Material culture, gender and the life cycle in early medieval Europe

Abstract

The practice of grave good depositions in early medieval cemeteries has been interpreted with different approaches which were developed in different historical periods, often reflecting the cultural and social climate of the moment. Between the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, early medieval funerary rituals were interpreted in an ethnic perspective: different artefacts, styles and decorative motives were linked to different tribes mentioned in the written sources. From the 1970’s a new approach was developed which considered artefacts as an expression of social status, thus different degrees of complexity in the disposition of graves were interpreted as a reflection of rank. Both these approaches however did not take into account the gender dimension of early medieval funerary rites, although it is a striking aspect of grave assemblages of this period. Gender archaeology developed only starting from the ‘90s. One of its most important contributions is to show that gender is fluid and so can be its representation through grave good display: not all graves contained the same amount and the same types of gender characterized artefacts. As a consequence of these considerations new approaches were developed from the end of the twentieth century. One of the more interesting aspects represented in early medieval cemeteries, is the relationship between gender symbols and the life-cycle. In my talk I will consider these aspects in greater detail.