Astrid Noterman
Researcher at Department of Archaeology and Ancient History and Conservation; Archaeology
- E-mail:
- astrid.noterman@arkeologi.uu.se
- Visiting address:
- Engelska parken, Thunbergsvägen 3H
- Postal address:
- Box 626
751 26 UPPSALA
- ORCID:
- 0000-0002-1189-9205
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Short presentation
Astrid A. Noterman is a researcher specializing in mortuary archaeology, with a particular focus on archaeothanatology. Her main area of expertise is Western Europe from the 5th to the 9th century. She is interested in secondary interventions in early medieval graves, early medieval written sources and historiography.
Keywords
- archaeothanatology
- burial archaeology
- high middle ages
- merovingian period
- mortuary practices
- osteology
- taphonomy
Biography
Astrid A. Noterman joined the Department of Archaeology and Ancient History at Uppsala University in 2023 as part of the ERC-funded project PresentDead, and which investigate post-burial disturbances in Central and Eastern Europe from the 5th to the 8th centuries CE.
She completed her PhD on Merovingian reopened graves from northern France in 2016 at the University of Poitiers in France. Her approach to early medieval grave reopening includes archaeology, mortuary studies and early medieval written. She published her doctoral thesis in 2021 and provides the first synthesis of early medieval tomb reopenings in France, discussing the archaeological and taphonomic evidence for the practice, as well as its motivations and impact on the understanding of Merovingian burial rites.
In 2022, she published a paper on the archaeothanatology of reopened graves with Edeltraud Aspöck and Karina Gerdau-Radonić.
From 2018 to 2021, she was a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies at Stockholm University, and worked on a project project funded by the Swedish Research Council on ‘Interacting with the dead. Belief and conflict in Early Medieval Europe (AD 450-750)’ and led by Alison Klevnäs.
She is currently working on three research projects at Stockholm University and Uppsala University:
- 2022-2026 - Olle Engkvists stiftelse funded project ‘The Sleeping Dead. An archaeological and emotional reading of bed inhumations in Europe from the 6th to 10th centuries CE’.
- 2022-2024 - Marcus & Amalia Wallenbergs Minnesfond funded project ‘Collecting the dead: life course and kin relations in the transition to churchyard burial on Gotland (c. 950-1250 AD)’, and led by Alison Klevnäs.
- 2025-2028 - Swedish Research funded project 'Transforming heaven and earth: local communities and the end of life in the conversion to Christianity in east-central Sweden (950-1250 CE)', led by Cecilia Ljung and in collaboration with Alison Klevnäs.
- 2023-2026 - ERC funded project ‘The Present Dead: Investigating interactions with the dead in early medieval central and eastern Europe from 5th to 8th centuries CE’, and led by Edeltraud Aspöck.
She is a member of Svenska Arkeologiska Samfundet and an elected member of the Sachsensymposium.
She is also a collaborator of the Center for Medieval Studies (CESCM), France, since 2017.
She is part of a research group working on the practice of grave reopening, and a founder member of the Archaeothanatology Working Group.