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Projects

Recording early medieval cemeteries in NW-Noricum ripense  

Depopulation – colonialization – migration: the view of northwestern Noricum ripense’s transition from late antiquity to the early middle ages remains a blind spot in early medieval research. Despite the area’s important status as geopolitical buffer zone between post-Roman powers in Western and Eastern Central Europe, its history continues to be determined by traditional paradigms of abandonment in late antiquity, a settlement hiatus of c. 100 years, and the repopulation of the area by distinct processes of Bavarian colonialization and Slavic migrations.

 

Since there are no written sources that would elucidate this transition, it is archaeology’s obligation to explore the processes and developments that shaped the post-roman area of what later became the historical Land ob der Enns.

This pilot study builds the basis for a comprehensive and interdisciplinary investigation of northwestern Noricum ripense between the 6^th and 9^th centuries CE.

 

By recording all known early medieval cemeteries of northwestern Noricum including relevant information of type of sites, chronology, geographic location and state of archaeological documentation a solid database is compiled that serves as a foundation for studying social dynamics, settlement developments and geopolitical change from the end of Roman rule to the consolidation of Carolingian power.

 

Related student projects and teaching

•  Grave-goods of the early medieval cemetery of Asten-Umfahrung (Elias Delvai, MA thesis, supervisor: Barbara Hausmair, external advisor: Marianne Pollak/Bundesdenkmalamt)
•  Analyses of early medieval grave-goods from Upper Austria (MA course, teacher: Barbara Hausmair, winter semester 2021/22, LVNo: 644116)
• Deathscapes: Burial patterns in historical archaeology (BA seminar, teacher: Barbara Hausmair, winter semester 2020/21, LVNo: 644057)
• Introduction to prehistory, medieval and modern period archaeology/Session on early middle ages (BA lecture, teacher: Barbara Hausmair, every semester)

Literature

Hausmair, B. 2012. ‘Kontinuitätsvakuum oder Forschungslücke? Der Übergang von der Spätantike zur Baiernzeit in Ufernorikum.’ In Von Raetien und Noricum zum frühmittelalterlichen Baiern. Tagungsbeiträge des interdisziplinären Kolloquiums in Benediktbeuern, 14.-16.3.2010, edited by H. Fehr and I. Heitmeier, 209–30.

———. 2013. ‘The Impact of Late Antique Crises in Noricum Ripense. Depopulation vs. Invisible People’. In Tough Times: The Archaeology of Crisis and Recovery, edited by E. M. van der Wilt and J. Martínez Jiménez, 149–59. British Archaeological Reports. International Series 2478. Oxford: Archaeopress.

———. 2016. ‘Micheldorf/Kremsdorf – Frühmittelalter zwischen Baiovaria und Karantanien’. In Frühmittelalter in Oberösterreich. Inventare aus den Sammlungen des Oberösterreichischen Landesmuseums, edited by J. Leskovar, 11–189. Studien zur Kulturgeschichte von Oberösterreich 40. Linz: OÖLM.

———. 2020. ‘Das Dunkle 6. Jahrhundert? Zum Beginnenden Frühmittelalter in Oberösterreich’. Sonius 27: 10–13.

Leskovar, J, ed. 2016. Frühmittelalter in Oberösterreich. Inventare aus den Sammlungen des Oberösterreichischen Landesmuseums. Studien zur Kulturgeschichte von Oberösterreich 40. Linz: OÖLM.

Pollak, M. 2017. ‘Spätantike und Merowingerzeit in den beiden norischen Provinzen. Ein erster Blick auf den ostgotenzeitlichen Friedhof von Globasnitz/Globasnica, Kärnten’. In Ad Amussim. Festschrift zum 65. Geburtstag von Franz Glaser, edited by Ines Dörfler, Paul Gleirscher, Sabine Ladstätter, and Igor Pucker, 249–76. Klagenfurt: Verlag des Landesmuseums für Kärnten.

Szameit, E. 1994. ‘Merowingisch-karantanisch-awarische Beziehungen im Spiegel archäologischer Bodenfunde des 8. Jahrhunderts. Ein Beitrag zur Frage nach den Wurzeln frühmittelalterlicher Kulturerscheinungen im Ostalpenraum’. Neues aus Alt-Villach 31: 7–24.