ABSTRACT
As essentially new foundations, the emporia that emerged in Northern Europe in the period c. AD 700–1000 AD had to be populated from somewhere, from far afield or closer. As a result, their first inhabitants were technically ‘newcomers’, even when originating from the immediate surroundings. While it has long been acknowledged that these sites were essentially multicultural environments, we still have little understanding of who decided to settle there and the role of individual actors in the running of the maritime exchange networks. Chiefly focusing on one site, previous research has seen these communities as either solidly anchored in a local landscape, its power structures and cultural repertoires, or as mobile and unstable, living ‘on the road’ and creating new forms of cultural identity along the way. The question of the routinized interdependency of these relatively distant urban sites, focusing on the exchange of goods and technologies, has led to various models for the circulation of traders, craftspeople and other agents, but has not yet made use of another major set of evidence – burial remains.
