Re/membering Death: Burials with oval brooches in the western Viking settlements

This PhD thesis aims to provide a more dynamic approach to the study of graves with oval brooches from Britain, Ireland, and Iceland that will allow for greater inclusion of variation in the material. By emphasising how things were used and practices performed it attempts to challenge assumptions frequently made about what these graves are and how memories and meanings were produced and mediated through them. It examines the role of grave-goods, with oval brooches as the example, in the production and mediation of memories, how the the funerary rites in which these brooches appear were performed. By emphasising norms, variations, and deviations in practice, this part aims to emphasise the rites and their material remains as responses to an actual situation and discuss the relationship between the deceased individual in life and in death.