Archaeological Perspectives on Burial Practices and Societal Change examines the relationships between burial practices and societal transformations in the past.

This book highlights the centrality of burials as archaeological material for the understanding of societal change. It critically reassesses past approaches, and suggests new ways of understanding the relationship between burial practice and change in archaeology. Particular attention is given to archaeological periods where change was especially intense: so-called transition periods. The volume has a wide chronological and geographical scope, spanning the Early Bronze Age to the present day, and ranging geographically from Cyprus to Scandinavia. Recent developments within archaeological methods and theory have sparked discussions about the mechanisms and reasons behind societal changes in the past. This book aims to revive interest in understanding and explaining these changes, which are fundamental questions to the discipline of archaeology. The volume is organised into three thematic parts. The first, Practices, Communities, and Agents of Change, examines the roles individuals and communities play in transforming burial customs, highlighting the non-linear and often chaotic nature of these changes. The second theme, Migration, Identities, and Narratives of Change, challenges traditional narratives of migration and identity formation, proposing more nuanced understandings of how burial practices encapsulate these complex processes. The final theme, Transitions, Tempos, and Complexities, explores the multifaceted nature of societal transitions, emphasising the importance of diverse tempos and scales in understanding these shifts.

This chapter explores the dynamic changes in burial customs in Viking Age (c. 800–1050 CE) Scandinavia focusing on the transition from cremation to inhumation often associated with Christianisation. Departing from the traditional teleological and anthropocentric perspectives that views these changes as intimately related to religious conversion, the study adopts a more nuanced perspective. The analysis focuses on two dual-rite cemeteries, Ljungbacka and Lilla Ullevi, in southern and central-eastern Sweden, respectively, examining the coexistence of cremation and inhumation practices. The temporal and spatial dynamics of this coexistence challenge the monocausal view of conversion-driven change, suggesting that the process was more nuanced and context dependent. The chapter highlights the importance of understanding burial practices as constantly evolving within complex mortuary systems. It emphasises the importance of examining smaller-scale and shorter-term contexts in order to understand how changing practices were experienced within actual communities.

This introductory chapter presents the main aim of the book: to examine the relationship between burial practices and societal change. It outlines developments within theory and methods in mortuary archaeology, and their relevance for the discussion of societal change in the past. The chapter critically engages with central concepts for how the relationship between burial practices and societal change is perceived in archaeology – periods and transitions, scale, and causes and narratives – and explains how these concepts are treated in the various chapters in the book. Lastly, the chapter presents the themes and structure of the book and introduces the individual chapters.

Among the most characteristic artefacts of the Viking Age (c. 800–1050 CE) are the pairs of oval brooches. They have come to be regarded as essential parts of female Scandinavian costume, and in the various overseas settlements, their discovery is seen as evidence for the presence of Scandinavian women. The oval brooches as a group have been seen as communicators of female gender and Scandinavian ethnicity, but the individual brooches have received less attention. This chapter examines the brooches discovered in Britain, Ireland, and Iceland more closely, demonstrating that they were not always used as matching sets. It presents a number of non-matching brooches, single brooches, and brooch fragments. Although the oval brooches were made as matching sets and were normally also deposited as such in graves, the examples presented demonstrate variations in use and perhaps also in meaning. These variations highlight the oval brooches as more than parts of a set; they are individual objects with distinct life histories. By examining the oval brooches in detail as well as the context in which they were discovered, this chapter addresses the question: How and why were the pairs split apart, and how do they function in their new context?