The East Alpine region formed an important crossroads in later prehistoric Europe, through which ideas, people and objects flowed. This was particularly the case during the Late Bronze Age/ Early Iron Age, when an increasingly competitive society was evolving, with the formation of more complex social structures and the rise of ‘elites’. This has been evidenced in a shift in burial customs, from Urnfield-type cremation burial to the construction of tumuli and the adoption of elaborate inhumation burial. This multidisciplinary, multi-scalar approach to the analysis of human remains aims to explore the evolving structure, homogeneity and heterogeneity of communities inhabiting central and eastern Slovenia, and north-eastern Croatia, during the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age. The application of multiple methods, including the osteological analysis of cremated and non-cremated human remains, radiocarbon dating, stable isotope analysis (carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and strontium) and aDNA analysis has facilitated the exploration and interpretation of later prehistoric social structure and lifestyle. The use of carbon (from enamel carbonate and collagen) and nitrogen stable isotope analysis has highlighted important dietary distinctions between communities inhabiting this region and previous studies from elsewhere in contemporary Europe – specifically a high dependence on millet as a staple crop. This has been evidenced by δ13C values of between -17‰ and -15.3‰ from bone collagen. δ15N values of between 7.6‰ and 9.1‰ support this interpretation as they do not indicate the consumption of marine protein. Increased δ15N values of up to 13.5‰ from deciduous dentine have been interpreted as the influence of dietary and metabolic conditions, particularly in the presentation of an Infant exhibited palaeopathological evidence of severe metabolic disease. Complementary isotopic methods, including oxygen isotope ratios and enamel carbonate carbon, have also highlighted heterogeneity in childhood diet, reflecting the transition from a high lipid diet of breastmilk, to a diet of carbohydrates, indicative of weaning. In addition to these findings, the application of radiocarbon dating on cremated and nio-cremated human bone has expanded the current understanding of mortuary practices in this study area. Inhumation burial, previously thought synomemous with the Iron Age, has been now been identified throughout the Bronze Age at the cemetery of Obrežje. The application of this multi-scalar approach to combining and interpreting these data sets has allowed for the investigation of individual biographies, as well as regional trends. This research illustrates the advantages of bringing together multiple lines of evidence for the creation of informed interpretations regarding the life, death and diet of prehistoric peoples of the East Alpine region, and beyond. / The Encounters and Transformations in Iron Age Europe (ENTRANS) Project, led by Ian Armit, with the Slovenian and Croatian principal investigators, Matija Črešnar and Hrvoje Potrebica. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no 291827. The project is financially supported by the HERA Joint Research Programme (www.heranet.info) which is co-funded by AHRC, AKA, BMBF via PT-DLR, DASTI, ETAG, FCT, FNR, FNRS, FWF, FWO, HAZU, IRC, LMT, MHEST, NWO, NCN, RANNÍS, RCN, VR and The European Community FP7 2007-2013, under the Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities programme. / The Appendices A-H are not available online.

Until recently, individuals with physical impairment have been overlooked within the field of archaeology due to the controversy surrounding the topics of disability and care in the past. The current research adds to the growing body of archaeological disability studies with an exploration of physical impairment and the possibility of disability-related care in Anglo-Saxon England (5th-11th centuries AD), utilising palaeopathological, funerary, and documentary analyses. Palaeopathological analysis of 86 individuals with physical impairment from 19 Anglo-Saxon cemetery populations (nine early, five middle, and five later) was performed, and the possibility of disability-related care was explored for several individuals. The mortuary treatment data (e.g. grave orientation, body position, grave good inclusion) was gathered for the entire burial population at each site (N=3,646), and the funerary treatment of the individuals with and without physical impairment was compared statistically and qualitatively, both within and between the Anglo-Saxon periods. No obvious mortuary differentiation of individuals with physical impairment was observed, although several patterns were noted. In three early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries, spatial association between individuals with physical impairment, non-adults, and females was observed. Early Anglo-Saxon individuals with physical impairment were more frequently buried in marginal locations, and two such individuals were buried in isolation. In the middle and later Anglo-Saxon periods, the funerary treatment of individuals with physical impairment became less variable, they were less frequently buried in marginal locations, and at three middle Anglo-Saxon cemeteries, they were buried in association with socially significant features in the cemetery landscape. The provision of care to ensure survival was not necessary for a majority of the individuals with physical impairment, but several individuals (lower limb paralysis, mental impairment) may have received regular, long-term care. This research proposes that the decreasing variability of mortuary treatment of individuals with physical impairment observed throughout the Anglo-Saxon period suggests that more variable attitudes about disability existed both within and between early Anglo-Saxon communities, while the political, social, and religious unification starting in the middle Anglo-Saxon period may have led to the development of more standardised perceptions of disability in later Anglo-Saxon England.

’Pygmy’, ‘incense’, ‘accessory’ or ‘funerary’ cups are small Early Bronze Age vessels, almost all from mortuary contexts, united by their diminutive size. Although several small-scale and regional studies have previously been undertaken, until recently there has been little attempt to consider such vessels as a whole. The vessels from the north of England were recently examined in detail by Hallam (2015), and the present study of the southern English vessels will complement Hallam’s work with the ultimate goal of producing a national corpus. Details of over three hundred and fifty vessels, from thirty counties, are presented together with a comprehensive literature review. Analysis demonstrates how the form and depositional contexts of such vessels probably arose within Beaker ceramic and funerary traditions. Many have complex biographies, some being deposited ‘fresh’ whilst others are fragmented or otherwise damaged. Perforations, long seen as a key feature of the tradition, appear to be restricted to certain forms only, and it is suggested that fenestration may be a development of this practice. Regional links and networks may be discerned through the distribution of attributes and similar vessel types and probably reflect trade networks. It is suggested that the cups had a primary role within Early Bronze Age funerary rituals associated only with certain individuals, perhaps marked out by the nature of their deaths / The full text will be available at the end of the embargo period: 21st Feb 2023

No description available.

By the second decade of the twenty-first century, the preponderance of scholarship examining oil paintings made on stone slabs or metal sheets in Western Europe during the early modern period (fifteenth–eighteenth centuries) had settled on an interpretation of these artworks as artifacts of an elite taste that sought objects for inclusion in private collections of whatever was rare, curious, exquisite, or ingenious. In a cabinet of curiosities, naturalia formed by nature and artificialia made by man all complemented each other as demonstrations of marvelous things (mirabilia). Certainly small-scale paintings on stone or metal exhibited amidst these kinds of rarities aided in aggrandizing a noble or bourgeois collector’s social prestige. As well, they might have derived their interest as collectables because of the painter’s fame or increased capacity for miniaturization on copper plates, or because the painter left a slab of lapis lazuli, for example, partially uncovered to reveal its visually arresting stratigraphy or coloration. Nonetheless, while the lithic and metallic supports might have added value to the oil paintings it was not thought to add meaning. A totalizing theory about this type of artwork, based on a perception of them as if they had only served as conspicuous consumables, therefore overlooks that in other circumstances the stone and metal supports did contribute to the iconographic substance of the paintings. As this dissertation will argue, the introduction of metal and stone supports allowed patrons and painters literally to add another layer of meaning to an oil painting’s imagery. These materials mattered not just as passive receptacles of meaning but as active shapers of significance. Evidence for this hypothesis exists in the historical record in at least three identifiable contexts: Leonardo da Vinci’s Portrait of Ginevra de’Benci (ca. 1474–1478) in relation to the epistemological debate known as the Paragone; funerary monuments in Roman churches inclusive of painted portraits in relation to theories about color and lifelikeness; medallion-shaped, chest plates known as Escudos de monjas (Nuns’ Shields) worn by nuns of some religious orders in Colonial Mexico in relation to pre-Hispanic sacral materials. All three of these case studies ultimately concern the paradoxical materialization of the immaterial fame of the painter, the soul of the deceased, and the Christian divine. Observing them in tandem provides an outline of the origins and development of the technique of painting with oils on stone and metal, and consequently broadens our understanding of this wider, early modern phenomenon. / Art History

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Yes / Irton Moor was excavated by Derek Simpson in 1973 but remained unpublished at the time of his death in 2006. Material from the excavation including a skeletal report and some publication drawings were located in DDAS’s archives and brought back to Bradford for archiving. Sufficient work had been done by DDAS to bring the report to publication though clearly the archive had suffered over the years. Irton Moor represents a small structured round cairn of the Early Bronze Age producing evidence for long-term occupation of the site from the Early Neolithic though this occupation does not appear to have been continuous. The cairn was used for Food Vessel and Collared Urn-associated cremations.

Yes / This paper explores experiences and perceptions of physical impairment and disability in early medieval England, contrasting pre-Christian (AD 5th–early 7th centuries) and Christian (AD late 8th–11th centuries) communities through a combination of bioarchaeological, clinical, funerary, historical, and theoretical analyses. By comparing understandings of physical impairment and disability in the pre-Christian and Christian periods, this paper investigates how political rearrangements and the growing power of the Church might have influenced changing contemporary perceptions of physical impairment and disability. This research has found that the funerary treatment of individuals with physical impairment in the pre-Christian period was extremely variable within and between cemeteries, and there is evidence for arguably positive, normative, and potentially negative burial treatment. Although mortuary treatment of Christian-era individuals with physical impairment was somewhat variable, this variation was much more subtle. This reflects the overall Christian-era pattern in burial form, and strongly negative or positive mortuary treatment was not identified among the individuals with physical impairment. Based on this evidence, it is proposed that administrative and judicial standardisation, conversion to Christianity, and the spread of Christian morals and doctrine influenced the reduction in mortuary variability observed in individuals with physical impairment and/or disability in the 8th–11th centuries in England.

The thesis explores burial practices across all three phases (early, middle and late) of the Anglo-Saxon period (c.450–1066 AD) in Norfolk and the relationship with the identity of the deceased. It is argued that despite the plethora of research that there are few studies that address all three phases and despite acknowledgement that regional variation existed, fewer do so within the context of a single locality. By looking across the whole Anglo-Saxon period, in one locality, this research identified that subtler changes in burial practices were visible. Previous research has tended to separate the cremation and inhumation rites. This research has shown that in Norfolk the use of the two rites may have been related and used to convey aspects of identity and / or social position, from a similar or opposing perspective, possibly relating to a pre-Christian belief system. This thesis stresses the importance of establishing biological identity through osteological analysis and in comparing biological identity with the funerary evidence. Burial practices were related to the biological identity of the deceased across the three periods and within the different site types, but the less common burial practices had the greatest associations with the biological identity of the deceased, presumably to convey social role or status. Whilst the inclusion of grave-goods created the early Anglo-Saxon burial tableau, a later burial tableau was created using the grave and / or the position of the body and an increasing connection between the biological and the social identity of the deceased, noted throughout the Anglo-Saxon period in Norfolk, corresponds with the timeline of the religious transition. / Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) / Some images have been removed due to copyright restrictions.

The inclusion of animal remains in funerary contexts was a routine feature of Anglo-Saxon cremation ritual, and less frequently of inhumations, until the introduction of Christianity during the 7th century. Most interpretation has focused either on the animal as symbolic of identity or as an indication of pagan belief, with little consideration given to the interaction between these two aspects. Animals were a fundamental and ubiquitous part of early medieval society, and their contribution to mortuary practices is considered to be multifaceted, reflecting their multiple roles in everyday life. This project considers the roles of animals in mortuary practice between the 5th-7th centuries across five counties in eastern England – Norfolk, Suffolk, Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and Essex – in both cremation and inhumation rites. Animal remains have been recognised in 5th to 7th century burials in eastern England from an early date, and the quality of the existing archives (both material and written) is investigated and discussed as an integral part of designing a methodology to effectively summarise data across a wide area. From the eastern England dataset, four aspects of identity in mortuary practice are considered in terms of their influence on the role of animals: choice of rite (cremation/inhumation); human biological identity (age & gender); regionality; and changing expressions of belief and status in the 7th century. The funerary role of animals is argued to be based around broadly consistent cosmologies which are locally contingent in their expression and practice. / Arts & Humanities Research Council Studentship under the Collaborative Doctoral Award scheme, with Norwich Castle Museum as the partner organisation