Rites of passage: Funerary commemoration and cultural change in Western Britain c. AD 400–c. AD 700

Holt, Heather 2023. Rites of passage: Funerary commemoration and cultural change in Western Britain c. AD 400–c. AD 700. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University. Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

The archaeology of funerary practice in the fourth to seventh centuries AD has been extensively studied over many decades, and remains a key resource in interpreting southern Britain’s transition from Roman control to early medieval heterogeneity. Nonetheless, Wales and south-west England continue to present a gap in our understanding of early medieval burial, and thereby of wider processes of cultural development. The present study aims therefore to explore expressions of local cultural identities through a re-examination of selected funerary evidence from either side of the ‘Severn Sea’, encompassing communities in Somerset, and in south-east Wales. It takes the form of in-depth analyses of five previously excavated cemeteries, Llandough and Caerwent Eastgate in Wales, and Bradley Hill, Henley Wood and Camerton in Somerset. The five case study sites were selected to provide a degree of diversity in their locations and probable chronologies. Close scrutiny of the horizontal and vertical stratigraphy of burial, informed by existing radiocarbon determinations, and by probable date ranges for any artefacts deposited within the graves, is used to establish the most plausible absolute timeframe for mortuary usage of each site, probable burial sequences, and the narrative of changing mortuary practice. Detailed comparisons of the resulting site biographies are then undertaken in order to identify points of convergence and divergence in burial ritual, and the implications for wider cultural networks, and how these evolved over time. Relating the findings from this comparative process to outcomes from the wider literature enables a critical evaluation of the implications of this research for issues of cultural change in western Britain in this period. A dynamic picture of cultural innovation emerges, in which localities can be seen to have exercised greater agency than has been traditionally assumed.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Date Type:	Completion
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	History, Archaeology and Religion
Subjects:	C Auxiliary Sciences of History > CC Archaeology D History General and Old World > DA Great Britain
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	28 May 2024
Date of Acceptance:	24 May 2024
Last Modified:	28 May 2024 09:33
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/169199

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