Call for papers: EAA 2025 Belgrade ‘Grave reopening in the first millennium CE’

We warmly invite abstract submissions for session 35 at the 31st Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists in Belgrade on 3-6 September 2025:

Grave reopening in the first millennium CE – connecting European regions

Session Organizers

Alison Klevnäs (Uppsala University, alison.klevnas@arkeologi.uu.se), Edeltraud Aspöck (University of Graz), Tamara Šarkić (University of Belgrade), Lavinia Grumeza, (Romanian Academy), Alpár Dobos (National Museum of Transylvanian History)

Session Abstract

Taking as our starting point the broad region of central and southeastern Europe in which the conference takes place, this session will discuss evidence of deliberate re-entries into inhumation burials during the first millennium CE.

Graves disturbed soon after burial or while cemeteries were still in use are a widespread phenomenon across first millennium Europe. Usually evidenced by disarranged skeletal remains and artefacts and often pits dug to access contents, they have been noted in many countries since the early days of excavation, and have typically been regarded as grave robbery.

In post-Roman western Europe, recent research has debunked traditional narratives in understanding grave reopening. Methods from micro-stratigraphy, archaeothanatology, and bioanthropology are being used to better understand natural processes and post-burial interventions, as well as the timing, motives and beliefs behind these actions. Far from theft, the widespread reopening there seems to be a selective activity targeting specific forms of artefact, and is argued to represent extended mortuary customs.

The focus of this session is to discuss evidence in central and southeastern Europe against a broader geographical and methodological picture. These regions see even higher intensities of reopening, with whole cemeteries often affected, not least in earlier phases. The territories of the Pannonian Plain, for example, experienced centuries of migrations, warfare, and raiding, and there are cultural discontinuities, as well as elements of continuity. There researchers have observed a widespread phenomenon of grave reopening in numerous necropoli in different phases. However, there are not yet regional discussions, comparisons, or contextualization of the phenomenon within the broader European historical context.

The session aims to connect archaeological and bioanthropological research on grave reopening and post-burial interventions, and to share knowledge and approaches. Contributions may include synthetic research, case studies, and methodological reflections. We plan to publish the papers as a proceedings volume.

Please submit your abstract by 6 February 2025

https://www.e-a-a.org/EAA2025

EAA 2025 session Grave reopening in the first millennium CE – connecting European regions

PresentDead blog post 6: Furto e ritualità? Riaprire le sepolture nell’alto medioevo

Edited by Caterina Giostra, Edeltraud Aspöck and Daniel Winger, a new book has just been published in Italian on early medieval grave disturbance. It’s in the series Archeologia Barbarica published by SAP Società Archeologica and is a result of their 6th International Meeting held in January 2023:

Presentazione – Caterina Giostra, Edeltraud Aspöck, Daniel Winger

Interagire con la morte nell’Europa altomedievale: approcci archeologici alla riapertura delle tombe – Alison Klevnäs, Astrid A. Noterman

Analizzare la riapertura delle tombe di età merovingia: la necropoli di VI secolo di Brunn am Gebirge in Austria nell’ambito delle attuali ricerche – Edeltraud Aspöck

Tombe depredate? Ricerche sulla riapertura delle sepolture di età merovingia presso Regensburg, in Baviera – Stephanie Zintl

Riaperture a confronto: uno sguardo sulle necropoli di Müngersdorf e Junkersdorf a Colonia – Thomas Belling, Daniel Winger

La riapertura delle sepolture in Transilvania tra V e VII secolo: una panoramica – Alpár Dobos

Whodunnit ? Alcune osservazioni sulle tombe (non) disturbate di Szólád, in Ungheria – Daniel Winger

Prime considerazioni sulla riapertura delle sepolture di cultura longobarda in Italia: la necropoli di Povegliano Veronese – Caterina Giostra, Ileana Micarelli, Caterina Vergine

La profanazione di defunti e tombe nella legislazione franca altomedievale e i suoi aspetti economici – Frank Siegmund

Interessi regi e familiari sul saccheggio delle tombe nelle leggi longobarde – Thom Gobbitt

Uno sguardo oltre il tracciato… La riapertura delle tombe del periodo di Hallstatt nella Baviera nord-orientale – Melanie Augstein

The conference from which the book originates brought together several of the researchers who are most engaged with questions of the reopening of early medieval graves from several areas of Europe. Papers draw on archaeological evidence from Transylvania, Germany, Austria, France, England, the Netherlands, Hungary, and Lombard Italy, as well as perspectives from written sources, and from Iron Age Bavaria. The main focus is in setting out the current state of knowledge, as well as how it was reached, but there are also pointers to issues for future consideration.

Three papers are from the PresentDead team and are all freely available to read online. Many thanks to the editors for their hard work with this volume, not least with all the translating!

Here is the preface:

L’incontro internazionale di cui si pubblicano gli atti scaturisce da una feconda e stimolante collaborazione fra i curatori e dalla partecipazione di relatori di differenti Paesi, che hanno permesso di dare un respiro internazionale all’evento. È stato infatti possibile coinvolgere i colleghi maggiormente impegnati sul tema della riapertura delle tombe di ambito barbarico a livello europeo, al fine di fare il punto sullo stato delle ricerche e soprattutto di attirare l’attenzione su tale fenomeno anche in Italia. In gran parte dell’Europa, dalla Transilvania all’Inghilterra, gli archeologi dell’alto medioevo hanno da tempo ricono-sciuto un numero significativo di tombe che mostrano prove di disturbi intenzionali post-deposizionali di scheletri e manufatti. Pratiche di riapertura e manipolazione delle tombe subito dopo la sepoltura sono ora considerati un trat-tamento dei defunti, ampiamente condiviso per alcune generazioni, in particolare nel VI e VII secolo. Da circa un ventennio gruppi di ricerca, convegni, tesi di dottorato e pubblicazioni riflettono sul tema, trasformando un “danno” per l’archeologia funeraria in uno specifico fenomeno delle pratiche rituali. Se ne indaga la possibile molteplicità di atteggiamenti, positivi o negativi, leciti o illeciti, in una complessità sia materiale che di significato. Esso dilata la storia delle sepolture nel tempo e nelle relazioni con le comunità che si rapportavano con esse. Il quadro di sintesi delle attuali conoscenze che ci viene presentato, che dà conto dell’ampiezza delle ricerche, ana-lizza indicatori archeologici e tafonomici per comprendere i tempi, i modi e le ragioni della riapertura e della mani-polazione di resti ossei e manufatti. Ci vengono così indicati possibili percorsi di scavo e di studio, per una migliore comprensione della ritualità funeraria e del rapporto con la morte presso le comunità barbariche. Pensiamo che i contributi possano costituire preziosi riferimenti anche per la ricerca in Italia, soprattutto di ambito barbarico (ma forse stimolante anche in termini metodologici più ampi), dove questo tema in relazione all’alto medioevo non è ancora stato avviato in modo organico. Siamo molto grati a tutti coloro che hanno voluto condividere la loro esperienza e le loro ricerche, per la ricchezza di dati, spunti di riflessione, indicazioni metodologiche e chiavi di lettura interpretativa che hanno riversato nei con-tributi che seguono. Un altro degli Incontri per l’Archeologia barbarica che vede la luce; anche questa volta con il sostegno del Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Cividale del Friuli. Questa volta, inoltre, la discussione si inserisce in due più ampi pro-getti: l’uno finanziato dall’European Research Council, coordinato da Edeltraud Aspöck, e l’altro dal Ministero del-l’Università e della Ricerca (PRIN 2022), coordinato da Caterina Giostra.

 

The afterlife of Viking Age graves

A paper by Alison Klevnäs on post-burial interactions with Viking Age graves has recently been published in a beautiful new book called ‘The Norse sorceress: mind and materiality in the Viking world’ edited by Leszek Gardeła, Sophie Bønding, and Peter Pentz.

Klevnäs, A. (2023). Surely every live man fades among the dead. Fear and desire in the afterlife of Viking Age graves. The Norse sorceress: mind and materiality in the Viking world. L. Gardeła, S. Bønding and P. Pentz. Oxford, Oxbow Books: 172-184.

 

In search of an acceptable past

Another of our project publications has just come out, thanks to the hard work of Estella Weiss-Krejci and her co-editors of the new Open Access volume Interdisciplinary Explorations of Postmortem Interaction. Dead Bodies, Funerary Objects, and Burial Spaces Through Texts and Time.

Our paper, which you can download and read for free, took us into the history of archaeology for the first time.

Noterman, A. A. and A. Klevnäs (2022). In Search of an Acceptable Past: History, Archaeology, and ‘Looted’ Graves in the Construction of the Frankish Early Middle Ages. In: E. Weiss-Krejci, S. Becker and P. Schwyzer (eds). Interdisciplinary Explorations of Postmortem Interaction: Dead Bodies, Funerary Objects, and Burial Spaces Through Texts and Time. Cham, Springer International Publishing: 133-166.

Abstract

The Early Middle Ages have provided material for imagining selves and groups in a wide range of contexts since the earliest beginnings of the historical and archaeological disciplines. Considerable recent research has shown how modern political conflicts and regional-national identities have crystallized in this period in particular. This essay traces ways in which early medieval remains, mainly from the richly furnished cemeteries, have been brought into play in developing scholarly and popular accounts of the history of France. During the second half of the nineteenth century, the recovery of considerable numbers of finely worked grave goods from the large rural cemeteries provided material for studying and reevaluating Merovingian-period societies, previously only glimpsed in written sources and largely out-competed as national ancestors by the popular appeal of Gaulish warriors. Yet paradoxically, another form of discovery in the same burial grounds seemed to place them back in the Dark Ages: many graves were found to have been ransacked and robbed soon after burial, making the communities of the time appear lawless and barbarous. Archaeological attitudes towards excavated early medieval graves, and in particular the many thousands of graves already reopened in antiquity, not only highlight key aspects of the development of the discipline, but also reveal ways in which the remains of the dead may be integral to processes of national identity construction.