Cemeteries as Central Places -Place and Identity in Migration Period Eastern England

This paper argues that the large cremation cemeteries of eastern England in the fifth and sixth century can be interpreted as central places where different households and communities congregated for mortuary rituals, ancestral ceremonies and other social activities. Through their size, early date and the predominant use of cremation, these sites were social and sacred foci where a distinctive mortuary ideology was developed that forged powerful relationships between place, identity, myths and memories. The places selected for these large cremation cemeteries also encouraged this role. By examining four cremation cemeteries in Lincolnshire it is shown how, in different ways, each of them encouraged perceptions of both centrality and liminality. This was achieved through their location in relation to routes, ancient monuments , topography and contemporary settlement patterns. It is argued that while societies of the fifth and sixth century may be regarded as less 'complex' and more regionally varied than those coming before and after, social complexity is revealed in part through the role of mortuary practices and burial rites in strategies for reproducing political and sacred authority, social structures and perceptions of group identities and histories.