page_title: Early Germanic culture
section_title: Funerary practices
hierarchical_section_title: Early Germanic culture / Funerary practices
caption_attribution_description: my own pic for wikipedia use
context_page_description: Early Germanic culture refers to the culture of the early Germanic peoples. Largely derived from a synthesis of Proto-Indo-European and indigenous Northern European elements, the Germanic culture developed out of the Nordic Bronze Age. It came under significant external influence during the Migration Period, particularly from ancient Rome.
  The Germanic peoples eventually overwhelmed the Western Roman Empire, which by the Middle Ages facilitated their conversion from paganism to Christianity and the abandonment of their tribal way of life. Certain traces of early Germanic culture have survived among the Germanic peoples up to the present day.
context_section_description: In Neolithic Northern Europe, the deceased were generally buried by inhumation.
  By the early Bronze Age, cremation became more frequent, and eventually universal. The deceased was generally burnt at a funeral pyre, while his weapons and other possessions were placed in an urn for burial. Leading members of the community were sometimes buried in burial mounds. During the Pre-Roman Iron Age, the possessions of the deceased was sometimes placed in a hollowed-out grave without an urn. During the Roman period, urns were typically placed in flat graves.
  The deceased was buried along with his possessions so that he could bring them to the afterlife. Such possessions included weapons, personal adornments and other belongings, sometimes including the owner's horse and even his boat. In certain rare cases the deceased was even buried along with several of his servants, who would be slain for the purpose.
  Tacitus reports that certain Germanic individuals were inhumated in mound graves. Archaeological evidence does not suggest that this was a common practice.
  Cremation appears to have been much more common and long lasting in Scandinavia than in other Germanic territories.
  Among the coastal and island peoples of the north, the deceased was often placed with all his possessions in his boat, and then set on fire. Boat burials remained common in later times, even when inhumation was reintroduced. In such burials, the body was often placed in a boat over which a burial mound was erected.
  Inhumation became common again during the Migration period. Since such graves were often arranged in long rows, they have been called row-graves. They are not distinguished by mounds. Often they were arranged on either side of a high-way. This was a practice that had survived from Neolithic times.
caption: The Håga mound at Uppsala, Sweden is from the Nordic Bronze Age
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