Burning Questions Identity and Late Bronze Age/ Early Iron Age Cremation Cemetaries

Identity and mobility are two very important topics in current Bronze Age research, since this period marks a dramatic increase in long-distance connections. In contrast with many of the large-scale research projects into these phenomena, this volume brings the search for identities back down to a local level; focusing on how identities were constructed within individual cemeteries, and what role mobility might have played for burial form and content. Using diverse social theories and drawing upon natural scientific methods, an approach is developed for investigating identities within cremation cemeteries; an often overlooked data source. Through the application of this approach to two case study sites (Vollmarshausen, near Kassel and Künzing, in Lower Bavaria), new insights could be gained into Late Bronze Age identities, their construction and negotiation, and the social structures within which they played out.