One hoof in the grave? Animal remains as inhumation grave goods in early medieval eastern England

2021 ◽  
Vol 178 (1) ◽  
pp. 146-165
Author(s):  
Clare Rainsford
Keyword(s):  
Early Medieval ◽  
Animal Remains ◽  
Grave Goods

scholarly journals Grave Goods in Early Medieval Europe: regional variability and decline

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Brownlee
Keyword(s):  
Early Medieval ◽  
Regional Variability ◽  
Low Countries ◽  
The North ◽  
General Decline ◽  
Medieval Europe ◽  
Grave Good ◽  
Gis Methods ◽  
Individual Choices ◽  
Grave Goods

This article analyses the use of grave goods in burials across early medieval Europe and how that use changed over the course of the 6th to 8th centuries CE with the widespread transition to unfurnished burial. It uses data gathered from published cemetery excavation reports from England, France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. The grave good use in these cemeteries was analysed using GIS methods to visualise regional differences, as well as statistical methods to analyse how grave good use evolved over time in those regions. This analysis revealed clear regional distinctions in grave good use, with England and Alamannia appearing similar, with relatively high levels of grave good use. Meanwhile, parts of Frankia and of Burgundy had considerably lower levels of grave good use. Distributions of individual artefact types tended to match those of overall numbers, but there were a few key exceptions, such as vessels, which followed a quite different pattern, being found in high numbers along the Frankish coast, but in much lower numbers elsewhere. Despite these overall trends, there was still considerable intra-regional and intra-cemetery variation that suggests communities and individuals had the ability to make highly individual choices about the way to bury their dead, along with the ability to subvert local norms. It also revealed that while there was a general decline in the use of grave goods across this period, and everywhere eventually reached the point of almost completely unfurnished burial, this decline occurred at different rates. In particular, there was a zone around the North Sea, including Kent, western Frankia, and the Low Countries, where there was little change in grave good use until it was suddenly abandoned in the early 8th century. Different types of objects declined at different rates across different regions, with few clear trends, suggesting that only personal accessories held a common significance across Europe; the meanings of all other object types were negotiated on a local basis.

Insights Regarding an Early Medieval Grave Discovered at Dudeștii Vechi, Timiș County, Romania

Transilvania ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 10-15
Author(s):  
Bogdan Alin Craiovan
Keyword(s):  
Archaeological Research ◽  
Main Subject ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
The Village ◽  
Grave Goods

The present paper aims to bring forward new insights regarding the early medieval age in the Banat region of Romania. The main subject of our paper revolves around a grave discovered during the 2016 archaeological research of the “Cociohatu Mic” site located near the village of Dudeștii Vechi, Timiș County, Romania. The grave, as well as the grave goods were poorly preserved, still a few competent conclusions could still be drawn after analyzing the funerary inventory.

The Cave of San Bartolomeo, Sardinia

Antiquity ◽  
1962 ◽  
Vol 36 (143) ◽  
pp. 184-189
Author(s):  
Enrico Atzeni
Keyword(s):  
Objective Data ◽  
Animal Remains ◽  
Grave Goods

The results of the research carried out in these last years by the Istituto di Antichità Sarde e di Paletnologia of Cagliari University, particularly in Southern Sardinia, enable us to make a new and useful analysis of the stratigraphy of the cave of S. Bartolomeo, discovered and excavated by Orsoni in 1878 on the limestone promontory of Cape St. Elia at Cagliari, and re-explored by Patroni in 1901.The cave, as Childe has already pointed out, is the only place in Sardinia which up till now has provided the possibility of stratigraphical observations which (though still under discussion) nevertheless provide us with some reliable and objective data concerning the prehistoric cultures of pre-nuraghic date.Orsoni found a cavity measuring 5 m. × 4, completely filled from the roof to its rocky floor by an ancient deposit containing human and animal remains. The upper strata of this deposit were largely disturbed by modern graves, contained in a ditch walled in by ‘stones cemented with reddish mud’—and without any grave goods.

Grave goods in early medieval burials: messages and meanings

Mortality ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heinrich Härke
Keyword(s):  
Early Medieval ◽  
Grave Goods

scholarly journals On the Curious Date of the Rylstone Log-Coffin Burial

2016 ◽  
Vol 82 ◽  
pp. 383-392 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nigel D. Melton ◽  
Janet Montgomery ◽  
Benjamin W. Roberts ◽  
Gordon Cook ◽  
Susanna Harris
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The Body ◽  
Early Bronze Age ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Extended Body ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
The Bronze Age ◽  
Grave Goods

Radiocarbon dates have been obtained from a log-coffin burial excavated in 1864 by Canon William Greenwell from a ditched round barrow at Scale House, near Rylstone, North Yorkshire. The oak tree-trunk coffin had contained an extended body wrapped in a wool textile. The body had entirely decayed and there were no other extant grave goods. In the absence of other grave goods, Greenwell attributed the burial to the Bronze Age because it lay under a ditched round barrow and had similarities with log-coffin burials from Britain and Denmark. This attribution has not been questioned since 1864 despite a number of early medieval log-coffin burials subsequently being found in northern Britain. Crucially, the example excavated near Quernmore, Lancashire in 1973, was published as Bronze Age but subsequently radiocarbon dated to ad 430–970. The Rylstone coffin and textile were radiocarbon dated to confirm that the burial was Early Bronze Age and not an early medieval coffin inserted into an earlier funerary monument. Unexpectedly, the dates were neither Early Bronze Age nor early medieval but c. 800 bc, the cusp of the Bronze Age–Iron Age transition in Britain. The burial at Rylstone is, therefore, one of only two sites in Britain, and is unparalleled elsewhere in north-western Europe at a time when disposal of the dead was primarily through dispersed cremated or unburnt disarticulated remains.

scholarly journals FINDS OF CHAMOIS HORNS IN THE EARLY MEDIEVAL CATACOMBS OF THE DARGAVS CEMETERY, NORTH OSSETIA (2019 EXCAVATIONS)

2020 ◽  
pp. 403-412
Author(s):  
П. С. Успенский ◽  
Е. Е. Антипина ◽  
З. Х. Албегова (Царикаева)
Keyword(s):  
Early Medieval ◽  
Animal Remains ◽  
Central Caucasus ◽  
Burial Rites ◽  
The Village ◽  
North Ossetia ◽  
Comprehensive Study

Статья посвящена анализу редко встречаемых предметов, изготовленных из рога серны, выявленных при раскопках катакомб могильника аланской культуры у с. Даргавс РСО-Алании в 2019 г. Полученные результаты комплексного исследования позволяют расширить и дополнить наши представления об использовании останков животных в ритуальной практике населения Центрального Кавказа в VIII-IX вв. The paper analyzes rarely found items made from chamois horns which were discovered during excavations of an Alan cemetery near the village of Dargavs, Republic of North Ossetia-Alania, in 2019. The comprehensive study of these finds provides an opportunity to enlarge and deepen our knowledge on the use of animal remains in the burial rites of the population which lived in the central Caucasus in the 8 - 9 centuries.

scholarly journals Ranosrednjovjekovni nalazi s lokaliteta Brekinjova Kosa (rezultati istraživanja 2011. i 2015. godine)

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vedran Koprivnjak ◽  
Vinko Madiraca ◽  
Martina Miletić ◽  
Tea Zubin Ferri ◽  
Luka Bekić
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
Remarkable Feature ◽  
Medieval Pottery ◽  
Archaeological Excavations ◽  
Grave Goods

During the two seasons of rescue archaeological excavations at the hillfort site of Brekinjova Kosa, the remains of an Early Medieval structure (probably a church) and Early Medieval burials containing rich grave goods were recorded. The most remarkable feature is a rich burial within the structure (grave 4) whose grave goods put it among the richest Early Medieval graves so far excavated on the territory of modern-day Croatia. Apart from the finds within the graves themselves, a certain amount of Early Medieval pottery shards were recorded at the site. The area surrounding the site is mostly archaeologically unresearched and today sparsely populated, but this type of find bears witness to its importance in the Early Middle Ages.

Swords and Oral Culture in the Early Middle Ages

2020 ◽  
pp. 24-57
Author(s):  
Kristen B. Neuschel
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Medieval Literature ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
Oral Culture ◽  
The Battle Of Maldon ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Grave Goods

This chapter discusses the relationship between swords and oral culture in the early Middle Ages. It sketches the history of the manufacture of early medieval swords, then looks at evidence of those swords' symbolic lives revealed by archaeological finds, namely grave goods and the reconstruction of rituals that accompanied their deposit. The chapter then considers written evidence of swords, particularly in early wills that record both the bequeathing but also the prior circulation of a sword among allies and kin. Finally, it turns to literature, to Beowulf and its near-contemporary, The Battle of Maldon, to explore the roles those poems ascribe to warriors' (and monsters') swords. Early medieval literature is filled with references to the aesthetic qualities and the mysterious origin of swords and their constituent parts, as well as to their power to strike fear, to wound, and to kill.

scholarly journals The Anglo-Saxon Cemeteries of Caistor-by-Norwich and Markshall, Norfolk

1973 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. N. L. Myres ◽  
Barbara Green
Keyword(s):  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
The South ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Grave Goods

This is an account of the excavations of two early medieval cemeteries, both in the present civil parish of Caistor St Edmund, to the south-east and north of the Roman walled town of Venta Icenorum. Included are descriptions of the discovery and excavation of the cemeteries as well as other early medieval and Roman features, catalogues of the inhumations and cremations unearthed, and descriptions of the associated grave goods and other objects recovered.

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