Ethnicity in early middle age cemeteries. The case of the "visigothic" burials

Abstract

The study of the Early Middle Age cemeteries in Europe has had a very long path since the beginning of Archaeology as science related to the XIXth nationalism. These cemeteries were used then to establish national identities and to invent traditions, in Hobsbawn´s words, for a new bourgeoisie that, for the first time in History, achieved the control of power and economy. Ethnicity played an important role in establishing these national identities, linking the present peoples to the past Volks and being the center of the interpretation of historical change from a culture-historical and diffusionist approach. Although in Spain nationalism had a different development comparing to other European countries, the so called “Visigothic” burials were important in the establishment of Archaeology and the interpretation of the Early Middle Age under the paradigm of ethnicity and diffusionism. Although this vision has been clarified after World War II in European historiography, is still hegemonic in Spanish academy. In this paper it will be presented an interpretation of the so called “visigothic” burials in order to suggest new ways of analysis of the role of ethnicity in the conformation of this archaeological record. For this purpose, a critic of the traditional culture-historical interpretation is made, stressing its limits and problems and the links between national politics and archaeological development. The alternative interpretation is based in the review of the Early Middle Age cemeteries of the oriental part of the Duero basin, stressing the importance of contextual studies and introducing new archaeological views from the excavation of other Spanish regions, over all the area of Madrid. In conclusion, ethnicity is analyzed as one more factor of framing social relations and identities in a historical moment were important changes in settlement pattern and economy are occurring and the social stratification and hierarchy are in constant dispute and construction.