Uncovering the Germanic past : Merovingian archaeology in France, 1830-1914
Effros, BonnieAuthor
Oxford : Oxford University Press,
2012.
Bonnie Effros brings to light an unexpected side effect of France's 19th century Industrial Revolution. While laying tracks for new rail lines, quarrying for stone, and expanding lands under cultivation, French labourers uncovered bones and artefacts from long-forgotten cemeteries. Although their original owners were unknown, research by a growing number of amateur archaeologists of the bourgeois class determined that these were the graves of Germanic 'warriors', and their work challenged prevailing views in France of the population's exclusively Gallic ancestry.
Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Bonnie Effros brings to light an unexpected side effect of France's 19th century Industrial Revolution. While laying tracks for new rail lines, quarrying for stone, and expanding lands under cultivation, French labourers uncovered bones and artefacts from long-forgotten cemeteries. Although their original owners were unknown, research by a growing number of amateur archaeologists of the bourgeois class determined that these were the graves of Germanic 'warriors', and their work challenged prevailing views in France of the population's exclusively Gallic ancestry.
Description based on print version record.
Introduction -- Pt. 1. Archaeological research in nineteenth-century France. Centralizing archaeological research in nineteenth-century France ; Learned societies and archaeological research in nineteenth-century France -- Pt. 2. The politics of Merovingian archaeology. Developing approaches to Merovingian archaeology ; The politics of Merovingian-period finds ; Institutionalizing the amateur's craft ; Archaeological museums, Merovingian antiquities, and their audiences ; Public reception of Merovingian-period finds ; Epilogue: Merovingian archaeology on the eve of World War I and afterwards.
Archaeology
Archaeology and history
Historiography
Nationalism
Merovingians
Regions & Countries - Europe
History & Archaeology
France