No description available.

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Yes / Uses new C14 chronology to chart the burial sequence within and the development of the iconic round barrow.

No description available.

The overarching theme of the book is differential treatment in death, which is examined at the site-specific, settlement, regional and national level. More specifically, the symbolism of conversion-period grave good deposition, the impact of the church, and aspects of identity, burial diversity and biocultural approaches to cemetery analysis are discussed.

Thesis (doctoral)--Göteborgs universitet, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 353-361).

This thesis brings together all that is currently known of early medieval grave reopening in northern and western Europe. It investigates in detail an intensive outbreak of grave-robbery in 6th-7th century Kent. This is closely related to the same phenomenon in Merovingia: an example of the import of not only material goods but also a distinctive cultural practice. Limited numbers of similar robbing episodes, affecting a much smaller proportion of graves in each cemetery, are also identified elsewhere in Anglo-Saxon England. Although the phenomenon of grave-robbery is well-attested in Merovingia, this research is the first study at a regional level. The aim is to advance the debate about early medieval robbery from general discussion of interpretative possibilities to evaluation of specific models and their compatibility with the archaeological evidence. The conclusions have significant implications for the interpretation of grave-robbery across early medieval Europe. In Kent robbing is at a level that must be considered in any discussion of cemetery evidence. The poor publication record has inhibited recognition and analysis of robbing in the county. However, by using extensive archive material, this thesis has shown that the practice of ransacking graves was on a similar scale in East Kent as in Merovingia. This research identifies over 200 reopened graves across Kent, with at least 15 sites affected. At the most intensely robbed sites, an average of over 20% of burials were disturbed. Robbing is likely to have had a significant impact on artefact finds, especially from the late 6th century onwards. Grave-robbery opens a window onto the wider meanings and values of grave-good types within the early medieval period. The analysis in this thesis demonstrates that the main motive for reopening was the removal of grave goods. However, straightforward personal enrichment was not the goal. A deliberate, consistent selection of certain grave-good types were taken from burials, while other apparently covetable possessions were left behind. The desired grave-goods were removed even when in an unusable condition. It is argued that the selection of goods for removal was related to their symbolic roles in the initial burial rite. Their taking was intended to harm living descendants by damaging the prestige and strength of the dead. In addition to the robbed graves, there is a small number of graves spread across the sites which were reopened for bodily mutilation or rearrangement of skeletal parts. These closely resemble the better known deviant burial rites which were applied to certain corpses at the time of initial burial and are interpreted as a reaction to fear of revenants. In modern Britain burial is a finite and final process: the definitive disposal of a dead body. The archaeological and ethnographic records contain many examples of more complex series of events to enable the dead to move on from the living. The material remains of such processes can be seen in revisited and reopened graves, and in myriad manipulations of human bodies. This case study is a detailed, contextualised investigation of the after-history of burial monuments focused on the early Middle Ages.

No description available.

Judith Butler’s theory of performativity can be productively used to analyse how identity at burial would have been created, sustained and rendered coherent through extended periods of time. Moreover, Heideggerean phenomenology offers us insights into the mechanism underlying the process of performing an identity. Using mortuary data from Shang and Zhou burials, I offer (a) an analysis of how the identity of the deceased might have been (re)constructed and (re)produced through structured burial deposits as well as (b) a Heideggerean account of the heritage inherent in the sets of bronze objects interred in graves. These sets of bronze objects would have been used in a performance within the mortuary sphere as part of an elaborate but recognisable process of producing an identity for a tomb occupant. Furthermore, a gendered identity would have also been reified and materialised through burial assemblages. These post-processual analyses might be taken as examples that can be generalised to a method for further investigating other identities, and the processes underlying their production and reproduction, that Chinese archaeologists theorising burials and identity may use to advance the field.

<p>I have statistically worked up a material from 228 graves from the late Iron Age in the area of Mälardalen.</p><p>In my material I have gathered the incidence of combs, knifes, beads, weapons whetstones and torshammarsrings.</p><p>I have found that beads are overrepresented in graves of women and whetstones in graves of men. I only found weapons in graves from male.</p><p>I found no indication from my statistic hypothesis (Z-test) that a grave that contains more than three beads should define the grave of a woman. A grave that contains a lot of beads, more than 20, consider I as a female gender.</p><p>Combs, knifes and torshammarsring are considered as gender neutral.</p>