. This collection of twenty-one papers addresses the theme of memory anchored to the enduring presence of monuments, mainly from Scotland and Sardinia, but also from Central Europe and the Balkans