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Astrid NotermanResearcher

About me

Astrid A. Noterman completed her PhD on Merovingian reopened graves from northern France in 2016 at the Centre for Medieval Studies (CESCM) at the University of Poitiers in France. Her approach to early medieval grave reopening includes archaeology, mortuary studies and early medieval written.

From 2018, she was a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies at Stockholm University, and worked on a project project funded by the Swedish Research Council on ‘Interacting with the dead. Belief and conflict in Early Medieval Europe (AD 450-750)’ and led by Alison Klevnäs.

She is currently working on three research projects at Stockholm University and Uppsala University:

  • Olle Engkvists stiftelse funded project ‘The Sleeping Dead. An archaeological and emotional reading of bed inhumations in Europe from the 6th to 10th centuries CE’.
  • Marcus & Amalia Wallenbergs Minnesfond funded project ‘Collecting the dead: life course and kin relations in the transition to churchyard burial on Gotland (c. 950-1250 AD)’, and led by Alison Klevnäs.
  • ERC funded project ‘The Present Dead: Investigating interactions with the dead in early medieval central and eastern Europe from 5th to 8th centuries CE’, and led by Edeltraud Aspöck.

She is an associate member of the Center for Medieval Studies (CESCM) since 2017 and which is a Mixed Research Unit (UMR) managed by the University of Poitiers and the CNRS (Centre national de la Recherche scientifique).

She is also a member of Svenska Arkeologiska Samfundet.

She is part of a research group working on the practice of grave reopening (reopenedgraves.eu), and a founder member of the Archaeothanatology Working Group (https://lnu.se/en/research/searchresearch/archaeothanatology-working-group/)

In 2021, she co-organized at SU the 7th PAG workshop - Fragmentation in archaeological context. The volume "Broken Bodies, Places and Objects: New Perspectives on Fragmentation in Archaeology" was published via Routledge on November 2022.
 

 

Publications

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

  • In Search of an Acceptable Past: History, Archaeology, and ‘Looted’ Graves in the Construction of the Frankish Early Middle Ages

    2022. Astrid A. Noterman, Alison Klevnäs. Interdisciplinary Explorations of Postmortem Interaction, 133-166

    Chapter

    The Early Middle Ages have provided material for imagining selves and groups in a wide range of contexts since the earliest beginnings of the historical and archaeological disciplines. Considerable recent research has shown how modern political conflicts and regional-national identities have crystallized in this period in particular. This essay traces ways in which early medieval remains, mainly from the richly furnished cemeteries, have been brought into play in developing scholarly and popular accounts of the history of France. During the second half of the nineteenth century, the recovery of considerable numbers of finely worked grave goods from the large rural cemeteries provided material for studying and reevaluating Merovingian-period societies, previously only glimpsed in written sources and largely out-competed as national ancestors by the popular appeal of Gaulish warriors. Yet paradoxically, another form of discovery in the same burial grounds seemed to place them back in the Dark Ages: many graves were found to have been ransacked and robbed soon after burial, making the communities of the time appear lawless and barbarous. Archaeological attitudes towards excavated early medieval graves, and in particular the many thousands of graves already reopened in antiquity, not only highlight key aspects of the development of the discipline, but also reveal ways in which the remains of the dead may be integral to processes of national identity construction.

    Read more about In Search of an Acceptable Past

  • La vie quotidienne des Mérovingiens

    2018. Cécile Chapelain de Seréville-Niel, Julia Pacory, Astrid A. Noterman. Vous avez dit barbares? Archéologie des temps mérovingiens en Normandie, Ve-VIIIe siècles , 118-121

    Chapter
    Read more about La vie quotidienne des Mérovingiens

Show all publications by Astrid Noterman at Stockholm University

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