BMCR 2009.05.12: Niculescu on Brather, Zwischen Spatantike und Fruhmittelalter: Archaologie des 4. bis 7. Jahrhunderts im Westen. Erganzungsbande zum Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde 57

Sebastian Brather (ed.), Zwischen Spaetantike und Fruehmittelalter:
Archaeologie des 4. bis 7. Jahrhunderts im Westen. Ergaenzungsbaende
zum Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde 57.  Berlin/New York:
Walter de Gruyter, 2008.  Pp. vii, 480.  ISBN 9783110200492.  $205.00.


Reviewed by Gheorghe Alexandru Niculescu, Institutul de Arheologie
"Vasile Pa^rvan" ([email protected])
Word count:  4157 words
-------------------------------
To read a print-formatted version of this review, see
http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2009/2009-05-12.html
To comment on this review, see
http://www.bmcreview.org/2009/05/20090512.html
-------------------------------

[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review.]

This volume is an outcome of a symposium organized in 2005 at the
Freiburg University for the purpose of having "an intensive exchange"
among scholars belonging to different directions and traditions of
research on the early Middle Ages, with the hope of building a bridge
between the continental tradition of thorough "antiquarian analysis"
and the theoretical models from the English-speaking archaeological
world, in order to evaluate what was achieved by previous research and
to formulate new perspectives for the archaeological research in an
international environment (p. 4-5).  Many of the 16 contributions (not
all of the papers presented at the symposium are published in this
volume), illustrate the orientations of archaeological research during
what S. Brather (p. 1) declares to be a time of paradigm change in the
historical and archaeological study of groups and identities, a move
away from the questions of the origins and the attempts to strictly
separate Germanic and Romance populations, towards a research for which
ethnic groups are not the basic form of social organization, a research
of social change, of the building and perception of new political and
social structures.

The volume has five sections: "History and Archaeology," "From Late
Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages," "The Archaeology of the gentes,"
"Burial and Identity," and "Crafts and Exchange," bookended by the
editor's introduction and a substantial conclusion.

In the first section, three historians evaluate aspects of the
archaeological research, make critiques and offer suggestions. W. Pohl,
who has played this role many times, begins with a cautionary tale
about the burial of Pope John Paul II, imagining the limits of what
archaeologists of the future could understand of it (p. 13-14).
Nevertheless he remains optimistic about the possibilities of the
archaeological research of ethnic phenomena, emphasizing the need for a
comprehensive change in their understanding and arguing for research
which would place ethnic identities in the context of other identities,
topically for an examination of their relationship with Christian
identities (p. 17-18). He identifies in the written sources eight types
of "ethnic categorization", from local groups to populations of huge
territories, and believes that archaeologists should imagine a distinct
methodology for each of them (18-19). He advises archaeologists to
shift their focus from obtaining knowledge on the ethnic identity of
specific persons towards a study of how ethnic communities were built,
of ethnic processes and practices, of the internal structuring of
ethnic groups (p. 23-26).

M. Kulikowski deplores the consequences of mixed argumentation on how
the presence of the Visigoths in Spain is understood (p. 35) and offers
a change of perspective, centered on the history of the Late Roman
province. He finds no compelling written evidence for more than a
limited Visigothic presence and royal control until the end of the 6th
century (p. 30-31). Therefore the interpretation of cemeteries from the
Meseta (late 5th century at the earliest), cannot assume Gothic
presence and should rather favor local development, because of their
links with the Duero type cemeteries from the 4th century (p. 40-41).
Kulikowski prefers to understand those elements of the burial
inventories from the Meseta cemeteries usually seen as consequences of
a Visigothic migration as local interpretations of prestigious military
barbarian Late Antique styles (p. 42). His argumentation is built more
on a reaction to the Kossinna type of interpretation than on a fresh
analysis of the archaeological record.

M. von Rummel questions the reliance of the archaeologists on the idea
that costume (Tracht) expressed, first of all, ethnic identity (p. 45)
and uses as an example of how they misinterpret the written sources a
letter of Ambrose of Milan in which a bishop, Julianus Valens, is
described as "Gothica profanatus impietate" because he dared to present
himself to a Roman army with a torques and a brachiale, an appearance,
according to Ambrose, appropriate for idololatrae sacerdotes appearing
in front of the Goths.  Although von Rummel does not consider in his
archaeological discussion the possibility that armlets and neck-rings
could have had other meanings outside the empire than those customary
within it, his understanding of the situation is probably right: for
Ambrose Julius Valens was a "barbarian" because he was a heretic priest
and because he was trying to gain the attention of an army by wearing
Roman military insignia. Therefore the letter cannot be used as an
argument for the existence of a specifically Gothic costume.

In the second section, vaguely titled "From Late Antiquity to the Early
Middle Ages," there are two contributions dedicated to the
interpretation of the row-grave cemeteries and one which examines the
activity of Camille de la Croix, a French priest and archaeologist who
was active during the last third of the 19th century and the beginning
of the 20th.

H. Fehr questions the continuing interpretation of these cemeteries as
being a Germanic phenomenon. His arguments start with the early
beginning of the cemeteries from Bittenbrunn and Altenerding, a century
before the first mention of the Baiuvarii, (p. 74) and then focus on
four main characteristics of the row-grave cemeteries: the inhumation
rite, the orientation, the deposition of weapons in men's burials,
especially of swords, and the costume decorated with fibulae found in
women's burials. He finds a Roman origin and no antecedents in Germania
Magna for the first two (p. 78-81). The other two are presented as
creations of late Roman environments (northern Gaul and Rhineland
during the second half of the 5th century) in which the categories
"Roman" and "Germanic" stopped designating basic cultural differences
(p. 81-96). In the light of these arguments, the row-grave cemeteries
appear as a result of the interaction between two cultural
environments: the provincial culture and the strongly militarized and
barbarized limes zone, with no significant participation from the
Germania beyond the limes (p. 101). They are to be understood as an
element in a new cultural orientation of the local population from the
former border regions of the Roman Empire (p. 102).

G. Halsall argues for a similar interpretation, in which the continuity
of late Roman society is emphasized, and proposes a change of focus
from identities to social structure: instead of looking for Germanic
immigrants, we should investigate the consequences of high politics on
the local communities (p. 106-107). The beginnings of the new burial
ritual are identified in the burials with rich inventories from
northern Gaul, Spain and Britain, seen as expressions of the local
power of a small number of families, who intended to show relations
with the traditional structures of Roman authority by their use of
Roman artifacts and symbols after the retreat of the Roman
administration (p. 110-112). Thus the row-grave cemeteries appear not
as manifestations of ethnic traditions brought in the former empire,
but as results of the situation created after 476, when people chose
new identities and/or new means to symbolize authority.

This new orientation of the research on row-grave cemeteries, based on
constructivist representations of society, is welcome and one can only
hope that it will get an increased attention in the years to come.
However, the new interpretations are so spectacularly opposed to
previous research that one of Thomas Kuhn's ideas about paradigm change
comes to mind, namely that 'progress in science is "away from" past
science, rather than ''toward'' a right account of an aspect of the
world'.[[1]]  After being accustomed for such a long time to the notion
of peoples governed by ethnic traditions, we are faced now with
accounts of Late Antiquity in which non-Roman traditions have stopped
playing any significant role. Although the two authors stress their
shift from identities to social processes, they still are looking for
origins and their results amount to a reconsideration of the relations
between the Empire and the barbarians, in which the traditions of the
former are the only ones to survive.

The contribution of B. Effros is an effective reminder of what happens
to the scholars who are not going with the tide by telling the story of
Camille de la Croix, an archaeologist who was also a Jesuit priest,
whose interpretations were subjected to heavy criticism, mainly because
of his commitment to the Catholic Church. A combination of scholarship
and religious commitment was unwelcome in the France of the late 19th
century, when the progress of professionalization was accompanied by
anti-clerical attitudes, directed especially against the Jesuits (p.
133).  The author makes an illuminating comparison between the work of
de la Croix and that of Abbe/ Cochet, better received because suited to
the growing interest for ethnic and racial distinctions.

In the section titled "The archaeology of the gentes", two
contributions use the old ways of interpreting archaeologically ethnic
phenomena and one draws attention to the frailty of the documentary
basis commonly used for the analysis of the cemeteries from late Roman
and early medieval Spain, usually assigned to the Visigoths.

M. Kazanski and his collaborators still believe in the existence of
stable associations of particular dress accessories with ethnic groups,
allowing archaeologists to follow their movements across great spaces
and considerable time spans. Here their aim is to prove that the
"Gothic" finds from northern Gaul should not be assigned to the
Visigoths from Spain but to Danube Goths, and they do that by comparing
categories of brooches and buckles and by discussing the origin of the
female dress with two brooches on the shoulders. The archaeological
analysis is followed by a historical interpretation which identifies
Danube Goths in the armies of Syagrius and Arbogast. It would have been
interesting to see in the volume the reactions of Brather, Fehr and
Halsall to this contribution and the answers of the authors to them.

Even more puzzling is the contribution of C. Theune, an introduction to
the history of research and the current interpretations of ethnic
phenomena from early medieval Thuringia. She criticizes the use of
single artifact types and that of the written sources and bases her
methodology on the spread of combinations of archaeological traits.
This old style of thinking is presented as something fresh, inspired by
what archaeologists have recently taken from the social sciences,
namely the understanding of ethnic groups as changing and developing
"we-groups." However important, this is for the author just one trait.
Common culture, language, religion, origin or a "unitary territory"
(ein einheitliches Territorium) are other traits, important but not
decisive. Her analysis leads to the identification of ethnically
distinctive burials, belonging to a local population which has
maintained its group identity by preserving its funerary rituals.

In his contribution A. Jepure raises doubts about the global
attribution of the post-Roman cemeteries from central Castille to the
Visigoths, signaling the unwelcome dependence of the archaeological
chronology on the historical mentions of the Visigothic migration, the
mistaken assumption that they were all rural cemeteries, the
simplifications which have led to the construction of typically
Visigothic dress habits and the influence of the Franco dictatorship on
the interpretation. His main focus is on the problems of the
documentation, problems which invalidate the conclusions of those
archaeologists who have assumed the existence of closed finds without a
proper analysis of the records preserved for excavations which are, for
the greater part, more than half a century old. The author bases his
observations on archival research on the documentation available for
the cemeteries from Madrona, Duraton and Espirdo-Veladiez (he has
recently published a monograph on the last one) and concludes by
advocating for a suspension of the attempts to make ethnic
interpretations until a purely archaeological interpretation is done.
Unfortunately there is no such thing, as Reinhard Wenskus convincingly
argued a long time ago.[[2]]

The next section, "Burial and Identity," contributes to the outlining
of the full range of social identities visible in burial contexts.

S. Brather examines what can be said about how the buried were clothed,
about the significance of the rituals and about the variability
generated in the burial record by social differences other than
ethnicity, such as age and occupation. He offers a complex image of the
social reality, an alternative to the schematic one used by most
culture history archaeologists. Particularly appropriate are his
critique of the notion of "Tracht" (p. 249-251), frequently used by
such archaeologists, and his circumstantiated views on the social
context of the burial ritual (p. 255-257). Brather seems sometimes to
embrace a uniformitarian view of society, in which each burial is a
"performative expression of affiliation and delimitation" (p. 237) and
everybody is more attentive to the general shape of the brooches and
less so to the fine stylistic differences between them (p. 244),
although he is aware that not all burials indicate social status
(254-255). His emphasis on the study of groups[[3]] makes him accept
the statement of a social scientist that clothes have two functions: to
protect from the weather and to indicate affiliation to groups (p.
238), although he pays attention to other sources of variability in his
discussion of regional differentiation (p. 242-243). He ignores the
existence of personal styles.

The need for a more complex representation of society, in which social
hierarchies are multidimensional systems, made of intersecting
horizontal and vertical differentiations, is convincingly defended in
the E Stauch's contribution. She studies the importance of age
differentiation in the burial record, usually neglected by
archaeologists or reduced to the difference between adults and
children. She distinguishes between biological age and social age and,
since the written evidence which might be relevant to this subject is
scarce in the early Middle Ages, envisions research on the social
definition of age with archaeological means. Stauch has chosen four
cemeteries (Marktoberdorf, Weingarten, Wenigumstadt and Altenerding),
all well researched and published, from which 1685 burials have an age
determination precise enough to be useful for analysis. Her methodology
starts with the chronology of the artifact types, then continues with
an examination of the variability of their presence in burials
belonging to different age classes, and with an inquiry on the
possibility that certain variants or materials were preferred and that
dress items were worn or deposed differently (p. 282). The analyses
show positive correlation between most details of the burials and of
their inventory and the age classes. E. Stauch detects a preference for
the golden color of the artifacts in the burials of young and adult
women and an increasingly frequent presence of the silver color in
those of older women.

The next two contributions from this section are dedicated to princely
burials.

Karen Hoejlund Nielsen examines the social importance of Animal Styles
I and II in the British Isles. Her interpretation of Animal Style I as
symbolizing in Anglia and Kent "the 'genealogical' line through women
as tradition carriers back to the [Scandinavian] regions of origin" (p.
308) is built on a weak basis. She infers the number of households from
that of the burials and comes to the conclusion that in Kent brooches
decorated in Style I were worn exclusively by wives of the patres
familias while in Anglia they were worn also by other women of
child-bearing age. Nevertheless, in both cases these women are viewed
as "carriers of tradition," usually wives of the patres familias, who
were heads of the descent groups. Animal Style II is less widespread
(basically in Suffolk and Cambridgeshire in East Anglia, and in Kent).
Its beginning is interpreted as a consequence of direct contact which
took place in the context of continuing Scandinavian traditions
expressed by the use of Animal Style I. The author supposes that the
Animal Style II artefacts from Sutton Hoo, where no such antecedents
were identified, were gifts made by a Scandinavian king. Animal Style
II was short lived, used only by a small political elite, probably the
royal family of the Wuffings, and it was quickly replaced with
Christian symbols (p. 316).

In her contribution Lynn Blackmore offers a preliminary report on the
spectacular chamber tomb of Prittlewell, discovered in 2003 in Essex.
Unlike the similar discoveries dated in the first half of the 7th
century from Sutton Hoo, Taplow and Broomfield, this burial was found
close to an Anglo-Saxon cemetery and probably was a part of it.
Although most of its construction and inventory indicate a pagan
burial, the author thinks that some of the findings indicate links with
the Christian world and that this could well be the tomb of Sabert, the
nephew of Aethelbert I, who died in 616.

The last section, titled "Crafts and Commerce," groups two valuable
contributions on how products and technologies from Roman Empire have
influenced or are present in the material culture outside its borders,
in present-day Germany.

H. U. Voss keeps in his agenda the traditional concern of
distinguishing between Roman and Germanic products, declaring himself
aware of the problems involved (p. 346) and shifting the burden of
proof from the formal similarities between the artifacts towards the
materials, the manufacturing and decoration techniques used for their
production.  He concludes that only iron was available locally, while
gold, silver, copper, lead and tin had to come from elsewhere, mainly
from the Empire. In part these materials were obtained from Roman
artifacts, as shown by deposits such as that from Neupotz and by the
relation between the weight of the Germanic brooches and the Roman
weight system (p. 349, fig. 2). Then he discusses the fabrication and
decoration techniques, concluding that many of them were of Roman
origin, being adopted during a process which lasted centuries, in which
the tastes and necessities of distinction of the Germanic elites played
a decisive role.

J. Drauschke starts from a similar concern, but concentrates on the
vague notion of "Byzantine imports." The author attempts to achieve a
more precise determination of their origins, which would justify other
notions, such as "East-Mediterranean or "West-Mediterranean," or
"Italo-Byzantine", "Afro-Byzantine" etc., and also to understand how
they were disseminated. He proposes a separation of the typological and
stylistic classification from the determination of where production
took place (p. 373) and evokes the case of the Crypta Balbi finds, now
believed to be produced in the same workshop (p. 375), among which
archaeologists previously distinguished "Byzantine" from "Germanic"
artifacts. The author presents the current state of the research on the
provenance of the main categories of "Byzantine imports" found in the
area of the row-grave cemeteries, which suggests the conclusion that
they originate mainly from Italy and the Balkans, thus making such
items less supportive of direct links between Constantinople and the
Germanic elites (p. 392).  A chronological analysis of these imports
shows a growing volume until AD 700 (p. 415) and a change in their
structure: during the early Merovingian Age few prestigious items, of
great value, found in princely burials; later, beginning in the first
half of the sixth century, a wider spectrum of artifacts with
prestigious significance but no longer associated with persons of the
highest rank (p. 415). J. Drauschke believes that a prevalence of
different mechanisms of dissemination corresponds to these two phases:
the artifacts were brought mainly by personal mobility during the first
period (with exceptions), and mainly through commercial relations
during the second, although some artifacts were probably personal gifts
(p. 419-422). The small-scale itinerant commerce seems to him far less
important than the commercial enterprises aimed at power centers,
ancient cities and the newly organized marketplaces.

In his concluding chapter, Sebastian Brather reviews the main themes of
the aforementioned contributions and of those which were not included
in it (those of Frans Theuws, p. 436, Reto Marti, p. 445, Ursula
Wittwer-Backhofen, p. 449 and Falko Daim, p. 456-457) and expresses his
views on how the archaeological research on the early Middle Ages
should develop. The author declares that the historical character of
the discipline is beyond question, its main task being to compare what
can be understood from the written and the archaeological sources in
order to obtain "a more convincing and comprehensive  image of the
past" (p. 426). This reduced autonomy is further stressed when only
historiographical models are mentioned as inspiring archaeological
debates (p. 426-427). This may reflect the rarely expressed but
widespread apprehensions of other culture history archaeologists
towards the social sciences.

There are in this contribution new ways of thinking and interesting
ideas: an appropriate stress  on the importance of the study of
materials and technologies, until now insufficiently stimulated and
used by culture history archaeologists (p. 460), a shift from the goal
of making texts, images and material culture all say the same thing
towards learning from the differences (460-461), and an accurate
assessment of the previous function of the interpretation of ethnic
phenomena: "[archaeological] ethnic interpretations do not say much,
they just confirm the image gained from the written sources" (p. 461).
However the preference for identity as an analytical tool (p. 446, 462)
is questionable [[4]] and the great confidence in the future of
interdisciplinary research, based on an increased awareness of the
methodological problems of each discipline (p. 465), is not accompanied
by any consideration of the many kinds of problems which appear when
different disciplines enter in contact. There is here a lack of
reflexivity, a lack of sensitivity towards the problems of the
relations between disciplines, academic power and the political
present, which makes the author miss the message present in the
contribution of B. Effros and lead him to conclude that Camille de la
Croix enjoyed nevertheless recognition and influence (p. 437).

For those who know Brather's previous work where he was skeptical about
the possibility of an archaeological research of ethnic phenomena
[[5]], the big surprise is that he believes now that this should not be
impossible for archaeologists, especially for those who would accept
his opinion that "ethnic groups are in their own understanding not
homogenous populations, but certain politically active parts of it" (p.
428; see also p. 431, on the advantages of learning from historians to
associate ethnic concepts with elites rather than with populations).
Unfortunately he does not explain this change of mind.

Much change is underway in culture history archaeological research on
the early Middle Ages, and this volume presents some of its most
valuable directions. There are openings towards other ways of thinking
and of doing archaeology, made in the spirit of scholarly fraternity,
and based on a belief in the unity of scientific knowledge. Amicable
confrontation might be better at bringing substantial change and
culture history archaeologists could benefit more from recognizing the
limitations imposed by their own paradigm than from imagining that it
allows an unbridled access to knowledge produced in other traditions of
research. The views held within the social sciences are sometimes
incompatible with what culture history archaeologists aim to do, and
such views have prompted Sebastian Brather's previous skepticism of
about an archaeological study of ethnicity. His new position seems
inspired by the imperatives of culture history archaeology, which has
to continue contributing to the writing of ethnic histories.

Table of Contents:

Sebastian Brather. Archaeologie des 4. bis 7. Jahrhunderts im Westen.
Einfuehrung, p. 1-9.
Walter Pohl. Spuren, Texten, Identitaeten. Methodische Ueberlegungen
zur interdisziplinaeren Erforschung fruehmittelalterlicher
Identitaetsbildung, p. 13-26.
Michael Kulikowski. Wie Spanien gotisch wurde. Der Historiker und der
archaeologische Befund, p. 27-43.
Philipp von Rummel. Ambrosius, Julianus Valens und die "gotische
Kleidung". Eine
Schluesselstelle historisch-archaeologischer Interpretation, p. 45-64.
Hubert Fehr. Germanische Einwanderung oder kultuelle Neuorientierung?
Zu den Anfaengen des Reihengraeberhorizontes, p. 67-102.
Guy Halsall. Graeberfelderuntersuchungen und das Ende des roemischen
Reichs, p. 103-117.
Bonnie Effros. Auf der Suche nach Frankreichs ersten Christen. Camille
de la Croix und die Schwierigkeiten eines Klerikers als Archaeologe im
spaeten 19. Jahrhundert, p. 119-146.
Michel Kazanski, Anna Mastykova and Patrick Pe/rin. Die Archaeologie
der Westgoten in Nordgallien. Zum Stand der Forschung, 149-192. [This
is the title given on the first page of the contribution. The title
given in the table of contents is different: Westgoten in Nordgallien
aus Sicht der Archaeologie. Zum Stand der Forschung]
Antonel Jepure. Interpretationsprobleme der Westgotenarchaeologie.
Zurueck zu den Altgrabungen anhand bisher unausgewerteter
Dokumentationen, p. 193-209.
Claudia Theune. Methodik der ethnischen Deutung. Ueberlegungen zur
Interpretation der Grabfunde aus dem thueringischen Siedlungsgebiet, p.
211-233.
Sebastian Brather. Kleidung, Bestattung, Identitaet. Die Praesentation
sozialer Rollen im fruehen Mittelalter, p. 237-273. [This is the title
given on the first page of the contribution. The title given in the
table of contents is slightly different: Kleidung, Bestattung, Ritual.
Die Praesentation sozialer Rollen im fruehen Mittelalter]
Eva Stauch. Alter is Silber, Jugend ist Gold! Zur altersdifferenzierten
Analyse fruehgeschichtlicher Bestattungen, p. 275-295.
Karen Hoejlund Nielsen. Stil II als Spiegel einer Elitenidentitaet? Der
Tierstil von der Herkunftsmythologie bis zum Koenigssymbolik und
Kirchenkunst im angelsaechsischen Britannien, p. 297-321.
Lynn Blackmore. Schaetze eines angelsaechischen Koenigs von Essex. Die
Funde aus einem Prunkgrab von Prittlewell und ihr Kontext, p. 323-340.
Hans-Ulrich Voss. Fremd - nuetzlich - machbar. Roemische Einfluesse im
germanischen Feinschmiedhandwerk, p. 343-365.
Joerg Drauschke. Zur Herkunft und Vermittlung "byzantinischer Importe"
der Merowingerzeit in Nordwesteuropa, p. 367-423.
Sebastian Brather. Zwischen Spaetantike und Fruehmittelalter.
Zusammenfassung, p. 425-465.
------------------
Notes:


1.  . Ian Hacking. The Social Construction of What? Cambridge MA,
London: Harvard University Press (1999), p. 97.

2.  . Reinhard Wenskus. "Randbemerkungen zum Verhaeltnis von Historie
und Archaeologie, insbesondere mittelalterliche Geschichte und
Mittealterarchaeologie." In Herbert Jankuhn and Reinhard Wenskus (eds),
Geschichtswissenschaft und Archaeologie, p. 637-657. Sigmaringen: Jan
Thorbecke Verlag (1979).

3.  . For his belief that individuals are inaccessible for
archaeological research, see Sebastian Brather, "Ethnische Identitaeten
als Konstrukte der fruehgeschichtlichen Archaeologie," Germania 78,
2000, p. 159 and 173.

4.  . See Rogers Brubaker and Frederick Cooper. "Beyond Identity,"
Theory and Society 29(1), 2000, p. 1-47.

5.  . Sebastian Brather. Ethnische Interpretationen in der
fruehgeschichtlichen Archaeologie, Grundlagen und Alternativen. Berlin,
New York: Walter de Gruyter (2004), esp. p. 628-630.