Burial Practices in the Northern Danelaw, c.650–1100

Hadley, Dawn

doi:10.1179/007817200790177815

Cited by 12 publications

(11 citation statements)

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“…Halsall argued that burial rites can only be used confidently to identify migrants where the new burial rites have a direct link with those used in the homeland, the comparable rites in the homeland are chronologically earlier, and the newly introduced rites differ significantly from those of the indigenous population (Halsall , 262). In later Anglo‐Saxon England, burial rites are diverse and grave‐good deposition continued, albeit occasionally, even in Christian contexts (Hadley ). Thus, the deposition of grave goods per se does not necessarily indicate that the individual buried with them was either pagan or of Scandinavian descent (Halsall , 262–8).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Finding Vikings in the Danelaw

Buckberry

Montgomery²,

Towers

et al. 2014

Oxford J Archaeology

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confidence: 99%

Finding Vikings in the Danelaw

Buckberry

Montgomery²,

Towers

et al. 2014

Oxford J Archaeology

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“…It seems very likely that the changes in the furnished burial ritual in the seventh century, and the fairly swift decline of burial with grave goods, together with the establishment of churchyard burial, was associated in some way with the introduction of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England. However, the early church in Anglo-Saxon England cannot be shown to have taken any steps to suppress or condemn burial with grave goods, and the exact mechanism by which the deposition of grave goods with burials was replaced by unaccompanied church burial, and the motivation for this change, remains a subject for debate (Hadley 2000b;Meaney 2003;Blair forthcoming).…”

Section: The Anglo-saxon Furnished Burial Ritualmentioning

confidence: 99%

Votive deposition, religion and the Anglo-Saxon furnished burial ritual

Crawford¹

2004

World Archaeology

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Anglo-Saxon archaeology can offer very few examples of deliberate, irretrievable deposition outside the mortuary arena, unlike the British and Continental archaeological evidence for the Roman and Iron Ages. With the exception of the furnished cemetery sites, Anglo-Saxon archaeology is notably short of 'ritual' deposits or structures until the arrival of Christianity, and we are equally short of ritual centres or sites expressing communal effort. It may be that any belief systems supported by the people inhabiting lowland England between the ending of Roman Britain and the Conversion left no surviving archaeological trace. In this context, however, furnished burials, accepted by archaeologists as a ritual display for an audience, may be ready for reinterpretation. Recent evaluation of Anglo-Saxon mortuary ritual has studied furnished burial almost solely in terms of conspicuous display, social organization and the relationship between the individual and the symbolic social messages of the goods with which they were buried. This paper argues that a rigid distinction between 'votive' and 'burial' deposition could be misleading, and that this distinction may be preventing us from seeing that the mortuary ritual should be recognized as an expression of a communal belief system, as well as carrying other important social messages.

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“…Research specific to later Anglo‐Saxon cemeteries has provided convincing evidence that the provision of stone‐built cists or rubble‐lined graves correlates with high social status (Buckberry, ; Craig & Buckberry, ; Hadley, ). Preferential areas for burial have been identified at a number of later Anglo‐Saxon sites, such as Jarrow (Northumberland) (Lowther, ) and Barton‐upon‐Humber (North Lincolnshire; Rodwell, ), where increased densities of burials next to church buildings reflect desire for burial in locis sanctis (holy ground) or ad sanctos (next to the saints; Hadley, ; Zadora‐Rio, ). Elaborate interments next to churches and minsters further evidence the prestige of burial next to ecclesiastical buildings (Boddington, ; Cramp & Lowther, ).…”

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confidence: 99%

A biocultural analysis of mortuary practices in the later Anglo‐Saxon to Anglo‐Norman Black Gate Cemetery, Newcastle‐upon‐Tyne, England

Swales

2019

Intl J of Osteoarchaeology

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The lack of grave goods in cemeteries from later Anglo‐Saxon England (eighth to 11th century AD) has in the past been interpreted as reflecting standardisation of burial rites dictated by Christian doctrine. This study employed a biocultural approach to investigate whether variations in mortuary practices such as burial location, grave form, and body disposition within the eighth to 12th‐century Black Gate Cemetery, Newcastle‐upon‐Tyne represented alternative mediums of social display. Skeletal markers commonly associated with early life stress (cribra orbitalia and linear enamel hypoplasia), non‐specific stress (tibial periosteal lesions and maxillary sinusitis), oral health (calculus, caries, abscesses, and ante‐mortem tooth loss), and biomechanical stress (appendicular and spinal degenerative joint disease and trauma) were examined macroscopically on the skeletal remains of 643 individuals. The aim of the analysis was to investigate whether patterns in age, sex, and biological stress in the different burial locations, burial types, and body positions evidenced social status or sociocultural relationships between the different mortuary practices. Demographic and biocultural analysis revealed the inclusion of males, females, non‐adults, and the elderly in all of the mortuary practices, and no evidence for marked inequalities in biological stress between those afforded the different burial practices. The dominant influence for non‐significant trends in the stress data was variation in age‐structure between different areas of burial. However, non‐significant but consistently higher frequencies of stress indicators were observed in graves containing stone inclusions (pillow stones, head‐cists, and earmuffs) compared with those constructed from stone (cists and rubble cists) and plain burials, all burial practices with a similar mortality profile. The distribution of age and stress indicators between the mortuary practices placed in the wider sociocultural context provided a deeper insight into the complex contribution of social relationships, life‐course, pragmatism, regional and temporal trends, and cultural and religious beliefs upon treatment of the deceased.

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Burial Practices in the Northern Danelaw, c.650–1100

Cited by 12 publications

References 1 publication

Finding Vikings in the Danelaw

Finding Vikings in the Danelaw

Votive deposition, religion and the Anglo-Saxon furnished burial ritual

A biocultural analysis of mortuary practices in the later Anglo‐Saxon to Anglo‐Norman Black Gate Cemetery, Newcastle‐upon‐Tyne, England

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