ABSTRACT
Though abundant in their numbers, the urnfield graves of the Late Bronze Age (LBA) and Early Iron Age (EIA; ca. 1300–400 BCE) in northwest Europe still form an enigmatic funerary legacy. Their modest compositions, often consisting of no more than an urn and a handful of cremated remains, have long caused them to remain outside the limelight. However, when these seemingly plain and simple graves are studied from a different angle than just the traditional quantitative approach, they start telling interesting stories about how in Late Bronze Europe, people, objects and places were part of an intricate interplay for which the practice of fragmentation seems to have been essential. The basis for this chapter is derived from recent PhD research into the funerary practices associated with urnfield graves in the Lower Rhine Basin and aims to provide a new angle for future research into this fascinating chapter of European prehistory.
