Putting the Dead in their Place: the social landscape of cemeteries and settlement in early medieval Oxfordshire

Principal investigator: Liam
Level: Masters degree

The aim of my project is to map the changing spatial relationships between settlements and cemeteries in Oxfordshire from AD 300 to 1000. Vast social change has occurred within this time span beginning with the imposition Roman Empire, its subsequent withdrawal and collapse, and the development of new social structures in the early middles ages including migration, kingdom formation, and religious change. I will explore how these social changes are manifested in the landscape by studying the socially constructed spatial order of cemeteries in the landscape of settlements. Most archaeological research on these social structures has largely relied on mortuary and settlement sources. Mortuary archaeology has recently provided enlightening analyses of the spatial arrangement of graves within cemeteries as described in Sayer and Weinhold (2013). Meanwhile in settlement archaeology, Hamerow (2002) has cited the importance of analysing the arrangements of houses, paths and boundaries within settlements. Nevertheless, archaeological research has neglected to address the important issue of the social relationship between these two practices. Furthermore, previous studies have too often focused on one century at a time, whereas my study will look at the late Roman, sub-Roman, and early medieval periods between the third and tenth centuries. My project will combine small scale studies with a broad geographical and chronological scope, which will construct a very detailed picture of extensive change over time. Since the mortuary and settlement records are the two principle resources for studying Anglo-Saxon archaeology, it is critical that we understand the relationships between these places of the living (settlements) and places of the dead (cemeteries).

My dissertation will analyse the previously unexplored uses of social space between the living and the dead in order to elucidate the spatial relationship that exists between settlements and cemeteries. My contribution will be unique because of its combination of these two data sets, and because it will examine a timeframe spanning nearly a millennium as opposed to a single century. My project will use both published site reports and grey literature from the Portable Antiquities Scheme and Archaeology Data Service, which have a vast amount of data for Oxfordshire has been collected in large part thanks to Oxford Archaeology. My project also aims to adapt theories of social order in landscapes, especially from prehistoric archaeology, to the study of early medieval landscapes. Until Chester–Kadwell‘s (2009) recent study of communities in Norfolk, surveys of early medieval landscapes have focused only on landscapes as environmental backgrounds rather than constructed, social landscapes. Overall, this project will collate data that will allow us to see changes in perceptions of life, death, and religion in first-millennium Oxfordshire.

Audit data

• Created: 7 years ago
• Created by: Claire Costin
• Updated: 7 years ago
• Updated by: Claire Costin