A Place of Passage : Disturbed burials and dispersed human bone remains from the Mid-Neolithic burial ground at Ajvide on Gotland

Sammanfattning: The Mid-Neolithic site of Ajvide on the Baltic Island of Gotland comprises the burials of 89 individuals within 85 separate burial contexts (Österholm 2008). Some of these individuals were detected with absent skeletal elements, such as the cranium, which have been believed to be represented by the considerable number of dispersed human bone fragments discovered from the site (Burenhult 2002: 33, see also Lundén 2012). These occurrences were initially proposed to be caused by agricultural ploughing, which however has not been done on the fields of Ajvide with the modern machinery of the late 20th century (Burenhult 2002: 31). It was hence the intention of this study to investigate the alternative motives behind these phenomena, by reviewing the statistics between these skeletal materials. The correspondence was additionally analysed with some other selected variables on the available data from these burial contexts. Based on the attained results, it was concluded that the human skeletal remains from the disturbed burials were likely intentionally retrieved to be used in the different ritual activities of the PWC populations on Gotland.