Astrid Noterman

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
• mortuary practices
• osteology
• burial archaeology
• high middle ages
• merovingian period
• 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. Her research focuses on late Iron Age mortuary practices, archaeothanatology and historiography of past archaeology.

Since 2022, she has been working with Alison Klevnäs and Cecilia Ljung on funded research projects focusing on the conversion of Gotland and eastern Sweden to Christianity.

She's currently leading a Berit Wallenberg funded project entitled "Marking your bite. The mechanisms and social implications of dental modification in the Viking Age". This project investigates the range of artificial modifications and wear patterns seen on teeth from the ‘long Viking Age’ in order to ask how and why the marks were produced.

She has just completed a research project (2022–2026) focusing on late Iron Age bed burials funded by Olle Engkvists stiftelse ‘The Sleeping Dead. An archaeological and emotional reading of bed inhumations in Europe from the 6th to 10th centuries CE’.

Astrid A. Noterman 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.

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 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.

Media

On bed burial pratices in early medieval Europe:

• https://medium.com/teatime-history/who-may-sleep-in-the-bed-of-the-dead-examining-the-mysterious-bed-burials-of-medieval-europe-15371b4ac565
• https://archaeologymag.com/2025/06/medieval-bed-burials-across-europe-reveal-cultural-diversity/
• https://phys.org/news/2025-06-rare-medieval-bed-burials-considerable.html

On grave reopenings in early medieval Europe:

• https://the-past.com/news/reopening-graves-a-widespread-practice-in-early-medieval-europe-research-reveals/
• https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/why-did-medieval-people-reopen-graves-180978034/
• https://edition.cnn.com/2021/06/17/world/medieval-graves-study-scli-intl-scn