Author: Alison Klevnäs

The afterlife of Viking Age graves

Alison Klevnäs

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

Alison Klevnäs

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.

Project publications

Alison Klevnäs

This week Alison Klevnäs and Astrid Noterman gave a research seminar in the Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies at Stockholm University to mark the end of our project ‘Interacting with the Dead’ which we’re finishing this calendar year. We talked through some of our published and accepted books and papers. Here’s a list of the finished ones we talked about. Some are generally applicable discussions of the information value of disturbed burials and the use of archaeothanatological methods for their analysis. Others are explorations of the evidence for secondary interactions with inhumation graves in the specific context of early medieval Europe, aimed at difference audiences. Most are still ‘in press’, but should be out in the next few months. Then there are a few more which are still under construction – we’ll post when they’re on their way.

Archaeothanatology and textile research

Alison Klevnäs

Last month Astrid Noterman and Alison Klevnäs gave a talk as part of a workshop at the Centre for Textile Research in the Saxo Institute at the University of Copenhagen. This was organised by Liv Nilsson Stutz for the Sweden+ archaeothanatology working group and our travel was funded by a grant from Linnaeus University. We spoke about ways in which disturbed graves can actually be more informative than ones which are intact contexts. It was a very stimulating afternoon with fascinating presentations and informed discussion. Many thanks to Eva Andersson Strand and colleagues for a warm welcome and kind hospitality!