John Thurnam

John Thurnam (* 1810, † 1873) was a British antiquarian. He was a member of the Royal College of Surgeons and medical superintenden the union county lunatic asylum at Devizes in Wiltshire. He was co-founder of the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society.

Archaeological activity

Thurnam was mainly somatic anthropologist. He was interested in the long beds because of the contained skeletons, and let 1855-1867 22 of them dig out of the inmates of the institution under his supervision, including six who had been the antiquarian William Cunnington investigated two generations before him. Thurnams records are very sparse and let it rarely to reconstruct his excavation methods.

The most famous antiquarian of Yorkshire, the clergyman William Greenwell of Durham, dug in 1863 along with Thurnam before he worked on excavations of Pitt- Rivers.

Thurnam also set up a classification of British Beaker, which was later expanded by John Abercromby.

Interpretation

Thurnam mainly drew ancient authors approach the interpretation of the excavation results. He also appreciated Richard Hoare's Ancient Wiltshire from. He believed that the mines should record the blood of sacrificial animals in the long beds. Since a number of skulls in long beds traces of blunt trauma showed ( Boles Barrow, Fussel 's Lodge ), he interpreted the skeletons than that of human sacrifice. How Greenwell he also held for cannibalism possible, although he had correctly noted that part of the injury was clearly prämortal.

Terminology

On Thurnam the distinction between chambered and unchambered Long barrows goes, between chamber loose long beds and those with (stone) chambers back, which is in the English archeology still in use, even if Stuart Piggott, alternatively, the term " earthen Long Barrow " for proposed the chamber loose hills and chin Ian prefers to speak of megalithic and non- megalithic long mounds.

Excavations

  • Amesbury 14
  • Boles Barrow ( 1864)
  • Bratton Long Barrow
  • Figheldean 31 Long Barrow
  • Fussel 's Lodge
  • Knook Barrow
  • Lanhill Cotswold -Severn tomb
  • Norton Bavant Long Barrow (1863 )
  • Tilshead Lodge
  • Tilshead East
  • Tilshead Old Ditch Long Barrow
  • West Kennet Long Barrow ( 1859)
  • Wilsford 34
  • Winterbourne Stoke Crossroads Barrow

Works

  • On Ancient British Long Barrows, Especially Those of Wiltshire and the adjoining Countries. Part I, Long barrows. Archaeologia 42, 1869, 161-244.
  • On Ancient British Long Barrows, Especially Those of Wiltshire and the adjoining Countries. Part II, round Barrows. Archaeologia 43, 1871, 285-544.
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