Mortuary Practices and Social Identities in the Middle Ages

Duncan Sayer is lecturer in archaeology at the University of Central Lancashire where his principal interest is in Anglo-Saxon cemeteries and burial archaeology. He is author of 'Ethics and Burial Archaeology' (Duckworth, 2010) and editor of 'The Archaeology of Post-Medieval Religion' (Boydell, 2011). Howard Williams is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Chester. He has published widely on medieval and mortuary archaeology and is author of 'Death and Memory in Early Medieval Britain' (Cambridge University Press, 2006).

• Preface – Duncan Sayer and Howard Williams1. 'Halls of mirrors': death and identity in medieval archaeology - Howard Williams and Duncan Sayer2. Working with the dead - Robert Chapman3. Beowulf and British prehistory - Richard Bradley4. Fighting wars, gaining status: on the rise of Germanic elites - Stefan Burmeister5. ‘Hunnic’ modified skulls: physical appearance, identity and the transformative nature of migrations -Susanne Hakenbeck6. Rituals to free the spirit – or what the cremation pyre told - Karen Høilund Nielsen7.Barrows, roads and ridges – or where to bury the dead? The choice of burial grounds in late Iron-Age Scandinavia - Eva S. Thäte8. Anglo-Saxon DNA? - Catherine Hills9. Laws, funerals and cemetery organisation: the seventh-century Kentish family - Duncan Sayer10. On display – envisioning the early Anglo-Saxon dead - Howard Williams11. Variation in the British burial rite: AD 400–700 - David Petts12. Anglo-Saxon attitudes: how should post-AD 700 burials be interpreted? - Grenville Astill13. Rethinking later medieval masculinity: the male body in death - Roberta GilchristBibilographyIndex

An engaging and stimulating collection of value for the serious student of the subject.Christopher Scull, British Archaeology, May/June 2010