- Department of History and Archaeology
University of Chester
Parkgate Road
Chester CH1 4BJ - 01244 513111
Howard Williams
University of Chester, History & Archaeology, Faculty Member
- Archaeology, History, Death, Medieval Archaeology, Anglo Saxon Burial Studies (Archaeology), Archaeology of Place, and 13 moreAnglo-Saxon stamped pottery (Archaeology), Early medieval Britain (Archaeology), Early Medieval Wales (Archaeology), Archaeology of Ancestors, Archaeology of the Contemporary Past, Public Archaeology, Death and Burial (Archaeology), History of Archeology, History (Archaeology), Anglo-Saxon Studies, Anglo-Saxon archaeology, Antiquarianism, and Cremationedit
- I am Professor of Archaeology at the University of Chester. My archaeological research interests focus on death, buri... moreI am Professor of Archaeology at the University of Chester. My archaeological research interests focus on death, burial and commemoration, particularly for the early medieval period (c. AD 400-1100) in Britain, NW Europe and Scandinavia. I am interested in the relationships between material culture, monuments and landscape in the construction and negotiation of memories, focusing on mortuary practices. I also explore the roles of portable artefacts, materials and substances, tombs, sculpture, architecture and settlements as media and environments for memory work and performance.
I began my research career investigating the early medieval reuse of prehistoric and Roman monuments before turning to investigate early Anglo-Saxon cremation graves for my doctoral research. Since then, I have pursued a range of themes in early medieval burial studies including the role of funerals in constructing identities. This work has attempted to connect theory, method and data and address cross-disciplinary debates in the study of memory, emotion and personhood, particularly with anthropology and history. You can find papers of mine in edited books and also academic journals.
I have edited one book for Springer International (Williams 2003), co-edited one themed journal edition of World Archaeology and special issues of the journals Early Medieval Europe, Mortality and the European Journal of Archaeology. Also, I have co-edited further books, one for Oxbow (Semple and Williams 2007), the other for University of Exeter Press (Sayer and Williams 2009), one for Boydell (Williams, Kirton and Gondek 2015) and the latest for Oxford University Press (Giles and Williams 2016).
I have also written a book called 'Death and Memory in Early Medieval Britain' published by Cambridge University Press. Details of these are on this site and my SelectedWorks website.
I have sometimes explored mortuary archaeology in periods other than the early Middle Ages. I have investigated monument reuse, ephemeral monumentality and cremation practices of Roman Britain. I have increasingly looked later in time, in one paper considering the relationships between architecture, tombs and burials in later medieval monastic contexts. Most recently, I have been exploring contemporary cremation practices in the UK and Scandinavia. My interests also extend to the archaeology of war memorials resulting in a recent paper co-authored with Samuel Walls. I am currently serving as guest editor for the journal 'Mortality', drawing together a special themed edition on 'Contemporary Archaeologies of Death'.
In recent years, I have developed an interest in public and community archaeology, publishing two co-authored papers for the journal 'Public Archaeology', one with Elizabeth Williams, another with Dr Faye Simpson (Manchester Metropolitan University). More recently, I have published on the display of the ancient dead in modern society in the book 'Mortuary Practices and Social Identities in the Middle Ages' published by University of Exeter Press.
The history and theory of archaeology also interest me, particularly in relation to the early Middle Ages and antiquarian perceptions and practices surrounding death. I have organised conferences and published on these topics including a themed edition of the journal 'Early Medieval Europe', co-edited with Professor Bonnie Effros (University of Florida). I serve as OUP series editor for 'Oxford Studies in the History of Archaeology'.
My work is both library/desk-based and field-based. Regarding fieldwork, I have conducted independent field-visits and research in the UK and Scandinavia. As a fieldwork director, I have been involved in three projects involving archaeological survey and excavation. The first of these was at an Early Bronze Age burial mound with indications of later reuse on Roundway Down, Wiltshire in collaboration with Dr Sarah Semple (University of Durham). As a community and student-training project, I also directed survey and excavations of a medieval manorial complex at Stokenham in the South Hams of Devon incorporating a detailed archaeological survey of the churchyards of Stokenham and Slapton. On the international stage, I co-directed the excavations of a Viking boat-grave at Skamby, Sweden with Dr Martin Rundkvist, now published in 'Medieval Archaeology'. I have developed recent fieldwork projects, at Kingskerswell, Devon and the Pillar of Eliseg near Llangollen in North Wales (with Professor Dai Morgan Evans, University of Chester and Professor Nancy Edwards and Dr Gary Robinson, both of the University of Bangor).edit
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From IndyRef and Brexit to the Refugee Crisis and Trump’s Wall, the construction and maintenance, subversion and traversing of frontiers and borderlands dominate our current affairs. Yet, while archaeologists have long participated in... more
From IndyRef and Brexit to the Refugee Crisis and Trump’s Wall, the construction and maintenance, subversion and traversing of frontiers and borderlands dominate our current affairs. Yet, while archaeologists have long participated in exploring frontiers and borderlands, their public archaeology has been starkly neglected. Incorporating the select proceedings of the 4th University of Chester Archaeology Student conference hosted by the Grosvenor Museum, Chester, on 20 March 2019, this is the first book to investigate realworld ancient and modern frontier works, the significance of graffiti, material culture, monuments and wall-building, as well as fictional representations of borders and walls in the arts, as public archaeology. Key themes include the heritage interpretation for linear monuments, public archaeology in past and contemporary frontiers and borderlands, and archaeology’s interactions with mural practices in politics, popular culture and the contemporary landscape. Together, the contributors show the necessity of developing critical public archaeologies of frontiers and borderlands.
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What does the ‘Dark Ages’ mean in contemporary society? Tackling public engagements through archaeological fieldwork, heritage sites and museums, fictional portrayals and art, and increasingly via a broad range of digital media, this is... more
What does the ‘Dark Ages’ mean in contemporary society? Tackling public engagements through archaeological fieldwork, heritage sites and museums, fictional portrayals and art, and increasingly via a broad range of digital media, this is the first-ever dedicated collection exploring the public archaeology of the Early Middle Ages (5th–11th centuries AD).
Digging into the Dark Ages builds on debates which took place at the 3rd University of Chester Archaeology Student Conference hosted by the Grosvenor Museum, Chester, 13 December 2017. It comprises original perspectives from students integrated with fresh research by heritage practitioners and academics. The book also includes four interviews offering perspectives on key dimensions of early medieval archaeology’s public intersections. By critically ‘digging into’ the ‘Dark Ages’, this book provides an introduction to key concepts and debates, a rich range of case studies, and a solid platform for future research.
Digging into the Dark Ages builds on debates which took place at the 3rd University of Chester Archaeology Student Conference hosted by the Grosvenor Museum, Chester, 13 December 2017. It comprises original perspectives from students integrated with fresh research by heritage practitioners and academics. The book also includes four interviews offering perspectives on key dimensions of early medieval archaeology’s public intersections. By critically ‘digging into’ the ‘Dark Ages’, this book provides an introduction to key concepts and debates, a rich range of case studies, and a solid platform for future research.
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How should communities be engaged with archaeological research and how are new projects targeting distinctive groups and deploying innovative methods and media? In particular, how are art/archaeological interactions key to public... more
How should communities be engaged with archaeological research and how are new projects targeting distinctive groups and deploying innovative methods and media? In particular, how are art/archaeological interactions key to public archaeology today?
This collection provides original perspectives on public archaeology’s current practices and future potentials focusing on art/archaeological media, strategies and subjects. It stems from the 2nd University of Chester Archaeology Student Conference, held on 5 April 2017 at the Grosvenor Museum, Chester: Archaeo-Engage: Engaging Communities in Archaeology.
This collection provides original perspectives on public archaeology’s current practices and future potentials focusing on art/archaeological media, strategies and subjects. It stems from the 2nd University of Chester Archaeology Student Conference, held on 5 April 2017 at the Grosvenor Museum, Chester: Archaeo-Engage: Engaging Communities in Archaeology.
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From the tomb of Tutankhamun to the grave of Richard III, archaeologists have studied, displayed and debated rich and varied evidence of the burial and commemoration of the dead from past times to the present day. Mortuary data is not... more
From the tomb of Tutankhamun to the grave of Richard III, archaeologists have studied, displayed and debated rich and varied evidence of the burial and commemoration of the dead from past times to the present day. Mortuary data is not only a key window into the human past, it defines and resonates through 20th and 21st-century popular culture. Yet, in many regards, archaeologists’ engagements with death and the dead are contentious and problematic, emotional and political. For instance, in what circumstances if at all is it ethical to dig up and display human remains? What do people learn from meeting ancient people in museums and heritage sites? How significant is mortuary archaeology in our own present-day imaginings of prehistoric and historical societies, as well as fantastical and fictional societies portrayed in literature and film?
Tackling questions such as these, osteoarchaeologists and mortuary archaeologists have often found themselves at the forefront of the public engagements for interdisciplinary and archaeological research. This book identifies a series of lacunae in recent discussions of mortuary archaeology’s interactions with contemporary society. It aims to re-evaluate the range and character of public mortuary archaeology critically through a range of case studies from the UK, Europe and farther afield. In particular, this book seeks to address a network of relationships between mortality, material culture and archaeological theory, method and practice through a series of themes that connect the digging, display and dissemination of mortuary contexts and remains with wider popular culture themes and media.
Tackling questions such as these, osteoarchaeologists and mortuary archaeologists have often found themselves at the forefront of the public engagements for interdisciplinary and archaeological research. This book identifies a series of lacunae in recent discussions of mortuary archaeology’s interactions with contemporary society. It aims to re-evaluate the range and character of public mortuary archaeology critically through a range of case studies from the UK, Europe and farther afield. In particular, this book seeks to address a network of relationships between mortality, material culture and archaeological theory, method and practice through a series of themes that connect the digging, display and dissemination of mortuary contexts and remains with wider popular culture themes and media.
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This volume addresses the relationship between archaeologists and the dead, through the many dimensions of their relationships: in the field (through practical and legal issues); in the lab (through their analysis and interpretation); and... more
This volume addresses the relationship between archaeologists and the dead, through the many dimensions of their relationships: in the field (through practical and legal issues); in the lab (through their analysis and interpretation); and in their written, visual and exhibitionary practice - disseminated to a variety of academic and public audiences.
Written from a variety of perspectives, its authors address the experience, effect, ethical considerations, and cultural politics of working with mortuary archaeology. Whilst some papers reflect institutional or organisational approaches, others are more personal in their view: creating exciting and frank insights into contemporary issues which have hitherto often remained 'unspoken' amongst the discipline. Reframing funerary archaeologists as 'death-workers' of a kind, the contributors reflect on their own experience to provide both guidance and inspiration to future practitioners, arguing strongly that we have a central role to play in engaging the public with themes of mortality and commemoration, through the lens of the past. Spurred by the recent debates in the UK, papers from Scandinavia, Austria, Italy, the US, and the mid-Atlantic, frame these issues within a much wider international context which highlights the importance of cultural and historical context in which this work takes place.
Written from a variety of perspectives, its authors address the experience, effect, ethical considerations, and cultural politics of working with mortuary archaeology. Whilst some papers reflect institutional or organisational approaches, others are more personal in their view: creating exciting and frank insights into contemporary issues which have hitherto often remained 'unspoken' amongst the discipline. Reframing funerary archaeologists as 'death-workers' of a kind, the contributors reflect on their own experience to provide both guidance and inspiration to future practitioners, arguing strongly that we have a central role to play in engaging the public with themes of mortality and commemoration, through the lens of the past. Spurred by the recent debates in the UK, papers from Scandinavia, Austria, Italy, the US, and the mid-Atlantic, frame these issues within a much wider international context which highlights the importance of cultural and historical context in which this work takes place.
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Britain’s second-longest early medieval monument – Wat’s Dyke – was a component of an early medieval hydraulic frontier zone rather than primarily serving as a symbol of power, a fixed territorial border or a military stop-line. Wat’s... more
Britain’s second-longest early medieval monument – Wat’s Dyke – was a component of an early medieval hydraulic frontier zone rather than primarily serving as a symbol of power, a fixed territorial border or a military stop-line. Wat’s Dyke was not only created to monitor and control mobility over land, but specifically did so through its careful and strategic placement by linking, blocking and overlooking a range of watercourses and wetlands. By creating simplified comparative topographical maps of the key fluvial intersections and interactions of Wat’s Dyke for the first time, this article shows how the monument should not be understood as a discrete human-made entity, but as part of a landscape of flow over land and water, manipulating and managing anthropogenic and natural elements. Understanding Wat’s Dyke as part of a hydraulic frontier zone not only enhances appreciation of its integrated military, territorial, socio-economic and ideological functionality and significance, most likely the construction of the middle Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia, it also theorises Wat’s Dyke as built to constitute and maintain control both across and along its line, and operating on multiple scales. Wat’s Dyke was built to manage localised, middle-range as well as long-distance mobilities via land and water through western Britain and beyond.
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Often neglected and misunderstood, there are considerable challenges to digital and real-world public engagement with Britain’s third-longest linear monument, Wat’s Dyke (Williams 2020a). To foster public education and understanding... more
Often neglected and misunderstood, there are considerable challenges to digital and real-world public engagement with Britain’s third-longest linear monument, Wat’s Dyke (Williams 2020a). To foster public education and understanding regarding of Wat’s Dyke’s relationship to the broader story of Anglo-Welsh borderlands, but also to encourage the monument’s management and conservation, we proposed the creation of a comic heritage trail (Swogger and Williams 2020). Funded by the University of Chester and the Offa’s Dyke Association, we selected one prominent stretch where Wat’s Dyke is mainly damaged and fragmentary and yet also there remain well-preserved and monumental sections. Around Wrexham, Wat’s Dyke navigates varied topographies including following and crossing river valleys, and it is accessible to the public in the vicinity of North Wales’s largest town. In this article we outline the dialogue and decision-making process behind the map and 10-panel comic: What’s Wat’s Dyke? Wrexham Comic Heritage Trail (Swogger and Williams 2021; Williams and Swogger 2021a–b). In particular, we consider the stages taken to adapt from the initial plan of producing a bilingual map guide in response to the circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. This digital resource, published online in Welsh and English, guides visitors and locals alike along a central stretch of Wat’s Dyke around Wrexham town from Bryn Alyn hillfort to the north to Middle Sontley to the south. The comic heritage trail thus responds to the highly fragmented nature of the monument and utilises the linearity of Wat’s Dyke as a gateway to explore the complex Anglo-Welsh borderlands from prehistory to the present day. Building on earlier discussions (Swogger 2019), What’s Wat’s Dyke? illustrates the potential of future projects which use comics to explore linear monuments and linear heritage features (from ancient trackways and roads to railways and canals) constructed across the world from prehistory to recent times.
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We hope this comic heritage trail for Wrexham helps introduce you to Britain's third-longest ancient monument
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This article introduces the third volume of the Offa’s Dyke Journal (ODJ). As well as reviewing ODJ 3’s contents, I present reviews of the journal received to date, notable new publications on linear monuments, and the Collaboratory’s key... more
This article introduces the third volume of the Offa’s Dyke Journal (ODJ). As well as reviewing ODJ 3’s contents, I present reviews of the journal received to date, notable new publications on linear monuments, and the Collaboratory’s key activities during 2021. The context and significance of the research network’s ongoing endeavours are presented set against intersecting academic and public crises affecting the study and public’s engagement with past frontiers and borderlands.
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How are linear monuments perceived in the contemporary landscape and how do they operate as memoryscapes for today’s borderland communities? When considering Offa’s Dyke and Wat’s Dyke in today’s world, we must take into account the... more
How are linear monuments perceived in the contemporary landscape and how do they operate as memoryscapes for today’s borderland communities? When considering Offa’s Dyke and Wat’s Dyke in today’s world, we must take into account the generations who have long lived in these monuments’ shadows and interacted with them. Even if perhaps only being dimly aware of their presence and stories, these are communities living ‘after Offa’. These monuments have been either neglected or ignored within heritage sites and museums with only a few notable exceptions (Evans and Williams 2019; Williams 2020), and have long been subject to confused and challenging conflations with both the modern Welsh/English border and, since the 1970s, with the Offa’s Dyke Path. Moreover, to date, no study has attempted to compile and evaluate the toponomastic (place-name) evidence pertaining to the monuments’ presences, and remembered former presences, in today’s landscape. Focusing on naming practices as memory work in the contemporary landscape, the article explores the names of houses, streets, parks, schools and businesses. It argues for the place-making role of toponomastic evidence, mediated in particular by the materiality of signs themselves. Material and textual citations to the monuments render them integral to local communities’ social memories and borderland identities, even where the dykes have been erased, damaged or obscured by development. Moreover, they have considerable potential future significance for engaging borderland communities in both dykes as part of the longer-term story of their historic environment.
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Introducing the second volume of the Offa’s Dyke Journal (ODJ), this five-part articles sets the scene for the volume by reviewing: (i) some key research published recently, including significant work omitted from last year’s Introduction... more
Introducing the second volume of the Offa’s Dyke Journal (ODJ), this five-part articles sets the scene for the volume by reviewing: (i) some key research published recently, including significant work omitted from last year’s Introduction (Williams and Delaney 2019) and those published since December 2019; (ii) the key activities of the Offa’s Dyke Collaboratory in the exceptional circumstances of 2020; (iii) the political mobilisation of Offa’s Dyke in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns of the year; (iv) the ramifications of accelerated efforts to decolonise the British countryside on both archaeological research and heritage interpretation on linear monuments; and (v) a review of the contents of volume 2 in the light of these themes. Together, this introduction presents the context and significance of ODJ volume 2 for both research on the Welsh Marches and broader investigations of frontiers and borderlands.
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Opening the first volume of a new open-access peer-reviewed academic publication, we are pleased to introduce the Offa’s Dyke Journal. This venture stems from the activities of the Offa’s Dyke Collaboratory, a research network founded in... more
Opening the first volume of a new open-access peer-reviewed academic publication, we are pleased to introduce the Offa’s Dyke Journal. This venture stems from the activities of the Offa’s Dyke Collaboratory, a research network founded in April 2017 to foster and support new research on the monuments and landscapes of the Anglo-Welsh borderlands and comparative studies of borderlands and frontiers from prehistory to the present. The proceedings of a series of academic and public-facing events have informed the character and direction of the Journal, the establishment of which coincides with the execution and publication of the Cadw/Historic England/Offa’s Dyke Association-funded Offa’s Dyke Conservation Management Plan and alongside other new community and research projects on linear earthworks. Funded by the University of Chester and the Offa’s Dyke Association, and published online by JAS Arqueologia, the journal aims to provide a resource for scholars, students and the wider public regarding the archaeology, heritage and history of the Welsh Marches and its linear monuments, but also providing a much-needed venue for interdisciplinary studies from other times and places.
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The article reports on a newly re-discovered fragment of a recumbent effigial slab commemorating Abbot Hywel (‘Howel’), most likely an abbot of the Cistercian house of Valle Crucis, near Llangollen (Denbighs.). The slab was probably... more
The article reports on a newly re-discovered fragment of a recumbent effigial slab commemorating Abbot Hywel (‘Howel’), most likely an abbot of the Cistercian house of Valle Crucis, near Llangollen (Denbighs.). The slab was probably carved very early in the fourteenth century, and could have covered the abbot’s burial place. The stone was dislocated and fragmented at an unknown point in the abbey’s history, and most likely removed from the site during the nineteenth-century clearance of the abbey ruins. It was briefly reported on in 1895 and has been lost to scholarship subsequently.
If indeed from Valle Crucis, the stone is the only known effigial slab commemorating a Cistercian abbot from Wales, and a rare example from Britain. Given that few similar Cistercian abbatial monuments have been identified from elsewhere, the ‘Smiling Abbot’, although only a fragment, is a significant addition to the known corpus of later medieval mortuary monuments. The article discusses the provenance, dating, identification and significance of the monument, including the abbot’s distinctive smile. The stone sheds new light on mortuary and commemorative practice at Valle Crucis Abbey in the early fourteenth century.
If indeed from Valle Crucis, the stone is the only known effigial slab commemorating a Cistercian abbot from Wales, and a rare example from Britain. Given that few similar Cistercian abbatial monuments have been identified from elsewhere, the ‘Smiling Abbot’, although only a fragment, is a significant addition to the known corpus of later medieval mortuary monuments. The article discusses the provenance, dating, identification and significance of the monument, including the abbot’s distinctive smile. The stone sheds new light on mortuary and commemorative practice at Valle Crucis Abbey in the early fourteenth century.
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This article presents a fresh interpretation of square and rectangular mortuary structures found in association with deposits of cremated material and cremation burials in a range of early Anglo-Saxon (fifth-/sixth-century AD) cemeteries... more
This article presents a fresh interpretation of square and rectangular mortuary structures found in association with deposits of cremated material and cremation burials in a range of early Anglo-Saxon (fifth-/sixth-century AD) cemeteries across southern and eastern England. Responding to a recent argument that they could be traces of pyre structures, a range of ethnographic analogies are drawn upon, and the full-range of archaeological evidence is synthesized, to re-affirm and extend their interpretation as unburned mortuary structures. Three interleaving significances are proposed: (i) demarcating the burial place of specific individuals or groups from the rest of the cemetery population, (ii) operating as ‘columbaria’ for the above-ground storage of the cremated dead (i.e. not just to demarcate cremation burials), and (iii) providing key nodes of commemoration between funerals as the structures were built, used, repaired and eventually decayed within cemeteries. The article proposes that timber ‘mortuary houses’ reveal that groups in early Anglo-Saxon England perceived their cemeteries in relation to contemporary settlement architectures, with some groups constructing and maintaining miniaturized canopied buildings to store and display the cremated remains of the dead.
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This Introduction to AP's third special issue seeks to provide context and rationale to the study of 'public mortuary archaeology' before reviewing the development of the volume. Building on the presentations of the first Public... more
This Introduction to AP's third special issue seeks to provide context and rationale to the study of 'public mortuary archaeology' before reviewing the development of the volume. Building on the presentations of the first Public Archaeology Twitter Conference of April 2017, these articles comprise a wide range of original analyses reflecting on the public archaeology of death. In addition to evaluations of fieldwork contexts, churches and museums, there are discussions of the digital dimensions to public mortuary archaeology, an appraisal of ancient and modern DNA research as public mortuary archaeology, and an evaluation of the relationship between mortuary archaeology and palliative care. Together, the articles constitute the state of current thinking on the public archaeology of death, burial and commemoration.
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THE LANDSCAPE CONTEXT of the early 9th-century monument known as the Pillar of Eliseg is interrogated here for the first time with GIS-based analysis and innovative spatial methodologies. Our interpretation aims to move beyond regarding... more
THE LANDSCAPE CONTEXT of the early 9th-century monument known as the Pillar of Eliseg is interrogated here for the first time with GIS-based analysis and innovative spatial methodologies. Our interpretation aims to move beyond regarding the Pillar as a prominent example of early medieval monument reuse and a probable early medieval assembly site. We demonstrate that the location and topographical context of the cross and mound facilitated the monument's significance as an early medieval locus of power, faith and commemoration in a contested frontier zone. The specific choice of location is shown to relate to patterns of movement and visibility that may have facilitated and enhanced the ceremonial and commemorative roles of the monument. By shedding new light on the interpretation of the Pillar of Eliseg as a node of social and religious aggregation and ideological power, our study has theoretical and methodological implications for studying the landscape contexts of early medieval stone monuments.
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This article explores a meshwork of citations to other material cultures and architectures created by the form and ornament of house-shaped early medieval recumbent stone monuments popularly known in Britain as 'hogbacks'. In addition to... more
This article explores a meshwork of citations to other material cultures and architectures created by the form and ornament of house-shaped early medieval recumbent stone monuments popularly known in Britain as 'hogbacks'. In addition to citing the form and ornament of contemporary buildings, shrines, and tombs, this article suggests recumbent mortuary monuments referenced a far broader range of contemporary portable artefacts and architectures. The approach takes attention away from identifying any single source of origin for hogbacks. Instead, considering multi-scalar and multi-media references within the form and ornament of different carved stones provides the basis for revisiting their inherent variability and their commemorative efficacy by creating the sense of an inhabited mortuary space in which the dead are in dialogue with the living. By alluding to an entangled material world spanning Norse and Insular, ecclesiastical and secular spheres, hogbacks were versatile technologies of mortuary remembrance in the Viking Age.
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Introducing the European Journal of Archaeology’s special issue ‘Mortuary Citations: Death and Memory in the Viking World’, this article outlines the justification and theoretical framework underpinning a new set of studies on Viking-age... more
Introducing the European Journal of Archaeology’s special issue ‘Mortuary Citations: Death and Memory in the Viking World’, this article outlines the justification and theoretical framework underpinning a new set of studies on Viking-age mortuary and commemorative practice as strategies of mortuary citation. The contributions to the collection are reviewed in relation to strengths and weaknesses in existing research and broader themes in mortuary archaeological research into memory work in past societies.
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This paper presents a fresh reading of a significant early medieval recumbent stone monument from West Kirby, Merseyside (formerly Cheshire). Rather than being a single-phased hogback, later subject to damage, it is argued that West Kirby... more
This paper presents a fresh reading of a significant early medieval recumbent stone monument from West Kirby, Merseyside (formerly Cheshire). Rather than being a single-phased hogback, later subject to damage, it is argued that West Kirby 4 might have been carved in successive phases, possibly by different hands. It is suggested that the carvers had different abilities and/or adapted their work in response to the time pressures of a funeral or a shift in the location or function of the stone. While a single explanation for the character of the West Kirby monument remains elusive, the article proposes that, rather than 'clumsy and illogical', the stone was more likely a coherent but experimental, distinctive and asymmetrical, multi-phased and/or multi-authored creation. Through a review of the monument's historiography and a detailed reappraisal of the details and parallels of its form, ornament and material composition, the paper reconsiders the commemorative significance of this recumbent stone monument for the locality, region and understanding of Viking Age sculpture across the British Isles. As a result, West Kirby's importance as an ecclesiastical locale in the Viking Age is reappraised. 'Hogbacks' is an umbrella-term covering a diverse range of recumbent stone monuments broadly dating from the tenth or eleventh centuries AD from northern Britain. 1 These stones feature in many general and popular syntheses of the history and archaeology of Viking Age Britain 2 as well as specialist appraisals of the period's stone sculpture. 3 Lang's seminal studies of the English and Scottish hogbacks saw them as distinctive Hiberno-Norse 'colonial' monuments. 4 Hogbacks find no direct and singular precedent in either the Insular or the Norse worlds, but are widely regarded as reflecting Norse interaction with native Christian communities. 5 Various studies are now questioning not only the attribution of individual recumbent stone monuments to the category of hogbacks, but also the efficacy of the category itself as an index of Norse settlement and/or influence. 6 This is part of a growing trend to critique culture-historic frameworks for interpreting sculpture and instead explore the significance of individual early medieval sculpted stones within specific assemblages and local historical and topographical settings. This trend also reflects the growth of new theoretical approaches to the biographies, materialities and landscape settings of particular monuments and assemblages. 7 Rather than attempting to identify a single prototype or
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This article reconsiders and extends our interpretation of the heterogeneity of early Anglo-Saxon (c. AD 425/50–570) cremation practices and their mnemonic and ideological significance. Cremation burials frequently contain grooming... more
This article reconsiders and extends our interpretation of the heterogeneity of early Anglo-Saxon (c. AD 425/50–570) cremation practices and their mnemonic and ideological significance. Cremation burials frequently contain grooming implements (combs, tweezers, razors and shears), often unburnt and sometimes fragmented. The addition of these items to graves can be explained as a strategy of ‘catalytic commemoration’ which assisted in choreographing the transformation and selective remembering and forgetting of the dead by the survivors. This article explores new evidence to reveal the varied character and fluctuating intensity of these practices between cremating communities across southern and eastern England during the fifth and sixth centuries AD. The evidence suggests new insights into how and why cremation was selected as an ideology of transformation linking the living and the dead.
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Over recent decades, the ethics, politics and public engagements of mortuary archaeology have received sustained scrutiny, including how we handle, write about and display the archaeological dead. Yet the burgeoning use of digital media... more
Over recent decades, the ethics, politics and public engagements of mortuary archaeology have received sustained scrutiny, including how we handle, write about and display the archaeological dead. Yet the burgeoning use of digital media to engage different audiences in the archaeology of death and burial have so far escaped attention. This article explores categories and strategies by which digital media create virtual communities engaging with mortuary archaeology. Considering digital public mortuary archaeology (DPMA) as a distinctive theme linking archaeology, mortality and material culture, we discuss blogs, vlogs and Twitter as case studies to illustrate the variety of strategies by which digital media can promote, educate and engage public audiences with archaeological projects and research relating to death and the dead in the human past. The article then explores a selection of key critical concerns regarding how the digital dead are currently portrayed, identifying the need for further investigation and critical reflection on DPMA’s aims, objectives and aspired outcomes.
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Project Eliseg involved three field seasons (2010–12) of survey and excavation at the multi-period mortuary and commemorative monument known as the Pillar of Eliseg, near Llangollen, Denbighshire, Wales. Each season incorporated an... more
Project Eliseg involved three field seasons (2010–12) of survey and excavation at the multi-period mortuary and commemorative monument known as the Pillar of Eliseg, near Llangollen, Denbighshire, Wales. Each season incorporated an evolving range of media and public engagement activities, with digital media employed to disseminate ongoing work both globally and locally, including to those unable to access the site during the excavation seasons. One of the key strategies employed via digital media in seasons 2 and 3 was a daily video-blog (hereafter: vlog). This article presents and appraises the rationale, design, content and reception of the Project Eliseg vlog revealing key lessons in the use of digital media in archaeological fieldwork, particularly for those engaged with the archaeology of death, burial and commemoration.
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Exploring the relocation and reuse of fragments and whole artefacts, materials and monuments in contemporary commemorative memorials in the United Kingdom (UK), this paper focuses on the National Memorial Arboretum (Alrewas,... more
Exploring the relocation and reuse of fragments and whole artefacts, materials and monuments in contemporary commemorative memorials in the United Kingdom (UK), this paper focuses on the National Memorial Arboretum (Alrewas, Staffordshire, hereafter NMA). Within this unique assemblage of memorial gardens, reuse constitutes a distinctive range of material commemoration. Through a detailed investigation of the NMA’s gardens, this paper shows how monument and material reuse, while used in very different memorial forms, tends to be reserved to commemorate specific historical subjects and themes. Monument and material reuse is identified as a form of commemorative rehabilitation for displaced memorials and provides powerful and direct mnemonic and emotional connections between past and present in the commemoration through peace memorials, of military disasters and defensive actions, the sufferings of prisoners of war, and atrocities inflicted upon civilian populations. In exploring monument and material reuse to create specific emotive and mnemonic fields and triggers, this paper engages with a hitherto neglected aspect of late 20th- and early 21st-century commemorative culture.
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Research Interests:
I present a case study in the contemporary archaeology of death: an investigation of the minneslunden (‘memory groves’) of present-day Sweden. In recent decades, memory groves have been adapted and condensed from their original suburban... more
I present a case study in the contemporary archaeology of death: an investigation of the minneslunden (‘memory groves’) of present-day Sweden. In recent decades, memory groves have been adapted and condensed from their original suburban cemetery locations and added to rural churchyard settings. Eschewing individual memorials with text or images, memory groves serve as architectonic environments that facilitate the staging of the presence of the cremated dead and encouraging ongoing relationships between the living and the dead through personal commemorative practice. I argue that memory groves choreograph commemoration through the diffusion and sublimation of ashes into landscape utopias with implicit, and sometimes explicit, archaeological themes. In rural churchyards,
memory groves serve as ‘present-pasts’, newly-created ancient monuments and primordial sacred microlandscapes, affording the cremated dead with a collective, emotive and mnemonic material presence and simultaneously serving to revitalising the commemorative use of traditional churchyard space within a
largely secular and mobile contemporary society. Using memory groves as a case study, the paper seeks to demonstrate the potential in the archaeological investigation of contemporary death and its material culture.
memory groves serve as ‘present-pasts’, newly-created ancient monuments and primordial sacred microlandscapes, affording the cremated dead with a collective, emotive and mnemonic material presence and simultaneously serving to revitalising the commemorative use of traditional churchyard space within a
largely secular and mobile contemporary society. Using memory groves as a case study, the paper seeks to demonstrate the potential in the archaeological investigation of contemporary death and its material culture.
This article considers the Donkey Sanctuary, Sidmouth, Devon, UK, as an example of how animal rescue centres and sanctuaries have developed in the UK over the last 30 years as a new form of charity-run commemorative landscape. Human ashes... more
This article considers the Donkey Sanctuary, Sidmouth, Devon, UK, as an example of how animal rescue centres and sanctuaries have developed in the UK over the last 30 years as a new form of charity-run commemorative landscape. Human ashes are scattered in the Sanctuary grounds, memorial plaques cover the buildings of the Sanctuary, and many more are set on benches and beside memorial trees around the donkey paddocks. Through text and material culture, these
memorials constitute a commemorative parity between people and animals in death, and the Donkey Sanctuary has become a complex memorial landscape. Using a sample of over 500
memorials from the Sanctuary’s grounds, the article explores the use of material culture in creating an emotive and utopian ‘donkey heaven’ in the contemporary Devon landscape.
memorials constitute a commemorative parity between people and animals in death, and the Donkey Sanctuary has become a complex memorial landscape. Using a sample of over 500
memorials from the Sanctuary’s grounds, the article explores the use of material culture in creating an emotive and utopian ‘donkey heaven’ in the contemporary Devon landscape.
This Special Issue of the journal Mortality explores archaeological approaches to recent and contemporary death-ways. The six studies (four by archaeologists, one by two forensic archaeologists and one by a social anthropologist) focus on... more
This Special Issue of the journal Mortality explores archaeological approaches to recent and contemporary death-ways. The six studies (four by archaeologists,
one by two forensic archaeologists and one by a social anthropologist) focus on mortuary practices in Canada, Sweden, Denmark and the UK in recent times.Together, they investigate the rapidly changing practices and varying materialities of death during the twentieth century and the beginning of the third
millennium.
one by two forensic archaeologists and one by a social anthropologist) focus on mortuary practices in Canada, Sweden, Denmark and the UK in recent times.Together, they investigate the rapidly changing practices and varying materialities of death during the twentieth century and the beginning of the third
millennium.
I consider the mnemonic agency of the art adorning a diverse range of artefacts interred in one of Europe’s most famous archaeological discoveries. The early seventh-century AD burial chamber constructed within a ship beneath Mound 1 at... more
I consider the mnemonic agency of the art adorning a diverse range of artefacts interred
in one of Europe’s most famous archaeological discoveries. The early seventh-century
AD burial chamber constructed within a ship beneath Mound 1 at Sutton Hoo, Suffolk,
UK, was uncovered in 1939. I identify a theme linking the prestige artefacts placed
within this ‘princely’ grave: many are covered with eyes or eye-like forms. I
argue that this ocular quality to the art – not simply visually striking but affording
the sense of animated, watching presences – was integral to the selection of artefacts
for burial. I argue that the beastly, monstrous and humanoid eyes commemorated
the dead person as all-seeing. Those witnessing the staged wrapping and consignment
of the artefacts were afforded the sense of being all-seen. By exploring art in this elite
mortuary context, the article presents a case study in the early medieval archaeology of
the senses.
in one of Europe’s most famous archaeological discoveries. The early seventh-century
AD burial chamber constructed within a ship beneath Mound 1 at Sutton Hoo, Suffolk,
UK, was uncovered in 1939. I identify a theme linking the prestige artefacts placed
within this ‘princely’ grave: many are covered with eyes or eye-like forms. I
argue that this ocular quality to the art – not simply visually striking but affording
the sense of animated, watching presences – was integral to the selection of artefacts
for burial. I argue that the beastly, monstrous and humanoid eyes commemorated
the dead person as all-seeing. Those witnessing the staged wrapping and consignment
of the artefacts were afforded the sense of being all-seen. By exploring art in this elite
mortuary context, the article presents a case study in the early medieval archaeology of
the senses.
Does community archaeology work? In the UK over the last decade, there has been a boom in projects utilising the popular phrase 'community archaeology'. These projects can take many different forms and have ranged from the public face of... more
Does community archaeology work? In the UK over the last decade, there has been a boom in projects utilising the popular phrase 'community archaeology'. These projects can take many different forms and have ranged from the public face of research and developer-funded programmes to projects run by museums, archaeological units, universities, and archaeological societies. Community archaeology also encapsulates those projects run by communities themselves or in dialogue between 'professional' and 'ama-teur' groups and individuals. Many of these projects are driven by a desire for archaeology to meet a range of perceived educational and social values in bringing about knowledge and awareness of the past in the present. These are often claimed as successful outputs of community projects. This paper argues that appropriate criteria and methodologies for evaluating the effi cacy of these projects have yet to be designed. What is community archaeology for? Who is it for? And is it effectively meeting its targets? Focusing on the authors' experiences of directing community archaeology projects, together with the ongoing research assessing the effi cacy of community archaeology projects in the UK, this paper aims to set out two possible methodologies: one of self-refl exivity, and one of ethno-archaeological analysis for evaluating what community archaeology actually does for communities themselves.
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Research Interests:
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Archaeologists have yet to fully appreciate the complex interactions between archaeological practice and contemporary responses towards death and commemoration in the UK. The paper reflects upon the experience of working with the local... more
Archaeologists have yet to fully appreciate the complex interactions between archaeological practice and contemporary responses towards death and commemoration in the UK. The paper reflects upon the experience of working with the local community during archaeological fieldwork in and around an English country churchyard at Stokenham in the South Hams district of Devon in southwest England during 2005 and 2006. Using this case study, it is argued that the current theories and parameters of both mortuary archaeology and public archaeology fail to adequately engage with the diverse community perceptions and concerns over mortality and commemoration. At Stokenham, the archaeological research and student-training programme engaged local people in the discovery of their past but (more importantly for the local community) also helped to secure an acceptable commemorative future. It is argued that this provides a case study of how archaeological practice can interact with community attitudes to death and memory.
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Research Interests:
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Archaeologists have identified two kinds of furnished graves dating to the late fifth and sixth centuries AD from southern and eastern England: inhumation and cremation. While the 'weapon burial rite' is a frequent occurrence for... more
Archaeologists have identified two kinds of furnished graves dating to the late fifth and sixth centuries AD from southern and eastern England: inhumation and cremation. While the 'weapon burial rite' is a frequent occurrence for inhumation graves, weapons are rarely found in cinerary urns. This article argues that this divergence may relate to the contrasting roles of cremation and inhumation as mortuary technologies of remembrance linked to alternative strategies for managing the powerful mnemonic agency of weapons.
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Research Interests:
Archaeologists have identified the adoption of new forms of cremation ritual during the early Roman period in southeast Britain. Cremation may have been widely used by communities in the Iron Age, but the distinctive nature of these new... more
Archaeologists have identified the adoption of new forms of cremation ritual during the early Roman period in southeast Britain. Cremation may have been widely used by communities in the Iron Age, but the distinctive nature of these new rites was their frequent placing of the dead within, and associated with, ceramic vessels. This paper suggests an interpretation for the social meaning of these cremation burial rites that involved the burial of ashes with and within pots as a means of commemoration. In this light, the link between cremation and pottery in early Roman Britain can be seen as a means of promoting the selective remembering and forgetting of the dead.
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It is argued that recent archaeological theories of death and burial have tended to overlook the social and mnemonic agency of the dead body. Drawing upon anthropological, ethnographic and forensic analogies for the effects of fire on the... more
It is argued that recent archaeological theories of death and burial have
tended to overlook the social and mnemonic agency of the dead body.
Drawing upon anthropological, ethnographic and forensic analogies for the effects of fire on the human body, together with Gell’s theory of the agency of inanimate objects, the article explores the cremation rites of early Anglo-Saxon England. As a case study in the archaeological study of the mnemonic agency of bodies and bones it is suggested that cremation and postcremation rites in the 5th and 6th centuries AD in eastern England operated as technologies of remembrance. Cremation encouraged distinctive forms of engagement with the physicality and materiality of the dead. It is argued that cremated bodies and ashes need to be theorized as more than osteological data, artefacts or symbolic resources, but as holding material agency influencing the selective remembering and forgetting of the deceased’s personhood.
tended to overlook the social and mnemonic agency of the dead body.
Drawing upon anthropological, ethnographic and forensic analogies for the effects of fire on the human body, together with Gell’s theory of the agency of inanimate objects, the article explores the cremation rites of early Anglo-Saxon England. As a case study in the archaeological study of the mnemonic agency of bodies and bones it is suggested that cremation and postcremation rites in the 5th and 6th centuries AD in eastern England operated as technologies of remembrance. Cremation encouraged distinctive forms of engagement with the physicality and materiality of the dead. It is argued that cremated bodies and ashes need to be theorized as more than osteological data, artefacts or symbolic resources, but as holding material agency influencing the selective remembering and forgetting of the deceased’s personhood.
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This paper argues that mortuary practices can be understood as 'techno-logies of remembrance'. The frequent discovery of combs in early medieval cremation burials can be explained by their mnemonic significance in the post-cremation rite.... more
This paper argues that mortuary practices can be understood as 'techno-logies of remembrance'. The frequent discovery of combs in early medieval cremation burials can be explained by their mnemonic significance in the post-cremation rite. Combs (and other objects used to maintain the body's surface in life) served to articulate the reconstruction of the deceased's personhood in death through strategies of remembering and forgetting. This interpretation suggests new perspectives on the relationships between death, material culture and social memory in early medieval Europe. How was the past perceived and created in early medieval Europe? Recent studies have discussed the dual roles of literacy and orality as ways by which the past was produced, reproduced and sometimes invented. Early medieval memory can be regarded as a social and ideological , rather than psychological, phenomenon. A wide range of studies have explored the roles and interactions between literacy and oral tradition in actively selecting and transforming the past in the light of contemporary socio-political needs. In this way, it is argued that the political structures, world-views and identities of kingdoms and communities were negotiated through the making and remaking of social memory. 1 Yet words (spoken or written) are only one means by which the past can be communicated, negotiated and contested. Social memory can be communicated through commemorative ceremonies and bodily
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The many hundreds of known early medieval cemeteries dated from the late 5th and early 8th centuries AD from southern and eastern England have largely been studied in terms of artefacts and human remains. The reuse of prehistoric and... more
The many hundreds of known early medieval cemeteries dated from the late 5th and early 8th centuries AD from southern and eastern England have largely been studied in terms of artefacts and human remains. The reuse of prehistoric and Roman structures by these burial sites has received much less attention and discussion. It is suggested that the landscape context of early Anglo-Saxon burial sites provides considerable evidence for the social and ideological significance of the dead in early Anglo-Saxon society
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Born David Morgan Evans on 1 March (St David’s Day) 1944 at West Kirby on the Wirral, Dai grew up in Chester, where the history master at the King’s School encouraged his interest in local history. Summer holidays at St David’s in West... more
Born David Morgan Evans on 1 March (St David’s Day) 1944 at West Kirby on the Wirral, Dai grew up in Chester, where the history master at the King’s School encouraged his interest in local history. Summer holidays at St David’s in West Wales, and participation in local digs in Chester, ignited his lifelong passion for archaeology. He studied the subject at Cardiff University (1963–1966) before pursuing postgraduate research on the archaeology of early Welsh poetry (Figure 2a), as well as acting as an assistant director of the South Cadbury excavations led by Professor Leslie Alcock.
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This chapter presents a survey and critique of the use of 'treasure(s)' to describe the burial assemblage from the Mound 1 shipburial at Sutton Hoo since its discovery in 1939. I argue that referring to the contents of Mound 1 as... more
This chapter presents a survey and critique of the use of 'treasure(s)' to describe the burial assemblage from the Mound 1 shipburial at Sutton Hoo since its discovery in 1939. I argue that referring to the contents of Mound 1 as 'treasure(s)' is not merely misrepresenting, commodifying and sensationalising its funerary context and wider significance. Furthermore, the persistent use of the terms directly relates also to specific, multiple valences which assert and perpetuate a specific interpretation of the grave as a 'King's Mound'. Moreover, referring to more than the rare and high-status character of the finds, 'treasure(s)' also casts the assemblage's identity as a 'national treasure', legitimising its curation by the British Museum and valorising the benefaction of the landowner who commissioned the 1938 and 1939 excavations: Mrs Edith Pretty. Another key dimension to the use of the term is the assemblage's perceived relationship with the epic Old English poem Beowulf and the 'treasures' it describes. As a label, 'treasure(s)' inaccurately and tenaciously sublimates the rich and complex story of the grave, the contexts of the cemetery, locality and region into a simplified simulacrum of early East Anglian/Anglo-Saxon kingship linked to religious conversion and tied to patriotic modern concepts of Englishness. I demonstrate how the use of 'treasure' reveals a nexus of Anglo-Saxonist and Germanist ideological readings of the assemblage in academic discourse and popular culture.
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Setting the stage for The Public Archaeology of Treasure, this chapter presents the complex intersections of 'treasure' in archaeological teaching and research and archaeology's interactions with a range of different publics on local,... more
Setting the stage for The Public Archaeology of Treasure, this chapter presents the complex intersections of 'treasure' in archaeological teaching and research and archaeology's interactions with a range of different publics on local, regional, national and international scales. The chapter also identifies the global issues in heritage conservation, management and interpretation as well as the looting of archaeological sites and the illicit trade in antiquities relating to 'treasure(s)' as legally defined, popularly perceived and metaphorically articulated. Having introduced the breadth and complexity of 'treasure(s)', we survey the 2020 student conference from whence this project derived before reviewing the span and foci of the book itself.
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In 2010, the zombie horror genre gained even greater popularity than the huge following it had previously enjoyed when AMC's The Walking Dead (TWD) first aired. The chapter surveys the archaeology of this fictional post-apocalyptic... more
In 2010, the zombie horror genre gained even greater popularity than the huge following it had previously enjoyed when AMC's The Walking Dead (TWD) first aired. The chapter surveys the archaeology of this fictional post-apocalyptic material world in the show's seasons 1-9, focusing on its mural practices and environments which draw upon ancient, biblical, medieval and colonial motifs. The study identifies the moralities and socialities of wall-building, dividing not only survivors aspiring to re-found civilization from the wilderness and manifesting the distinctive identities of each mural community, but also distinguishing the living from the undead. The roles of the dead and the undead in mural iterations are also explored. As such, dimensions of past and present wall-building practices are reflected and inverted in this fictional world. As part of a broader 'archaeology of The Walking Dead', the chapter identifies the potentials of exploring the show's physical barriers within the context of the public archaeology of frontiers and borderlands.
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Responding to the recently published edited collection exploring the hillfort and landscape context of Old Oswestry (Shropshire, England) by heritage professionals connected to the Hands off Old Oswestry Hillfort heritage protection... more
Responding to the recently published edited collection exploring the hillfort and landscape context of Old Oswestry (Shropshire, England) by heritage professionals connected to the Hands off Old Oswestry Hillfort heritage protection campaign (Malim and Nash 2020) 1 , this chapter reviews and reflects on the significance of the overall 'life-history' or 'biography' of Old Oswestry hillfort and its immediate environs to the present-day emotive and mnemonic significance of the monument. It argues that this biographical dimension fosters the hillfort as a locus of borderland identity, which explains the affinities of local inhabitants to Old Oswestry and frames the ongoing debates and conflicts regarding its significance and setting. Giving greater attention to researching and communicating this biography promises to inform and foster future public engagement and community action.
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The chapter serves to introduce the first-ever book dedicated to public archaeologies of frontiers and borderlands. We identify the hitherto neglect of this critical field which seeks to explore the heritage, public engagements, popular... more
The chapter serves to introduce the first-ever book dedicated to public archaeologies of frontiers and borderlands. We identify the hitherto neglect of this critical field which seeks to explore the heritage, public engagements, popular cultures and politics of frontiers and borderlands past and present. We review the 2019 conference organised by University of Chester Archaeology students at the Grosvenor Museum, Chester, which inspired this book, and then survey the structure and contents of the collection. We advocate that public archaeologies should seek to incorporate and foreground perspectives ‘from the edge’. By this we mean public archaeology should make frontiers and borderlands – including the people living with them and seeking to traverse them – paramount to future work.
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In response to the challenge set by one of us (Williams this volume), this chapter explores new avenues for a public archaeology of Wat's Dyke. A host of digital and real-world initiatives for public and community engagement are... more
In response to the challenge set by one of us (Williams this volume), this chapter explores new avenues for a public archaeology of Wat's Dyke. A host of digital and real-world initiatives for public and community engagement are suggested, but the focus is upon one new initiative: the What's Wat's Dyke? Heritage Trail which aims to envision Wat's Dyke within the town and suburbs of Wrexham using a comic medium. From this basis, the potential is explored for using the linearity of Wat's Dyke as a gateway to explore the complex historic and cultural landscapes of the Welsh Marches from prehistory to the present.
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The public archaeology of death has frequently focused on the ethics and practices of excavating, displaying and curating human remains and mortuary contexts. Yet the focus often remains on whole bodies and tangible contexts. Far fewer... more
The public archaeology of death has frequently focused on the ethics and practices of excavating, displaying and curating human remains and mortuary contexts. Yet the focus often remains on whole bodies and tangible contexts. Far fewer discussions have tackled the complex challenges of engaging the public with fragmented, partial human remains, ephemeral mortuary material cultures and dislocated funerary monuments. Equally, few studies have tackled the distributed nature of mortuary and memorial traces through their artistic representation and replication. This article addresses the challenges of Project Eliseg's (2010–present) public archaeology when fragmentation, absence and distribution – both temporally and spatially – pervade the mortuary and memorial archaeology under investigation. We address how the public outreach of our fieldwork both succeeded and faced challenges to engage local people with the monument itself, partly because the monument is fragmented in multiple regards and partly because it is not primarily or exclusively in situ, but is instead both materially and conceptually elsewhere within the landscape of Wales and beyond.
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How museums display the Early Middle Ages is the focus of a wide and divisive debate among museum professionals, archaeologists and historians. This takes place at a time of ever-pressured budgets alongside the desire to make museums... more
How museums display the Early Middle Ages is the focus of a wide and divisive debate among museum professionals, archaeologists and historians. This takes place at a time of ever-pressured budgets alongside the desire to make museums ever-more relevant to their diverse audiences, but also at a time of political and cultural crisis of identity, manifest in regional and national independence movements and exemplified in the Brexit debate, as well as global white supremacist appropriations of the Early Middle Ages. Reviewing current and past displays of early medieval material at the Museum of Liverpool, the World Museum (also in Liverpool), and Chester’s Grosvenor Museum, this chapter evaluates the character and qualities of the displays of artefacts and monuments, and identifies some key recommendations for potential future museum engagement with the ‘Dark Ages’ via physical collections and digital media.
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Alfred the Great (1969) was the first, and remains the only, feature-length film portraying the West Saxon king and his conflicts with the Danes. Forty-seven years later, Bernard Cornwell’s novels have been adapted for television as The... more
Alfred the Great (1969) was the first, and remains the only, feature-length film portraying the West Saxon king and his conflicts with the Danes. Forty-seven years later, Bernard Cornwell’s novels have been adapted for television as The Last Kingdom (2015–). Despite being fictional adaptions of historical events, and despite the considerable separation in time between their production, both Alfred the Great and The Last Kingdom consciously aspired to portray the Saxons and Vikings with a high degree of historical accuracy. Taking an archaeological perspective – focusing on the material cultures represented and their archaeological inspirations – this chapter asks which is more effective in representing late 9th-century Britain and what are the implications of this comparison?
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Introducing the book, the chapter identifies the principal issues and themes in the public archaeology of the Early Middle Ages, identifying the specific and compelling challenges of investigating and evaluating the early medieval past in... more
Introducing the book, the chapter identifies the principal issues and themes in the public archaeology of the Early Middle Ages, identifying the specific and compelling challenges of investigating and evaluating the early medieval past in contemporary society mediated by archaeology. In doing so, we review and contextualise the contributions to the 3rd University of Chester Archaeology Student conference: ‘Digging into the Dark Ages’, which took place at the Grosvenor Museum, Chester, 13 December 2017. The resulting book comprises a selection of the student contributions and a range of additional chapters by heritage professionals and academics. The book’s structure and contents are then outlined: the first-ever collection dedicated to ‘Dark Age’ public archaeology. It is argued that for future research in early medieval archaeology, it is critical that public archaeology is regarded as pivotal in both theory and practice.
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The chapter outlines the rationale for the 2nd University of Chester Archaeology Student Conference – Archaeo-Engage: Engaging Communities in Archaeology. It serves as a companion chapter to this book’s Introduction (Williams this... more
The chapter outlines the rationale for the 2nd University of Chester Archaeology Student Conference – Archaeo-Engage: Engaging Communities in Archaeology. It serves as a companion chapter to this book’s Introduction (Williams this volume). It reviews and contextualises the student presentations and keynote talks in relation to key current debates in public archaeology, and explains the journey towards publication incorporating student contributions and those by heritage professionals and academics. In doing so, the chapter provides a practical reflection on how undergraduate student work can contribute to current public archaeological investigations and debates.
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By way of introduction to the book, this chapter sets out the principal recent developments and characteristics of public archaeology, focusing on the UK. By contextualising the chapters which originated as presentations in the 2017... more
By way of introduction to the book, this chapter sets out the principal recent developments and characteristics of public archaeology, focusing on the UK. By contextualising the chapters which originated as presentations in the 2017 ArchoaeEngage student conference, as well as those contributions subsequently commissioned for the book, the specific theme of art/archaeology interactions in public archaeology is defined and its multiple facets are reviewed.
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How are early medieval graves interpreted by community archaeology projects? This chapter considers how the well-known and innovative Operational Nightingale project has distinctively deployed the excavation and analysis of early... more
How are early medieval graves interpreted by community archaeology projects? This chapter considers how the well-known and innovative Operational Nightingale project has distinctively deployed the excavation and analysis of early Anglo-Saxon (later 5th and 6th-century AD) furnished graves, including those containing weaponry, in its practice and public engagement. In light of recent discussions regarding the ideological, social, educational and emotional significances of the archaeological dead, we consider OpN’s well-received practical and interpretative dialogues with the dead during the investigation of an early medieval cemetery at Barrow Clump, Figheldean, on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire. Our focus is upon the project’s assertions of parity and affinity between early Anglo-Saxon weapon burials and the experiences of modern military personnel: dialogues with early medieval ‘warriors’, including the power of photographs of weapon graves to convey a martial identity in death to audiences past and present.
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Since 2013, I have been writing an academic WordPress weblog (blog) – Archaeodeath: The Archaeology and Heritage of Death & Memory. In earlier publications, I have published preliminary reflections on the benefits of Archaeodeath as... more
Since 2013, I have been writing an academic WordPress weblog (blog) – Archaeodeath: The Archaeology and Heritage of Death & Memory. In earlier publications, I have published preliminary reflections on the benefits of Archaeodeath as ‘digital public mortuary archaeology’ (DPMA), considering how it affords a mode of open-access public dissemination of mortuary archaeology, and a venue for debating and critiquing the archaeology and heritage of death and memory (Meyers and Williams 2014; Williams and Atkin 2015). Building on these discussions, this chapter reviews five-and-a-half years of the Archaeodeath blogging to the end of 2018, presenting the character of the blog’s content and its reception, identifying challenges and limitations of the medium, and (equally significantly in understanding its utility) considering key decisions regarding how I choose not to deploy this blog. I identify Archaeodeath as more than outreach or engagement, but as a digital platform increasingly both integral to, and transforming, my academic writing.
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Moving pictures continue to transform popular engagements with the human past for early 21st-century audiences as for 20th-century audiences, via cinema, television and the internet. While there is a long tradition of filmic... more
Moving pictures continue to transform popular engagements with the human past for early 21st-century audiences as for 20th-century audiences, via cinema, television and the internet. While there is a long tradition of filmic representations of the Vikings, the History Channel series Vikings (2013–) is to date a unique instance of a multi-season popular English- language drama portraying the Viking Age in pre–Christian Scandinavia. The story and settings are fictional and sometimes fantastical, yet they are richly and imaginatively informed by a mixture of literary, historical and archaeological sources.
Research Interests: Public Archaeology, Television Studies, Death Studies, Early Medieval Archaeology, Funerary Archaeology, and 9 moreViking Age Archaeology, Vikings in the North Atlantic, Mortuary archaeology, Viking Age Scandinavia, Mortuary studies, Vikings, Viking Age, Mortuary Practices, and Human remains in Archaeology
In popular imagery, Vikings are often depicted as the ultimate lawless barbarians. Yet, as with all early medieval “barbarians” inspired by the writ- ings of Tacitus, they have long been romanticized in Western popular culture for their... more
In popular imagery, Vikings are often depicted as the ultimate lawless barbarians. Yet, as with all early medieval “barbarians” inspired by the writ- ings of Tacitus, they have long been romanticized in Western popular culture for their supposed inherent equality and fairness, within which the roots of Nordic democracy are perceived. At the fulcrum of these stereotypes of nobility and savagery are Norse legal practices and assembly places.
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Cremation is a complex and variable fiery technology. Across the human past and present, fire has been variously deployed to transform the dead in a range of spatial and social contexts. Often operating together with other disposal... more
Cremation is a complex and variable fiery technology. Across the human past and present, fire has been variously deployed to transform the dead in a range of spatial and social contexts. Often operating together with other disposal methods, cremation has risen and fallen in popularity in association with many shifts in mortuary practice since the Stone Age (Cerezo-Román & Williams 2014;Williams et al. 2017).Yet ‘cre- mation’ is far more than just the fiery dissolution of the human cadaver: in the human past and present it is often part of a multi-staged mortuary process that can afford a range of distinctive spatial and material possibilities for the translation and curation of the ‘cremains’ or ‘ashes’ together with a range of other mate- rial cultures and substances. By rendering cadavers fragmented, shrunken, and distorted, burning bodies not only denies decomposition and speeds corpse transformation, it renders the dead portable and partible. In a range of subsequent post-cremation practices and beliefs, ‘ashes’ from pyres can be considered a versatile mnemonic and numinous substance which might be consigned to graves and tombs, but also readily strewn over land and water or integrated into above-ground architectures and portable material cultures. Hence, not only does cremation involve fiery transformation, it facilitates the creation of varied and distinctive landscapes of death and memory through the deposition and commemoration of the dead in which ashes facilitate remembering and forgetting through their presence and their staged absence.
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Since the influential work of Roger White (1988; 1990), there have been a range of studies exploring the reuse and recycling of artefacts in southern and eastern Britain in the 5th–7th centuries AD, focusing especially on the reuse of... more
Since the influential work of Roger White (1988; 1990), there have been a range of studies exploring the reuse and recycling of artefacts in southern and eastern Britain in the 5th–7th centuries AD, focusing especially on the reuse of Roman artefacts in early Anglo-Saxon furnished inhumation graves. This chapter will reappraise the theoretical and methodological framework for such studies, suggesting that the focus on ‘Roman’ artefacts distracts attention away from the potential mnemonic significance of deploying early medieval curated artefacts in the mortuary arena as key components of burial assemblages. We propose a new approach to early medieval artefacts, focusing on how older early medieval ‘heirlooms’ were deployed within the burial tableau as significant elements of mortuary performance. This argument is illustrated by four furnished inhumation graves, two each from a pair of cemeteries in east Kent.
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Inspired by later medieval sagas and Viking Age historical sources, but underpinned and enriched by archaeological evidence and themes, the History channel's Vikings (2013-) is a unique drama series exploring the late eighth/early ninth... more
Inspired by later medieval sagas and Viking Age historical sources, but underpinned and enriched by archaeological evidence and themes, the History channel's Vikings (2013-) is a unique drama series exploring the late eighth/early ninth century conflicts and culture of the Northmen, aimed at a global television audience. This chapter introduces the series and its varied portrayals of mortuary practice. From the portrayal of the deaths of chieftains and those slain in battle to family members and children, I identify key archaeological themes behind the depiction of death. This prompts discussion of mortuary archaeology's influence on popular perceptions of the Early Middle Ages, the programme operating as education, entertainment but also reflecting on present-day anxieties over the nature of human mortality.
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Introducing the ten chapters of the book which each explore different dimensions of the public archaeology of death, this introduction asks: why and how are the archaeologically derived traces of human remains and mortuary monuments "dead... more
Introducing the ten chapters of the book which each explore different dimensions of the public archaeology of death, this introduction asks: why and how are the archaeologically derived traces of human remains and mortuary monuments "dead relevant"? In other words, how has mortuary archaeology, from catacombs to cremated remains, come to enthral and gain significance in contemporary society, and how does it continue to do so? Considering the diversity of archaeological field investigation, curation and display in museums, contestation and dialogues between archaeologists , stakeholders and descendent communities, and the publications and popular receptions of the archaeological dead in the arts, literature and media, as well as via ancient monuments and historic landscapes, the public archaeology of death is a vibrant field of future research.
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Focusing on artist's impressions of early Anglo-Saxon cremations, we reflect on the potentials and challenges of collaborations between artists and archaeologists to both convey the fiery transformation of the dead in the human past, and... more
Focusing on artist's impressions of early Anglo-Saxon cremations, we reflect on the potentials and challenges of collaborations between artists and archaeologists to both convey the fiery transformation of the dead in the human past, and provide reflection on our society's own engagement with mortality in which cremation has become a commonplace dimension. We show the potential of art to challenge preconceived notions and understandings of cremation past and present, positioning art as a key dimension of public mortuary archaeology.
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The interpretation of early medieval deviant burials has come to the fore in recent mortuary archaeology debates. Yet, critical discussion of how early medieval execution cemeteries are portrayed in museums and other media has received no... more
The interpretation of early medieval deviant burials has come to the fore in recent mortuary archaeology debates. Yet, critical discussion of how early medieval execution cemeteries are portrayed in museums and other media has received no critical attention. Using the prominent case study of Sutton Hoo, Suffolk, this chapter reveals the interpretative and ethical challenges inherent in narrating and visualizing later Anglo- Saxon judicial killing in the absence of well-preserved human remains, but instead through the recording and interpretation of carefully excavated “sand bodies.”
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Much of the debate regarding mortuary archaeology's public interactions has centred on the ethics and politics of displaying articulated skeletal material and fleshed bodies. In contrast, multiple, fragmented, dislocated and cenotaphic... more
Much of the debate regarding mortuary archaeology's public interactions has centred on the ethics and politics of displaying articulated skeletal material and fleshed bodies. In contrast, multiple, fragmented, dislocated and cenotaphic mortuary traces which populate museums across the UK have escaped sustained attention. Local and town museums, and also the distinctive narratives required in Welsh museums, have also eluded consideration. This chapter explores how smaller museums create environments in which networks are created both with other memorial places and landscapes in the vicinity, and between discrete museum displays. This chapter focuses on one case study-Llangollen Museum-to present and interrogate how a diversity of mortuary material culture combine to create a mortuary network associated with local history, heritage and landscape in this distinctive North Welsh context.
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Modern cremation is often portrayed by archaeologists as a distracting antithesis of the open-air cremation practices encountered in the archaeological record from the prehistoric and early historic past. In some key ways, the process of... more
Modern cremation is often portrayed by archaeologists as a distracting antithesis of the open-air cremation practices encountered in the archaeological record from the prehistoric and early historic past. In some key ways, the process of burning cadavers within gas-fired ovens, followed by the grinding of bones to uniformly sized granules, offers a stark contrast to the varied multi-staged open-air cremation practices known from recent ethnographic studies, and from the increasingly rich data provided by the archaeological record. The cremation process is hidden, indoors and hence distanced from the survivors in modern cremation. However, there are also numerous connecting themes between modern and ancient cremation and this chapter hopes to shed light on how mortuary archaeologists can explore cremation today to better understand cremation's memorials, spaces and materials in both the distant and recent past, including both shared themes and distinctive dimensions in relation to other disposal methods, like inhumation. For while the burning of the body itself is hidden from view in modern cremation, the deployment of space, architecture, and memorialization before, during, and after the transformation of the body by fire choreographs comparable, if varied, emotive and mnemonic engagements between the living and the dead.
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Building for the cremated dead, in J.I. Cerezo-Román, A. Wessman and H. Williams (eds) Cremation and the Archaeology of Death, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 177-98 INTRODUCTION Given its inherent nature as fiery transformation, the... more
Building for the cremated dead, in J.I. Cerezo-Román, A. Wessman and H. Williams (eds) Cremation and the Archaeology of Death, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 177-98 INTRODUCTION Given its inherent nature as fiery transformation, the archaeological traces of past cremation practices are always partial and fragmentary. However, recent advances in archaeological excavation and osteological analyses, and novel theoretical investigations of cremation's variability, character, and context, have enriched and developed the archaeology of cremation in prehistoric and early historic societies (for a review,
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This chapter shows how archaeological investigations of early Anglo-Saxon cremation practices can be enhanced and extended by anthropological theory and ethnographic analogies. While the interactions between fire, material culture,... more
This chapter shows how archaeological investigations of early Anglo-Saxon cremation practices can be enhanced and extended by anthropological theory and ethnographic analogies. While the interactions between fire, material culture, architecture, space and the human body have been increasingly theorised for early Anglo-Saxon death rituals, this chapter illustrates how refined interpretations can be arrived at using two themes: (i) the significances of vessels and containers as pyre-goods and (ii) building timber-post structures associated with single and multiple cremation burials.
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By exploring case studies from the United Kingdom, Denmark, and Sweden, this chapter investigates the hitherto neglected and yet widespread and varied practice of displaying cremated human remains in museums and heritage contexts. I argue... more
By exploring case studies from the United Kingdom, Denmark, and Sweden, this chapter investigates the hitherto neglected and yet widespread and varied practice of displaying cremated human remains in museums and heritage contexts. I argue that discussions and debates about human remains in museums, to date focusing almost exclusively on articulated skeletons and mummified bodies, are partial and distorted without consideration of the varied identities and narratives constructed through the widespread curation and display of the cremated dead. The chapter shows how cremation provides specific challenges for curators and is frequently side-lined in displays that prefer to focus on articulated human remains and rarely explain the process of cremation. Conversely, this study reveals the varied ways in which the cremated dead can be materialized in museums and reveal the complexities and variabilities of life and death in the human past including dimensions of individuality and community.
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This chapter explores recent work on the interaction between mortuary archaeology and contemporary society: emphasizing mortuary archaeology as a cultural phenomenon and academic subdiscipline within contemporary society. It promotes... more
This chapter explores recent work on the interaction between mortuary archaeology and contemporary society: emphasizing mortuary archaeology as a cultural phenomenon and academic subdiscipline within contemporary society. It promotes mortuary archaeology as public archaeology, and mortuary archaeologists as public intellectuals and mediators of mortality, contextualising the studies in this book through a discussion of the latest social and political entanglements of mortuary archaeology. Focusing on the UK but set against a wider European and global context, the chapter reviews the ‘crises’ in burial archaeology of 2001–2012, examining changes in best practice guidance, interpretation of legislation, and reflections on curatorial responsibility. Archaeologists in many different settings have begun to rethink their own relations to the dead, and how they were excavated, analysed, and presented. Finally, the current scope and depth of the study of mortuary archaeology in contemporary Western society are questioned, using examples of engagements with the archaeological dead.
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NOTE: This is a modestly revised 2nd edition of my 2008 paper with the same title. How can we begin to understand and explain the changing significance of cremation in past societies? From many parts of the world and for many periods of... more
NOTE: This is a modestly revised 2nd edition of my 2008 paper with the same title.
How can we begin to understand and explain the changing significance of cremation in past societies? From many parts of the world and for many periods of human history from as
early as the Upper Palaeolithic (Bowler et al., 1980) to recent centuries, archaeologists have
uncovered and investigated material evidence for the use of fire as a means of transforming and disposing of the dead. This chapter argues that in contrast to the rich and widespread
evidence for cremation in the archaeological record, theoretical approaches in the archaeology of cremation have been relatively thin on the ground until very recently. This relative failure to adequately engage with the complexity and the variability of cremation practices across cultures seems connected to the fact that most of the theoretical debates and developments
in mortuary archaeology have, until quite recently, been primarily geared to the investigation of unburned human remains. Therefore, alongside increasingly refined methodologies for investigating burnt bones, it is argued that archaeologists need to redress this imbalance by
developing explicit theoretical approaches to the phenomenon of cremation. Such theories need to engage with broad cross-cultural themes and also remain sensitive to the considerable
variety of mortuary procedures involving fire used at different times and in different places.
How can we begin to understand and explain the changing significance of cremation in past societies? From many parts of the world and for many periods of human history from as
early as the Upper Palaeolithic (Bowler et al., 1980) to recent centuries, archaeologists have
uncovered and investigated material evidence for the use of fire as a means of transforming and disposing of the dead. This chapter argues that in contrast to the rich and widespread
evidence for cremation in the archaeological record, theoretical approaches in the archaeology of cremation have been relatively thin on the ground until very recently. This relative failure to adequately engage with the complexity and the variability of cremation practices across cultures seems connected to the fact that most of the theoretical debates and developments
in mortuary archaeology have, until quite recently, been primarily geared to the investigation of unburned human remains. Therefore, alongside increasingly refined methodologies for investigating burnt bones, it is argued that archaeologists need to redress this imbalance by
developing explicit theoretical approaches to the phenomenon of cremation. Such theories need to engage with broad cross-cultural themes and also remain sensitive to the considerable
variety of mortuary procedures involving fire used at different times and in different places.
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The hogbacks of northern Britain operated as a commemorative strategy by which elites choreographed dialogues between the living and the dead through an architectural form framed by (sometimes bound and muzzled) beasts. This chapter... more
The hogbacks of northern Britain operated as a commemorative strategy by which elites choreographed dialogues between the living and the dead through an architectural form framed by (sometimes bound and muzzled) beasts. This chapter explores the multiple skeuomorphic citations found within hogbacks’ form and ornamentation and shifts the interpretation of hogbacks away from their current status as ‘Viking colonial monuments’ (Lang 1984) and instead focuses on their commemorative significance in constituting lordly identities within ‘solid spaces’. Skeuomorphic citations allowed hogbacks to commemorate through their spatial solidity as inhabited and beast-guarded residences for the dead, and thus the tomb as conduit to the realm of the dead through the carving of part-perceptible or implied-yet-sealed apertures. This chapter presents a case study in the investigation of the materiality of early medieval stone monuments, showing the material agency — specifically the mnemonic efficacy — of skeuomorphic citation to give commemorative meaning and significance to solid stone grave-markers rendered in architectural form as well as the significance of thresholds in articulating dialogues between the living and the dead.
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Introducing the volume, this chapter explores previous approaches to the early medieval stone monuments of Ireland, Britain and Scandinavia and outlines the strength of the triad of perspectives examined in this book. Considering the... more
Introducing the volume, this chapter explores previous approaches to the early medieval stone monuments of Ireland, Britain and Scandinavia and outlines the strength of the triad of perspectives examined in this book. Considering the roles of stone monuments as a widespread and varied medium for the construction and reproduction of social identities and memories, we focus on the importance of interpreting their material qualities, life-histories and spatial contexts in relation to more established fields of investigation into their form and ornamentation. Examples and case studies are selected to illustrate the arguments which draw from geographical areas within the book’s scope, complementing those sites, locales and regions discussed in the other contributions to this volume.
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To move forward with a robust framework for understanding early medieval mortuary geographies, scholars must escape the romantic dichotomy of regarding the early medieval dead as either confined to the dead pagan ‘communities’ situated on... more
To move forward with a robust framework for understanding early medieval mortuary geographies, scholars must escape the romantic dichotomy of regarding the early medieval dead as either confined to the dead pagan ‘communities’ situated on the periphery and borders of the living world, or safely bounded within churchyards under Christian pastoral care. This chapter offers a new introduction and framework for just such an approach to early medieval mortuary geography. Here we regard burial places as active locales, laden with meaning and potentially serving many functions and roles across space and time. Burial grounds are argued as fluid phenomena in terms of their form and significance, attracting changing and complex biographies from inception to abandonment. For instance, some burial sites might have very short histories of use — whether by design or by chance — restricted to a single burial or a small group of graves in rapid succession before falling into disuse.
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The dragon’s lair in the epic Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf has been widely interpreted to reflect engagement with Neolithic megalithic architecture. Embodying the poet’s sense of the past, the stone barrow (Old English: stānbeorh) of the... more
The dragon’s lair in the epic Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf has been widely interpreted to reflect engagement with Neolithic megalithic architecture. Embodying the poet’s sense of the past, the stone barrow (Old English: stānbeorh) of the dragon has been taken to reveal mythological and legendary attributions to megalithic monuments as the works of giants and haunts of dragons in the early medieval world. This chapter reconsiders this argument, showing how the dragon’s mound invoked a biography of successive pasts and significances as treasure hoard, monstrous dwelling, place of exile, theft, conflict and death. Only subsequently does the mound serve as the starting-point for the funeral of Beowulf involving his cremation ceremony and mound-raising nearby. The biography of the dragon’s barrow is a literary one, in which inherited prehistoric megaliths were counter-tombs, antithetical to contemporary stone architectures containing the bodies of kings, queens and the relics of saints.