Ritual and Interpretation in Provincial Roman Cemeteries

Abstract

All the reports reviewed here are significant additions to the Roman cemeteries published from Germany, Switzerland and Austria. The volumes from Krefeld-Gellep and Wederath are the latest fruit of research excavations on a heroic scale. Almost 2,500 Iron Age and Roman burials have been excavated at Wederath since the 1950s while this seventh volume brings the burials published from Krefeld-Gellep to over 5,500. By 1999 over 1,300 more had been excavated (Archdologie im Rheinland 1999, 101-2). The other cemeteries were examined in advance of development in the 1980s and 1990s, with the exception of Kempten, excavated between 1952 and 1967. The volumes from Vindonissa, Carnuntum and Avenches represent the most substantial cemeteries so far to be published from these settlements. After a site-by-site summary, this review is devoted to two general questions. First, to what extent is it possible to recover not only the burial itself but also evidence of the other stages of mortuary ritual, especially from cremation cemeteries? Second, which interpretative frameworks are brought to the analysis of burial rituals?

A Specific Problem? The Detection, Protection and Exploration of Romano-British Cremation Cemeteries through Competitive Tendering

“…Research into this area during the last decade or so has considerably expanded our understanding and expectations of the potential complexity and fragility of these sites. Using such evidence, archaeologists would now not only hope to compare burial contents, but reconstruct and compare much more of the 'funerary sequence' leading to, and otherwise related to burials (see 2002;Fitzpatrick 2000;McKinley 2000;Weekes 2005).…”