Living with the Dead in Early Medieval Ireland
Matthew Seaver
Supervisor:
Funded by:
Irish Research Council for Humanities and Social Science Postgraduate Scholarship Scheme 2011-2012.
The project is being supported through the provision of research facilities at the Humanities Institute of Ireland, University College Dublin.
Abstract
Our view of early medieval settlement and burial is changing radically as can be seen through the work of the Early Medieval Archaeology Project (O’Sullivan et al. 2009). Excavations resulting from the construction boom associated with the ‘Celtic Tiger’ particularly between 2000-2008 revealed that the types of places in which people were buried were far more varied than was traditionally thought and the range of such sites initially recognised by scholars such as Elizabeth O’ Brien were expanded significantly (O’ Brien 1999, 2003). It also became clear that some burial and settlement sites were located together, often within the same enclosure. This is placing new emphasis on older excavations which included these features. These fascinating sites are at present poorly understood.
This project will examine the emerging wealth of early medieval settlements enclosures with burials which do not have definitive evidence for church buildings, graveslabs or dedicative saints. Enclosures of this type have been recognised in all areas of the country and while they vary greatly in their size and the types of features within, apart from burials, can include; buildings, kilns, field boundaries, watermills and associated races. At least thirty five sites have been identified in preliminary surveys which meet these criteria (O’Sullivan and Seaver, forthcoming). Burial is a central part of these settlements with numbers varying from twenty to over a thousand. The project is not concerned with forcing sites into categories which may not have been meaningful to people in the early medieval period but to examine differences and similarities in places where the dead were placed within the heart of a settlement.
The burial of the dead, and their commemoration, in early medieval was a highly charged event. The wide range of contexts in which they are found suggests that people were expressing different beliefs about belonging, loss and remembering (Williams 2006). The evolution of these layers of memory and the transformation of the dead within the cemetery within a settlement is making a different statement than those buried on the outer edges of a farm, in a ring ditch, a cave or in a known church site.
The sites under examination have a varied wealth of evidence for agriculture, craftworking. Many have distinct spatial arrangements of enclosures and features relating to death, drying, milling and storing of grain, corralling and separation of animals, housing and domestic space for people. Many have evidence for metalworking, the manufacture and repair of iron and copper alloy tools. They also have evidence for links to localised, regional and international contacts through small scale consumption of continental and Mediterranean pottery, glass and other artefacts such as brooches, horsebits and necklets which have complex typological links to Irish, British and Continental types.
Initially some of these sites were viewed as settlement sites which became ecclesiastical in their later phases (Manning 1986 and McConway 2003). This paradigm arose from the normative view of early medieval Irish society living in ringforts, cashels and crannogs and burying their dead at church sites. These settlements have been subsequently termed secular burial sites and cemetery settlements (Stout and Stout 2008, Ó’ Carragáin 2009). Many of the ideas about these sites do not seem to be satisfactory to explain the range of activities carried out and their social and economic roles. This project aims to undertake a comprehensive analysis of these sites together and bring new understanding of these types of activity in early medieval Ireland.
The research involves;
- Identifying and cataloguing the numbers of sites with these criteria.
- Examining their chronology, layout and location. How do they vary in their social use of space?
- Explore the types of burial, artefacts and monuments used at these sites and interpret how they were used to communicate meaning through commemoration and transformation of the dead.
- Discuss their relationship to other burial forms, ecclesiastical sites, routeways and settlements, particularly with regard to specific case study areas.
- Examine their social and economic roles within early medieval society.
- Compare these traditions with contemporary sites with burials and settlements in Britain and Europe.
References
Manning, C 1986 ‘Archaeological excavations of a succession of enclosures at Millockstown, Co. Louth’ in Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, Vol 86, Section C, Dublin.
McConway C 2003 ‘1489. Ninch, Laytown’ in Bennett, I, (Ed). Excavations 2002, Bray, 412-425.
O’ Brien E. 1999 ‘Possible Anglo-Saxon Burials in Ireland’ in Post-Roman Britain to Anglo-Saxon England:Burial Practices Reviewed, BAR British Series 289, Oxford. 179-186.
O’ Brien, E 2003, ‘Burial practices in Ireland: first to seventh centuries’ in J. Downes and A. Ritchie (Eds.) Sea Change: Orkney and Northern Europe in the later Iron Age AD 300-800, Trowbridge, 2003. 62-72.
Ó’ Carragáin, T 2010, Cemetery settlements and local churches in pre-Viking Ireland in light of comparisons with England and Wales in M. Ryan, J. Graham-Campbell, (Eds.) Anglo-Saxon/Irish Relations before the Vikings, London.
Seaver, M., 2011 ‘Back to basics, contexts of burial on Irish early medieval settlements’, in Danaher, E, Conran, S and Stanley, M (eds.) Past Times, Changing Fortunes. Archaeology and the National Roads Authority, Monograph No. 8. Wordwell Press, Bray. 113-129.
Stout,G and Stout,M 2008, Excavation of an Early medieval Secular Cemetery at Knowth Site M, County Meath, Bray.
Williams, H 2006 Death and Memory in Early Medieval Britain, Cambridge