Includes bibliographical references and index.

Preliminary Material / G. Halsall -- Introduction / G. Halsall -- Chapter One. Archaeology And Historiography / G. Halsall -- Commentary One: Archaeology And Its Discontents / G. Halsall -- Introduction To Part Two / G. Halsall -- Chapter Two. The Origins Of The Reihengräberzivilisation: Forty Years On / G. Halsall -- Chapter Three. Archaeology And The Late Roman Frontier In Northern Gaul: The So-Called Föderatengräber Reconsidered / G. Halsall -- Commentary Two: Careful With That Axe, Eugenius / G. Halsall -- Chapter Four. Childeric’s Grave, Clovis’ Succession, And The Origins Of The Merovingian Kingdom / G. Halsall -- Commentary Three: Once More Unto Saint-Brice / G. Halsall -- Introduction To Part Three / G. Halsall -- Chapter Five. Burial, Ritual And Merovingian Society / G. Halsall -- Chapter Six. Burial Writes: Graves, \'Texts\' And Time In Early Merovingian Northern Gaul / G. Halsall -- Commentary Four: Ritual And Commemoration / G. Halsall -- Chapter Seven. Examining The Christianization Of The Region Of Metz From Archaeological Sources (5th–7th Centuries): Problems, Possibilities And Implications For Anglo-Saxon England / G. Halsall -- Introduction To Part Four / G. Halsall -- Chapter Eight. Female Status And Power In Early Merovingian Central Austrasia: The Burial Evidence / G. Halsall -- Commentary Five: Grave-Goods, Female Status And The Cemetery Of Ennery / G. Halsall -- Chapter Nine. Material Culture, Sex, Gender, Sexuality And Transgression In Sixth-Century Gaul / G. Halsall -- Chapter Ten. Merovingian Masculinities / G. Halsall -- Chapter Eleven. Growing Up In Merovingian Gaul / G. Halsall -- Index / G. Halsall.

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Seven of Guy Halsall's most important essays on the social interpretation of Merovingian cemetery archaeology are collected in this volume. The opening chapter discusses the relationships between documentary history and archaeology while the subsequent articles cover the interpretation of fourth-century Gallic furnished inhumations, the celebrated burial of King Childeric I, and the ways in which one might 'read' a burial as evidence for ritual. The final part of the book looks at the social history of Merovingian communities as revealed in cemetery evidence, looking at gender, sexuality and age. The reprinted chapters are accompanied by two wholly rewritten pieces and two entirely new articles. Finally, the book contains five extended 'commentaries' on the debates to which these chapters contributed.