Mortuary Practices and Social Identities in the Middle Ages

Description

This book sets a new agenda for mortuary archaeology. Applying explicit case studies based on a range of European sites (from Scandinavia to Britain, Southern France to the Black Sea), 'Mortuary Practices and Social Identities in the Middle Ages' fulfills the need for a volume that provides accessible material to students and engages with current debates in mortuary archaeology's methods and theories. The book builds upon Heinrich Härke's influential research on burial archaeology and early medieval migrations, focusing in particular on his ground-breaking work on the relationship between the theory and practice of burial archaeology. Using diverse archaeological and historical data, the essays explore how mortuary practices have served in the make-up and expression of medieval social identities. Themes explored include masculinity, kinship, ethnicity, migration, burial rites, genetics and the perception of landscape. Cover Title Page Copyright Page Contents List of figures Preface Chapter 1. ‘Halls of mirrors’: death and identity in medieval archaeology Chapter 2. Working with the dead Chapter 3. Beowulf and British prehistory Chapter 4. Fighting wars, gaining status: on the rise of Germanic elites Chapter 5. ‘Hunnic’ modified skulls: physical appearance, identity and the transformative nature of migrations Chapter 6. Rituals to free the spirit – or what the cremation pyre told Chapter 7. Barrows, roads and ridges – or where to bury the dead? The choice of burial grounds in late Iron Age Scandinavia Chapter 8. Anglo-Saxon DNA? Chapter 9. Laws, funerals and cemetery organisation: the seventh-century Kentish family Chapter 10. On display: envisioning the early Anglo-Saxon dead Chapter 11. Variation in the British burial rite: ad 400–700 Chapter 12. Anglo-Saxon attitudes: how should post-ad 700 burials be interpreted? Chapter 13. Rethinking later medieval masculinity: the male body in death Bibliography Index Contributors