- Chapter Thirty -
Figure 30.2 Decorated terracotta vase with handles terminating in rams' heads of a cremation
grave from Csobaj (third century IK). (After Hellebrandt 1989, courtesy of Hermann Otto
Muzeum, Miskolc.)
Large-scale cemetery excavations (for example Franzhausen, Reichersdorf, Herzog-
enburg, Obemdorf, Ossam in the Traisen valley, Lower Austria; Bueany in south-
west Slovakia; Sopron-Krautacker and Pilismar6t-Basaharc in Transdanubia) provide
material for statistical analysis which shows how the ratio of the two burial types
changes over time. Cremation became rarer and towards the end of the La Tene
A period it disappeared altogether. The custom came into fashion again at the
transition between the early and middle La Tene (Bujna-Romsauer 1983; Cizmar
1970 ,1975; Jerem 1981a, 1981b, 1986; Kutzian 1975, Neugebauer 1985, 1992; Pauli
1978; Waldhauser 1987).
The most important burials were enclosed by circular or rectangular ditches and
were often marked by roughly finished stelae, or by simple stones. The grave pit
(chamber) itself was often elaborately constructed using stone settings, lining
with stones or covering with stones; wooden linings and wooden coffins were also
common. Most of the burials show a regular south-north or south-west-north-west
orientation (Lorenz 1978, 1980; Waldhauser 1987).
In cases in which the more recent early La Tene inhumations overlie older
cremations or inhumations of the Hallstatt period, it is possible not only to make
fine stratigraphic deductions, but also to show graphically how this orientation
differs from the cast-west direction favoured in Hallstatt times. The existence of
multiple and consecutive burials in various forms allows one to begin to think in
terms of family groups.