Understandings - burial practice, identity and social ties. The Horvnes Iron Age burials, a peephole into the farming society of Helgeland, North-Norway

Abstract

In the Horvnes cairns in Alstahaug on the coast of Helgeland, North-Norway, people have been buried in the same stone cist or small chamber for hundreds of years in the Iron Age, but in different ways. Why were they buried so differently, and who were these individuals with their partly special equipment? What social ties did the buried individuals have to the farming society? Sandnes, which here represents this society, is a magnate farm in the neighbourhood, known from the Medieval Egils Saga Skalla-Grímssonar. The process of understanding the Horvnes burials and the buried individuals there is here followed from the first impression during the excavations through the understandings given by the investigation of the burial practices in an event-perspective, the results of different analyses and the presentations of the buried individuals. Through this process a new understanding of the burial practice, the identities of the buried individuals and their social ties to the farming society is revealed. Thus, the Horvnes graves function as a peephole into the social life of the coastal farms at Helgeland.