Funeral practices point to an interconnected early medieval Europe

Early medieval Europe is often seen as a time of cultural stagnation, often due to the mistaken name of the “dark age”. However, the analysis revealed that new ideas could spread quickly as communities were interconnected, creating a surprisingly unified culture in Europe.

Dr. Emma Brownlee, Department of Archeology, University of Cambridge, examined how a key change in Western European burial practices spread across the continent faster than previously thought – between the 6th and the 6th 8th century AD, burial of people with region-specific grave goods was largely abandoned in favor of a more standardized and unfurnished burial.

“Almost everyone from the 8th century onwards is buried very simply in a simple grave, with no accompanying object, and this is a change that has been observed throughout Western Europe,” said Dr Brownlee.

To explore this shift, Emma examined more than 33,000 graves from this period in one of the largest studies of its kind. Statistical analysis was used to create a “heat map” of the practice, following its change in frequency over time.

The results of this analysis, published in the journal antiquity, reveal that changes in serious good use began to decline from the middle of the sixth century in England, France, Germany and the Netherlands, and by the beginning of the eighth century it had been abandoned entirely.

“The most important finding is that the shift from burial with burial objects to burial without them was contemporary throughout Western Europe,” said Dr Brownlee. “Even though we knew this was widespread change before, no one has been able to show how closely aligned the change is in geographically far apart areas.

Basically, this contemporary transition provides strong evidence that medieval Europe was a well-connected place, with regular contact and exchange of ideas across large areas.

Evidence of the increase in long distance commerce is seen around this time period, which may have been how these connections were facilitated. As the idea spread among communities, social pressure drove more people to adopt it. As more and more people did, this pressure increased – explaining why the spread of unfurnished funerals seemed to be accelerating over time.

With people sharing more similarities, this probably made the connections stronger itself.

“The change in the practice of burial will have further strengthened these ties; with everyone burying their dead the same, a medieval traveler could have gone anywhere in Europe and seen practices with which he was familiar.” said Dr Brownlee.

An interconnected Europe with long-distance trade and travel facilitating the spread of new ideas to create a shared culture may seem modern, but in reality, Europe has been ‘global’ for over a millennium.