Burials in Stone ships : An osteological analysis of burnt and unburnt bones from stone ship settings on the island of Gotland

In this study bone material from six stone ship settings and a total of seven deposits of bones from two sites on the island of Gotland have been analyzed. Four ship settings from the burial site at Gålrum in Alskog parish and two from Tängelgårda in Lärbro parish. The ships contained both cremated remains and inhumations. Human remains were identified in five of the analyzed ship settings and a minimum of six individuals was identified in total. Animals were found in three of the ship settings, where one of them contained only the burned remains of a dog. Two of the ships contained inhumations, one in Gålrum and one in Tängelgårda. The one from Gålrum was determined to 17-19 years of age but of undetermined sex. The inhumation from Tängelgårda was determined to a male of 35-64 years of age. Of the cremated remains none could be determined to sex but all were determined as adult individuals. The temperature that the cremated bones had been exposed to during the cremation was similar between the different ship settings, with one exception which had been exposed to a slightly higher temperature. The results of the material have also been compared with those of other osteological analysis from ship settings on Gotland. The interpretation of this has been that the amount of bone and the number of individuals that has been buried in stone ship settings vary from different sites. Some ship settings have contained several burials and have been interpreted as family graves (Pettersson 1982) which do not fit with the results from this analysis where all the ship settings contained a maximum of one or two human individuals, so the results from the ship settings on Gålrum and Tängelgårda differ from earlier interpretations of ship settings on Gotland