Heinrich Härke

(Резюме see below)

Klin-Yar is a well-known, large cemetery of regional importance, located outside the spa town of Kislovodsk in the foothills of the North Caucasus (Russian Federation). Before 1993, some 350 graves had been excavated here, most of them belonging to the Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age Koban Culture, but also around 70 Late Iron Age Sarmatian and early medieval Alanic graves.

The presence of three distinct cultural phases in the cemetery led to a project which aimed to test the accepted hypothesis that cultural change, here and in the region, was the consequence of population change by immigration in the Late Iron Age (Sarmatians) and the Early Middle Ages (Alans). A joint Anglo-Russian team carried out fieldwork on the site in 1994-96. In all, 52 graves with more than 100 individuals were uncovered; remains of 86 individuals were preserved well enough for skeletal analysis.

On the southern slope of the site, in cemetery III, our excavations uncovered an elite plot with a concentration of rich Sarmatian and Alanic catacombs which appears to be unique in the North Caucasus. The numbers of burials need not imply more than one high-status family, or at the most two families, over some 350 to 400 years. The increasing emphasis on family or kin-group burial in the elite plot during the Early Alanic period may signal the emergence of a hereditary aristocracy.

According to the skeletal data, the Koban people were a native farming population, with a lifestyle and diet typical of an agricultural economy. The Sarmatians were immigrants at Klin-Yar, but this may have been a male-only immigration. Their lifestyle and diet were those of mobile livestock breeders. The Alans seem to represent another immigration into the area, possibly from two different origin areas, and with new male and female phenotypes. Data on their diet and lifestyle point to a more mixed economy. Stable isotope data suggest a significant proportion of freshwater fish in the Sarmatian and Alanic diet, leading to an irregular offset in the radiocarbon dates (reservoir effect).

The key factors behind the observable patterns in the cemetery, and behind the changes in culture, ritual and lifestyle, appear to be a series of interlinked developments: two episodes of immigration each leading to economic and social change. The social system was, at the same time, affected by the wider geo-political context of the region which expressed itself in links to the south across the Caucasus mountain range (in the Koban period), to the Late Roman and Byzantine neighbour in the west (Late Sarmatian and Alanic periods), and along the early medieval branch of the Silk Road to Iran and Central Asia (Early Alanic period). From a theoretical and methodological point of view, the continuity and social stability from the Sarmatian to the Alanic period, through a phase of apparent immigration and economic change, is of great interest and requires more sophisticated models than are generally used for the explanation of prehistoric and early historical population change.

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Резюме:
Могильник Клин-Яр на Северном Кавказе (материалы раскопок 1994-1996гг)

Клин-¬Яр ¬ ¬- хорошо известный могильник, расположенный в регионе Кавказских Минеральных Вод, недалеко от курортного города Кисловодска Ставропольского края в Российской федерации. Этот регион находится в предгорной зоне Северного Кавказа. К югу от него располагается главный Кавказский хребет.  До  1993 года на Клин – Яре было раскопано около 400 погребений, большая часть которых относится к кобанской культуре (поздний бронзовый/ранний железный век). Так же  было исследовано около 100 захоронений, принадлежащих  сарматской (поздний железный век) и аланской культурам (раннее средневековье).

Наличие трех различных культур на этом памятнике послужило  основным поводом для начала проекта, целью которого была проверка общепринятой гипотезы о культурных изменениях на могильнике Клин-Яр и его окрестностях вследствие смены этнического состава, вызванного миграциями в позднем железном веке (сарматы) и раннем средневековье (аланы).

Совместная российско-английская экспедиция проводила исследования на этом могильнике с 1994 по 1996 год. В общей сложности совместной экспедицией было вскрыто 52 погребения, содержавшие более 100 костяков, 86 из которых были хорошей сохранности, что позволило провести антропологические исследования.

На южном склоне горы Паровоз (Клин-Яр III) экспедиция выявила элитный участок захоронений знати. Большая концентрация богатых сарматских и аланских катакомб на небольшой площади является уникальным явлением среди известных могильников этого времени на Северном Кавказе. Небольшое количество катакомб, скорее всего принадлежащих одной или двум семьям высокого статуса, погребенных на протяжении 350 – 400 лет на одном небольшом участке, возможно, указывает на становление наследственной аристократии в этот период. 
Согласно данным антропологического анализа, кобанцы являлись местным земледельческим народом с диетой и жизненным укладом присущим сельскохозяйственной экономике. Сарматы появились на Клин-Яре как переселенцы, и, возможно, это была исключительно мужская миграция. Их жизненный уклад и диета представляли собой уклад и диету подвижных скотоводов. Аланы, по всей видимости, являлись представителями еще одной миграции, возможно, из двух разных очагов и с новыми мужскими и женскими фенотипами. Данные об их диете и жизненном укладе указывают на более смешанную экономику.
Анализы стабильных изотопов позволяют выявить значительную долю пресноводной рыбы в диете алан и сарматов, что могло привести к нерегулярным смещениям в радиокарбонной датировке (резервуарный эффект).

Главными факторами,  объясняющими наблюдаемые закономерности в некрополе и изменениях в культуре, обрядах и жизненном укладе, является ряд взаимосвязанных обстоятельств: два эпизода миграции каждый из которых  вел к экономическим и социальным преобразованиям. На социальную систему в свою очередь влияла региональная геополитическая конъюнктура, которая выражалась в связях с югом, через Кавказский хребет (в кобанский период), с поздним Римом и Византией на западе (поздний сарматский и аланский периоды), и через раннесредневековое ответвление Великого Шелкового Пути с Ираном и Центральной Азией (раннеаланский период). С теоретической и методологической точек зрения, продолжительность и социальная стабильность от сарматского к аланскому периоду, по-видимому,  через  фазу миграций и экономических изменений, представляет собой большой  интерес и требует более сложных моделей, чем обычно используемые для описания  изменений в обществах доисторического либо раннеисторического периодов.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
Introduction
1 The German experience (Heinrich Härke)

From Nationalism to Nazism
2 Gustaf Kossinna and his concept of a national archaeology (Ulrich Veit)
3 Archaeology in the 'Third Reich' (Henning Haßmann)
4 Archaeology and anthropology in Germany before 1945 (Frank Fetten)

Post-War West Germany
5 Vorsprung durch Technik or 'Kossinna Syndrome'? Archaeological theory and social context in post-war West Germany (Sabine Wolfram)
6 The teaching of archaeology in West Germany (Ulrike Sommer)
7 Archaeology and the German public (Martin Schmidt)
8 Women's situation as archaeologists in West Germany (Eva-Maria Mertens)
9 Women in the underground: gender studies in German archaeology (Sigrun M. Karlisch, Sibylle Kästner and Helga Brandt)

East Germany and Reunification
10 Archaeology under Communist control: the German Democratic Republic, 1945 - 1990 (Werner Coblenz)
11 German unification and East German archaeology (Jörn Jacobs)

International Perspectives
12 Traumland Südwest: two moments in the history of German archaeological inquiry in Namibia (John Kinahan)
13 German archaeology at risk? A neighbour's critical view of tradition, structure and serendipity (Tom Bloemers)
14 A transatlantic perspective on German archaeology (Bettina Arnold)

The origins of the Anglo-Saxon shield are to be found in the Roman Iron Age on the Continent. The Early Saxon shield has the same basic form as the shields in Danish and North German bog deposits: a flat circular board of small to medium size, made up of several planks set side by side, and fitted with an iron boss and grip. The types of Early Saxon iron bosses and grips were also rooted in Roman Iron Age types, and the main constructions of wooden handles (particularly ones using a lap-joint) were already used on third/fourth-century shields in Jutland.

In the typological series of Early Saxon bosses, stylistic change, functional requirements and technical improvements are interlinked. The changes in boss types may reflect changes in fighting practices, but they certainly reflect an advance in iron-working skills which is particularly obvious in the sixth-century transition from heavy to light bosses.

By contrast, it is not clear what the grip typology reflects, but it is noteworthy that long iron grips, and flanged grips (short or long) in general, were just an episode which was limited mainly to the sixth century. Changes also affected the wooden board: it became larger, thicker and, therefore, heavier. The adoption of larger and more unwieldy boards, coupled with the change-over to taller bosses from the late sixth century, but particularly in the seventh century, may reflect the emergence of group combat because it coincides with an increasing popularity of the seax, the ideal weapon for the mêlée.

But the typology and technology of the shield do not only show changes over time, they also demonstrate geographical differentiation and hierarchies. The local patterns of shield deposition in the graves are varied, and differ from cemetery to cemetery. At the regional level, the shield can be shown to have been, to a certain degree, interchangeable with the sword in the burial rite, and the extent of this interchangeability is correlated with regional wealth.

Apart from its practical, military function, the shield had a symbolic role in Germanic society. In the Early Saxon burial rite, it is linked, in particular, to adulthood. The variety of decorative shield appliqués and some unusual forms of board fittings, including a unique boss in an anomalous burial, suggest that the shield displayed not just wealth and status, but also individualism and occasionally perhaps even eccentricity.

"Anglo-Saxon weapon burials, fifth to seventh centuries


This study is a contribution to the interpretation of the Early Medieval weapon burial rite. Its main aim was to test the premise of previous research in this field: that weapons in graves closely reflect the past realities of armament and social structures. The approach chosen was to check the presence or absence of weapons in inhumation burials for their correlations with other archaeological and skeletal data. The sample analysed consists of 47 Anglo-Saxon cemeteries of 5th to 7th/8th centuries A.D. date, spread from Kent to Yorkshire (Table 2, Fig. 3).

The relative frequency of the Early Saxon weapon burial rite is similar to that in Continental row-grave cemeteries: one in five of all inhumations, or almost exactly half of all identifiable male adult burials, had been equipped with weapons (Härke 1989c). But there are marked local and regional variations (Table 6) which seem to be correlated with the regional proportions of cremations: the higher the proportion of cremations, the more frequent are weapon burials among inhumations (Fig. 7).

The absolute and relative frequencies of weapon burials in England show a simple, but marked change over time: they increase towards a maximum late in the first half, or around the middle, of the 6th century, and then slowly decline until the end of the weapon burial rite in the late 7th/early 8th century (Figs. 9 and 10). This change seems to have been totally independent of the level of military activity. The peak of the weapon burial rite even coincides with a period of relative peace if we can take at face value the numbers of battles recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and Gildas' supporting statement (Fig. 2; Härke 1990).

The weapon combinations occurring in Early Saxon burials cannot have been determined entirely, or predominantly, by practical considerations (Table 9). More than a quarter of all weapon burials contained only a single weapon which would not have been functional fighting equipment on its own (shield, narrow seax, francisca, throwing spear); and only one third of all weapon burials had the minimum practical set of spear and shield (Härke 1989c).

The frequency of decorated and damaged weapons increases with the age at death of the individuals buried with arms (Table 19). This suggests that the weapons in the grave would normally have been owned, or used, by the individual buried with them. However, they were often only a selection of his weapons, witness the impractical or non-functional weapon sets. 'Ritual' destruction of weapons was rare, and apparently limited to one or two regions (East Midlands and northern East Anglia). The position of a weapon in a grave seems to have been determined by the mode of carrying the weapon, but also by the handedness of the individual buried with it (Figs. 18-22). The latter is indicated by the marked coincidence between positions of weapons and both, buckle directions and skeletal evidence for handedness (Table 15).

The correlations between other archaeological data and burial with weapons present a complex picture. Weapon burial is clearly correlated with burial wealth (Figs. 28-29), certain types of grave-goods (primarily drinking vessels; Figs. 26-27), grave structures (coffin, chamber; Table 21), and single burials (less frequent in multiple burials; Table 22). On the other hand, there are no, or only local, correlations with grave size and depth, external features (ditch, barrow), grave orientation and body deposition. The link between the weapon burial rite and features of supposed 'status burials' is, therefore, not as straightforward as has often been assumed, although burials with axes, swords or seaxes can be shown to have the highest investment of labour and wealth of all male burials (Table 25).

The correlations between skeletal data and weapon burial are even more interesting because the absence of some expected correlations is significant, too. The weapon burial rite shows very clear correlations with sex (male only; Table 27), age at death (cf. below), stature (men with weapons tend to be taller; Tables 32-33) and epigenetic traits. The latter is particularly important: in the cases of one or two cemeteries with sufficiently complete data, it can be suggested that weapon burial was limited to certain families, whereas others did not participate in this rite (Tables 35 and 37, Fig. 41). Age at death determined the likelihood of burial with weapons (Table 28, Fig. 33), it influenced the number (Table 29) and types of weapons (arrows limited to juveniles, axe and seax mostly with older adults; Table 30), and it is correlated with the sizes of spears and knives (Figs 37-39; Härke 1989b). The complete absence of a correlation between weapon burial and physique, indicators of stress and malnutrition (Table 40), pathology and traumata (Table 41), wounds (Table 43) and inherited disorders is surprising. Weapons could be buried with men of weak build, and with men crippled by heavy arthritis or malunited fractures, whereas men with wounds (mostly cut marks) had often been interred without weapons.

These individual observations may be combined to reconstruct the ritual and social background of the weapon burial rite. This rite was a primarily symbolic act which was determined (or at least influenced) by descent, but was independent of the ability to fight and of the actual experience of fighting (Härke 1990). This implies the separation of a social or ideological warrior status from the real warrior function in Early Saxon society. The families or social groups practising the weapon burial rite were, on average, wealthier, but their living conditions do not seem to have been markedly different from groups without weapon burial. There are a number of reasons to believe that the difference in stature between men with and without weapons in the 5th and 6th cent. is due to ethnic as well as social factors: Romano-British males were, on average, about 4 cm smaller than Anglo-Saxon men; and the earliest law codes indicate that most of the British population had unfree or semi-free status. It is likely, thus, that men buried with weapons were predominantly of immigrant Germanic stock, whilst a sizeable proportion, probably a majority, of the men buried without weapons must have been native Britons. The social groups practising weapon burial with adult men also buried some (but not all) of their children with arms.

The present study also suggests a number of methodological conclusions. The most important of the results summarised above depended on the use of skeletal data. There is a theoretical explanation for this: unlike most of the archaeological data, skeletal data are not influenced or distorted by the intentions of the burial ritual - they are 'functional' data reflecting reality, not 'intentional' data reflecting thinking. An interdisciplinary approach to burial analysis is, therefore, the most promising one. For such an approach, the quality of the data is at least as important as the quantity: the key results of this study are based on about a dozen cemeteries (out of a total of 47) with complete sets of archaeological, skeletal and technical data.

The results also demonstrate that the role of weapons in the burial ritual must be analysed before they can be used for the inference of social structures or of the armament of the living. The explicit or implicit premise of most previous attempts at social interpretation of Early Medieval male burials has been that the weapons in the graves represented the real armament which, in turn, reflected the social structure. This study has shown that this premise is not true in the case of Early Saxon England, and whether it is true for other areas or periods must be checked in every single case.

Moreover, the complexity of the relationships between the various factors involved in the Early Saxon burial rite, the marked local and regional variations, and the many exceptions from virtually every correlation found make it appear doubtful if the analysis of burial evidence will ever be able to find clear-cut rules, or even laws, of human social behaviour: the inference of regularities or patterns may be all that archaeological analysis can achieve.
"

Analysis of published settlement data of Early Iron Age date from southwestern Germany, northwestern Switzerland and northeastern France. Out of date now in terms of data and approach, but may still be of interest for the history of research on this subject.

Ibn Fadlan’s celebrated journey from Bagdad to the Bulgars also took him through the region the centre of which is the Aral Sea, travelling from Bukhara west through Khwarazm, then north across the Ust-Urt Plateau and onto the Caspian steppes.  On his way from the familiar world of urban civilization into the alien universe of the steppe dwellers, he crossed their cultural and natural boundaries at the ‘Gate of the Turks’, described by him as being not far beyond Jurjania (Urgench) (Fig. 1). At this point, he moved not just from urban to nomad culture, but also from the rich environment of a river oasis to the challenging nature of desert and steppe. The Aral Sea divides the northern, or steppe, half of the region into two different zones: the arid Ust-Urt Plateau to the west, and the vast double delta of the Amu-Darya and Syr-Darya (the Oxus and Jaxartes of Classical Antiquity) to the east, with corresponding differences in settlement and economy.

It is the intention of this paper to provide a broad overview of the archaeological evidence of these diverse zones around the time of Ibn Fadlan’s journey, with the nature of the evidence requiring in many cases a broad outlook on the late first millennium AD rather than just the early 10th century. Ibn Fadlan’s descriptions of the respective local cultures and ways of life will be drawn on as required, but we make no claims to extensive coverage of the historical literature discussing, and commenting on, his observations, nor of other textual sources although some of them may be quoted here selectively.

This research compares results of micromorphological
case studies conducted on four early medieval
archaeological sites with differentiated spatialization
of human impacts and a varied craft production
located in different background environments:
humid climate, subzone of mixed forests, floodplain
of the Dnieper River (Gnezdovo site); semi-humid
climate, subzone of forest-steppe, Middle Volga
region (Muromsky Gorodok and Malaya Ryazan’
sites); arid climate, cold desert of the Aral region,
ancient delta-alluvial plain of the Syr-Darya River
(Dzhankent site).

The emerging and vibrant field of environmental humanities to date has not received considerable attention in Central Asia. In light of the Anthropocene crises, there is a real urgency for maturing this field and investigating the methodological and epistemological challenges that environmental topics demand, often working across disciplinary habits and time scales. This roundtable brings together Central Asianists from a range of backgrounds to discuss the sources and scales of their investigation, their challenges and potential. The contributors discuss how particular kinds of sources such as climate models, archival manuscripts, ethnographic fieldwork and media analyses have been used to understand environmental changes in the region. In what ways do the traditions of scholars' disciplinary training guide the scale of analysis? Looking toward the future of environmental humanities in Central Asia, this roundtable suggests paths for developing this vital field of enquiry.
Jeanne Féaux de la Croix, Irina Arzhantseva, Jeanine Dağyeli, Eva-Marie Dubuisson, Heinrich Härke, Beatrice Penati, Akira Ueda and Amanda Wooden 2021. Roundtable studying the Anthropocene in Central Asia: the challenge of sources and scales in human–environment relations. Central Asian Survey, DOI: 10.1080/02634937.2021.1960797 (publ. 2021-09-08). Open access https://doi.org/10.1080/02634937.2021.1960797

In the late first millennium AD, there was an isolated cluster of urban sites, including Dzhankent, in the Syr-darya delta, on the interface of the steppe belt and the Central Asian civilizations. Fieldwork results show that in the ninth to eleventh centuries AD this site was a fortified urban settlement, but it had a predecessor from the sixth/seventh century onwards. Urban design and finds indicate close links to the southern civilization of Khwarazm, but also to local populations and Turkic nomads. It is suggested here that Dzhankent may originally have been a Khwarazmian trading post, later serving as nomad winter quarters while continuing as a transhipping point on the crossroads of two important trade routes: the northern Silk Road, and the route from the Baltic via the Volga to Central Asia. Location and functions also raise questions about the application of emporia typologies to this case.

Our project at Dzhankent/Jankent addresses the origins and development of a town in the first millennium AD in the eastern Aral Sea region. In its current format, the project has been run since 2011 in collaboration of the University of Kyzylorda (Kazakhstan), the University of Tübingen (Germany) and the Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow). Key questions of our work relate to the factors that may have had an influence on the process of urbanization: multi-ethnic population, economic and environmental change, trade on the Northern Silk Road, and the presumed state formation of the Turkic Oguz nomads. These issues are explored with an interdisciplinary methodology which, in addition to conventional archaeological excavation, includes a range of disciplines and approaches such as geophysics, geomorphology, pedology, zooarchaeology, stable isotopes from animal bones, and the analysis of ceramic materials. The results so far are challenging old and new hypotheses about the ‘marsh town’ of Jankent.

The Anglo-Saxon immigration of the 5th-6th centuries AD led to a dual contact situation in the British Isles: with the native inhabitants of the settlement areas in southeastern England (internal contact zone), and with the Celtic polities outside the Anglo-Saxon areas (external contact zone). In the internal contact zone, social and ethnogenetic processes resulted in a complete acculturation of the natives by the 9th century. By contrast, the external contact zone between Anglo-Saxon and Celtic polities resulted in a cultural and linguistic split right across the British Isles up to the 7th century, and arguably well beyond. The cultural boundary between these two domains became permeable in the 7th century as a consequence of Anglo-Saxon Christianization which created a northern communication zone characterized by a distinct art style (Insular Art). In the early medieval British Isles, contact resulting from migration did not lead to cultural exchange for about two centuries, and it took profoun d ideological and social changes to establish a basis for communication.

PS: The currently uploaded version (April 2024) includes corrections in the table on page 3 (publication p. 418) where some entries in the two colums had been transposed.

We present the earliest evidence for domestic cat (Felis catus L., 1758) from Kazakhstan, found as a well-preserved skeleton with extensive osteological pathologies dating to 775–940 cal CE from the early medieval city of Dzhankent, Kazakhstan. This urban settlement was known in the tenth century CE as the capital of the nomad Oghuz. It was located on the intersection of the Northern Silk Road with the north-south route which linked the towns of Khorezm in the south to trading settlements in the Volga region to the north. The presence of this domestic cat, presented here as an osteobiography using a combination of zooarchaeological, genetic, and isotopic data, provides proxy evidence for a fundamental shift in the nature of human-animal relationships within the region. This illustrates the broader social, cultural, and economic changes occurring within the context of rapid urbanisation during the early medieval period along the Silk Road.
Open access: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-67798-6#citeas

The Soviet imperial agenda in Central Asia was the wider background of Sergej Tolstov’s Khorezmian Expedition which worked in the Aral Sea region from 1937 until the dissolution of the Soviet Union. This region was deeply affected by Soviet building and industrialization projects, and by the collectivisation which destroyed the local native economy.

The Expedition was made up of people from a variety of groups and backgrounds. Throughout the period of activity, the core team of scholars and organisers came directly from Moscow, with few exceptions. In the later stages, this core was supplemented by local specialists who had been trained on the Expedition. But the work of the Expedition would have been impossible without local diggers, guides, interpreters, camel owners and others. 

The paper is based on records, publications, unpublished memoirs, interviews with participants, and personal experience. It also draws on results of the recent project of cataloguing and digitizing the archive of the Khorezmian Expedition (located in the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology RAN, Moscow).

The paper presents the results of interdisciplinary research at the ancient urban settlement of Dzhankent (Eastern Aral Sea area, Kazakhstan). The goals and main issues of this project are at the center of several intersecting discussions of international scientific interest: steppe urbanization, nomadic states, desertification in the eastern part of the Aral Sea area and changes in the flow of the Syr Darya delta channels. The structure and layout of the site were determined by using geophysical, topographic and photogrammetric methods. according to the results of geomorphological and soil investigations, paleoclimatic reconstructions of the conditions, in which Jankent functioned, were made.

Short popular overview about the fieldwork project in the early medieval town of Dzhankent (Kazakhstan) and its results up to the end of 2018. Key issues of the project are urbanization in a previously non-urbanized region, nomad state formation, and trade on the junction of Northern Silk Road and the north-south route from the Volga to Khorezm.

Persönliche Gedanken zur Rolle des Alters bei der Beschäftigung mit archäologischer Theorie sowie kritische Beobachtungen zum Sinn oder Unsinn einer Diskussion der 'Zukunft der Theorie' in der deutschen Archäologie.

Thoughts about the role of your personal age in dealing with, and using, theory and theoretical approaches in archaeology, together with some critical observations about the attempt to discuss the 'future of theory' in German archaeology.

The early medieval town of Dzhankent in the Syr-Darya delta close to the Aral Sea (Kazakhstan) is interpreted as a Khorezmian trading site operating under the control of the Oguz nomad elite at an economically strategic location. Oguz state formation would, in turn, have drawn on the town as it provided the specialists (scribes, traders and craftsmen) lacking in nomad societies.

Migrations of “tribes”, and mobility of elites, figure in many narratives of state formation and nation-building. But the frequent assumption that early medieval migrations regularly led to state formation is not borne out by a critical
look at western European cases between the fi fth and eleventh centuries AD. The outcomes of migrations in this period varied considerably. The case studies discussed in this paper include the Anglo-Saxon immigration into England and other migrations of the fi fth — seventh centuries AD in western Europe, and the Viking immigration into the British Isles as well as other Scandinavian cases of the ninth — eleventh centuries AD in the west.

Taken together, these cases demonstrate that migration does not necessarily lead to state formation. But even in the absence of state formation, some social change among migrants is
likely because migrations require organisational leadership.
State formation appears to have been a likely consequence only where immigrants encountered native populations of a certain level of social complexity. The reason might lie in the nature of segmentary (tribal) organisation: it presupposes social links and shared ancestry among the lineages
of the tribe. This imposes size limitations, but more importantly restrictions in terms of identity. After conquest by an immigrant population or elite, one possible solution is that the native population is reduced to the status of slaves
who are attached to the households of lineage members. The alternative would be the creation of a joint state based on a common ideology (such as afforded by Christianity in early medieval western Europe).

The discussion of change tends to prioritize sudden, marked change over the gradual development and transformation of behaviour and institutions, but it is probably fair to say that the latter is far more common in human societies. At the site of Klin-Yar, it is possible to observe the evolution of grave construction and mortuary ritual across three cultural phases, from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Middle Ages.

This evolution comprises continuous elements as well as observable changes and developments. Changing ideas about the afterlife, and tensions between social norms and individual behaviour may have affected the changes. But the key factors behind the overall pattern of evolution appear to be a series of interlinked changes: immigration leading to economic change which, in turn, led to social change; the latter was, at the same time, affected by the wider geo-political context of the region.

This case study highlights two points: (1) causes of ritual change may often be strongly interlinked, and it may therefore be misleading to look for a single obvious cause; and (2) marked changes in the wider contexts may not always be reflected in pronounced changes in mortuary ritual.

The collaboration of German prehistoric and medieval archaeologists with the powers of the Third Reich provided them with jobs and status, and perhaps also a ‘mission’ to believe in. In that sense, it was a truly ‘Faustian bargain’ (B. Arnold). The question is, though, to which extent Nazi archaeology represents a unique phenomenon, or just a special case at the extreme end of the spectrum in which all Kulturwissenschaften work. As long as our disciplines depend on state funding (and it is difficult to imagine a different funding model for them), they are necessarily open to suggestions, temptations, and direct or indirect pressure from politics and government. In that sense, Nazi archaeology is a ‘warning from prehistory’.

Objects in graves have been a traditional focus of burial archaeology. Conventional interpretations of their meanings revolved around religion (equipment for the hereafter, Charon’s Penny), legal concepts (inalienable possessions) and social structure (status display, ostentatious destruction of wealth). An interdisciplinary perspective drawing on archaeological literature, anthropological evidence and sociological theory widens the range of possible interpretations. Textual sources of the Roman and early medieval periods highlight the importance of gift-giving to the deceased, but also to deities. Anthropology shows the importance of the disposal of polluted items in the grave, and of protecting the living. Ethnographic cases also underpin theoretical considerations concerning the role of biographical representations (metaphors) during the funeral, as well as emphasizing the desire and the need to forget the dead. Textual and archaeological evidence from the Early Middle Ages suggest that these motives were not sharply separated, but that many of them played a role during any one funeral. In addition, motives changed over time, and the associations of particular grave-goods (such as coins or weapons) varied across time and geographical regions. Above all, multiplicity of messages and variability of meanings characterized the deposition of objects in early medieval graves.

(Short popular version in German of the 2012 paper in The European Archaeologist 37).

Das spätere Frühmittelalter (7.–10. Jh.) war eine Schlüsselphase der Stadtwerdung und des Städtebaus. Während in Europa die archäologischen Spuren dieser frühen Städte allzu oft durch spätere Bauphasen oder neue Ansiedlungen zerstört wurden, gibt es in den Steppen Zentralasiens aufgegebene Städte (sog. Stadtwüstungen) dieser Zeit, die danach nie überbaut wurden. Hier lässt sich die Stadtwerdung »ungestört« nachvollziehen.

Klin-Yar is a well-known, large cemetery of regional importance for the North Caucasus. Before 1993, some 350 graves had been excavated, most of them belonging to the Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age Koban Culture, but also about 100 Sarmatian and Alanic graves. Joint Anglo-Russian fieldwork 1994-96 by A. Belinskij (Stavropol) and the author added another 52 graves, with more than 100 individuals.

This expedition also uncovered a concentration of rich Sarmatian and Alanic graves in one area which we termed the ‘elite plot’. With two exceptions, it contains the richest catacombs of these two phases at Klin-Yar. All Sarmatian catacombs of the elite plot date to the Late Sarmatian period (Gavritukhin’s phase RZ); the Alanic catacombs here belong mainly to the 5th/6th centuries AD (phase I after Gavritukhin) and the 7th century AD (phase III). Four very large Alanic catacombs are at the centre of the elite plot. The man buried in catacomb 360 (early/mid-7th cent. AD) undoubtedly belonged to the top level of Early Alanic society in the North Caucasus.

The indicators of elite status at Klin-Yar are all concentrated in this cemetery area: 14 horse sacrifices, three bronze bowls, four glass vessels, three Byzantine gold coins, five iron long swords and five iron stirrups. There is also an entire series of artificially deformed skulls from the Sarmatian and Alanic graves in the elite plot. Another social aspect of the elite plot is the clear family pattern of burial which develops in the early Alanic period. The numbers of burials need not imply more than one high-status family, or at the most two families, burying their dead in the elite plot over some 350 - 400 years.

The elite plot at Klin-Yar seems to be a unique phenomenon in the North Caucasus. The increasing emphasis on family or kin-group burial in the elite plot during the Early Alanic period may signal the rise of a hereditary aristocracy.

In the Vth - early VIIIth centuries AD, the early Anglo-Saxons in England buried their dead with grave-goods, including weapons: mostly spears (Swanton 1973), shields (Dickinson and Härke 1992) and swords, rarely axes, arrows and helmets. Graves with weapons are often called “warrior graves”. But it is suggested here that this intuitive interpretation is misleading, and that weapons in Anglo-Saxon graves were the symbolic representation of conquest and dominance. This argument is based on the detailed analysis of archaeological and anthropological data of inhumations from 47 cemeteries (Härke 1990, 1992a).

Conquest ideology may be seen as a particular form of legitimation in which a real or claimed conquest by main force is used for the justification of current power relations. It is argued here that such an ideology may have material correlates and sets of related ritual or ritualized practices which may be identified in the archaeological record. The salient features of situations governed by conquest ideology may be seen and defined in modern cases such as Northern Ireland and South Africa. A testing ground for an archaeological approach is provided by post-Roman Europe (broadly speaking AD 400-600) which is rich in stories of migration and conquest. The archaeological case study for this paper is the Anglo-Saxon 'invasion' of England where rich and varied data allow the identification of a conquest myth, and of the ritual expression of a social ideology based on it.

Report on 2011 fieldwork in the Oguz town of Dzhankent (Djankent) in the delta of the Syr Darya river, western Kazakhstan. The new results show that the fortified town of the 10th/11th cent. AD was built on the site of an earlier open settlement, possibly in the context of state formation by intrusive Turkic nomads into the region east of the Aral Sea.

Textual sources of the early Middle Ages (fifth to tenth centuries AD) contain more astronomical observations than is popularly assumed. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle lists some 40 observations of astronomical and atmospheric events for the just over 600 years it covers. But the contexts in which these are set show that eclipses, comets, meteor showers and aurorae were seen as portents of evil events, not as objects of early scientific curiosity. The case of Bede in the early eighth century shows that this was true, to an extent, even for the educated ecclesiastical elite. Bede’s eclipse records also appear to show that astronomical events could be used to explain unusual phenomena such as the postulated volcanic ‘dust-veil’ event of AD 536.

Die insularen Angelsachsen waren unzweifelhaft das Ergebnis eines ethnogenetischen Prozesses, in dem die Integration der einheimischen britonischen Mehrheitsbevölkerung in die eingewanderten ethnischen Gruppen vom europäischen Festland eine ganz wesentliche Rolle spielte. Einwandererzahlen, geographische Zersplitterung und Zeitrahmen bedeuten, dass es eine Reihe unterschiedlicher Siedlungs- und Ethnogeneseabläufe gegeben haben dürfte.

Innerhalb dieser Abläufe lassen sich zwei oder drei Phasen unterscheiden. In der Einwanderungsphase (5./6. Jahrhundert) kam es zur Bildung ethnisch gemischter Gemeinschaften, allerdings zunächst mit nur begrenzter genetischer Vermischung von eingewanderten und einheimischen Populationen. Erst in einer zweiten Phase (überwiegend im 7./8. Jahrhundert) kam es dann zunehmend zur Integration der Einheimischen in die Gesellschaft der sozial und kulturell dominanten Einwanderer durch Akkulturation und Assimilierung.

Es kann kaum ein Zufall sein, dass die Schaffung einer gemeinsamen englischen Identität aus der Verschmelzung regionaler angelsächsischer und separater britonischer Identitäten zusammenfällt mit den ersten Anzeichen für Staatsbildungen in England . Die im gleichen Zeitrahmen ablaufende Christianisierung (ab dem Ende des 6. Jahrhunderts) schaffte eine einheitliche ideologische Grundlage für beide Prozesse, die dann im 9. Jahrhundert abgeschlossen sein dürften.

IT IS NOW widely accepted that the Anglo-Saxons were not just transplanted Germanic invaders and settlers from the Continent, but the outcome of insular interactions and changes. But we are still lacking explicit models that suggest how this ethnogenetic process might have worked in concrete terms. This article is an attempt to present such a model from an archaeological perspective, but with an interdisciplinary approach. The focus is on the role of the native British population and its interaction with immigrant Germanic groups. As a result, the model envisages two broad phases in the creation of the Anglo-Saxons: an ethnically divided conquest society in the 5th/6th centuries in which immigrants and their descendants practised a form of ‘apartheid’ in order to preserve their dominance; and a phase of increasing acculturation and assimilation of the natives in the 7th/8th centuries that laid the foundations of a common English identity.

Klin-Yar is a well-known, large cemetery of regional importance for the North Caucasus. Joint Anglo-Russian fieldwork 1994-96 by A. Belinskij (Stavropol) and the author uncovered 52 graves, with more than 100 individuals.

This expedition also uncovered a concentration of rich Sarmatian and Alanic graves in one area which we termed the ‘elite plot’. With two exceptions, it contains the richest catacombs of these two phases at Klin-Yar. All Sarmatian catacombs of the elite plot date to the Late Sarmatian period (Gavritukhin’s phase RZ); the Alanic catacombs here belong mainly to the 5th/6th centuries AD (phase I after Gavritukhin) and the 7th century AD (phase III). The numbers of burials need not imply more than one high-status family, or at the most two families, burying their dead in the elite plot over some 350 - 400 years.

The elite plot at Klin-Yar seems to be a unique phenomenon in the North Caucasus. The increasing emphasis on family or kin-group burial in the elite plot during the Early Alanic period may signal the rise of a hereditary aristocracy.

The cemetery of Klin-Yar (Russian North Caucasus) is an important site, not least because of its long use from the 10th cent. BC to the 8th cent. AD. The results of our work there suggest two phases of immigrations into the region, a Sarmatian, predominantly male influx, and an Alanic large-scaloe immigration, perhaps from two separate sources. One of the most interesting aspects is the continuity and social stability from the Late Sarmatian to the Early Alanic period, though a period of apparent economic and population change.

The elite plot found during our excavations is the first such case in a Sarmatian-Alanic cemetery in the North Caucasus. The wealth displayed here in the late 6th and early 7th cent. AD may have partly been the result of documented mercenary service of local Alans for Byzantium (and sometimes her enemies), and partly an effect of the early medieval branch of the Silk Road which in the 7th cent. led past Klin-Yar.

The change from single graves to familly tombs from the 5th cent. onwards and the epigenetic links between individuals buried in the elite plot suggest the emergence of a hereditary nobility. This, in turn, may imply an earlier state formation (7th cent.?) in the Alanic North Caucasus than has been assumed so far (10th cent.).

The expression of gender boundaries was a major feature of burial ritual in the fifth to seventh centuries AD in England, Scandinavia, and Continental Europe from France to the North Caucasus. In many societies, a very large proportion, in some cases the majority, of adults and adolescents were buried with an unambiguous, almost stereotypical gender display which is highly visible in the archaeological evidence, and is likely to have been even more visible to the mourners. It is suggested here that the erosion of traditional gender roles, and perhaps a more general fluidity of social norms and group distinctions, in this period of high individual and group mobility led to a reaffirmation in death of boundaries that were becoming less distinct in life. This explanation is well compatible with social anthropologists' views on the nature of ritual; and it might help to understand the post-Roman emphasis in burial ritual not just on gender boundaries, but also on other, social and ethnic boundaries.

"Russia's most mysterious archaeological site dominates a small island in the center of a remote lake high in the mountains of southern Siberia. Here, just 20 miles from the Mongolian border, the outer walls of the medieval ruins of Por-Bajin still rise 40 feet high, enclosing an area of about seven acres criss-crossed with the labyrinthine remains of more than 30 buildings.

Por-Bajin ("Clay House" in the Tuvan language) was long thought to be a fortress built by the Uighurs, a nomadic Turkic-speaking people who once ruled an empire that spanned Mongolia and southern Siberia, and whose modern descendants now live mainly in western China. Archaeologists conducted limited and inconclusive excavations at the site in the 1950s and 1960s, but Irina Arzhantseva of the Russian Academy of Sciences is now digging here for the Por-Bajin Cultural Foundation to find out just when the complex was built and why. The few artifacts unearthed at the site seem to date it to the mid-eighth century A.D. During this period, Por-Bajin was on the periphery of the Uighur Empire, which lasted from A.D. 742 to 848 and was held together by forces of warriors on horseback."

Read the complete article here:
http://archive.archaeology.org/1011/etc/letter.html

The influence of geothermally derived carbon on the radiocarbon dating of human bone from archaeological sites is poorly understood and has rarely been rigorously examined. This study identifies a previously unknown reservoir effect at the archaeological site of Klin-Yar in the Russian North Caucasus. AMS-dated human bones yielded results that were older than expected when compared with dates of coins found in the same grave contexts. We investigated the reasons for this offset by AMS dating modern plant, fish, and water samples to examine the source of the old carbon.

We identified a potential source in geothermally derived riverine and spring water, with an apparent age of several thousand years, and hypothesize that carbon from here is being transferred through the food chain to humans. If humans consume resources from the local rivers, such as fish, then they ought to be affected by this reservoir offset. An extensive analysis of carbon and nitrogen isotopes of human and animal bone showed evidence for a mixed diet that may be masking the amount of freshwater-derived protein being consumed.

Due to the highly variable nature of the 14C offset (0 to ~350 yr), no suitable average correction factor is applicable to correct for the human dates at the site. A 14C chronology based on dates obtained from terrestrial ungulate bones,
which we subsequently obtained, is instead a more reliable indicator of age.

Using the case study of the long-term cemetery of Klin-Yar (North Caucasus), it is argued that theories of mortuary behaviour may be used to explain the observed evidence of ritual, but the evidence does not often allow to decide between competing theories. It is difficult, in particular, to distinguish between ritual, emotional, and social factors on the basis of the archaeological evidence alone.

Die gegenwärtige Interessenverschiebung in der Gräberarchäologie hat auch zu einer erneuten Suche nach Interpretationsmodellen geführt, die größeres Gewicht auf menschliche Verhaltensweisen in der Begegnung mit dem Tod legen. Diese schließen neben wohlbekannten Konzepten wie Ahnenkult und 'rites de passage' auch soziologische Theorien wie die der 'continuing bonds' und 'reminder theory' ein und haben nun zur Forderung nach einer 'archaeology of emotion' geführt. Möglichkeiten und Probleme altrer und neuer Deutungen sollen am Beispiel des langzeitbelegten Gräberfeldes von Klin-Jar im Nordkaukasus illustriert werden. Klin-Jar wurde von der Spätbronzezeit bis ins Frühmittelalter belegt. Über diesen Zeitraum läßt sich eine Konstanz bestimmter Elemente (Körperbestattung, Grabbeigaben), aber auch eine zunehmende Komplexität von Grabarchitektur und Totenritual beobachten. Die versuchsweise Deutung dieser Praktiken und ihrer Entwicklung zeigt insbesondere das Problem auf, bestimmte Phänomene des Totenrituals einigermassen sicher mit bestimmten Theorien zu erklären sowie rituelle und emotionale Komponenten der Praktiken von sozialen Komponenten zu unterscheiden.

The extent and role of migration from northwest Continental Europe during the Anglo-Saxon transition in England has been intensely debated over the last 30 years. Archaeological
and historical evidence is inconclusive but current estimates of the contribution made by migrants to the English population are typically less than 10 per cent. In contrast, recent studies based on Y-chromosome variation posit a considerably higher contribution to the modern English gene pool (50 to 100 per cent). Historical evidence suggests that following the Anglo-Saxon transition, people of indigenous ethnicity were at an economic and legal disadvantage compared to those seen as having an Anglo-Saxon ethnicity. It is likely that such a disadvantage would lead to differential reproductive success. We examine the effect of differential reproductive success coupled with limited intermarriage between distinct ethnic groups on the spread of genetic variants and language. Computer simulations indicate that
a social structure limiting intermarriage between indigenous Britons and an initially small Anglo-Saxon immigrant population provides a plausible explanation of the high degree of Continental male-line ancestry in England. The existence of such a social structure will have consequences for our understanding of linguistic change in Britain. Here, we present
a case for the spread of Old English as being the result of a language shift within a ‘caste society’, not as the consequence of language replacement, a view which coincides with recent linguistic and sociolinguistic research concerning a possible Brittonic substratum.

This paper is a contribution to conceptual and terminological clarity which is required when dealing with the highly complex issues of cultural and biological affiliations in a period of intersecting and shifting identities. Concerning the identification of early medieval groups, the different types of evidence show up different aspects: Archaeological evidence reflects culture, and thus identities (incl. ethnic identities); skeletal evidence is biological, and therefore reflects populations. With both types of evidence, the broad inferences of groups are much safer than attempts to identify the group affiliation of individuals.

Using both types of evidence either separately or in conjunction, the identification of both, immigrant and native populations in early medieval Europe should be possible under certain circumstances, but has rarely been achieved convincingly. Proceeding from the mere identification to calculating the approximate ratio of immigrants to natives for any place or region is even more difficult, and depends on more assumptions than some scholars will feel comfortable with. Certainly, the results of such attempts cannot be more than very rough 'guesstimates'. Stable isotope analysis promises a better approach for future migration studies, both in terms of the direct identification of immigrants and their origins, and in terms of the quantification of the ratio of immigrants and natives.

The archaeological near-invisibility of sub-Roman British material culture in England is one of the main obstacles for the new consensus which holds that there was substantial survival of the native population into the Anglo-Saxon period. This near-invisibility matches the scarcity of historical and linguistic evidence for Britons, and it is this coincidence of evidence which has led to the persistence of the 'ethnic cleansing' model in the first place.

The logical corollaries of the idea of large-scale native survival are (1) that rapid acculturation turned these natives into Anglo-Saxons; and (2) that in the interval between the end of Roman Britain and the massive appearance of Anglo-Saxon material culture (Esmonde Cleary's 'post-crash gap'), the Britons had a material culture which (a) has not survived in the archaeological record, or (b) has survived, but is not recognized by us. Variant (a) would result from the large-scale use of organic materials; variant (b) would be the consequence of undiagnostic evidence and/or a lack of dating evidence.

These possibilities are discussed using post-Roman evidence from Britain and elsewhere, and illustrated by the case of post-Soviet Russia. The latter offers a parallel case of empire collapse followed by fragmentation and rapid, dramatic culture change. The aim here is not to support any particular model of post-Roman population stability or change, but to explore the nature of post-empire culture change and its implications for the recognition and dating of different aspects of material culture.

Using as a starting point an anecdote about 'ethnic identification' of a foreigner (i.e. the author) in the Caucasus, the different changes in thinking about ethnicity in German and British archaeology are contrasted and put into their historical context.


Ausgehend von einer Anekdote zur 'ethnischen Deutung' wird ein kurzer Vergleich der Forschungsgeschichte zum Thema Ethnizität in der deutschen und der britischen Archäologie unternommen. Es wird gefolgert, dass die deutsche Forschung dazu nicht umdenken, wohl aber noch gründlich nachdenken müsste. Was aber nicht passieren sollte, ist, dass auch hier das Kind mit dem Bade ausgeschüttet wird und der theoretische Reigen zu den Themen Ethnizität und Wanderung nun in der deutschen Archäologie wiederholt wird, als ob es ihn anderswo nie gegeben hätte.

Outline of the key perspectives on migrations in western and Russian archaeology since the early 20th century (abstract and conference presentation). This paper was given at a conference of Russian physical anthropologists and ethnologists, and therefore intended for a non-western, non-archaeological audience.

This paper is intended as a discussion of the link between early medieval migrations and state formation in parts of western Europe (5th – 11th centuries AD). The fact that the subject of migration in the past has long been unfashionable in western European archaeology and is only now making a slow come-back has also led to a lack of debate and publications on this particular question.

The cases discussed in this paper include the Anglo-Saxon immigration into England and other migrations of the 5th – 7th centuries AD in western Europe, and the Viking immigration into the British Isles as well as other Scandinavian cases of migration, expansion and colonization in the 9th – 11th centuries AD in the west. Taken together, these cases demonstrate that migration does not necessarily lead to state formation. Where state formation results from migration, it seems to be a consequence of the earlier level of socio-political organisation of immigrants and natives in each case. But even if a state does not result, immediately or eventually, from an immigration situation, some social change among the migrants is likely because migrations require organisational leadership. On the other hand, the case of the colonization of Iceland shows that not even social change should be expected in all cases.

While state formation is not a necessary outcome of migration, it may be a likely consequence where immigrants encounter native populations. The reason might lie in the nature of segmentary (tribal) organisation: it presupposes social links and shared ancestry among the lineages of the tribe, with all its members tracing themselves back to a real or imaginary ancestor. This imposes size limitations, but also restrictions in terms of identity. One possible solution is that the native population is summarily reduced to the status of slaves which are attached to the households of lineage members; it seems that this was temporarily the case after the Anglo-Saxon immigration to England. The alternative for multi-component populations of roughly equal status would be the creation of a joint state based on a common ideology (such as afforded by Christianity in early medieval western Europe).

"Gustaf Kossinna’s 1911 book entitled ‘Die deutsche Vorgeschichte – eine hervorragend nationale Wissenschaft’ and his professorship at Berlin marked the beginnings of an increasingly nationalist orientation of German archaeology. While this was not an isolated phenomenon in European scholarship at the time, it was unique in leading, in a direct line, to Nazi archaeology with its racist interpretations of prehistory, colonial-style excavations in occupied countries, and the plundering of East European museums.

The collaboration of German prehistoric and medieval archaeologists with the powers of the Third Reich provided them with jobs and status, and perhaps also a ‘mission’ to believe in. In that sense, it was a truly ‘Faustian bargain’ (B. Arnold). The question is, though, to which extent Nazi archaeology represents a unique phenomenon, or just a special case at the extreme end of the spectrum in which all Kulturwissenschaften work. As long as our disciplines depend on state funding (and it is difficult to imagine a different funding model for them), they are necessarily open to suggestions, temptations, and direct or indirect pressure from politics and government. In that sense, Nazi archaeology is a ‘warning from prehistory’.
"

Radiocarbon dating of Sarmatian and Alanic graves with Byzantine coins and other imports at Klin-Yar has revealed a reservoir effect which was hitherto unknown in this region. It is likely to be caused by ancient carbon in local water sources which is taken up via freshwater fish consumption, thereby affecting the dating of human bones, but not that of animal bones or other materials. This has implications for radiocarbon dating throughout the North Caucasus because the ancient carbon must have been of geothermal origin.

This paper presents the results of the archaeological exploration of the medieval site of Djankent which is situated at the mouth of the river Syr-Darya not far from the modern town of Kazaly (eastern Aral region of north-western Kazakhstan). In 1946 a group of the Khorezmian Expedition headed by S.P. Tolstov surveyed the area of the Syr-Darya delta and discovered three ancient sites from the air. These sites, Djankent, Kesken-Kuyuk Kala and Kuyuk Kala, were called ‘marsh towns’ because of their geographical location; they are also related to the group of Oghuz sites. Surface finds and layout led S.P. Tolstov to date Djankent to the 1st - 11th centuries AD. The study of the site since then left one of the main questions open: what was the role of the nomads in the process of urbanization in the contact zone of two cultures?
Since 2005, a Russian-Kazakh team has been excavating at Djankent. Our goal is to excavate as far as possible this important archaeological site in a remote area which has not been studied intensively so far, and to identify cultural links and economic contacts of the ancient city.
In 2011, interdisciplinary fieldwork was carried out at Djankent, including geophysical prospection, soil analysis and geomorphology. Together with the results of the archaeological excavations undertaken this year, this fieldwork provides valuable information on the complex layout and stratigraphy of Djankent.

[Our conference coincided with the start of the uprising against the Mubarak government in the last week of January 2011. The photo attached to this report was taken on the second excursion day, Saturday 29 January 2011, when some of us tried to reach the Egyptian Museum on Tahrrir Square, unaware of what had happened here the night before (internet and mobile phone networks had been shut down the night before). The Egyptian Museum is the low red building below the barrel of the combat tank, next to the burning HQ of Mubarak's party.We all managed to leave Cairo between 30 January and 1 February, some with difficulties, some without.]

The origins of Nazi archaeology are to be found in the 19th/early 20th century ascendancy of national archaeology over universalist anthropology in Germany (and elsewhere in Europe). The methodology of ethnic identification of archaeological artefacts developed by Gustav Kossinna (his 'settlement-archaeological method' as laid down in 1911) was used after his death in 1931 to justify the expansionist aims of the Third Reich, and the collection of 'Beutekunst' (looting of museums for art and artefacts to be 'braought home to the Reich') in Eastern Europe. Racist judgements on Slavs and other eastern cultures were part and parcel of this approach although not inherent in the archaeological methodology itself.

One of the post-war effects of this exploitation of archaeology was the aim of West German archaeologists to do 'objective' archaeology, with 'interpretation' being limited for decades to typological and chronological questions (the so-called 'Kossinna syndrome'). A Soviet archaeologist, Leo Klejn, was the first, in the 1970s, to call for a balanced re-assessment of Kossinna within the historical and disciplinary context of his time.

The discussion of change tends to prioritize sudden, marked change over the gradual development and transformation of behaviour and institutions, but it is probably fair to say that the latter is far more common in human societies. At the site of Klin-Yar, in the foothils of the Caucasus, it is possible to observe at one site the evolution of grave construction and mortuary ritual across three cultural phases, from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Middle Ages.

This evolution comprises continuous elements as well as observable changes and developments. Inhumation rite and grave-goods custom remain key elements throughout the use of the cemetery. Changes include the development from grave-pits to underground chambers; the shift from single to multiple burials, combined with the re-use of chambers; an increasing complexity of mortuary ritual, and the appearance of commemorative ritual within the cemetery; and a pendulum change in ritual, from standardization to variety and back to standardization.

Changing ideas about the afterlife, and tensions between social norms and individual behaviour may have affected these patterns. But the key factors behind them appear to be a series of interlinked changes: immigration leading to economic change which, in turn, led to social change; the latter was, at the same time, affected by the wider geo-political context of the region.

This case study highlights two points: (1) causes of ritual change may often be strongly interlinked, and it may therefore be misleading to look for a single obvious cause; and (2) marked changes in the wider contexts may not always be reflected in pronounced changes in mortuary ritual.

Grave robbery has long been seen as the bane of burial archaeology, distorting or destroying evidence as it does, and particularly so in the European Bronze Age and the Early Middle Ages. This book is part of a more recent trend approaching grave robbery as evidence itself which provides information on past attitudes to graves and the remains of the dead.

The paper provides, in a series of anecdotal observations and accounts, an impression of the main political and cultural conditions under which archaeology is being conducted in Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan) in the early years of the 21st century. The author uses almost exclusively the experience of his own work in the region since 2009. The observations made over the best part of a dozen years suggest an amalgam of factors influencing the work of archaeologists there, ranging from post-Soviet national and ethnic ideologies voluntarily adopted by some native practitioners, to quite open and complete control and even suppression by the authorities in parts of the region. The status and behaviour of foreign archaeologists is often ambiguous, with a degree of compliance with 'local conditions' usually required in order to do any work at all. The attraction of the tremendously rich archaeology of Central Asia, as well as hopes of contributing to changes for the better, often appear to outweigh individual concerns about collaboration with the local powers that be.

Report on the find of a well-preserved Ulfberht sword of the 10th century AD from the river Weser north of Hameln (Germany), with initial observations on the wider context of the sword and its metallurgy. This is the first Ulfberht sword from the state of Lower Saxony. (Press release by the Landesdenkmalamt Hannover for a press conference on 29 July 2014)