Elizabeth Craig (University of Sheffield, UK)

Current theoretical research provides a framework in which the social identities of the dead can be investigated from their material remains. In line with anthropological approaches, identity can be divided into individual – the characteristics by which a person is identified – and group – an individual’s identification with others, based on socially sanctioned differences. Identities are actively created through social interactions and can be multiple, fluid or manipulated. Therefore the relationship between burial practice and identity is complex, as what is represented in the burial record is widely considered to be an actively constructed representation of society, not an unambiguous reflection of everyday life. Thus, the identities represented in the burial record are those of the dead, which are not necessarily directly equable with the identities of the same individuals during life.

Bio-cultural approaches to the mortuary record can address this issue by providing a multi-dimensional method of investigating identity. Through integration of osteological, archaeological, documentary and topographical data, a more holistic understanding can be created of the identities of individuals that are expressed in the funerary record by combining evidence of identity as signalled after death in mortuary practices with evidence for identity during life from osteological analysis.

Bio-cultural approaches to the investigation of identity have long been commonly adopted in the study of the funerary record of the early Anglo-Saxon period, where the abundance of variation in assemblages of grave goods and burial forms, such as orientation and position of the body, has permitted the detailed investigation of relationships between these variables and social concepts such as wealth, status, ethnicity, gender and age thresholds. The later Anglo-Saxon period has received significantly less attention and therefore, despite the growing awareness of the potential of funerary practices of the 8th century onwards as an arena for the display of personal and social identity, bio-cultural approaches to funerary archaeology continue to hold great potential for creating a more in-depth and complete understanding of social and cultural processes in later Anglo-Saxon society.

This paper focuses on four strands of bio-cultural investigation: approaches to biological sex/ gender, age at death/ age thresholds, social status and lifestyle, with an aim of highlighting theoretical and methodological approaches to the investigation of each. A selection of new publications and unpublished examples from later Anglo-Saxon sites, mostly from northern England, are presented to illustrate recent bio-cultural research into social identity, highlighting successful investigation strategies and permitting the identification of the potential for future approaches to these data.