Rivers and Rituals: The Sacred Landscape of the Fiora Valley

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In the literature on the subject, the opinion is predominant that the construction of Corded Ware Culture (CWC) tumuli was connected with a single event, namely: the burial of a person. The supposition that all actions, including digging a grave, depositing the body, digging a ditch and raising a tumulus, were made during one ceremony, is still commonly accepted. In the last few years, however, in the area under investigation several new fi nds were unearthed which seem to be contradictory to the opinions mentioned above. This turns our attention to a new more complex explanation. Moreover, we can also use these new fi nds to reinterpret old data. In this paper the authors intend to analyze certain Corded Ware Culture graves from the North European Lowland. In the next step, the reconstruction of individual ritual scenarios for each of them will be presented. The analysis shows that a round ditch or a tumulus were often merely individual stages in a long lasting process: in short, a very complex ritual scenario. In the literature on the subject, the opinion predominates that the building of a tumulus among Corded Ware Culture (CWC) societies was connected with a single event only, namely the burial of a person. The supposition that all actions, that is, digging a grave, laying down a body, digging a ditch, building a wooden palisade and raising a tumulus, were done during one ceremony is still the most popular. 1 From this central premise others follow; to give a single example, the treatment of the discovery of a lone ditch (without the remains of a tumulus) as a result of a post-depositional destruction of the tumulus or explaining the absence of any traces of a palisade in the ditch by its complete post-depositional mineralization. However, in the last years a few new fi nds have been reported on the North European Plain, which seem to contradict the opinions mentioned above. They turn our attention to a new and more complex explanation. Moreover, we can use the new fi nds to reinterpret the old information as well. In this paper, the authors analyze specifi c examples of CWC burial sites on the North European Plain, in an attempt to reveal a radically different picture of the sepulchral activity of CWC societies by

TRAC 2012: Proceedings of the 22nd Annual Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference. Oxford: Oxbow Books (2013)

Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 2017

This paper discusses the relationship between agricultural activity and ritualized/religious practices in England from the middle Bronze Age to the early medieval period (c.1500 BC–AD 1086). It is written in the context of the ERC-funded, Oxford-based 'English Landscapes and Identities project' (EngLaId), which involved the compilation of an extensive spatial database of archaeological 'monuments', finds and other related data to chart change and continuity during this period. Drawing on this database alongside documentary and onomastic evidence, we analyze the changing relationship between fields, ritual and religion in England. We identify four moments of change, around the start of the middle Bronze Age (c.1500 BC), in the late Bronze Age (c.1150 BC), the late Iron Age (c.150 BC) and the middle/late Anglo-Saxon period (c.800 AD). However, despite changes in both agricultural and ritual/religious practices during this extensive timeframe, a clear link between them can be observed throughout.

2017

This article explores some of the complex relationships which existed between topographic patterns and social organization in early medieval England. It argues that group identities were not entirely elective in character and random in their boundaries, but were to a significant extent shaped by the structures of the natural landscape. The same was true of the places which particular groups found significant in ritual terms, as meeting places and burial grounds. This is a cross-disciplinary study, in that it applies models developed by English local and regional historians, which are normally used in a later medieval or post-medieval context, to throw light on the character of the location of early medieval ritual sites. More specifically, employing Alan Everitt’s “river and wold” concept, we examine the commonality of the landscape settings of pagan Anglo-Saxon cemeteries, and later Christian churches. We suggest that the broadly analogous patterns of location they displayed arose ...

Abstract for paper presented at the conference "Godscapes: Ritual, Belief and the Natural World in the Ancient Mediterranean and Beyond," June 27-30, 2023 at The University of St. Andrews, Scotland, organized by the Society for Ancient Mediterranean Religions. A version of this paper was also presented at AIA 2024.

This paper outlines an archaeological approach to rituals that separates ritual (praxis) from religion or belief (doxa). Rather than trying to elucidate what people may have thought, we suggest focusing on ritual as action; these actions have a huge communicative and transformative potential and thus it is their effect on society that interests us here. This social efficacy can be scrutinized archaeologically in the longue durée. We apply this understanding to a new approach to the study of hoards and deposits. These, too, are understood as the results of ritual action, i.e. sequenced and communicative practice that involves handling and manipulating cultural knowledge, reproducing and maybe altering it, thus affecting social identities and relations. We therefore suggest focusing on the depositional practice rather than the motivations behind deposition. Moreover we suggest proceeding from the understanding of depositions as ritual actions to analysing what effect they had on space and how they simultaneously were directed by culturally perceived spatial structures.

Fragments, 2017

This article explores some of the complex relationships which existed between topographic patterns and social organization in early medieval England. It argues that group identities were not entirely elective in character and random in their boundaries, but were to a significant extent shaped by the structures of the natural landscape. The same was true of the places which particular groups found significant in ritual terms, as meeting places and burial grounds. This is a cross-disciplinary study, in that it applies models developed by English local and regional historians, which are normally used in a later medieval or post-medieval context, to throw light on the character of the location of early medieval ritual sites. More specifically, employing Alan Everitt’s “river and wold” concept, we examine the commonality of the landscape settings of pagan Anglo-Saxon cemeteries, and later Christian churches. We suggest that the broadly analogous patterns of location they displayed arose from networks of contact and communication engendered by the configuration of drainage basins and their watershed boundaries. We also identify the conceptual difficulties involved in separating out the recurrent influence of such patterns from simple long-term “continuity” in the importance of particular places.

Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 2017

This paper discusses the relationship between agricultural activity and ritualised/religious practices in England from the middle Bronze Age to the early medieval period (c. 1500 BC-AD 1086). It is written in the context of the ERC-funded Oxford-based English Landscapes and Identities project (EngLaId), which involved the compilation of an extensive spatial database of archaeological 'monuments', finds and other related data to chart change and continuity during this period. Drawing on this database alongside documentary and onomastic evidence, we analyse the changing relationship between fields, ritual and religion in England. We identify four moments of change, around the start of the middle Bronze Age (c. 1500 BC), in the late Bronze Age (c. 1150 BC), the late Iron Age (c. 150 BC) and the middle/late Anglo-Saxon period (c. 800 AD). Despite changes in agricultural and ritual/religious practices during this extended timeframe, a clear link between them can be observed throughout.