‘Hunnic’ modified skulls

Mortuary Practices and Social Identities in the Middle Ages

Essays in Burial Archaeology in Honour of Heinrich Härke

Edited by Duncan Sayer and Howard Williams

Sayer and Williams, Mortuary Pra3 3 05/06/2009 16:57:29

vii

Contributors

Professor Grenville Astill Department of Archaeology, Whiteknights, Box 226, Reading RG6 6AB, UK, [email protected]

Professor Richard Bradley Department of Archaeology, Whiteknights, Box 226, Reading RG6 6AB, UK, [email protected]

Dr Stefan Burmeister Museum und Park Kalkriese, Venner Straße 69, 49565, Bramsche, Germany, [email protected]

Professor Robert Chapman Department of Archaeology, Whiteknights, Box 226, Reading RG6 6AB, UK, [email protected]

Professor Roberta Gilchrist Department of Archaeology, Whiteknights, Box 226, Reading RG6 6AB, UK, [email protected]

Dr Susanne Hakenbeck Junior Research Fellow, Newnham College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 9DF, UK and Affiliated Researcher, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3ER, UK, [email protected]

Dr Catherine Hills University Senior Lecturer, Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, CB2 3DZ, UK, [email protected]

Dr Karen Høilund Nielsen Senior Research Associate, Byagervej 160, 1.mf., DK–8330 Beder, Denmark, [email protected], [email protected], www.sitecenter.dk/hoilundnielsen

Dr David Petts Lecturer in Archaeology, Department of Archaeology, University of Durham, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, [email protected]


viii Mortuary practices and social identities in the Middle Ages

Dr Duncan Sayer Part-time Lecturer at the Centre for Death and Society. Department of Social and Policy Sciences, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, [email protected]

Dr Eva S. Thäte Independent Researcher, Riensberger Str. 51 E, 28213, Bremen, Germany [email protected]

Dr Howard Williams Senior Lecturer in Archaeology, Department of History and Archaeology, University of Chester, Parkgate Road, Chester CH1 4BJ, [email protected]


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Chapter 5

‘Hunnic’ modified skulls: physical appearance, identity and the transformative nature of migrationsSusanne Hakenbeck

AbstractThe distribution of modified skulls from the Black Sea to southern France has long been linked to the Huns. Historically, the advance of the Huns into Roman territory in the fourth and fifth centuries has been seen as the catalyst for the migrations of other barbarian tribes which ultimately contributed to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. The archaeological evidence associated with these skulls provides a more varied picture of migrations and the effects they had on both the migrating and the receiving populations. First, the migration of nomadic peoples into the Roman provinces in the Carpathian basin was a gradual process that profoundly changed material expressions of identity there and led to the development of a ‘hybrid’ culture. Second, the distribution of women with modified skulls west of the Carpathian basin indicates directed movements of individuals, possibly in the context of an exogamous social structure. In a migration context, modified skulls are a clear physical reminder that a person is ‘foreign’ or has a history of migration, and the physical traits of the body in themselves become a source of identity. Individuals with modified skulls, and the manner in which they were buried, thus provide a case study for examining the relationship between physical appearance, identity and the transformative nature of migrations.


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Introduction

In archaeology an unresolved conflict has been observed between the notion of ethnic identity as a cultural construct, which is based on self-identification with a group, and the physical characteristics of individuals or larger populations (Härke 2007a: 14f.). Härke (1998: 19) has drawn attention to the opposing and sometimes extreme responses by British and German scholars to his attempts to identify immigrants from the European continent in early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries by using certain skeletal markers, such as non-metric traits and calculations of body size (Härke 1990a: 38ff.; 1992a: 179–216). These reactions appear to be rooted in the different intellectual traditions of British and German-speaking archaeology. In German-speaking archaeology, ethnicity and biological group affiliation are frequently considered to be the same thing (Härke 1998: 21). Much of German-speaking archaeology is situated within the ‘ethnic paradigm’ (Härke 1991: 188, 1995b: 54; Brather 2000: 163), according to which ethnicity is an essentially unproblematic social category that can be identified by certain elements of material culture or by morphological characteristics of the skeleton. Changes in material culture are therefore easily attributed to the migrations of ethnic groups. British archaeologists, on the other hand, have, in the past three decades, adopted an anti-migrationist position that favours the idea of autochthonous developments (Härke 1998: 20f.). In parallel, ethnicity came to be seen as an identity – as an internal sense of belonging – and the possibility of accessing it through material culture was thus considered limited (Härke 2007a: 13). Thus, one perspective emphasises the internal nature of ethnicity, the other its external characteristics; neither acknowledges that there might be a relationship between the two. The practice of skull modification bridges this gap by making the physical traits of the body themselves a source of identity (Härke 2007a: 15).

Individuals with artificially modified skulls (Fig. 5.1) occur in large numbers in late Roman and early medieval cemeteries in the Carpathian basin and as isolated cases in central and western Europe as far as southern France (Fig. 5.2). These skulls have long been interpreted as primary evidence for the Hunnic migrations into Europe. The practice of skull modification is thought to have originated in the central Eurasian steppes in the first century a d and to have been brought to central Europe with the Huns and other nomadic peoples (see Werner 1956; Kiszely 1978; Anke 1998a, 1998b for overviews). Isolated cases of modified skulls in western Europe have been explained as an effect of the sudden growth of the Hunnic power sphere which led to the temporary adoption of the practice (e.g. Werner 1956: 17, 93;

Appearance, identity and the transformative nature of migrations


66 Mortuary practices and social identities in the Middle Ages

Schmidt 1987: 474; Anke 1998a: 130; Huck 2007: 331). A more critical investigation reveals a more complex picture, where the association of modified skulls with nomadic material culture is not always clear-cut, where skulls are often found in late Roman contexts and where skull modification west of the Carpathian basin is exclusively limited to adult women.

Artificial cranial modification is achieved through binding of the head, using boards, straps, cords or pads, during early childhood when the bones of the skull are still soft (Blom 2005: 4). After the age of about three to five years, the bones of the skull have fused sufficiently to make the cranial modification a permanent feature of a person’s appearance. It was a highly regulated practice and may

Fig. 5.1: A

modified skull

from the cemetery

of Altenerding,

grave 1108

(Reproduced with

permission from

Helmuth 1996:

plate 9).


67

have been deeply tied up in notions of correct childcare, health and beauty. Dingwall (1931: 88), for example, describes skull modification in Baluchistan in the early twentieth century as a complex process during which specific rules had to be observed and which required the use of special cloths and bands that were reserved for this purpose. Cranial modification suggests a view of the body as malleable and as needing to be improved from its natural state (Lorentz 2003: 10; Torres-Rouff and Yablonsky 2005: 4). The body of an individual is quite literally shaped by society; it becomes a symbol of both the personal and the social.1 Unlike dress, a modified skull, like other aspects of physical appearance cannot be changed. It becomes part of a person’s identity, of who they are and how they are perceived. Recent ethnographic and archaeological examinations of bodily transformations, such as cranial and dental modification, tattooing and scarification (e.g. Torres-Rouff 2002; Schildkrout 2004; Blom 2005; Torres-Rouff and Yablonsky 2005; Geller 2006), have drawn attention to the importance of these practices for generating and maintaining social identities, specifically ethnic or group identities. Torres-Rouff and Yablonsky (2005: 4) point out that skull modification in particular creates physical differences in a society where biological differences do not necessarily exist.

Background

Early work on skull modification in Europe was undertaken by anthropologists and anatomists who were primarily interested in the skulls’ racial characteristics (see Schliz 1905; Dingwall 1931). Early medieval skull modification was first considered in its archaeological context by Werner (1956) in a comprehensive study of the archaeological evidence for a nomadic lifestyle during the time of Attila (the first half of the fifth century) in eastern and central Europe. In addition to mapping known examples of skull modification, Werner focused on material culture which he understood to be specific to the lifestyle of the Eurasian nomads, such as horse equipment and weaponry (especially the composite bow), as well as mirrors, diadems, bronze cauldrons and the so-called magical sword pendants. Some of these – notably the mirrors – matched the distribution of modified skulls very closely, while other artefact types, such as long swords or diadems, had a more varied distribution. Werner (1956: 11) identified the origin of the practice among the Mongolian Kenkol group from the Tian Shan

1 See Shilling (1993) and Synnott (1993) for more in-depth examinations of

the ‘social body’; see Meskell (1998), Joyce (2005) and Sofaer (2006) for

archaeological approaches.




and Pamir mountains, dating from the first century a d. He believed it then to have been transmitted to the Sarmatians and Alans in the third and fourth centuries a d and to have spread into central Europe with the Hunnic expansion in the early fifth century. According to Werner, skull modification continued into the sixth century among the Goths on the Crimean peninsula, the Gepids along the river Tisza in Hungary, the Langobards in Moravia, and among the Thuringians and Burgundians (Werner 1956: 17).

Operating within a strict historical framework, Werner assumed that all apparently nomadic material culture in the Carpathian basin dating from the first half of the fifth century a d was associated with the Huns. However, in line with contemporary scholarship (e.g. Jettmar 1953), he acknowledged that the archaeological study of the Huns posed particular problems, since they were to be considered as an ethnically diverse political confederation, rather than a homogenous group (Werner 1956: 1). He therefore focused on the evidence for a nomadic lifestyle and society more generally, rather than aiming to identify a distinct Hunnic material culture. Werner’s Hunnic hypothesis has been widely upheld by more recent scholarship (e.g. Kiszely 1978; Anke 1998a; b). One exception is Crubézy (1990), who undertook a study of skull modification in France. Crubézy criticized Werner’s exclusive attribution of skull modification in western Europe to Hunnic influences, his over-reliance on historical events, and his failure to take modified skulls from before the fifth century into account (Crubézy 1990: 195f.). These are important criticisms; unfortunately, Crubézy does not propose an alternative explanation. While he emphasizes the heterogeneity of the practice, its continuity over time and the possibility of independent development, he nevertheless ultimately returns to the theory that skull modification was initially a foreign practice: ‘We believe that discoveries [of modified skulls] dating from the time of the great invasions … might eventually be related to the passage or settlement of Germanic tribes’ (Crubézy 1990: 196). Confusingly, he also notes that ‘our ideas on the great migrations have changed over time, and it is now thought that individuals coming from Asia only rarely reached Europe directly. It seems inappropriate nowadays to consider … the deformed specimens found in the Rhone group or in Germany as belonging to foreign warriors or prisoners’ (Crubézy 1990: 197).

These various approaches to skull modification in early medieval Europe track the changing attitudes to migration and ethnicity in archaeology over the course of the past century, beginning with an emphasis on race and followed by the almost exclusive reliance on material culture as an ethnic signifier and finally by a rejection of migration


69

hypotheses in favour of autochthonous development (see Chapman and Hamerow 1997; Härke 1998; Härke 2004). Recent years have seen a renewed interest in the (bio)anthropological and morphological characteristics of skull modification (e.g. Wiltschke-Schrotta 2004/2005; Teschler-Nicola and Mitteröcker 2007), though generally without a focus on its wider archaeological context. None of these studies entirely do justice to what is clearly a complex phenomenon, covering a large geographical area and time span. There are several reasons for this: on a methodological level, large-scale syntheses are rarely integrated with a detailed analysis of the archaeological context, since, in many cases, secure dates or information about the associated burial practices are simply not available. Further, archaeological approaches to migrations continue to be a matter of contention, in spite of a recently renewed interest in the subject (e.g. Burmeister 2000; Vander Linden 2007), partly brought about by developments in archaeological science such as stable isotope analysis and genetics (e.g. Schweissing and Grupe 2003; Price et al. 2004; Thomas et al. 2006). On the other hand, those scholars who do study migrations frequently focus on those that are known from historical sources, and they fit the archaeological evidence – often simplistically – into a pre-existing conceptual framework. However, if we aim to move on from treating modified skulls simply as dots on a map that indicate the Hunnic advance, and towards an understanding of the social dimensions of this practice, then we need to address the complex relationship between the migration of people, the transmission of material culture and the effects of these factors on identity.

The eastern group: from the Black Sea to the Carpathian basin

The distribution of modified skulls in Europe falls into two distinct geographical groups, an eastern and a western one, which are roughly divided by a line running north–south to the east of the Alps and the Czech massif (Fig. 5.2). In the eastern group a great number of cemeteries contain individuals with modified skulls and the distribution of males and females is roughly equal. The Romanian cemeteries are among the oldest in this group. The group of four burials in Pogorasti, with one modified skull, and the large cemetery of Tîrgsor, with more than 400 graves, from which six skeletons had modified skulls, date from the second and third centuries a d (Anke 1998b: 105, 136). These cemeteries have been associated with the Sarmatians, according to typological and historical interpretations, and they are thus considered to pre-date the Hunnic invasions (Kiszely 1978: 21). The cemetery of Dunaújváros (Roman Intercisa) in Hungary contained more than 2,000 inhumations. Its nine modified skulls date from the second and third centuries a d




(Kiszely 1978: 28). Teijral (1974: 12) has suggested that such incidences of skull modification in late Roman cemeteries in Pannonia may also have been connected with late-Sarmatian influences. However, even in the following, post-Sarmatian, centuries modified skulls are frequently associated with late Roman sites (see Anke 1998a: 134ff.), pointing to complex and ongoing interactions between individuals with Roman and barbarian2 associations at these sites. The eight cases from the fourth or fifth centuries at the Roman fort of Valcum on Lake Balatón, modern-day Keszthely-Fenékpuszta, Hungary (Müller 1987: 270; Anke 1998b: 61), are a good example of this.

South of Dunaújváros, the fifth-century cemetery of Mõsz has been interpreted as a family cemetery (Salamon and Lengyel 1980). Of 28 individuals, 11 had modified skulls. Of these, six were female and five male (based on their grave goods); five were children. In this cemetery, the Roman practice of burying in brick-lined graves continued, with three of the four brick graves containing individuals with deformed skulls. The grave goods reflect a variety of influences, with some objects, such as iron brooches and earrings with polyhedric pendants, representing the Roman period in Pannonia, and others that have been identified with the Huns (Salamon and Lengyel 1980: 98). The spatial lay-out of the cemetery indicates that three generations were buried here. The authors think that an adult man introduced the practice of skull modification to the community in the second generation, while the other individuals with modified skulls belonged to the third generation (Salamon and Lengyel 1980: 103).

The majority of modified skulls from the area around Vienna, and from Lower Austria and Moravia, date from the first half or the middle of the fifth century. In this cluster, individuals with modified skulls on average make up between 10 and 20% of all inhumations. In the mid-fifth-century cemetery of Gaweinstal in Lower Austria

2 Naming the peoples of late antiquity is highly problematic, and no satisfactory

and uncontroversial naming convention has yet been found. While ‘barbarian’

is a term that was employed by the writers of antiquity to describe peoples that

were not Roman and was not used by the barbarians themselves, I consider it

preferable to the alternative – ‘Germanic’ – which carries with it a different set

of problematic meanings. In its artificiality, ‘barbarian’ conveys some sense of

the ‘other’ that is useful in the context of studying identities. I have adopted

the term ‘barbarian’ as a collective label for non-Roman material culture

and for the identity of those people that were outside the Roman empire or

operated along its frontiers. Some elements of this ‘barbarian’ material culture

are more closely associated with a nomadic lifestyle (as listed by Werner

(1956) and Anke (1998)), while others have been classified typologically as

‘Germanic’ or ‘east Germanic’ (e.g. ‘Gothic’ brooches).


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five individuals out of a total of nine inhumations exhibited modified skulls (Winkler and Wicke 1980). Three of these were female, one male, and one was a child. Grave goods were limited to belt buckles and fragments of knives and strike-a-lights. The cemetery of Grafenwörth (Lippert 1968), also in Lower Austria, dates from the same period. Here two adult skeletons, one male and one female, out of a total of 18, had modified skulls. The burial practice in Grafenwörth combines a variety of influences: a sword appears to be of a western European type, the decoration on the pottery and a bone comb point towards the Black Sea, whereas wheel-thrown technology and burial in stone-lined graves are late Roman (Lippert 1968: 45). In the later fifth and sixth centuries, the practice of skull modification radiated out from the earlier centres in Hungary and Lower Austria/Moravia, the cluster of modified skulls along the river Tisza dating from this slightly later period. The multi-period cemetery of Kiszombor B in Hungary, with 11 modified skulls out of a total of 423, contained some of the latest examples in this area, such as a juvenile/young adult male from grave 234 dating from the second half of the sixth to the early seventh century a d (Anke 1998a: 129, 1998b: 65).

Romans, nomads and other barbarians

Werner (1956: 16) interpreted the modified skulls from eastern Europe and the Carpathian basin as evidence that the practice of skull modification had spread from east to west, as a consequence of the Hunnic migrations into central Europe. However, subsequent research has shown that skull modification was a far more complex phenomenon that cannot simply be reduced to Hunnic influences. First, in Romania and at some sites in Hungary, skull modification pre-dates the historical arrival of the Huns. Further, the fifth-century heartlands of skull modification, Transdanubia and Lower Austria, correspond with the Roman province of Pannonia, and here many of the cemeteries with large numbers of modified skulls are associated with Roman forts and settlements. Both the practice of burial in stone- or brick-lined graves and the use of late Roman material culture as grave goods indicate that a new population was not simply making use of the late-antique infrastructure (as was suggested by Werner 1956: 92), but that there was close social and cultural integration. On the other hand, the material culture assemblage that Werner interpreted as nomadic is only rarely directly associated with individuals with modified skulls. Instead, the burial practice exhibits a variety of influences. Not only were grave good types of varied provenance used together, but the production and decorative styles of artefacts were also highly mixed.




The ways in which the practice of skull modification was transmitted across Europe are thus by no means clear. There is little indication that the practice came to the Carpathian basin in the wake of one defined migration event. The skulls provide evidence for migration only by proxy: the movement of the practice indicates a movement of people, but the extent to which specific individuals were mobile is difficult to gauge. The picture is complicated further by various elements of material culture that were also transmitted from eastern Europe and beyond, such as new types of weaponry and jewellery, mirrors, and new styles of pottery decoration. They indicate changes in social practices and lifestyles that were taken up in the receiving areas, particularly within the former Roman provinces, where a ‘hybrid’ society developed (Friesinger 1977; Tejral 2007: 107ff.). That a distinct ‘frontier culture’ encouraged the development of regional identities has also been noted elsewhere (e.g. Goffart 1989; Swift 2000; Hakenbeck 2006).

In the Carpathian basin, this was compounded by complex interactions between nomadic and settled lifestyles (Pohl 1997: 66f.; Anke 2007: 42). Environmentally, the Carpathian basin is at the periphery of the Eurasian steppes, and it lacked the conditions to support full nomadic pastoralism as it was practised in central Asia. It did, however, provide access to the portable wealth and luxury items that could be obtained in the Roman provinces through raids, trade and treaties, and offered the possibility of arable farming along the Danube (Pohl 1997: 70). On the other hand, raiding and warfare on horseback were an attractive choice even for settled populations, as is indicated by the ready take-up of certain types of weaponry and horse equipment (Bierbrauer 2007: 101ff.). This led to the creation of a new identity that drew on its nomadic origins, as well as the existing late Roman and barbarian identities. The spread of the practice of skull modification was one aspect of such a heterogeneous development.

The western group: from the Alps to the Pyrenees

In the second half of the fifth century a d, modified skulls first appeared west of the cemeteries in Lower Austria and Moravia (Fig. 5.2). They cluster in Bavaria, Bohemia, central Germany, the Rhine valley, around Lac Léman and in the valley of the Garonne in southern France. There is also a cluster in Slovenia and some isolated cases in Italy. Compared with the eastern group, several differences are immediately apparent: the skulls are distributed over a large area, they are fewer in number and, most importantly, 71% (77 of 109 sexed skeletons) are female. As far as they can be dated, most cases fall between the second half of the


73

fifth and the first half of the sixth centuries (Werner 1956; Kiszely 1978; Schröter 1988: 263; Geisler 1998; Hakenbeck 2006: 260). The pattern in southern France seems to have been slightly different, since there is some evidence that the practice of skull modification may have begun in the Gallo-Roman period and continued into the eighth and ninth centuries (Crubézy 1990: 190).

None of the individuals from this western group has been identified as a child or even a juvenile, apart from one case in Bohemia (Anke 1998b: 81). In fact, the proportion of older individuals is extremely high, both compared to the eastern group and to a typical early medieval cemetery population (Fig. 5.3). Overall, more than 98% (93 of 95 aged skeletons) belonged to adult or older individuals. In Bavaria and central Germany more than half of the individuals with modified skulls were classed as maturus or senilis, and the pattern within the smaller clusters is very similar. Since children would otherwise be included in the demographics, such an age distribution strongly suggests that skull modification was not an indigenous practice. Furthermore, with the exception of Bavaria, only one or two individuals with modified skulls have been found in each of the cemeteries and the cemeteries often lie far apart. Lorentz (2003: 10) has pointed out that skull modification is a practice that requires considerable knowledge, commitment and time investment by the mother or carers of an infant. Such an extended package of knowledge, practice and belief cannot have been easily

Fig. 5.2: Location

of modified skulls

across Europe.

1. Pogorãºti,

2. Tîrgºor, 3.

Dunaújváros, 4.

Valcum (Kesthely-

Fenékpuszta)

5. Mõsz, 6.

Gaweinstal, 7.

Grafenwörth,

8. Kiszombor,

9. Altenerding,

10. Straubing-

Bajuwarenstraße,

11. Oßmanstedt.




communicated between isolated individuals. Both the demographics and the relatively infrequent occurrence of the parctice therefore indicate that these individuals were not indigenous to the places where they were buried. Instead, we can assume that they travelled to these areas, possibly from Austria or Moravia or from even further to the east where – as we have seen – a much larger proportion of the population in the fifth and sixth centuries had modified skulls. The location of modified skulls predominantly along the main river valleys provides a clue as to the route these migrations might have taken. The Danube and Rhine were not only frontiers but important axes of commerce and communication and the routes connecting the Danube, Rhine, and Rhône were of fundamental importance for linking the Mediterranean with northern and eastern Europe (Werner 1961: 310f.; Harris 2003: 65ff.).

The women with modified skulls in this western group were buried almost exclusively according to the local burial practice, wearing local funerary dress. Only in exceptional cases was there evidence of eastern or nomadic influences. In southern Germany they were buried with elements of the assemblage typical there in the later fifth and early sixth centuries: a variety of brooches, a bead necklace, belt buckle, comb and knife. The five women in Altenerding (Fig. 5.4) were buried with grave goods that were entirely unremarkable in the context of the cemetery and the region (Losert 2003: 301). Even the fact that one grave contained a pair of ‘Thuringian’ brooches is representative of the variety of brooch types that was in use at this site (Losert 2003; Hakenbeck 2006). In Straubing-Bajuwarenstrasse (Geisler 1990;

Fig. 5.3:

Distributions of

age at death (in

percentages) among

individuals with

modified skulls

from different parts

of Europe and,

for comparison,

of a ‘normal’

early medieval

population from

Bavaria.


75

1998) eleven women had modified skulls. The bow brooches include ‘Frankish/Alamannic’ and ‘Ostrogothic’ types, as well as two bow brooches with rectangular heads and rhomboid feet which are clearly reminiscent of northern European, even ‘Anglo-Saxon’, types (Fig. 5.4). These are not entirely unusual so far south: similar brooches have been found in Basel-Kleinhüningen, Switzerland, and in Schretzheim in southern Germany (Koch 1999: 175ff.). Such variability of brooch types was in keeping with wider practices during this time.

However, in exceptional cases, even the grave goods suggest a non-local origin for these women. The mid- to late-fifth century grave of an adult woman in Oßmanstedt (Fig. 5.5) is unique in the Thuringian

Fig. 5.4: Grave

goods of

individuals with

deformed skulls

from Altenerding

and Straubing-

Bajuwarenstraße,

Bavaria (from

Sage 1984: plates

134, 158, 187, 188,

reproduced with

permission; ©H.

Geisler, reproduced

with permission).




area. It contained a gold and garnet eagle brooch on a gold chain, two gold earrings with garnet inlay, a gold and silver buckle with a plate with gold and garnet inlay, a gold finger ring, and a mirror fragment, among other items (Anke 1998b: 100; Huck 2007: 328). Eagle brooches have been found at sites in the Balkans and in Ostrogothic Italy, as well as in Visigothic southern France and Spain (Martin 2000: 137). In all these regions they were commonly worn peplos-style as a pair on the shoulders.3 The way in which it was worn here, singly on a chain at the pelvis, is unusual, but more in keeping with the local practice. The high-quality gold and garnet work has been associated with

3 The peplos-style dress was typical for fifth-century Italy, eastern Europe as

far as the Crimea, and the Iberian peninsula. In England it was still used

in the sixth century and in Scandinavia it was worn until the end of the

Viking period. In southern and central Europe it has been associated with

the Goths (Bierbrauer 1971: 138; Koch 1998: 78ff.). West of the Rhine it had

been abandoned by the end of the fourth century in favour of one or two bow

brooches worn lower down on the body (Böhme 1998: 443ff.; Martin 2000:

134).

Fig. 5.5: The skull

and eagle brooch

of the adult woman

from Oßmanstedt,

Thuringia

(Copyright

S. Stefan,

Thüringisches

Landesamt für

Denkmalpflege

und Archäologie,

Weimar,

reproduced with

permission).


77

nobility and was probably manufactured in the eastern Mediterranean (Arrhenius 1985). The mirror, on the other hand, is a component of nomadic-style material culture. Mirrors found in eastern Europe and central Asia were frequently broken before their deposition (Werner 1956: 19–24; Anke 1998a: 19). The fact that the mirror in this grave was also broken suggests that there was a common understanding of the significance of a broken mirror in burial practice in Oßmanstedt and in eastern Europe. All aspects of the assemblage therefore point to an origin in the Carpathian basin or northern Italy. It is difficult to assess why this woman was buried in a manner that made reference to her foreign origins when this was not the case with most other women with modified skulls, although her greater burial wealth and possibly higher status may provide an explanation. The purpose of her travels, her marital status or the manner of her death are impossible to determine, but these may have been factors that led to a non-local identity being expressed in her burial.

Migrations and transformations

It is attested in historical sources that royal and noble women frequently married far from their original home and travelled long distances to be with their in-laws (Nelson 2004: 186ff.). Guichard and Cuvillier (1996: 338) suggest that ‘the practices of exogamy and homogamy were essential to [an ethnic] group’s political expansion and social cohesion’. ‘Mixed marriages’ – in other words, marriages outside of one’s original ethnic group – played a particularly important part in this. They established the cognatic ties (that is, the ties between a woman’s husband and her family) which cemented political alliances. Thus Sidonius Appolinaris wrote in later fifth-century Gaul: ‘The country where our mother was born is still part of the fatherland’ (Guichard and Cuvillier 1996: 326).

While little is known from historical sources about individuals from the lower echelons of society, archaeological evidence supports the notion of high levels of mobility among women, at least once during their lives. This evidence is not limited to individuals with modified skulls. A frequently cited example of individual mobility is the older woman from the cemetery of Altenerding (grave 421). She was buried wearing a peplos-style dress and with grave goods that all point to an origin in Scandinavia or the Baltic region (cf. Werner 1970: 78f.; Sage et al. 1973: 260; Losert 2003: 84f., 91f.). The manner in which she was buried is so homogeneously Scandinavian that migration seems the only explanation. However, such clear-cut cases are rare and not necessarily representative of wider practices. Usually, the evidence is




more subtle. Measuring metric and non-metric traits in the skeletal material from Altenerding, Helmuth (1996: 36, 48) found that there were statistically significant differences between the male and female populations. He suggested that men and women could have originated among different population groups. A similar pattern was noted by Schweissing and Grupe (2003) in a study of stable strontium isotopes in the skeletal remains from a cemetery associated with a late Roman fort in Neuburg, on the Danube in southern Germany and not far from Straubing. They concluded that 68.8% (11 of 16) of adult and older women, compared with 37.5% (15 of 40) of adult and older men, had not grown up locally (Schweissing and Grupe 2003: 1377).

Exogamy as an explanation for the distribution of modified skulls in this western group is not entirely new, although it is usually employed simply as a convenient label for an otherwise unexplained archaeological pattern (e.g. Schmidt 1987: 474; Schröter 1988: 256). The implications of exogamous social networks for our understanding of migrations and mobility and of how they relate to people’s identities have remained unexplored. First, the movement of these women clearly does not take a path into the unknown, but follows a meaningful direction. We can assume two-way connections between early medieval societies that were sustained across long distances, providing the reasons for the journey as well as the knowledge of the route and the destination (cf. Anthony 1990: 902; Burmeister 2000: 544). Second, such mobility of individuals appears to have had a limited effect in terms of the identity of the receiving population and a fundamental one on the identities of those who undertook the journey. Skull modification during childhood has a profound and permanent effect on appearance even in adulthood. Their altered physical appearance remained with these women as a permanent reminder of a childhood in distant lands and as evidence that they had travelled far during their lifetime. Nevertheless, they were buried according to the local practice, with local dress and locally-common grave goods. Usually nothing but their modified skulls marked them out as different in any way.

However, we need to bear in mind that both skull modification during infancy and the manner of the funeral lay outside the control of the individual and represented identities given by society at the beginning and end of life (cf. Härke 1994b: 32). One insight into how these women negotiated events in their adult lives is provided by the fact that they seemed not to have transmitted skull modification onto their children in central and western Europe. In contrast, the practice continued for several centuries in the Carpathian basin. Perhaps the practical knowledge of the childcare that was necessary for the modification of skull-shape was no longer available to them, or the


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receiving populations had an altogether different, more rigid, notion of the human body that was incompatible with the practice of skull modification. Not being able to continue with a practice that may have been a fundamental aspect of childcare to these women must have increased a sense of alienation from their childhood world, in addition to already being geographically removed from it. It also meant that the children would become physically more similar to the receiving population than to their mothers. On the other hand, the adoption of different childcare practices must have facilitated their incorporation into the receiving populations.

Conclusion

The distribution of modified skulls across Europe suggests two distinct modes of migration and mobility. In the eastern group, migration takes place on a larger scale, over a long period of time, and brings about a new ‘hybrid’ identity of the receiving as well as the migrating population. In the western group, this is replaced by evidence for the directed long-distance movement of a small number of individuals, mostly women, which may have been motivated by exogamous social practices. This second scenario in particular does not fit historical narratives of the early medieval migrations that focus on armies and the aristocracy as their principal agents. In such narratives, women’s journeys are considered only when they were married from one gens to another to forge a political alliance. Otherwise they remain invisible: they are simply assumed to have followed in the baggage trains of the great migrations or to have been abducted or bought by travelling men. Paradoxically, archaeological approaches to migrations focus primarily on female dress accessories, especially brooches, as the main sources of information about the paths of the migrations (Hakenbeck 2006: 120). Population movements were thought to be visible in female graves because women conservatively maintained the ethnic identity of their origins (e.g. Koch 1998: 70ff.). That such approaches are fundamentally flawed is highlighted by the examples above, which illustrate that dress and its accessories were more strongly determined by the receiving population than by the original one. On the other hand, these examples also show that migrations and mobility can be interpreted from the archaeological evidence. We have seen that the movement of women was a widespread phenomenon across all social strata and was not primarily linked to known historical migrations. While the women were eventually buried as locals, their physical appearance was a constant reminder, both to them and to their new society, of a foreign childhood and a once-different identity. In the first mode of migration,




the encounter with different material culture, practices and lifestyles generated a transformation of identities, but in the second one the journey itself was the source of the transformation.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Howard Williams and Duncan Sayer for inviting me to contribute to this volume and for their editorial suggestions. I also extend my gratitude to Manuel Arroyo-Kalin, Hans Geisler, Catherine Hills, Marc Vander Linden, and two anonymous referees for their helpful comments.


Documents

‘Hunnic’ modified skulls