Heinrich Härke
I am an archaeologist, and passionate about the past and what it means to the present and to our own identities. I used to teach archaeology at the University of Reading (UK), but because I felt increasingly hamstrung by the burden of bureaucracy in the British university system, I took early retirement in 2007 so that I could do my own thing. My interests have shifted over the decades, from scientific analyses of bronze artefacts, to the study of Iron Age settlement patterns, to burial rites, immigration and identity in early Anglo-Saxon England. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, I returned to work 'out east' where I had briefly worked as a student on Scythian barrows, and I rediscovered my interest in nomads (of the past) and my love of Russian culture (of the present). I am now focusing on historical nomads in the Caucasus and in Central Asia, on relations between nomads and sedentary societies, and more recently on urbanization and state formation in early medieval Central Asia. Being a German working in Russia, I naturally continue my interest in the relationship between archaeology, politics, ideology and society. And because I was beginning to miss teaching, I got involved in the Medieval Archaeology programme at Tübingen (from 2010) and the new Master's course in Classical and Oriental Archaeology at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow (from 2019).
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Klin-Yar is a well-known, large cemetery of regional importance, located outside the spa town of Kislovodsk in the foothills of the North Caucasus (Russian Federation). Before 1993, some 350 graves had been excavated here, most of them belonging to the Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age Koban Culture, but also around 70 Late Iron Age Sarmatian and early medieval Alanic graves.
The presence of three distinct cultural phases in the cemetery led to a project which aimed to test the accepted hypothesis that cultural change, here and in the region, was the consequence of population change by immigration in the Late Iron Age (Sarmatians) and the Early Middle Ages (Alans). A joint Anglo-Russian team carried out fieldwork on the site in 1994-96. In all, 52 graves with more than 100 individuals were uncovered; remains of 86 individuals were preserved well enough for skeletal analysis.
On the southern slope of the site, in cemetery III, our excavations uncovered an elite plot with a concentration of rich Sarmatian and Alanic catacombs which appears to be unique in the North Caucasus. The numbers of burials need not imply more than one high-status family, or at the most two families, over some 350 to 400 years. The increasing emphasis on family or kin-group burial in the elite plot during the Early Alanic period may signal the emergence of a hereditary aristocracy.
According to the skeletal data, the Koban people were a native farming population, with a lifestyle and diet typical of an agricultural economy. The Sarmatians were immigrants at Klin-Yar, but this may have been a male-only immigration. Their lifestyle and diet were those of mobile livestock breeders. The Alans seem to represent another immigration into the area, possibly from two different origin areas, and with new male and female phenotypes. Data on their diet and lifestyle point to a more mixed economy. Stable isotope data suggest a significant proportion of freshwater fish in the Sarmatian and Alanic diet, leading to an irregular offset in the radiocarbon dates (reservoir effect).
The key factors behind the observable patterns in the cemetery, and behind the changes in culture, ritual and lifestyle, appear to be a series of interlinked developments: two episodes of immigration each leading to economic and social change. The social system was, at the same time, affected by the wider geo-political context of the region which expressed itself in links to the south across the Caucasus mountain range (in the Koban period), to the Late Roman and Byzantine neighbour in the west (Late Sarmatian and Alanic periods), and along the early medieval branch of the Silk Road to Iran and Central Asia (Early Alanic period). From a theoretical and methodological point of view, the continuity and social stability from the Sarmatian to the Alanic period, through a phase of apparent immigration and economic change, is of great interest and requires more sophisticated models than are generally used for the explanation of prehistoric and early historical population change.
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Резюме:
Могильник Клин-Яр на Северном Кавказе (материалы раскопок 1994-1996гг)
Клин-¬Яр ¬ ¬- хорошо известный могильник, расположенный в регионе Кавказских Минеральных Вод, недалеко от курортного города Кисловодска Ставропольского края в Российской федерации. Этот регион находится в предгорной зоне Северного Кавказа. К югу от него располагается главный Кавказский хребет. До 1993 года на Клин – Яре было раскопано около 400 погребений, большая часть которых относится к кобанской культуре (поздний бронзовый/ранний железный век). Так же было исследовано около 100 захоронений, принадлежащих сарматской (поздний железный век) и аланской культурам (раннее средневековье).
Наличие трех различных культур на этом памятнике послужило основным поводом для начала проекта, целью которого была проверка общепринятой гипотезы о культурных изменениях на могильнике Клин-Яр и его окрестностях вследствие смены этнического состава, вызванного миграциями в позднем железном веке (сарматы) и раннем средневековье (аланы).
Совместная российско-английская экспедиция проводила исследования на этом могильнике с 1994 по 1996 год. В общей сложности совместной экспедицией было вскрыто 52 погребения, содержавшие более 100 костяков, 86 из которых были хорошей сохранности, что позволило провести антропологические исследования.
На южном склоне горы Паровоз (Клин-Яр III) экспедиция выявила элитный участок захоронений знати. Большая концентрация богатых сарматских и аланских катакомб на небольшой площади является уникальным явлением среди известных могильников этого времени на Северном Кавказе. Небольшое количество катакомб, скорее всего принадлежащих одной или двум семьям высокого статуса, погребенных на протяжении 350 – 400 лет на одном небольшом участке, возможно, указывает на становление наследственной аристократии в этот период.
Согласно данным антропологического анализа, кобанцы являлись местным земледельческим народом с диетой и жизненным укладом присущим сельскохозяйственной экономике. Сарматы появились на Клин-Яре как переселенцы, и, возможно, это была исключительно мужская миграция. Их жизненный уклад и диета представляли собой уклад и диету подвижных скотоводов. Аланы, по всей видимости, являлись представителями еще одной миграции, возможно, из двух разных очагов и с новыми мужскими и женскими фенотипами. Данные об их диете и жизненном укладе указывают на более смешанную экономику.
Анализы стабильных изотопов позволяют выявить значительную долю пресноводной рыбы в диете алан и сарматов, что могло привести к нерегулярным смещениям в радиокарбонной датировке (резервуарный эффект).
Главными факторами, объясняющими наблюдаемые закономерности в некрополе и изменениях в культуре, обрядах и жизненном укладе, является ряд взаимосвязанных обстоятельств: два эпизода миграции каждый из которых вел к экономическим и социальным преобразованиям. На социальную систему в свою очередь влияла региональная геополитическая конъюнктура, которая выражалась в связях с югом, через Кавказский хребет (в кобанский период), с поздним Римом и Византией на западе (поздний сарматский и аланский периоды), и через раннесредневековое ответвление Великого Шелкового Пути с Ираном и Центральной Азией (раннеаланский период). С теоретической и методологической точек зрения, продолжительность и социальная стабильность от сарматского к аланскому периоду, по-видимому, через фазу миграций и экономических изменений, представляет собой большой интерес и требует более сложных моделей, чем обычно используемые для описания изменений в обществах доисторического либо раннеисторического периодов.
Preface
Introduction
1 The German experience (Heinrich Härke)
From Nationalism to Nazism
2 Gustaf Kossinna and his concept of a national archaeology (Ulrich Veit)
3 Archaeology in the 'Third Reich' (Henning Haßmann)
4 Archaeology and anthropology in Germany before 1945 (Frank Fetten)
Post-War West Germany
5 Vorsprung durch Technik or 'Kossinna Syndrome'? Archaeological theory and social context in post-war West Germany (Sabine Wolfram)
6 The teaching of archaeology in West Germany (Ulrike Sommer)
7 Archaeology and the German public (Martin Schmidt)
8 Women's situation as archaeologists in West Germany (Eva-Maria Mertens)
9 Women in the underground: gender studies in German archaeology (Sigrun M. Karlisch, Sibylle Kästner and Helga Brandt)
East Germany and Reunification
10 Archaeology under Communist control: the German Democratic Republic, 1945 - 1990 (Werner Coblenz)
11 German unification and East German archaeology (Jörn Jacobs)
International Perspectives
12 Traumland Südwest: two moments in the history of German archaeological inquiry in Namibia (John Kinahan)
13 German archaeology at risk? A neighbour's critical view of tradition, structure and serendipity (Tom Bloemers)
14 A transatlantic perspective on German archaeology (Bettina Arnold)
In the typological series of Early Saxon bosses, stylistic change, functional requirements and technical improvements are interlinked. The changes in boss types may reflect changes in fighting practices, but they certainly reflect an advance in iron-working skills which is particularly obvious in the sixth-century transition from heavy to light bosses.
By contrast, it is not clear what the grip typology reflects, but it is noteworthy that long iron grips, and flanged grips (short or long) in general, were just an episode which was limited mainly to the sixth century. Changes also affected the wooden board: it became larger, thicker and, therefore, heavier. The adoption of larger and more unwieldy boards, coupled with the change-over to taller bosses from the late sixth century, but particularly in the seventh century, may reflect the emergence of group combat because it coincides with an increasing popularity of the seax, the ideal weapon for the mêlée.
But the typology and technology of the shield do not only show changes over time, they also demonstrate geographical differentiation and hierarchies. The local patterns of shield deposition in the graves are varied, and differ from cemetery to cemetery. At the regional level, the shield can be shown to have been, to a certain degree, interchangeable with the sword in the burial rite, and the extent of this interchangeability is correlated with regional wealth.
Apart from its practical, military function, the shield had a symbolic role in Germanic society. In the Early Saxon burial rite, it is linked, in particular, to adulthood. The variety of decorative shield appliqués and some unusual forms of board fittings, including a unique boss in an anomalous burial, suggest that the shield displayed not just wealth and status, but also individualism and occasionally perhaps even eccentricity.
This study is a contribution to the interpretation of the Early Medieval weapon burial rite. Its main aim was to test the premise of previous research in this field: that weapons in graves closely reflect the past realities of armament and social structures. The approach chosen was to check the presence or absence of weapons in inhumation burials for their correlations with other archaeological and skeletal data. The sample analysed consists of 47 Anglo-Saxon cemeteries of 5th to 7th/8th centuries A.D. date, spread from Kent to Yorkshire (Table 2, Fig. 3).
The relative frequency of the Early Saxon weapon burial rite is similar to that in Continental row-grave cemeteries: one in five of all inhumations, or almost exactly half of all identifiable male adult burials, had been equipped with weapons (Härke 1989c). But there are marked local and regional variations (Table 6) which seem to be correlated with the regional proportions of cremations: the higher the proportion of cremations, the more frequent are weapon burials among inhumations (Fig. 7).
The absolute and relative frequencies of weapon burials in England show a simple, but marked change over time: they increase towards a maximum late in the first half, or around the middle, of the 6th century, and then slowly decline until the end of the weapon burial rite in the late 7th/early 8th century (Figs. 9 and 10). This change seems to have been totally independent of the level of military activity. The peak of the weapon burial rite even coincides with a period of relative peace if we can take at face value the numbers of battles recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and Gildas' supporting statement (Fig. 2; Härke 1990).
The weapon combinations occurring in Early Saxon burials cannot have been determined entirely, or predominantly, by practical considerations (Table 9). More than a quarter of all weapon burials contained only a single weapon which would not have been functional fighting equipment on its own (shield, narrow seax, francisca, throwing spear); and only one third of all weapon burials had the minimum practical set of spear and shield (Härke 1989c).
The frequency of decorated and damaged weapons increases with the age at death of the individuals buried with arms (Table 19). This suggests that the weapons in the grave would normally have been owned, or used, by the individual buried with them. However, they were often only a selection of his weapons, witness the impractical or non-functional weapon sets. 'Ritual' destruction of weapons was rare, and apparently limited to one or two regions (East Midlands and northern East Anglia). The position of a weapon in a grave seems to have been determined by the mode of carrying the weapon, but also by the handedness of the individual buried with it (Figs. 18-22). The latter is indicated by the marked coincidence between positions of weapons and both, buckle directions and skeletal evidence for handedness (Table 15).
The correlations between other archaeological data and burial with weapons present a complex picture. Weapon burial is clearly correlated with burial wealth (Figs. 28-29), certain types of grave-goods (primarily drinking vessels; Figs. 26-27), grave structures (coffin, chamber; Table 21), and single burials (less frequent in multiple burials; Table 22). On the other hand, there are no, or only local, correlations with grave size and depth, external features (ditch, barrow), grave orientation and body deposition. The link between the weapon burial rite and features of supposed 'status burials' is, therefore, not as straightforward as has often been assumed, although burials with axes, swords or seaxes can be shown to have the highest investment of labour and wealth of all male burials (Table 25).
The correlations between skeletal data and weapon burial are even more interesting because the absence of some expected correlations is significant, too. The weapon burial rite shows very clear correlations with sex (male only; Table 27), age at death (cf. below), stature (men with weapons tend to be taller; Tables 32-33) and epigenetic traits. The latter is particularly important: in the cases of one or two cemeteries with sufficiently complete data, it can be suggested that weapon burial was limited to certain families, whereas others did not participate in this rite (Tables 35 and 37, Fig. 41). Age at death determined the likelihood of burial with weapons (Table 28, Fig. 33), it influenced the number (Table 29) and types of weapons (arrows limited to juveniles, axe and seax mostly with older adults; Table 30), and it is correlated with the sizes of spears and knives (Figs 37-39; Härke 1989b). The complete absence of a correlation between weapon burial and physique, indicators of stress and malnutrition (Table 40), pathology and traumata (Table 41), wounds (Table 43) and inherited disorders is surprising. Weapons could be buried with men of weak build, and with men crippled by heavy arthritis or malunited fractures, whereas men with wounds (mostly cut marks) had often been interred without weapons.
These individual observations may be combined to reconstruct the ritual and social background of the weapon burial rite. This rite was a primarily symbolic act which was determined (or at least influenced) by descent, but was independent of the ability to fight and of the actual experience of fighting (Härke 1990). This implies the separation of a social or ideological warrior status from the real warrior function in Early Saxon society. The families or social groups practising the weapon burial rite were, on average, wealthier, but their living conditions do not seem to have been markedly different from groups without weapon burial. There are a number of reasons to believe that the difference in stature between men with and without weapons in the 5th and 6th cent. is due to ethnic as well as social factors: Romano-British males were, on average, about 4 cm smaller than Anglo-Saxon men; and the earliest law codes indicate that most of the British population had unfree or semi-free status. It is likely, thus, that men buried with weapons were predominantly of immigrant Germanic stock, whilst a sizeable proportion, probably a majority, of the men buried without weapons must have been native Britons. The social groups practising weapon burial with adult men also buried some (but not all) of their children with arms.
The present study also suggests a number of methodological conclusions. The most important of the results summarised above depended on the use of skeletal data. There is a theoretical explanation for this: unlike most of the archaeological data, skeletal data are not influenced or distorted by the intentions of the burial ritual - they are 'functional' data reflecting reality, not 'intentional' data reflecting thinking. An interdisciplinary approach to burial analysis is, therefore, the most promising one. For such an approach, the quality of the data is at least as important as the quantity: the key results of this study are based on about a dozen cemeteries (out of a total of 47) with complete sets of archaeological, skeletal and technical data.
The results also demonstrate that the role of weapons in the burial ritual must be analysed before they can be used for the inference of social structures or of the armament of the living. The explicit or implicit premise of most previous attempts at social interpretation of Early Medieval male burials has been that the weapons in the graves represented the real armament which, in turn, reflected the social structure. This study has shown that this premise is not true in the case of Early Saxon England, and whether it is true for other areas or periods must be checked in every single case.
Moreover, the complexity of the relationships between the various factors involved in the Early Saxon burial rite, the marked local and regional variations, and the many exceptions from virtually every correlation found make it appear doubtful if the analysis of burial evidence will ever be able to find clear-cut rules, or even laws, of human social behaviour: the inference of regularities or patterns may be all that archaeological analysis can achieve.
"
Papers by Heinrich Härke
archeological culture and its representatives in the genetic orbit of Caucasian cultures using genome-wide SNP data from five individuals of the Koban culture and one individual of the early Alanic culture as well as previously published genomic data of
ancient and modern North Caucasus individuals. Ancient DNA analysis shows that an ancient individual from Klin-Yar III, who was previously described as male, was in fact a female. Additional studies on well-preserved ancient human specimens are necessary to
determine the level of local mobility and kinship between individuals in ancient societies of North Caucasus. Further studies with a larger sample size will allow us gain a deeper understanding of this topic.
It is the intention of this paper to provide a broad overview of the archaeological evidence of these diverse zones around the time of Ibn Fadlan’s journey, with the nature of the evidence requiring in many cases a broad outlook on the late first millennium AD rather than just the early 10th century. Ibn Fadlan’s descriptions of the respective local cultures and ways of life will be drawn on as required, but we make no claims to extensive coverage of the historical literature discussing, and commenting on, his observations, nor of other textual sources although some of them may be quoted here selectively.
case studies conducted on four early medieval
archaeological sites with differentiated spatialization
of human impacts and a varied craft production
located in different background environments:
humid climate, subzone of mixed forests, floodplain
of the Dnieper River (Gnezdovo site); semi-humid
climate, subzone of forest-steppe, Middle Volga
region (Muromsky Gorodok and Malaya Ryazan’
sites); arid climate, cold desert of the Aral region,
ancient delta-alluvial plain of the Syr-Darya River
(Dzhankent site).
Jeanne Féaux de la Croix, Irina Arzhantseva, Jeanine Dağyeli, Eva-Marie Dubuisson, Heinrich Härke, Beatrice Penati, Akira Ueda and Amanda Wooden 2021. Roundtable studying the Anthropocene in Central Asia: the challenge of sources and scales in human–environment relations. Central Asian Survey, DOI: 10.1080/02634937.2021.1960797 (publ. 2021-09-08). Open access https://doi.org/10.1080/02634937.2021.1960797
PS: The currently uploaded version (April 2024) includes corrections in the table on page 3 (publication p. 418) where some entries in the two colums had been transposed.
Open access: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-67798-6#citeas
Klin-Yar is a well-known, large cemetery of regional importance, located outside the spa town of Kislovodsk in the foothills of the North Caucasus (Russian Federation). Before 1993, some 350 graves had been excavated here, most of them belonging to the Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age Koban Culture, but also around 70 Late Iron Age Sarmatian and early medieval Alanic graves.
The presence of three distinct cultural phases in the cemetery led to a project which aimed to test the accepted hypothesis that cultural change, here and in the region, was the consequence of population change by immigration in the Late Iron Age (Sarmatians) and the Early Middle Ages (Alans). A joint Anglo-Russian team carried out fieldwork on the site in 1994-96. In all, 52 graves with more than 100 individuals were uncovered; remains of 86 individuals were preserved well enough for skeletal analysis.
On the southern slope of the site, in cemetery III, our excavations uncovered an elite plot with a concentration of rich Sarmatian and Alanic catacombs which appears to be unique in the North Caucasus. The numbers of burials need not imply more than one high-status family, or at the most two families, over some 350 to 400 years. The increasing emphasis on family or kin-group burial in the elite plot during the Early Alanic period may signal the emergence of a hereditary aristocracy.
According to the skeletal data, the Koban people were a native farming population, with a lifestyle and diet typical of an agricultural economy. The Sarmatians were immigrants at Klin-Yar, but this may have been a male-only immigration. Their lifestyle and diet were those of mobile livestock breeders. The Alans seem to represent another immigration into the area, possibly from two different origin areas, and with new male and female phenotypes. Data on their diet and lifestyle point to a more mixed economy. Stable isotope data suggest a significant proportion of freshwater fish in the Sarmatian and Alanic diet, leading to an irregular offset in the radiocarbon dates (reservoir effect).
The key factors behind the observable patterns in the cemetery, and behind the changes in culture, ritual and lifestyle, appear to be a series of interlinked developments: two episodes of immigration each leading to economic and social change. The social system was, at the same time, affected by the wider geo-political context of the region which expressed itself in links to the south across the Caucasus mountain range (in the Koban period), to the Late Roman and Byzantine neighbour in the west (Late Sarmatian and Alanic periods), and along the early medieval branch of the Silk Road to Iran and Central Asia (Early Alanic period). From a theoretical and methodological point of view, the continuity and social stability from the Sarmatian to the Alanic period, through a phase of apparent immigration and economic change, is of great interest and requires more sophisticated models than are generally used for the explanation of prehistoric and early historical population change.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Резюме:
Могильник Клин-Яр на Северном Кавказе (материалы раскопок 1994-1996гг)
Клин-¬Яр ¬ ¬- хорошо известный могильник, расположенный в регионе Кавказских Минеральных Вод, недалеко от курортного города Кисловодска Ставропольского края в Российской федерации. Этот регион находится в предгорной зоне Северного Кавказа. К югу от него располагается главный Кавказский хребет. До 1993 года на Клин – Яре было раскопано около 400 погребений, большая часть которых относится к кобанской культуре (поздний бронзовый/ранний железный век). Так же было исследовано около 100 захоронений, принадлежащих сарматской (поздний железный век) и аланской культурам (раннее средневековье).
Наличие трех различных культур на этом памятнике послужило основным поводом для начала проекта, целью которого была проверка общепринятой гипотезы о культурных изменениях на могильнике Клин-Яр и его окрестностях вследствие смены этнического состава, вызванного миграциями в позднем железном веке (сарматы) и раннем средневековье (аланы).
Совместная российско-английская экспедиция проводила исследования на этом могильнике с 1994 по 1996 год. В общей сложности совместной экспедицией было вскрыто 52 погребения, содержавшие более 100 костяков, 86 из которых были хорошей сохранности, что позволило провести антропологические исследования.
На южном склоне горы Паровоз (Клин-Яр III) экспедиция выявила элитный участок захоронений знати. Большая концентрация богатых сарматских и аланских катакомб на небольшой площади является уникальным явлением среди известных могильников этого времени на Северном Кавказе. Небольшое количество катакомб, скорее всего принадлежащих одной или двум семьям высокого статуса, погребенных на протяжении 350 – 400 лет на одном небольшом участке, возможно, указывает на становление наследственной аристократии в этот период.
Согласно данным антропологического анализа, кобанцы являлись местным земледельческим народом с диетой и жизненным укладом присущим сельскохозяйственной экономике. Сарматы появились на Клин-Яре как переселенцы, и, возможно, это была исключительно мужская миграция. Их жизненный уклад и диета представляли собой уклад и диету подвижных скотоводов. Аланы, по всей видимости, являлись представителями еще одной миграции, возможно, из двух разных очагов и с новыми мужскими и женскими фенотипами. Данные об их диете и жизненном укладе указывают на более смешанную экономику.
Анализы стабильных изотопов позволяют выявить значительную долю пресноводной рыбы в диете алан и сарматов, что могло привести к нерегулярным смещениям в радиокарбонной датировке (резервуарный эффект).
Главными факторами, объясняющими наблюдаемые закономерности в некрополе и изменениях в культуре, обрядах и жизненном укладе, является ряд взаимосвязанных обстоятельств: два эпизода миграции каждый из которых вел к экономическим и социальным преобразованиям. На социальную систему в свою очередь влияла региональная геополитическая конъюнктура, которая выражалась в связях с югом, через Кавказский хребет (в кобанский период), с поздним Римом и Византией на западе (поздний сарматский и аланский периоды), и через раннесредневековое ответвление Великого Шелкового Пути с Ираном и Центральной Азией (раннеаланский период). С теоретической и методологической точек зрения, продолжительность и социальная стабильность от сарматского к аланскому периоду, по-видимому, через фазу миграций и экономических изменений, представляет собой большой интерес и требует более сложных моделей, чем обычно используемые для описания изменений в обществах доисторического либо раннеисторического периодов.
Preface
Introduction
1 The German experience (Heinrich Härke)
From Nationalism to Nazism
2 Gustaf Kossinna and his concept of a national archaeology (Ulrich Veit)
3 Archaeology in the 'Third Reich' (Henning Haßmann)
4 Archaeology and anthropology in Germany before 1945 (Frank Fetten)
Post-War West Germany
5 Vorsprung durch Technik or 'Kossinna Syndrome'? Archaeological theory and social context in post-war West Germany (Sabine Wolfram)
6 The teaching of archaeology in West Germany (Ulrike Sommer)
7 Archaeology and the German public (Martin Schmidt)
8 Women's situation as archaeologists in West Germany (Eva-Maria Mertens)
9 Women in the underground: gender studies in German archaeology (Sigrun M. Karlisch, Sibylle Kästner and Helga Brandt)
East Germany and Reunification
10 Archaeology under Communist control: the German Democratic Republic, 1945 - 1990 (Werner Coblenz)
11 German unification and East German archaeology (Jörn Jacobs)
International Perspectives
12 Traumland Südwest: two moments in the history of German archaeological inquiry in Namibia (John Kinahan)
13 German archaeology at risk? A neighbour's critical view of tradition, structure and serendipity (Tom Bloemers)
14 A transatlantic perspective on German archaeology (Bettina Arnold)
In the typological series of Early Saxon bosses, stylistic change, functional requirements and technical improvements are interlinked. The changes in boss types may reflect changes in fighting practices, but they certainly reflect an advance in iron-working skills which is particularly obvious in the sixth-century transition from heavy to light bosses.
By contrast, it is not clear what the grip typology reflects, but it is noteworthy that long iron grips, and flanged grips (short or long) in general, were just an episode which was limited mainly to the sixth century. Changes also affected the wooden board: it became larger, thicker and, therefore, heavier. The adoption of larger and more unwieldy boards, coupled with the change-over to taller bosses from the late sixth century, but particularly in the seventh century, may reflect the emergence of group combat because it coincides with an increasing popularity of the seax, the ideal weapon for the mêlée.
But the typology and technology of the shield do not only show changes over time, they also demonstrate geographical differentiation and hierarchies. The local patterns of shield deposition in the graves are varied, and differ from cemetery to cemetery. At the regional level, the shield can be shown to have been, to a certain degree, interchangeable with the sword in the burial rite, and the extent of this interchangeability is correlated with regional wealth.
Apart from its practical, military function, the shield had a symbolic role in Germanic society. In the Early Saxon burial rite, it is linked, in particular, to adulthood. The variety of decorative shield appliqués and some unusual forms of board fittings, including a unique boss in an anomalous burial, suggest that the shield displayed not just wealth and status, but also individualism and occasionally perhaps even eccentricity.
This study is a contribution to the interpretation of the Early Medieval weapon burial rite. Its main aim was to test the premise of previous research in this field: that weapons in graves closely reflect the past realities of armament and social structures. The approach chosen was to check the presence or absence of weapons in inhumation burials for their correlations with other archaeological and skeletal data. The sample analysed consists of 47 Anglo-Saxon cemeteries of 5th to 7th/8th centuries A.D. date, spread from Kent to Yorkshire (Table 2, Fig. 3).
The relative frequency of the Early Saxon weapon burial rite is similar to that in Continental row-grave cemeteries: one in five of all inhumations, or almost exactly half of all identifiable male adult burials, had been equipped with weapons (Härke 1989c). But there are marked local and regional variations (Table 6) which seem to be correlated with the regional proportions of cremations: the higher the proportion of cremations, the more frequent are weapon burials among inhumations (Fig. 7).
The absolute and relative frequencies of weapon burials in England show a simple, but marked change over time: they increase towards a maximum late in the first half, or around the middle, of the 6th century, and then slowly decline until the end of the weapon burial rite in the late 7th/early 8th century (Figs. 9 and 10). This change seems to have been totally independent of the level of military activity. The peak of the weapon burial rite even coincides with a period of relative peace if we can take at face value the numbers of battles recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and Gildas' supporting statement (Fig. 2; Härke 1990).
The weapon combinations occurring in Early Saxon burials cannot have been determined entirely, or predominantly, by practical considerations (Table 9). More than a quarter of all weapon burials contained only a single weapon which would not have been functional fighting equipment on its own (shield, narrow seax, francisca, throwing spear); and only one third of all weapon burials had the minimum practical set of spear and shield (Härke 1989c).
The frequency of decorated and damaged weapons increases with the age at death of the individuals buried with arms (Table 19). This suggests that the weapons in the grave would normally have been owned, or used, by the individual buried with them. However, they were often only a selection of his weapons, witness the impractical or non-functional weapon sets. 'Ritual' destruction of weapons was rare, and apparently limited to one or two regions (East Midlands and northern East Anglia). The position of a weapon in a grave seems to have been determined by the mode of carrying the weapon, but also by the handedness of the individual buried with it (Figs. 18-22). The latter is indicated by the marked coincidence between positions of weapons and both, buckle directions and skeletal evidence for handedness (Table 15).
The correlations between other archaeological data and burial with weapons present a complex picture. Weapon burial is clearly correlated with burial wealth (Figs. 28-29), certain types of grave-goods (primarily drinking vessels; Figs. 26-27), grave structures (coffin, chamber; Table 21), and single burials (less frequent in multiple burials; Table 22). On the other hand, there are no, or only local, correlations with grave size and depth, external features (ditch, barrow), grave orientation and body deposition. The link between the weapon burial rite and features of supposed 'status burials' is, therefore, not as straightforward as has often been assumed, although burials with axes, swords or seaxes can be shown to have the highest investment of labour and wealth of all male burials (Table 25).
The correlations between skeletal data and weapon burial are even more interesting because the absence of some expected correlations is significant, too. The weapon burial rite shows very clear correlations with sex (male only; Table 27), age at death (cf. below), stature (men with weapons tend to be taller; Tables 32-33) and epigenetic traits. The latter is particularly important: in the cases of one or two cemeteries with sufficiently complete data, it can be suggested that weapon burial was limited to certain families, whereas others did not participate in this rite (Tables 35 and 37, Fig. 41). Age at death determined the likelihood of burial with weapons (Table 28, Fig. 33), it influenced the number (Table 29) and types of weapons (arrows limited to juveniles, axe and seax mostly with older adults; Table 30), and it is correlated with the sizes of spears and knives (Figs 37-39; Härke 1989b). The complete absence of a correlation between weapon burial and physique, indicators of stress and malnutrition (Table 40), pathology and traumata (Table 41), wounds (Table 43) and inherited disorders is surprising. Weapons could be buried with men of weak build, and with men crippled by heavy arthritis or malunited fractures, whereas men with wounds (mostly cut marks) had often been interred without weapons.
These individual observations may be combined to reconstruct the ritual and social background of the weapon burial rite. This rite was a primarily symbolic act which was determined (or at least influenced) by descent, but was independent of the ability to fight and of the actual experience of fighting (Härke 1990). This implies the separation of a social or ideological warrior status from the real warrior function in Early Saxon society. The families or social groups practising the weapon burial rite were, on average, wealthier, but their living conditions do not seem to have been markedly different from groups without weapon burial. There are a number of reasons to believe that the difference in stature between men with and without weapons in the 5th and 6th cent. is due to ethnic as well as social factors: Romano-British males were, on average, about 4 cm smaller than Anglo-Saxon men; and the earliest law codes indicate that most of the British population had unfree or semi-free status. It is likely, thus, that men buried with weapons were predominantly of immigrant Germanic stock, whilst a sizeable proportion, probably a majority, of the men buried without weapons must have been native Britons. The social groups practising weapon burial with adult men also buried some (but not all) of their children with arms.
The present study also suggests a number of methodological conclusions. The most important of the results summarised above depended on the use of skeletal data. There is a theoretical explanation for this: unlike most of the archaeological data, skeletal data are not influenced or distorted by the intentions of the burial ritual - they are 'functional' data reflecting reality, not 'intentional' data reflecting thinking. An interdisciplinary approach to burial analysis is, therefore, the most promising one. For such an approach, the quality of the data is at least as important as the quantity: the key results of this study are based on about a dozen cemeteries (out of a total of 47) with complete sets of archaeological, skeletal and technical data.
The results also demonstrate that the role of weapons in the burial ritual must be analysed before they can be used for the inference of social structures or of the armament of the living. The explicit or implicit premise of most previous attempts at social interpretation of Early Medieval male burials has been that the weapons in the graves represented the real armament which, in turn, reflected the social structure. This study has shown that this premise is not true in the case of Early Saxon England, and whether it is true for other areas or periods must be checked in every single case.
Moreover, the complexity of the relationships between the various factors involved in the Early Saxon burial rite, the marked local and regional variations, and the many exceptions from virtually every correlation found make it appear doubtful if the analysis of burial evidence will ever be able to find clear-cut rules, or even laws, of human social behaviour: the inference of regularities or patterns may be all that archaeological analysis can achieve.
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archeological culture and its representatives in the genetic orbit of Caucasian cultures using genome-wide SNP data from five individuals of the Koban culture and one individual of the early Alanic culture as well as previously published genomic data of
ancient and modern North Caucasus individuals. Ancient DNA analysis shows that an ancient individual from Klin-Yar III, who was previously described as male, was in fact a female. Additional studies on well-preserved ancient human specimens are necessary to
determine the level of local mobility and kinship between individuals in ancient societies of North Caucasus. Further studies with a larger sample size will allow us gain a deeper understanding of this topic.
It is the intention of this paper to provide a broad overview of the archaeological evidence of these diverse zones around the time of Ibn Fadlan’s journey, with the nature of the evidence requiring in many cases a broad outlook on the late first millennium AD rather than just the early 10th century. Ibn Fadlan’s descriptions of the respective local cultures and ways of life will be drawn on as required, but we make no claims to extensive coverage of the historical literature discussing, and commenting on, his observations, nor of other textual sources although some of them may be quoted here selectively.
case studies conducted on four early medieval
archaeological sites with differentiated spatialization
of human impacts and a varied craft production
located in different background environments:
humid climate, subzone of mixed forests, floodplain
of the Dnieper River (Gnezdovo site); semi-humid
climate, subzone of forest-steppe, Middle Volga
region (Muromsky Gorodok and Malaya Ryazan’
sites); arid climate, cold desert of the Aral region,
ancient delta-alluvial plain of the Syr-Darya River
(Dzhankent site).
Jeanne Féaux de la Croix, Irina Arzhantseva, Jeanine Dağyeli, Eva-Marie Dubuisson, Heinrich Härke, Beatrice Penati, Akira Ueda and Amanda Wooden 2021. Roundtable studying the Anthropocene in Central Asia: the challenge of sources and scales in human–environment relations. Central Asian Survey, DOI: 10.1080/02634937.2021.1960797 (publ. 2021-09-08). Open access https://doi.org/10.1080/02634937.2021.1960797
PS: The currently uploaded version (April 2024) includes corrections in the table on page 3 (publication p. 418) where some entries in the two colums had been transposed.
Open access: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-67798-6#citeas
The Expedition was made up of people from a variety of groups and backgrounds. Throughout the period of activity, the core team of scholars and organisers came directly from Moscow, with few exceptions. In the later stages, this core was supplemented by local specialists who had been trained on the Expedition. But the work of the Expedition would have been impossible without local diggers, guides, interpreters, camel owners and others.
The paper is based on records, publications, unpublished memoirs, interviews with participants, and personal experience. It also draws on results of the recent project of cataloguing and digitizing the archive of the Khorezmian Expedition (located in the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology RAN, Moscow).
Thoughts about the role of your personal age in dealing with, and using, theory and theoretical approaches in archaeology, together with some critical observations about the attempt to discuss the 'future of theory' in German archaeology.
The cases discussed in this paper include the Anglo-Saxon immigration into England and other migrations of the 5th – 7th centuries AD in western Europe, and the Viking immigration into the British Isles as well as other Scandinavian cases of migration, expansion and colonization in the 9th – 11th centuries AD in the west. Taken together, these cases demonstrate that migration does not necessarily lead to state formation. Where state formation results from migration, it seems to be a consequence of the earlier level of socio-political organisation of immigrants and natives in each case. But even if a state does not result, immediately or eventually, from an immigration situation, some social change among the migrants is likely because migrations require organisational leadership. On the other hand, the case of the colonization of Iceland shows that not even social change should be expected in all cases.
While state formation is not a necessary outcome of migration, it may be a likely consequence where immigrants encounter native populations. The reason might lie in the nature of segmentary (tribal) organisation: it presupposes social links and shared ancestry among the lineages of the tribe, with all its members tracing themselves back to a real or imaginary ancestor. This imposes size limitations, but also restrictions in terms of identity. One possible solution is that the native population is summarily reduced to the status of slaves which are attached to the households of lineage members; it seems that this was temporarily the case after the Anglo-Saxon immigration to England. The alternative for multi-component populations of roughly equal status would be the creation of a joint state based on a common ideology (such as afforded by Christianity in early medieval western Europe).
The collaboration of German prehistoric and medieval archaeologists with the powers of the Third Reich provided them with jobs and status, and perhaps also a ‘mission’ to believe in. In that sense, it was a truly ‘Faustian bargain’ (B. Arnold). The question is, though, to which extent Nazi archaeology represents a unique phenomenon, or just a special case at the extreme end of the spectrum in which all Kulturwissenschaften work. As long as our disciplines depend on state funding (and it is difficult to imagine a different funding model for them), they are necessarily open to suggestions, temptations, and direct or indirect pressure from politics and government. In that sense, Nazi archaeology is a ‘warning from prehistory’.
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Since 2005, a Russian-Kazakh team has been excavating at Djankent. Our goal is to excavate as far as possible this important archaeological site in a remote area which has not been studied intensively so far, and to identify cultural links and economic contacts of the ancient city.
In 2011, interdisciplinary fieldwork was carried out at Djankent, including geophysical prospection, soil analysis and geomorphology. Together with the results of the archaeological excavations undertaken this year, this fieldwork provides valuable information on the complex layout and stratigraphy of Djankent.
One of the post-war effects of this exploitation of archaeology was the aim of West German archaeologists to do 'objective' archaeology, with 'interpretation' being limited for decades to typological and chronological questions (the so-called 'Kossinna syndrome'). A Soviet archaeologist, Leo Klejn, was the first, in the 1970s, to call for a balanced re-assessment of Kossinna within the historical and disciplinary context of his time.
This evolution comprises continuous elements as well as observable changes and developments. Inhumation rite and grave-goods custom remain key elements throughout the use of the cemetery. Changes include the development from grave-pits to underground chambers; the shift from single to multiple burials, combined with the re-use of chambers; an increasing complexity of mortuary ritual, and the appearance of commemorative ritual within the cemetery; and a pendulum change in ritual, from standardization to variety and back to standardization.
Changing ideas about the afterlife, and tensions between social norms and individual behaviour may have affected these patterns. But the key factors behind them appear to be a series of interlinked changes: immigration leading to economic change which, in turn, led to social change; the latter was, at the same time, affected by the wider geo-political context of the region.
This case study highlights two points: (1) causes of ritual change may often be strongly interlinked, and it may therefore be misleading to look for a single obvious cause; and (2) marked changes in the wider contexts may not always be reflected in pronounced changes in mortuary ritual.