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Christianity and Burial in Late Iron Age Scotland, AD 400-650

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Christianity and Burial in Late Iron Age Scotland, AD 400-650 Maldonado Ramírez, Adrián D. (2011) Christianity and burial in late Iron Age Scotland, AD 400-650. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/2700/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] Christianity and Burial in Late Iron Age Scotland, AD 400-650 Adrián D. Maldonado Ramírez AB (Harvard), MPhil (Glasgow) Submitted in Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of PhD in Archaeology University of Glasgow Department of Archaeology May 2011 1 Abstract This work studies religious change through the archaeology of death and burial. In the period after the fall of Rome and before the Vikings, Scotland became a Christian society, but there are few historical documents to help understand how this happened. The process of conversion to Christianity in Scotland has long been a contentious issue, but until recent years, there was simply not enough reliable archaeological evidence to test the accepted narrative of conversion by missionaries from Ireland and Gaul. A number of key excavations over the last two decades have created the opportunity to reassess the evidence and test existing models. The earliest inhumation cemeteries in Scotland emerge in the period c. AD 400-650, and a large number of radiocarbon dates from these sites now provide a sturdy chronological framework for studying the effects of the conversion to Christianity. This is the first full-length study of the early medieval burial evidence from Scotland, and the first comprehensive revision of the archaeological evidence for early Christianity since the work of Charles Thomas in 1971. A review of the latest historical research suggests that Christianity arrived in Scotland from at least the 5 th century AD, which coincides with the emergence of inhumation cemeteries. In order to contextualise this material, a database of all burial evidence from Scotland in the first millennium AD was constructed to trace changes in ritual practice over the long term. A multiscalar analysis of this data – from individual graves, to ‘family plots’, to entire cemeteries – revealed new insights into funerary rituals and significant corrections of previous studies. Covering all of Scotland but keeping this in its wider northwestern European context, the theoretical framework adopted here follows the latest research on Anglo-Saxon England and early medieval Ireland, and analyses the material for what it can tell us about people’s memories, hopes and fears rather than the usual political and economic narratives. The Scottish burial evidence takes on a wide variety of forms, from long cists and log coffins to square barrows and cairns, generally placed away from settlement. New radiocarbon dates show conclusively that these burial rites predate Christianity in Scotland, and this study includes a crucial new review of pre-Christian funerary practices. Sequences of radiocarbon-dated burials from early Christian sites of the 5-7th centuries provide new evidence for what can and cannot be construed as a ‘Christian’ burial. Throughout the radical changes taking place in this period, including the origins of the Picts, Scots and Anglo-Saxons, funerary rituals helped create new social relationships, and mediated the tensions these could create, during times of upheaval. Rather than reflecting the arrival of Christianity, this complex network of social practices reveals the way Christianity was accommodated within Iron Age societies, and the way it was continually reinvented throughout the early medieval period into the Viking Age. In adapting the new religion to existing lifeways, Christianity itself was ‘converted’, and this is the key to understanding changes in the archaeological record in Scotland and beyond. The Scottish evidence should now be seen as a crucial dataset for the study of the wider transformations of the post-Roman world. Recommendations for further research were proposed, including the need to expand research beyond the modern Scottish border. To promote continuing research, the burial database will be made available online. 2 Table of Contents Abstract.................................................................................................................................1 List of Tables.........................................................................................................................5 List of Figures.......................................................................................................................6 Acknowledgements.............................................................................................................10 Accompanying material.....................................................................................................11 Author’s declaration ..........................................................................................................11 Conventions.........................................................................................................................12 Chapter 1: Historical approaches ................................................................................13 1.1. Missionary Christianity: the origins of an idea ........................................................15 1.1.1. The myth of the Celtic Church...........................................................................21 1.1.2. The textualisation of the saints...........................................................................24 1.1.3. The spatialisation of the saints ...........................................................................27 1.1.4. A new early phase ..............................................................................................32 1.2. After the missionary model: before the saints...........................................................35 1.2.1. Revised chronology and proposed terminology.................................................37 Chapter 2: Archaeological approaches........................................................................40 2.1. Previous work and recent developments...................................................................40 2.2. Religion and Christianity: theoretical approaches...................................................46 2.2.1. Romanisation and Christianisation.....................................................................49 2.2.2. Ethnicity, memory and personhood ...................................................................53 2.2.3. Conversion .........................................................................................................56 2.2.4. Burial and Christianity: a new approach............................................................60 2.3. Conclusion.................................................................................................................62 2.4. Methodology..............................................................................................................63 2.4.1. Structure of the database ....................................................................................64 2.4.2. Structure of the thesis.........................................................................................67 Chapter 3: Introduction to the data.............................................................................69 3.1. Problems of the sources ............................................................................................69 3.2. Dating........................................................................................................................74 3.3. Discussion .................................................................................................................80 Chapter 4: Iron Age origins: 200 BC-AD 400.............................................................82 4.1. Burial rites.................................................................................................................82 4.1.1. Excarnation.........................................................................................................82 4.1.2. Inhumation .........................................................................................................84 4.1.3. Cremation...........................................................................................................87 4.1.4. East Lothian: a unique burial tradition? .............................................................87 4.1.5. Discussion ..........................................................................................................88 4.2. The Roman interface, c. AD 80-400..........................................................................89 4.2.1. Conquest-period burial.......................................................................................89 4.2.2. Reuse of Roman artefacts...................................................................................93 4.2.3. Roman influence?...............................................................................................94
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