Landscape, Monuments and Society: Perspectives from the Early Medieval World

In recent years, theoretical studies of landscapes and monuments in archaeology have almost exclusively concentrated upon later prehistory and the Roman period in Britain and northern Europe. Yet perspectives on place, space and monumentality are crucial for our understanding of the structure and character of early medieval societies. Traditional archaeological approaches tend to be under-theorised, subsidiary to studies of written sources and place name evidence or tied to questionable historical narratives. Consequently, studies of the early medieval landscapes have focused upon population movements, changing population levels, settlement patterns and the economy. These remain legitimate and fruitful areas of archaeological study, yet there has been an inadequate appreciation of the significance of the ritual organisation of the landscapes in early medieval period.

This session hopes to present a number of alternative perspectives upon early medieval landscapes inspired by recent theoretical approaches to landscapes in prehistory and anthropology. In many ways, the distinct character of societies in this period together with the use of alternative sources of evidence all evidence from written sources allows us to expand theories Papers will cover a number of related themes using case studies from Britain and northern Europe. The reuse and reinterpretation of prehistoric and Roman period monuments will be the topic of a number of papers. Other themes include pagan and Christian sacred geography, mortuary practices, exchange systems, territorial organisation and evidence for continuities and discontinuities from prehistory and the Roman period. The session should encourage new debates and further research into early medieval landscapes and raises issues relevant to landscape studies of all past societies. Our ability to combine archaeology with the evidence from other disciplines produces the potential for very different interpretations of monuments and ritual practices in the landscape than are possible in prehistory.

Picts and Prehistory: Cultural Resource Management in the Early Middle Ages.

The paper will consider the conspicuous evidence for the use of ancient monuments (mostly Neolithic) in Scotland by Picts and their contemporaries. This consists of both burials in and around early monuments and the use of such monuments as ceremonial gathering centres. I will explore the political context of the phenomenon and discuss the longevity of the practice in medieval Scotland.

Ancient Monuments and the Dead in early Anglo-Saxon England.

Despite an abundance of evidence, archaeologists and historians have consistently overlooked the social and ideological significance of place and space in early medieval funerary rituals. Early medieval burial sites from the 4th to the 7th century were often placed into, or close to prehistoric and Roman period monuments. Using examples from Wessex and the upper Thames region, this paper argues that monument reuse resulted from attempts to create symbolic relationships between the living, the dead and ancestral/supernatural powers. These relationships extended beyond the proximity of burial sites and old monuments to include the spatiality, orientation, monumentality and uses of artefacts in the ritual practices surrounding death. Funerary rituals held an important place in the articulation of power relations and the propagation of social ideals and identities with reference to the material remains of the past. These arguments hold particular significance in the context of the myths and realities of Anglo-Saxon migration.

"History Culture" of the Slavs in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (NE Germany): A Chapter in the life-histories of prehistoric finds and monuments

"History Culture" (in the sense of Jörn Rüsen's Geschichtskultur) encompasses all references to the past in a given society. History culture supplies people with collective memories, temporal orientation and historical identities. In this paper I am discussing archaeological evidence for Slavic history culture in north-east Germany. My main focus is on Slavic finds in or near prehistoric mounds, which, I argue, functioned as "timemarks" in the landscape. The life-history of megaliths frequently featured events and processes which led to the deposition of later finds in both mounds and chambers, some of which were in connection with Slavic secondary burials. There are also Slavic imitations of prehistoric burial mounds and Neolithic flint axes found in Slavic contexts. I will offer various possible interpretations of this evidence and try to make sense of Slavic history culture in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. In studying this material and presenting a paper to you, I exemplify one aspect of the history culture of own society.

The Placing of the Dead in Early Medieval Yorkshire.

This paper will consider the significance of the location of early medieval cemeteries in the articulation of relationships between the living and the dead in 5th to 7th century East Yorkshire. It will highlight how changes in the location of cemeteries over time, in terms of both geographical situation and the re-use of prehistoric monuments, can reflect changing attitudes and emphases on the importances of the dead. These changes can be seen to play an important role in the creation and maintenance of social norms and structures.

'Inheriting the Landscape: The Anglo-Saxon Christian Reinterpretation of Roman Structures

The high number of churches situated within Roman forts, bishops' sees centered upon Roman towns and the great number of early minsters located within areas of Roman settlement attest to the early Christian practice of erecting ritual structures upon or in association with these pre-existing Roman architectural features: a curious reinterpretation of roman secular structures for ecclesiastical purposes. This paper identifies and discusses briefly the subject of churches on Roman buildings, and illustrates the importance of discerning reinterpretation versus reuse - in particular how each may contribute to our understanding of "continuity" between the Roman and Anglo-Saxon periods. It briefly attempts to investigate the underlying forces behind reinterpretation, including the Anglo-Saxon perception of Roman remains in Britain, and the possible ties with Roman heritage that were introduced with Christianity at the end of the sixth century.

Encounters with Territory: questions of continuity and change.

In the world of early medieval studies in Britain, questions about "territory" have involved kingdoms, estates (multiple, river or otherwise) and named peoples. Among prehistorians they have meant sites catchments, Thiessen polygons, linear boundaries, and post-processual rhetoric. The enthusiasm fostered by W. G. Hoskins and Glanville Jones for "continuity" from later prehistory to the early post-Roman period, has largely disappeared, apparently vanquished by evidential problems and the question "what do we mean by continuity?" but it is hard to believe that AD 410 was clean slate time! With reference to some concrete examples, this paper explores similaries and differences between the conceptualization of "territory" in later prehistory and the early post-Roman periods, and considers what kind of rapproachment may be made between them.

Landscape Imaginations: The Late Anglo-Saxon Perspective.

Discourse on landscape deals with cultural imaginations and perspectives; palimpsests and space-time routinizations; the meaning of space. However, much of this debate does not focus on the use of empirical data to construct theories of cultural identity. Archaeological understandings of landscape must engage with patterns of material culture, a subject other disciplines are able to ignore. Furthermore, archaeology must use this incomplete corpus to construct ideas about people in the past. While socio-spatial theory has been addressed in other archaeological contexts, such as the Iron Age, little research has been done within the early medieval period. This paper will address these changes through the use of landscape and socio-spatial theory, focusing on issues of socio-economic movement through the landscape of late Anglo-Saxon England. Discussion will be centered on the area within the Danelaw and the changes occurring there in pottery production and exchange. This case study will then be drawn out into a discussion of how our understanding of the socio-economic landscape affects our interpretation of the people living in the Danelaw during the tenth century.

Creating the sacred in the Anglo-Saxon landscape

Anglo-Saxon monasteries were sometimes large and complex sites incorporating several churches, high-status burials and crosses. Even the smaller institutions seem to have been associated with other features such as holy wells and prehistoric monuments. Traditionally it has been assumed that they followed Continental patterns yet recent research on early churches across Europe is revealing sites which look very different from the English material. There is now a good deal of evidence to suggest that there are better parallels with Insular manors and palaces. This paper looks at how monasteries following familiar patterns of layout and how they were often carefully integrated with established sacred places, following the grain of the local landscape.

Boundaries and cult centres: Viking burial in Derbyshire.

The cemetery at Ingleby, Derbyshire, is the only known Scandinavian cremation cemetery in England. The unique nature of the sites makes it an important source of information for Viking pagan graves in the Danelaw, but also makes its interpretation difficult. Today the site is wooded but in earlier times it would have commanded impressive views northwards, where the Anglo-Saxon church and Mercian royal mausoleum at Lepton lies c.4km to the north-west. The discovery at Repton of pagan burials around the church, of the winter camp of the Viking Great Army, and of the mass burial of at least 249 individuals, gives renewed significance to Ingleby, and demands that both sites must be treated as part of a ritual landscape. It will be argued that the proximity of these sistes to the political boundary between Wessex and the Danelaw is part of a deliberate ideological use of the location of the former Mercian royal sites in the definition of new political entities.