Expressions of cultural and regional identity in the Viking burials of Ireland and Britain: mortuary practice as a means of asserting and renegotiating identity
PhD Candidate: Samuel Kinirons
Supervisor: Aidan O’Sullivan
Funding: Irish Research Council Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship
Abstract
This PhD project explores the complex evolution of the divergent regionalised identities of migrant Scandinavian communities within the western Viking diaspora through a study of changing funerary practices. As part of this project, an interrogatable database of Viking Age furnished burials in Ireland and Britain is currently under construction. This promises to prove an invaluable resource both for this project and future research.
The arrival of Scandinavian settlers in Ireland and Britain in the 9th and 10th centuries had a profound impact on these islands. They shaped the political, social and cultural worlds they encountered. Such influence did not flow one way. The colonisers were themselves changed by the act of colonising, adopting and adapting new identities in response to transcultural interaction and localised circumstances.
Among the many changes brought about by these migrants and the reintroduction of the practice of burying the deceased with grave-goods. These ‘furnished graves’ represent a deliberate set of choices; not only what to bury the dead with, but also where and how to bury them. These choices led the burials to stand out from those of local populations and as such, they can be seen as reflexive statements of cultural identity. This PhD project aims to examine how these funerary statements changed over space and time as regionalised identities developed.
The creation of the database of the Viking Age furnished burials represents the primary means by which this aim will be achieved. The data that I am currently gathering relates not just to the number and typologies of the grave-goods, but also to the form of the graves, the available chronological and osteological data, as well as the landscape contexts. This process involves both the collation of existing data from various publications and unpublished reports as well as the generation of new data through targeted radiocarbon dating and isotopic analyses. The completed database will be subject to several forms of statistical analyses such as multiple correspondence analysis and cluster analysis. These will highlight correlations between various data points, allowing for the regional and chronological trends within these burials to be brought into focus. The PhD project represents a novel, multiscalar approach to the Viking Age furnished burials of Ireland and Britain and has the potential to significantly advance our understanding of the regionalised development of identity during this formative period.
To get in touch, please contact samuel.kinirons@ucdconnect.ie