 I'd like to say thank you to the organizers that have given to me the opportunity to discuss without you about the lombards. So that is one of the migrant population present in Europe at the beginning of the Middle Ages. As you know, the approaching to the study of Bunsen population is never simple. And as we are so far, this challenge can be fought using the interdisciplinarity. So I'm here to present how the population on the move arrived in Italy and changed the Roman political especially I'll introduce you to settlements maybe the less known from the north of Italy, Povigliano-Veronese and from the central Italy, La Cervicciola. The biological investigation that we are running out in Sapienza University of Rome with University of Catholic and Milan has the aim to explore the lifestyle of these two lombard communities as they arrived in Italy. And to compare eventual biological changes in the passage from a migrant to a stationary population. Changes that are clearly shown from the material culture. So from their mythic origins in south of Scandinavia at the beginning of the first century BC, the lombards left their land and started a very long migration through the north of Europe along the hunger of the so-called Pannonia, the Roman region where they have been spent 42 years before to move to Italy. When lombards finally arrived in Italy, their Germanic traditions were very strong as we can see in the dead's grave goods. From these moments in Italy, the use of burying the dressed dead starts and especially a lot of weapons starts to be present in warrior's grave goods. At the end of the sixth century, who has taken part of the battle to conquer the peninsula was buried with typical Germanic weapons and a wooden structure called Trottembrecht or Houses of the Dead where we can see four holes where the pales were located to support the roof. Anyway, during the next generation, this habit changed underlying a preference for the Byzantine or Roman style as it is shown in the picture here. Well, the belt is composed of more pieces and new weapon is introduced, the scrum sacs, a single cut knife. The crucial point that starts during the second generation of lombards in Italy and that becomes more evident in the next generation is the representation of the power. It is necessary to specify that with the lombard invasion, the central control guaranteed by the empire, the Roman empire ended. So then, with the third generation, the act of burying the dead is the key moment where all the communities present and the transmission of the inheritance status to the dead's group is clear, seen and approved. The ritual of the funeral is administrated by the parental group without external forms lasting in time. The variable appeal to sometimes objects in the Germanic or Byzantine style shows that the elements of the funeral items were not chosen to underline the ethnic belongings but to show off the social prestige achieved. So the great boots started to be even more rich up to contain golden staff for the horse riding clearly not used but only given to the dead. On the other hand, female great boots had to reflect the man's high status. So if during the first phase, the fibulae recall immediately to the Germanic style made in precious materials, during the following generations, the Byzantine influences were even more present, that is, from the first generation and then the next ones. Especially, the realization of the brutes as we can see here, where the shape is completely modified, moreover, a new object become even more common, they were in sports. Even if there are some academics that interpret these words, not as a tool, but as a kind of hoarding the metal. So now the message is clear, the power or the high status is shared among a restricted number of people. But how can we understand if in this period of transition of people and traditions, the man was really a horse rider as suggested by the presence of the staff. So with the aim to answer to this question, to get a collection from Necropolis is an object I hear presented from the countryside. So let's start with Povlian Varonesi. This Necropolis was discovered in 1985, 15 kilometers of this of the city of Verona. During the Roman and post-classical periods, the site was along via Postumia, one of the main ancient Roman roads of Northern Italy, that he's hearing red on the map used by German population to get into the peninsula. The tombs appear to be organized in large nooks and within these are aligned on straight lines, even if often on short segments. Seen the distribution of sex and age, it seems very likely that each group may represent an extended family group. Even if in other Italian Necropolis, the organization of the space seems clear because it's space and generation occupies a confined zone. On the contrary, at Povlian Varonesi, all sector of the large Necropolis are used for the whole duration with progressive development without changing the area of immigration that is the pattern shown here in C. So, from the analysis of Strontium, 26% of the sample population belongs to the group of non-locals, probably migrated there during their lifetime. All these individuals show an ancient grateful that imbed to the first phase of Lombards in Italy, so around 568. It is interesting to note that these values are compatible with those of the Lombards buried in Hungarian Necropolis of Zola, even if these kinds of data should be very, very controlled. Finally, a low range of isotopic values of the group of a Loptioness does not show correspondences with the other groups. Likely, they were individuals integrated to the Lombards, sorry, to the Lombards on their way to Italy to become warriors or to join marriage or because they are prisoners of war. Moreover, further analysis on carbon and nitrogen will help us to clarify the diet. It seems clear that the oral hygiene was not so common among the Lombards in Povogliano-Veronese, especially all the people show higher percentage of caries, especially from the first generation. These can maybe be explained because of a carbon hydrate-based diet not followed by the Lombards before they arrived in Italy. Indeed, the percentage of caries in the two following generations matches very well with the new diet. This change of life can be seen also in the musculoskeletal stress markers and pathologies. 34% of the odors shows clear signs of the osteoarthritis on the back. High rate of degenerative joint disease in the hips and torsals and metatarsals reveal an heavy stress of the lower skeleton. Moreover, it is, in one case, it's clear the so-called night syndrome. And moreover, a man exhibits several skeletal defects that can reflect changes to an amputated forearm. So, over the surprisingly findings, his survival shows a very deep knowledge of medicine in a pre-antibiotic area. Finally, from the analysis of the epigenetic traits, two groups of individuals pop up from the east of the Necropolis. The first group of three burials to them have an equal set of epigenetic traits. The second one, composed by four individuals, shows two individuals with a type of burial that is called the tontembre and epigenetics in common. So now let's go to the site of La Silvigiolla in central Italy. The exhibition, still ongoing, revealed the existence of a vast rural villa complex with a well-defined funerary area. As you said, with the Necropolis, it was found at Christian Church with a single laser. The rural villa around the 5th century was abandoned and then testified by collapsed oil and black soils into the walls of the buildings and so indicating the use of the inner part of the villa for farm purposes. Moreover, the population that remained there after the villa abandonment started the funerary area. When the long bar group arrived on the ruins of the villa, there is a modest living presence witnessed by post-holes in the culture-based floors of the villa. So the long bar starts living there in wooden hearts and burying dead in the same funerary area. Here, the smallest rectangle that we can see here, we can see long bar groups formed by all our men with the richest grade goods are shown in green circles. It is interesting how parts of them was buried in the church as to imitate the burials as Santa near the holy part of the church. And another part remained very well separated in another area of the Necropolis. So the paleopatological analysis has underlined high presence of Cribra or Vitalia and high peristosis in children and adults. A survey based on the consumption of plants and meat showed a low isotopic variability of animal proteins indicating a good supply of meat, milk and products derived from this. However, a study conducted on the health of the oral cavity showed a high percentage of caries suggesting an important serial consumption confirmed by the hyperostosis. Specifically, this pathology seems to be related to the high consumption of cereals. And moreover, a certain difference in diet, specifically about the consumption of fish and C14 plants was in favor of older individuals over the age of 50. And this is also evident in the difference between men and women. So guided by the archeological division of the burials between the first and the following generation in Povelliano-Beronese and the differentiation between Roman and Longo-Bark burials at La Selvicciola we have performed a first set of infos about the stature. And with this analysis, the individuals of the first generation of Povelliano-Beronese appeared to be taller than the ones from La Selvicciola. And then, the slightly decrease in stature at Povelliano in the subsequent generation is statistically significant. Anyway, all the individuals from Povelliano and La Selvicciola are taller than Roman herapidants in Italy in the post-classical period. So, how can we proceed now? At the moment, we have tried to answer in part to the questions about mobility, lifestyle, and diet. But it's necessary to extend the example to other individuals from the same necropolis especially to understand the relationships between Lombards and locals. Moreover, other necropolises can be taken in consideration like, for example, San Mauro near Cividale del Frierelli to focus on the first Lombards arrived in the peninsula or like Castel Trusino near the center of Italy. A very rich necropolis, very strategic and in clear connection with the business with Rome. It's clear so that DNA analysis among the German population and the Roman ones can help to understand the speech of integration and how the ethnicity was not so crucial in the immigration period in Italy. As the successful example from Collegna has demonstrated with the integration among Romans, Lombards, and Franks. At least, yeah, there are all the collaborators of the project and I want to thank you for listening. So, we're going to start with that Katin Muller from the University of Freiburg who's looking at challenges and theories surrounding settlement in internal burial sites in southern Germany. And this work is from her master's thesis but she's just started or just about to start her PhD. Okay, I want to welcome you. I will talk about the settlement internal burial sites in southern Germany, as you heard, and with that, the transition of burial behavior in early medieval times. The settlement internal burial sites better known as farmyard, burial grounds with a theme of master's thesis also as you heard. And today, I want to present some challenges and theories surrounding them. First, I want to give a short introduction into different burial forms as from the Maribulli-Vingian period. In southern Germany, different styles of burial grounds can be observed from the late 7th century on. During that time, the usually used rogue gravesty yards, or I never felt that start to decrease while other forms came up like the separation on rogue gravesty yards or totally separated small groups which seem to be created without references to any other structures. We can also observe circular trenches of burial mounds and at least we can see a shift from outside of the settlement to the inside. Next to the upcoming churchyards, also burials without any relation to churches come up and these are the settlement internal burial sites. And by the end of this transitional period, the church yard has established as the only burial ground. So burials at churches are not part of this type, even if they are also located inside the settlement but another background is presumed. So now how can burials be determined as settlement internal ones and which conditions have to be given to be able to work with them? First, there are prerequisites. The graves have to be located inside the settlement and the settlement has to be documented and both of them, the settlement and the graves need to have existed during the same time which is not always easy to prove. And secondary requests, requisites have to identify whether the graves date approximately the same time as the settlement or not and indication therefore can be if the graves show any relation to the settlement structures or if they're orientated West East. And third point is that the research conditions that have to be given to be able to analyze this phenomena that means that on the one hand, that the excavation techniques have to be modern or at least the settlement itself has to be documented. On the other hand, the data and research have to be accessible. So some of the most famous sites with graves inside settlements are not yet fully published. So a real source criticism can hardly be done. I followed my criteria and was able to identify 30 sites in Southern Germany so far. Here you can see the examination. It includes the regions, Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria. The red dots mark the places where the burials were found. 23 of them are located in Bavaria, only seven in Baden-Württemberg. This doesn't display a real distribution but also the intensity of archeological research. And that's about the location of Lauchheim, my next example. This is, it is one of the most popular grave groups in Germany. This group can be called a prime example. Seven graves are situated close to a farmyard as the different stages of the closure show. The second and third stage date the same time as the graves. So over the time, graves were included to the farmyard. That makes it obvious that they belong together. As I said, this is a prime example. In Lauchheim, there are many graves and grave groups that are less known. The group I just showed is down there in the east, south-east. Here you can see the whole plan of the excavation. The size of the excavation is of great importance but most of the time, more than just one grave group can be observed, like you can see it. There are a lot more groups which are less known. One reason is the amount of grave goods, as we heard before, that were found rich goods in the south-eastern part group and the others were less rich. So the investigation on these other graves were not that intense, like on the southern group. So they were never really considered so far. As I said, this example, the first example was a prime example. Usually the grave groups are less systematic. So with a closer look, several forms couldn't be observed. That's one example. This grave group five is a triangular form and is not included through trenches. The analysis of Valerie Schoenberg, the excavator, point out that this group could be orientated on a pathway that can be observed very often. Also, it is unsure which structure of the farm they're following, so that's usually the case. It is not possible to say whom or which farm to whom these graves belong to. The term of farm yard burial grounds implicates the belonging of the grave graves to a farm. Different forms and belongings brought me to the point to choose the term of settlement internal burial site. So now I'm going to present the previous chronological reconstruction of the transition from the royal grave yard to the church yard during the Marrowingan period, the second half of the fifth till the beginning of the seventh century, people of the settlement or from several farms that used one big royal grave yard. At the beginning of the late Marrowingan period, the second half of the seventh century several other burial forms came up. Like I said, at the beginning, beside the royal grave yard, it was possible to bury it at other places like inside the settlement or especially at the church yard. At the beginning of the eighth century, this phase is ending with the degrees of the different types until the Carrowingan period from the mid eighth century on, which displays the last phase of the transition. The church yard was established as the only burial ground while the other forms abandoned. This leads me to the main problem we have to serve with when studying the burial practice of the Carrowingan period. In Germany, we have grave goods started, in Germany grave goods started to disappear from the seventh eighth century on. So there is a grave group, if there is a grave group with grave goods and without grave goods, the whole group will be dated by the goods. Here, there you can see how many graves were buried with goods of mine. The 30 sites include 883 graves. 305 of them are hard to determine. That's 35%. 247 burials or 28% do have goods while 331 burials and 37% do not have any goods or signs of them left. So the dating of the whole phenomena of graves inside settlement was accurately made by a few, like this 28%. That makes it obvious that the end of the burials inside settlements is similar with the end of the practice to bury with grave goods. By archeological typology and stratigraphy, at least one site point to a longer dating phase of the phenomena. Bad Kotzin Glöckliwuk, one of the graves was sunk into the side wall of a cellar and the terminus posquem of the ninth century is given by pottery founder The Filling. But here, only two of the 30 sites were graves dated by radio cavemen analyzers. Both indicate a longer period of the settlement internal grave groups till the ninth or even 10th century. One of them is Keelheim Canal 1, as you see here. You can see the whole excavation area. The red circles mark the graves. The data displayed shows the sigma two range. For one of these graves, it's possible to be created in the late seventh century, while for the others, it is likely to be created at the time between the second half and of the eighth and the 10th century. This date must be the beginning of new investigations to determine the runtime for more precisely. Now I want to change the point of view to now I presented some challenges when studying the end of the transition. Now I want to discuss the beginning of the origin of the phenomena, which reasons let the people to bury their laters within the space of the living. There are three theories why the people started to bury their laters inside of the settlement. I want to present and discuss them in a simplified form. These theories are based on religion, on vertical social diversity and on horizontal social diversity. So the theory about radical change in the religious beliefs, which affects the burials in an elementary way while the church and Christianity are evolving more and more is the first part. The people did not want to bury on a pagan rogue graveyard anymore, so other burial sites needed to be created. The best way would have been at a church yard. Churches were not located in every settlement yet, so they had to bury somewhere else. And on the other hand, the theory was turned around so that only the burial at the church is Christian while the other forms, like the farm yard burials, are pagan. Today we know about so many counterarguments for both of them that this theory cannot be the answer. First, the rogue graveyards are already established in a Christian context. And some of the burials on rogue graveyards and inside of settlements have Christian grave goods like gold foil crosses, which demonstrate the Christian surrounding. Another point is that we do not know any prohibition of other burial grounds than the church yard. The only prohibition we know is by Charlemagne at the end of the eighth century. These are directed at the Saxons and within their context, they are limited in space and time. They do not allow any generalization. Special grave constructions or grave goods are used as a marker for an upper social class. They can be started long discussion about grave goods and what they can tell us about the status of the buried person. But here I don't want to focus on that. But what can be said is that, as you saw, only 28% were buried with goods. Only 16 burials of these do have an extraordinary rich furnishing. That's around 1.8% of all burials found inside of settlements. And Rea Tiamat did some more logic studies and nitrogen as a topic analysis to define the quality of the specific diet of the burials of the site of Kalaheim, an example you saw before. The results of a comparison within the graves and the graves of a closed row graveyard show no differences. So an upper social class cannot be proven here. It seems like there was no restriction of who is allowed to be buried there, at least in terms of vertical social diversity. Another theory why this burial form came up is the consolidation of land. If they only try to legitimize claim on farmstead and land, we can hardly reconstruct the ownership of this time. So this thesis can hardly be verified. As Pantheos said or showed, the creation of an anchorstall order could be a way of formulating such a claim. This order can be created by the founding of a grave group with rich equipment or rich equipped grave of a male on a farm yard. Looking at the single graves and assuming that it was not intended that they should remain single at the time of their formation, but should form the beginning of a group, we see that this model does not apply to southern Germany. Less than 40% of all single burials are male and only about 30% do have grave goods, but not especially rich ones. So first, summarizing the current theories are not convincing enough to explain the phenomena. However, it seems like the people had the pre-choice where to bury their relatives. What can be said is that there are too many of these small burial grounds to be considered as unusual. Questions come up. Did the family become more important during this time? At least death was more integrated into the society of the living. This lead to the change in the form of burial. And second, the transition of burial grounds was already declared to be explained, but as the possibilities of archaeological research move on, the data shows a long lasting development or continuity rather than a break and radical change. More of the graves should be dated by radiocaven analysis, lysis, or dendrochronology if possible. This will help to fulfill the gap of the 9th and 10th century. The problem of missing dates is not only a challenge when studying the settlement into burials, but also of the other ties of burial grounds. The still used but outdated model of transition from the rogue rip yard to the church yard needs to be redesigned. Thank you.