In Search of an Acceptable Past: History, Archaeology, and ‘Looted’ Graves in the Construction of the Frankish Early Middle Ages

Abstract

The Early Middle Ages have provided material for imagining selves and groups in a wide range of contexts since the earliest beginnings of the historical and archaeological disciplines. Considerable recent research has shown how modern political conflicts and regional-national identities have crystallized in this period in particular. This essay traces ways in which early medieval remains, mainly from the richly furnished cemeteries, have been brought into play in developing scholarly and popular accounts of the history of France. During the second half of the nineteenth century, the recovery of considerable numbers of finely worked grave goods from the large rural cemeteries provided material for studying and reevaluating Merovingian-period societies, previously only glimpsed in written sources and largely out-competed as national ancestors by the popular appeal of Gaulish warriors. Yet paradoxically, another form of discovery in the same burial grounds seemed to place them back in the Dark Ages: many graves were found to have been ransacked and robbed soon after burial, making the communities of the time appear lawless and barbarous. Archaeological attitudes towards excavated early medieval graves, and in particular the many thousands of graves already reopened in antiquity, not only highlight key aspects of the development of the discipline, but also reveal ways in which the remains of the dead may be integral to processes of national identity construction.

Disturbance of early medieval graves in south-western Gaul:

“…6.1: Sarcophagus of the necropolis of Usseau (Deux-Sèvres, France) presenting bone displacements (arrows) due to fractures (dashed lines) in a floor under the last deposited individual (white bones). 1962, 262-267;Roth 1977;Thiedmann and Schliefring 1992;Effros 2002;Kümmel 2009;Van Haperen 2010;Aspöck 2011;Dierkens 2011;Klevnäs 2013;Chenal and Barrand Emam 2014;Noterman 2016a;2016b;see Zintl, this volume). Bone disturbances due to so-called grave robbery can take many forms, depending for example on whether there was still an empty space from a funerary container around the body when it was reopened (e.g.…”