The chronology and structure of the Sejlflod cemetery, Northern Jutland, Denmark

The Sejlflod cemetery in Northern Jutland, containing almost 300 graves from the Late Roman and Early Germanic Iron Age, occupies a central position in a North European perspective. This arises in particular from the fact that the graves are inhumation burials furnished with a relative abundance of grave goods and that the cemetery represents the entire adult population of a village through time. An understanding of the Sejlflod cemetery is important for investigations of other similar cemeteries and burial grounds, for studies of a range of period-defining artefacts and for analyses of the social circumstances of the time. It is, however, heavily dependent on knowledge of the cemetery’s chronological structure. On the basis of the pottery, it has proved possible to divide the cemetery up into four chronological phases. This division is supported by stylistic and chronological analyses of the fibulas and a few other artefact types from the graves. Surprisingly, the chronological analysis does not reveal a horizontal stratigraphical development. On the contrary, it provides a basis for a new interpretation of the cemetery as a progressive fusion of independent family grave clusters