Early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries

Sayer, Duncan

doi:10.7765/9781526153845

Cited by 13 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 96 publications

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“…Here graves can be classified into distinct burial configurations according to orientation, location and frequency of artefacts. We found that burials with CNE ancestry are more often buried in configuration A (located towards the middle of the site and with east-west burial orientation) than in configuration B (located more towards the edges and with north-south orientation) 49 (Fisher's exact test P = 0.048). This shows that there is a significant difference within the treatment of individuals according to their ancestry, a finding very similar to those at early medieval cemeteries in Hungary and Italy with respect to northern versus southern European ancestry 51 .…”

Section: Articlementioning

confidence: 82%

The Anglo-Saxon migration and the formation of the early English gene pool

Gretzinger

Sayer

Justeau

et al. 2022

Nature

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The history of the British Isles and Ireland is characterized by multiple periods of major cultural change, including the influential transformation after the end of Roman rule, which precipitated shifts in language, settlement patterns and material culture1. The extent to which migration from continental Europe mediated these transitions is a matter of long-standing debate2–4. Here we study genome-wide ancient DNA from 460 medieval northwestern Europeans—including 278 individuals from England—alongside archaeological data, to infer contemporary population dynamics. We identify a substantial increase of continental northern European ancestry in early medieval England, which is closely related to the early medieval and present-day inhabitants of Germany and Denmark, implying large-scale substantial migration across the North Sea into Britain during the Early Middle Ages. As a result, the individuals who we analysed from eastern England derived up to 76% of their ancestry from the continental North Sea zone, albeit with substantial regional variation and heterogeneity within sites. We show that women with immigrant ancestry were more often furnished with grave goods than women with local ancestry, whereas men with weapons were as likely not to be of immigrant ancestry. A comparison with present-day Britain indicates that subsequent demographic events reduced the fraction of continental northern European ancestry while introducing further ancestry components into the English gene pool, including substantial southwestern European ancestry most closely related to that seen in Iron Age France5,6.

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Section: Articlementioning

confidence: 82%

The Anglo-Saxon migration and the formation of the early English gene pool

Gretzinger

Sayer

Justeau

et al. 2022

Nature

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“…Archaeothanatology, which focuses on the decomposition process and the eventual disarticulation of the skeleton, aims to consider both social and environmental variables in the formation of burial contexts. Important factors in such analyses include the position of the body within the grave; 92 the location, position, and distribution of graves and cemetery features; 93 the placement and arrangement of funerary objects; 94 and the post-burial processes which may impact excavation and interpretation. 95 Such analyses have been used to distinguish the results of postdepositional factors from intentional mortuary behavior, and more recently they have been used to examine symbolic elements in burials.…”

Section: Putting Late Antique Plague Burials In Their Socio-cultural ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Burial Archaeology and the First Plague Pandemic

Kay

Koncz²,

Wilson³

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Archaeological evidence from funerary contexts is largely ignored in current scholarship on first-pandemic plague, despite the important information that burials and cemeteries can provide about how plague might have affected societies. Skeletal (mainly dental) remains are used in the paleogenomic hunt for victims of plague (Yersinia pestis), but important contextual information is to be gained from plague-positive graves through bioarchaeological study of the complete skeleton and analysis of their funerary contexts, both of which are glaringly absent. We argue that future scholarship on the First Plague Pandemic must bring burial archaeology to the growing body of evidence, and archaeologists themselves must lead or be involved in this research. We present three ways in which burial archaeology can be used effectively to study the impact of first-pandemic plague on individuals and communities: by reconsidering whether we should be looking for an archaeology of “crisis” for this disease event, by evaluating burial archaeology (especially multiple burials) in its proper sociocultural context, and by examining bioarchaeological evidence from entire cemeteries where plague genomes are recovered in any quantity. We conclude by offering an example of how such archaeological evidence can be incorporated into interdisciplinary plague studies.

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“…Isotopic analysis, for example, has been directed towards establishing the origins of individuals and intrusive groups in Ireland, rather than used to illuminate the effect of religious transformations on diet, subsistence or economy. The potential for this analysis is demonstrated elsewhere (Hannah et al 2018), where more engaged analysis of cemeteries and funerary archaeology has also shown the potential for broaching questions regarding religious specialists, gender, status and hierarchy, which require dedicated study (Livarda et al 2018;Wright 2015a;Sayer 2021). Similarly, the ability of geo-chemical and micromorphological analyses to nuance our understanding of the minutiae of burial ritual is established, but unfulfilled (Pickering et al 2018).…”

Section: Religion and Beliefmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reframing the first millennium AD in Ireland: archaeology, history, landscape

Gleeson¹

2022

Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy

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contexts remain unexplored. It is no doubt a somewhat hackneyed trope to suggest that archaeology, its imperatives, and wider thematic concerns, remain subordinated to historical analyses, both in Ireland and elsewhere. Yet, this subordination is arguably the main reason why archaeologies of first millennium AD Ireland occupy a marginalised position within wider European research agendas and discourses. As such, the subordination of archaeological

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Early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries

Cited by 13 publications

References 96 publications

The Anglo-Saxon migration and the formation of the early English gene pool

The Anglo-Saxon migration and the formation of the early English gene pool

Burial Archaeology and the First Plague Pandemic

Reframing the first millennium AD in Ireland: archaeology, history, landscape

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