Living with the Dead: Human Burials in Anglo-Saxon Settlement Contexts

Abstract

Although the communities of Anglo-Saxon England usually buried their dead in separate cemeteries, a handful of burials have been found in or alongside buildings, settlement ditches, and other domestic features. Such burials have so far escaped systematic study. This article presents a corpus of thirty graves in rural settlement contexts between the fifth and ninth centuries across England. It analyses the demographics, treatment, and pathology of the burials, as well as their spatial associations. Informed by recent approaches to ‘placed’ deposits, it explores why certain individuals might have been selected for burial in domestic contexts, and how living with the dead affected rural communities.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank Helena Hamerow, Andrew Reynolds, and Chris Gosden for their invaluable comments and advice on drafts of this article. I would also like to extend thanks to the anonymous referees, whose criticisms greatly improved the finished product. English Heritage, the Humber Archaeology Partnership, Oxford Archaeology, Suffolk County Council, and Trent & Peak Archaeology kindly granted permission to reproduce images in their copyright or care. Finally, this article was written while I held the Randall-MacIver junior research fellowship at The Queen’s College, Oxford, and I am grateful to the Provost and Fellows of the College for their generosity and support.