Melheim et al./Comparative Perspectives, 11. Spreading Ideas: Late Bronze Age Face-urn Burials

In her study of Late Bronze Age face-urn burials from a vast area covering present- day Denmark, Poland, Germany, Sweden, Norway and Italy, Jutta Kneisel is asking a fundamental question—whether material similarities are due to colonisation or exchange. She explains the strong similarities in the renderings of faces between individual areas as the result of intensive social interaction between groups, or between groups and individuals, in which the burial rite was adopted and transferred in an interpretative process and then found its respective regional expressions. The fact that these burial customs are coupled with regions rich in natural resources like amber and salt suggests that there were supra-regional ‘centres’ engaged in long-distance contact.