Bone Churches and Deathly Decorations
Every few months, the photos of the famous bone decorated churches make their rounds through the internet through more popular websites. There seems to be a continuing macabre fascination with […]
Category Archives: Cemeteries
Changing Funerary Trends: Now and Then
Death is a universal phenomenon. Everybody dies. And to quote Ricky Gervais “usually at the end of their lives and just the once, and forever“. The way that people deal […]
Grave Robbing: Not Always What it Seems…
We’ve talked quite a bit here about the different ways that human remains can be disturbed once they are buried. We’ve had the “5 Reasons to Remove Single Bones from […]
Investigating Kinship in an Early Medieval Necropolis
There used to be an assumption within archaeology that people who were buried within the same grave or same necropolis were related to one another. In geography, we call this […]
I’m So Hungry I Could Eat a Horse
“The horse is a noble animal. This opinion is widely shared in Anglo-Saxon countries where it is felt that it is an ignoble action to eat a noble animal, and […]
Morbid Terminology: Coffin vs. Casket
There are many different types of containers that the deceased were buried in, often chosen based on the cultural norms of the group, the context of the death or burial, […]
On Food and Funerals in the Middle Neolithic
I’ve talked before about the close relationship between food and funerals, specifically in relationship to what Anthony Bourdain has taught me about the importance of food within cultures. The food […]
Bede, Burials, and Bamburgh: Testing Anglo-Saxon Migration
The traditional story of the settlement of England by the Anglo-Saxons is based on the writing of the Venerable Bede from 731 CE. He wrote: “These new-comers were from the […]
Examining the Richard III Evidence
Richard III is a highly controversial figure from English history, and this legacy continues today. Shakespeare wrote of him as a villain, exaggerating his scoliosis and writing his malicious dialogue.“And […]
Conversion to Christianity in Viking Age Scandinavia
Examining religion is a tricky thing to do, especially in societies that are over a thousand years gone and have lost large amounts of their archaeological record. First, it can […]
Bones Don't Lie 