Anglo-Saxon burial mounds

Anglo-Saxon burial mounds refers to the burial mounds - also known as barrows or tumuli - that were produced during the late sixth and seventh centuries CE in Anglo-Saxon England. Such barrows were "princely burials", being of high status individuals who would have been members of the social elite within their local tribal group. Some of the most prestigious were "chamber burials", containing a richly furnished wooden chamber within the mound, but in others the corpse had simply been buried into the ground and had a mound erected on top.

Early Anglo-Saxon burial involved both inhumation and cremation, with burials then being deposited in cemeteries. At this time, the Anglo-Saxons adhered to a pagan religion, but as Christianity was introduced in the seventh century, it gradually became the dominant and eventually sole religion amongst the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Many of those buried in barrows were pagan, but others were instead Christian, and it is usually impossible for archaeologists to know which religion an individual belonged to.

Earlier peoples living in Britain during the Neolithic and Bronze Ages had also constructed barrows for use as places of burial, something that was recognised by the Anglo-Saxon burial builders, who in many cases re-used these earlier barrows for their own uses.

Tumulus burials were not restricted to the Anglo-Saxons, but had a long pedigree in prehistoric and early mediaeval Europe. By this latter date, when the Anglo-Saxon society existed, such burials were not restricted to any one cultural or ethnic group, with Germanic-speaking, Slavic-speaking and Celtic-speaking peoples of the period all taking part in such a burial practice for elite members of their societies.

In the Roman Iron Age, whilst the construction of barrows had ended in Britain, it had continued in areas of continental Europe free from Roman domination. The Hallstatt culture which existed in central Europe between c. 750 and 400 BCE utilised chamber burials within barrows as the way of commemorating deceased members of the social elite. The most prominent known Hallstatt example is the Hochdorf Chieftain's Grave, which dates from c. 550 BCE and which was richly laden with grave goods.

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