Propylaeum

The pyre site in Herzebrock-Clarholz – dating to the Migration Period – is a real archaeological rarity, even beyond the region. In addition, 22 graves from the 4^th and 5^th century were examined here. Apparently, the burial ceremony itself was of central importance for the bereaved, because a considerable part of the grave goods and bones remained at the place of cremation and was not deposited in the graves. This has crucial implications for reconstructions of the societies of the time, which often rely on grave goods.
The long occupation of the burial ground in Beelen from the 3^rd to the 7^th century indicates a continuity of settlement beyond the end of the Roman Imperial period. The sites in Beelen and Herzebrock-Clarholz indicate a population that was sometimes influenced more by Frankish and sometimes more by Saxon models. There is, once again, no evidence for the now outdated thesis of the forcible southern expansion of the Saxons and the inclusion of Westphalia in the Saxon sphere of power since the end of the 7^th century.
This thesis was accepted as a dissertation at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster in 2008.