| Summary: | Bear claws and cremations In 1976 a number of Iron Age graves were excavated at Stilling, in central Jutland, by N. H. Andersen of Forhistorisk Museum (Andersen in Kuml 1976). They were dated to the Germanic lron Age, shortly after 400 AD. The zoological examination is based on the bone material from the funerary urns and burnt areas, consisting primarily of burnt fragments of human bone from the cremations which preceded the construction of the graves. Among the human bones were also a few burnt fragments of bones of domestic animals, and also, a distinctive and interesting feature, some 17 bear claws from 3 graves (figs. 1 and 2). Although human bones predominate numerically, they are present in such small numbers that their inclusion is probably symbolic; not all the burnt skeletal elements appear to have been included in the urns. As can be seen from the list on p. 119, when bone fragments are present in any number, bones of sheep and in one case domestic hen appear. Bones of both species are well known from earlier excavations of funerary urns from the Germanic Iron Age. Taken together, these finds give the impression that both species (Ovis and Gallus) are to some degree a necessary inclusion in the ceremony which must have taken place at the burning of the dead together with his personal property (ornaments, glass, gaming pieces etc.) and probably some food. After the cremation was completed, these more or less melted objects, and the bones, were collected and then apparently crushed still further -or so the small and uniform size of the fragments would suggest- before they were finally placed in the urn and buried. The preserved fragments of sheep are mainly from the long bones, which lend support to the suggestion that only shoulders and haunches of sheep accompanied the dead on their last journey; however, as other more peripheral bones (pelvis, calcaneum, phalanx and points of horn cores) are also present in small numbers, it does in fact appear that whole animals were involved. In what condition, at what stage, and in which cultic ceremonial connection these animals or parts of animals became involved in the cremation cannot be determined. The other »domestic« animal of which bones were found in the Stilling graves is the hen, of which parts of a leg and wing were found (fig. 13); like the sheep, this animal is one of the »standard ingredients« in the funerary urns of this period. Among the finds from Sweden, Iregren (9) found that 7 contained bones of hens. Also with regard to the hens it is not possible to say whether their presence is due to cultic or culinary reasons; it is suggested that both may have played a part. With regard to the presence of hens, or parts thereof, being such a common feature in cremations, it has been established that these animals were one of the most recent domesticates to arrive in Denmark (via the Roman Empire), no trace of them having been found before about the year 0. Is it thus possible to regard this feature as an adjunct to the cremation? The bear claws (only the actual clawbearing distal phalanx is represented) which total 17 (or possibly 19) from three graves, are in the Danish context the most interesting zoological aspect of the Stilling graves. In the list on p. 120 and in fig. 3 similar finds from earlier excavations of graves from the same period are included. It can be seen that from the whole of Denmark a total of 9 graves have yielded 45 claws. It is not certain how long the brown bear (Ursus arctos) lived in Denmark. The earliest find dates to the Allerød interstadial (13 ), while most of the finds of bear are from the Boreal period hunting sites in central Zealand. A single find from a bog has been dated to the Boreal-Atlantic transition (14). From the Atlantic and Subboreal periods, from which many hunting sites with many thousands of bones are known belonging to the Ertebølle culture, only a few bear bones are known from Jutland. The bear seems to have disappeared from Zealand around the start of the Atlantic period -at the same time as the aurochs and elk. In light of the above it seems unlikely that the bear claws, which are known from funerary urns from both Jutland and Zealand, within such a late and limited cultural phase (Germanic Iron Age), could have come from individuals killed within the present boundaries of Denmark. A movement of stray individuals into Jutland from the south cannot be excluded; but it is much more likely that the claws came from members of the large populations which inhabited Norway and Sweden until the present century. As the only traces of bear found in this period consist of the claw-bearing phalanx, it seems likely that these come from whole skins -either imported as trade items, or from animals that the dead hunters with whom they were buried had killed while »abroad«. As these skins accompanied the dead on their last journey together with other items of personal property, it is probable that a bearskin was of great value to an individual during his life, and that possession of such a skin, embodying concepts of masculine prowess, courage, strength and personal prestige, was highly desirable. A glimpse of these concepts may be gained in Greenland, where a young hunter may not marry before he has killed a bear and thus demonstrated his prowess as a hunter and thus as a husband; or, rather less clearly, in the presence of a bearskin on the floor, and as a trophy -and in the prestige attached thereto. Besides this may be mentioned -though only as a reminiscence- the Royal Lifeguards' use of bearskin hats. Each of these symbols points in the same direction; the finds from the Germanic Iron Age seem almost »spiritually recent« in comparison to the bear cult as a whole, with roots as far back as the Palaeolithic. Ulrik Møhl
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