Early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries

Early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries
Author: Duncan Sayer
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 316
Release: 2020-12-03
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1526135582

This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY) open access license. This book is available as an open access ebook under a CC-BY licence. Early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries are known for their grave goods, but this abundance obscures their interest as the creations of pluralistic, multi-generational communities. This book explores over one hundred early Anglo-Saxon and Merovingian cemeteries, using a multi-dimensional methodology to move beyond artefacts. It offers an alternative way to explore the horizontal organisation of cemeteries from a holistically focused perspective. The physical communication of digging a grave and laying out a body was used to negotiate the arrangement of a cemetery and to construct family and community stories. This approach foregrounds community, because people used and reused cemetery spaces to emphasise different characteristics of the deceased, based on their own attitudes, lifeways and live experiences. This book will appeal to scholars of Anglo-Saxon studies and will be of value to archaeologists interested in mortuary spaces, communities and social archaeology.

Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History 14

Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History 14
Author: Sarah Semple
Publisher: Oxbow Books
Total Pages: 626
Release: 2007-10-10
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 178297508X

Volume 14 of the Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History series is dedicated to the archaeology of early medieval death, burial and commemoration. Incorporating studies focusing upon Anglo-Saxon England as well as research encompassing western Britain, Continental Europe and Scandinavia, this volume originated as the proceedings of a two-day conference held at the University of Exeter in February 2004. It comprises of an Introduction that outlines the key debates and new approaches in early medieval mortuary archaeology followed by eighteen innovative research papers offering new interpretations of the material culture, monuments and landscape context of early medieval mortuary practices. Papers contribute to a variety of ongoing debates including the study of ethnicity, religion, ideology and social memory from burial evidence. The volume also contains two cemetery reports of early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries from Cambridgeshire.

The Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Finglesham, Kent

The Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Finglesham, Kent
Author: Sonia Chadwick Hawkes
Publisher: Oxford Univ School of Archaeology
Total Pages: 436
Release: 2006
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780954962715

The excavation of the cemetery at Finglesham in east Kent was a milestone in Anglo-Saxon archaeology, as one of the first cemeteries of this period to be excavated in its entirety. The present report covers the 216 inhumation graves dating from the 6th to 8th centuries excavated by Sonia Hawkes between 1959 and 1967. The volume comprises an introduction, a fully illustrated grave inventory, a report on the human skeletal remains and a number of specialists' reports.

The Anglo-Saxon World

The Anglo-Saxon World
Author: Nicholas J. Higham
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 495
Release: 2013-06-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 0300125348

Presents the Anglo-Saxon period of English history from the fifth century up to the late eleventh century, covering such events as the spread of Christianity, the invasions of the Vikings, the composition of Beowulf, and the Battle of Hastings.

Anglo-Saxon Myths: State and Church, 400-1066

Anglo-Saxon Myths: State and Church, 400-1066
Author: Nicholas Brooks
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 328
Release: 1998-07-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0826457924

In this collection of essays Nicholas Brooks explores some of the earliest and most problematic sources, both written and archaeological, for early English history. In his hands, the structure and functions of Anglo-Saxon origin stories and charters (whether authentic or forged) illuminate English political and social structures, as well as ecclesiastical, urban and rural landscapes. Together with already published essays, this work includes an account of the developments in the study of Anglo-Saxon charters over the last 20 years.

The Romano-British Villa and Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Eccles, Kent

The Romano-British Villa and Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Eccles, Kent
Author: Nick Stoodley
Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2021-11-11
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1789695880

This volume presents a study of the central and lower Medway valley during the 1st millennium AD, focussing on the 1962–1976 excavation of the Eccles Roman villa and Anglo-Saxon cemetery directed by Alex Detsicas. The author gives an account of the long history of the villa, and a reassessment of the architectural evidence which Detsicas presented.

The Oxford Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology

The Oxford Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology
Author: Helena Hamerow
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 1110
Release: 2011-03-31
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0199212147

Written by a team of experts and presenting the results of the most up-to-date research, The Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology will both stimulate and support further investigation into a society poised at the interface between prehistory and history.

Anglo-Saxon Graves and Grave Goods of the 6th and 7th Centuries AD

Anglo-Saxon Graves and Grave Goods of the 6th and 7th Centuries AD
Author: Alex Bayliss
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 616
Release: 2017-07-05
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1351576461

The Early Anglo-Saxon Period is characterized archaeologically by the regular deposition of artefacts in human graves in England. The scope for dating these objects and graves has long been studied, but it has typically proved easier to identify and enumerate the chronological problems of the material than to solve them. Prior to the work of the project reported on here, therefore, there was no comprehensive chronological framework for Early Anglo-Saxon Archaeology, and the level of detail and precision in dates that could be suggested was low. The evidence has now been studied afresh using a co-ordinated suite of dating techniques, both traditional and new: a review and revision of artefact-typology; seriation of grave-assemblages using correspondence analysis; high-precision radiocarbon dating of selected bone samples; and Bayesian modelling using the results of all of these. These were focussed primarily on the later part of the Early Anglo-Saxon Period, starting in the 6th century. This research has produced a new chronological framework, consisting of sequences of phases that are separate for male and female burials but nevertheless mutually consistent and coordinated. These will allow archaeologists to assign grave-assemblages and a wide range of individual artefact-types to defined phases that are associated with calendrical date-ranges whose limits are expressed to a specific degree of probability. Important unresolved issues include a precise adjustment for dietary effects on radiocarbon dates from human skeletal material. Nonetheless the results of this project suggest the cessation of regular burial with grave goods in Anglo-Saxon England two decades or even more before the end of the seventh century. That creates a limited but important discrepancy with the current numismatic chronology of early English sceattas. The wider implications of the results for key topics in Anglo-Saxon archaeology and social, economic and religious history are discussed to conclude the report.

Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History 15

Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History 15
Author: Sally Crawford
Publisher: Oxbow Books
Total Pages: 519
Release: 2008-10-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1782975292

Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History is an annual series concerned with the archaeology and history of England and its neighbours during the Anglo-Saxon period. ASSAH offers researchers an opportunity to publish new work in an interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary forum which allows for a diversity of approaches and subject matter. Contributions focus not just on Anglo-Saxon England but also its international context.