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Papers by Caroline Palmer

My thesis examines seventh-century East Anglian mortuary practices and crosscorrelates grave good... more My thesis examines seventh-century East Anglian mortuary practices and crosscorrelates grave goods and human remains to determine whether there was an expression of sexual division of labor during this period of social and religious change. I argue that gender roles changed as a result of adopting kingdoms and Christianity. Prior to this time

New Frontiers in Archaeology: Proceedings of the Cambridge Annual Student Archaeology Conference 2019, 2020

This paper examines a dataset of multiple burials in early Anglo-Saxon England previously publish... more This paper examines a dataset of multiple burials in early Anglo-Saxon England previously published by Nick Stoodley in 2002. The focus here is on updating his research with post-2002 data and reassessing his conclusions. Stoodley's paper entitled 'Multiple burials multiple meanings? Interpreting the early Anglo-Saxon multiple internment' presented a comprehensive overview of multiple burials in a way that had not been previously done. This paper expands upon that, revisiting Stoodley's analysis and conclusions and questioning his application of available data. This paper concludes that Stoodley's analysis was not representative of his own data and found trends where they did not exist, such as suggesting incorrectly that females rather than males were almost exclusively buried with subadults. Stoodley's final argument that multiple internment burials were 'amulets' for dealing with high-stress deaths is examined more empirically in this paper and added upon by suggesting that the individuals interred together were tied by social relationships that were not necessarily rooted in biology. The various multiple interment burials of the early Anglo-Saxon period marked the ending and renewal of social relationships, whether it be occupational or dealing with societal-familial roles, such as conceptions of caretakers. As the social relationship is broken in death, enacting that relationship in death repairs the lost relationship. Finally, this paper widens the discussion surrounding multiple burials, contextualising previous tangential work on the subject and suggesting the imperative and neglected need for a comprehensive study on human-animal multiple burials, both in terms of cremations and inhumations during the early Anglo-Saxon period.

Gender and Religion in a Shifting Social Landscape: Anglo-Saxon Mortuary Practices, AD 600-700, 2018

My thesis examines seventh-century East Anglian mortuary practices and cross correlates grave goo... more My thesis examines seventh-century East Anglian mortuary practices and cross correlates grave goods and human remains to determine whether there was an expression
of the sexual division of labor during this period of social and religious change. I argue that gender roles changed as a result of adopting kingdoms and Christianity. Prior to this time period, Anglo-Saxons were primarily pagan and were buried with extensive burial goods. In addition to changes in religious and burial practices, during the Final Phase (600-700 AD) there appears to have been a division of labor that was not as dichotomous in the Migration Phase (450-600 AD). I examine the graves of different statuses through reports to determine whether this change in the division of labor occurred in different classes. I also incorporate religious burial sites into my analysis (Westfield Farm and Trumpington) to see whether there was a distinct difference in monastic life. The cemeteries I consider in
detail are Edix Hill, Westfield Farm, Melbourn, and Trumpington. Because of the poor preservation of skeletal remains in Bloodmoor Hill, I incorporate this data only in the discussion section. My conclusions place my work in the wider context of current research being done on this topic, reveal the relationship between grave goods and
arthropathies in the seventh-century, and address the future implications of my work.

Books by Caroline Palmer

Archaeopress Archaeology, 2020

This volume is the result of the Cambridge Annual Student Archaeology Conference (CASA), held at ... more This volume is the result of the Cambridge Annual Student Archaeology Conference (CASA), held at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research from September 13–15, 2019. CASA developed out of the Annual Student Archaeology Conference, first held in 2013, which was formed by students at Cambridge, Oxford, Durham and York. In 2017, Cambridge became the home of the conference and the name was changed accordingly. The conference was developed to give students (from undergraduate to PhD candidates) in archaeology and related fields the chance to present their research to a broad audience.

The theme for the 2019 conference was New Frontiers in Archaeology and this volume presents papers from a wide range of topics such as new geographical areas of research, using museum collections and legacy data, new ways to teach archaeology and new scientific or theoretic paradigms. From hunting and gathering in the Neolithic to the return of artefacts to Turkey, the papers contained within show a great variety in both geography and chronology. Discussions revolve around access to data, the role of excavation in today’s archaeology, the role of local communities in archaeological interpretation and how we can ask new questions of old data. This volume presents 18 papers arranged in the six sessions with the two posters in their thematic sessions.

My thesis examines seventh-century East Anglian mortuary practices and crosscorrelates grave good... more My thesis examines seventh-century East Anglian mortuary practices and crosscorrelates grave goods and human remains to determine whether there was an expression of sexual division of labor during this period of social and religious change. I argue that gender roles changed as a result of adopting kingdoms and Christianity. Prior to this time

New Frontiers in Archaeology: Proceedings of the Cambridge Annual Student Archaeology Conference 2019, 2020

This paper examines a dataset of multiple burials in early Anglo-Saxon England previously publish... more This paper examines a dataset of multiple burials in early Anglo-Saxon England previously published by Nick Stoodley in 2002. The focus here is on updating his research with post-2002 data and reassessing his conclusions. Stoodley's paper entitled 'Multiple burials multiple meanings? Interpreting the early Anglo-Saxon multiple internment' presented a comprehensive overview of multiple burials in a way that had not been previously done. This paper expands upon that, revisiting Stoodley's analysis and conclusions and questioning his application of available data. This paper concludes that Stoodley's analysis was not representative of his own data and found trends where they did not exist, such as suggesting incorrectly that females rather than males were almost exclusively buried with subadults. Stoodley's final argument that multiple internment burials were 'amulets' for dealing with high-stress deaths is examined more empirically in this paper and added upon by suggesting that the individuals interred together were tied by social relationships that were not necessarily rooted in biology. The various multiple interment burials of the early Anglo-Saxon period marked the ending and renewal of social relationships, whether it be occupational or dealing with societal-familial roles, such as conceptions of caretakers. As the social relationship is broken in death, enacting that relationship in death repairs the lost relationship. Finally, this paper widens the discussion surrounding multiple burials, contextualising previous tangential work on the subject and suggesting the imperative and neglected need for a comprehensive study on human-animal multiple burials, both in terms of cremations and inhumations during the early Anglo-Saxon period.

Gender and Religion in a Shifting Social Landscape: Anglo-Saxon Mortuary Practices, AD 600-700, 2018

My thesis examines seventh-century East Anglian mortuary practices and cross correlates grave goo... more My thesis examines seventh-century East Anglian mortuary practices and cross correlates grave goods and human remains to determine whether there was an expression
of the sexual division of labor during this period of social and religious change. I argue that gender roles changed as a result of adopting kingdoms and Christianity. Prior to this time period, Anglo-Saxons were primarily pagan and were buried with extensive burial goods. In addition to changes in religious and burial practices, during the Final Phase (600-700 AD) there appears to have been a division of labor that was not as dichotomous in the Migration Phase (450-600 AD). I examine the graves of different statuses through reports to determine whether this change in the division of labor occurred in different classes. I also incorporate religious burial sites into my analysis (Westfield Farm and Trumpington) to see whether there was a distinct difference in monastic life. The cemeteries I consider in
detail are Edix Hill, Westfield Farm, Melbourn, and Trumpington. Because of the poor preservation of skeletal remains in Bloodmoor Hill, I incorporate this data only in the discussion section. My conclusions place my work in the wider context of current research being done on this topic, reveal the relationship between grave goods and
arthropathies in the seventh-century, and address the future implications of my work.

Archaeopress Archaeology, 2020

This volume is the result of the Cambridge Annual Student Archaeology Conference (CASA), held at ... more This volume is the result of the Cambridge Annual Student Archaeology Conference (CASA), held at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research from September 13–15, 2019. CASA developed out of the Annual Student Archaeology Conference, first held in 2013, which was formed by students at Cambridge, Oxford, Durham and York. In 2017, Cambridge became the home of the conference and the name was changed accordingly. The conference was developed to give students (from undergraduate to PhD candidates) in archaeology and related fields the chance to present their research to a broad audience.

The theme for the 2019 conference was New Frontiers in Archaeology and this volume presents papers from a wide range of topics such as new geographical areas of research, using museum collections and legacy data, new ways to teach archaeology and new scientific or theoretic paradigms. From hunting and gathering in the Neolithic to the return of artefacts to Turkey, the papers contained within show a great variety in both geography and chronology. Discussions revolve around access to data, the role of excavation in today’s archaeology, the role of local communities in archaeological interpretation and how we can ask new questions of old data. This volume presents 18 papers arranged in the six sessions with the two posters in their thematic sessions.