The inhabitants of farmsteads, villas and hamlets in the countryside maintained communal cemeteries. In Treveran territory one of the most conspicuous types of funerary monuments was the burial mound or tumulus. This pre-Roman tradition continued in the Treveran ewitas well into the second century, and also in the riverside areas of Treveran lands which were detached from Gallia Belgica and reorganised in AD 85 as Germania Superior. Family tumuli on or near the grounds of villas include those from Nickcnich with funerary statues of family members and dedicatory inscriptions of mid-first-century date. The tumuli associated with a second-century farm near Wdlfersheim in the Agri Decumates might provide some confirmation of Tacitus’ claim that many settlers originally came from Gaul {Germania 29). But tumuli are also occasionally found on Germanic sites in Germania Inferior, particularly on the northern lower Rhine, These are associated with rural hamlets, where the cemeteries are located at a distance from the settlement. The cemetery served by the inhabitants at Hoogeloon lay 1300ft (4O0m) north-east of the settlement. In the first century this cemetery was characterised by large burial enclosures, with the addition of a tumulus in the late second or early third century. One octagonal and two square burial mounds dominated the rural cemetery at Esch.
In the hinterland of the provincial capital of Germania Inferior, no tumuli have been found on or near villas. The villas were connected to the main roads leading from the countryside to the city, and the family funerary monuments were built adjacent to these roads as ostentatious forms of display. These include chamber tombs to the west of Cologne at Weiden (36) and Hurth-EfFeren, and relief-decorated tower tombs within a walled enclosure or so-called grave garden to the south and north of the city at Ossendorf
36 Chamber tomb with sarcophagi and burial niches in Cokgne-Weiden, Certmny. Courtesy Rheinisches Bildarchiv
And Wesseling, An enclosed family cemetery in use in the late first and early second century is known on the estate of a villa owner at Wolpcrtswende-Mochcnwangen north of the Bodensee (37). The wealth and status of the family is expressed in the richness of grave finds deposited with cremation burials in four tombs, the largest measuring 21 x 26ft (6.5 X 8m) in size and adorned with a marble funerary inscription. These funerary monuments functioned no less than those of similar type in suburban areas as memorials to the deceased and advenisements of their social status.
Not only the villa owner, but also hired personnel and perhaps slaves lived and worked on villa estates. Whether or not they were all buried together is difficult to determine, and only possible if the actual burials, and not just the tomb buildings or fragments of them, are examined. The chances of relating the identity and status of the deceased to the inhabitants of the villa estates are also increased if the cemeteries are located in the immediate surroundings of the residential sector of villas. At Rottenburg-Hailfingen the completely excavated cemetery included 37 cremation burials from the early second to early third century. These included cremation burials in urns with few grave goods and cremations with whole sets of crockery in larger rectangular pits. One or two richer burials were grouped with several poorer burials in three distinct concentrations, leading the excavator to suggest that each of the groups represents a generation of villa owners buried with their farm personnel. At the farm known as Harnbach 516 west of Cologne the earliest cemetery of the first century contained burials of four individuals who may have belonged to the same family, presumably of the first settlers. At Cologne-Miingersdorf cremation burials of the first and second centuries were situated in two locations: in an unwalled area to the north-east of the farm buildings (59 burials) and in a walled cemetery immediately outside the boundary wall of the complex (see 32). This spatial division, which may represent some sort of segregation between the villa’s
Inhabitants, is not fully understood. Possibly the cremation burials belonged to the farm personnel whilst the graves of the villa proprietors were laid out at an unknown site close to the road leading to the villa. In the late third and fourth centuries six inhumation burials in stone sarcophagi were interred in one small area inside the boundary wall, and at least in this phase these probably represent the villa owner’s family. The inclusion of sarcophagus burials within the confines of the farm complex may reflect the desire to protect the family burial site from intruders or marauders at a time of social unrest and insecurity, a phenomenon also witnessed after the middle of the third century at Rheinbach-Flerzhcim (38). Whether or not the farm workers were interred somewhere else in less expensive containers is unknown.
Rural cemeteries occasionally allow insight into population groups which may have shifted in dominance over time. One such example is the cemetery at Tbnisvorst-Vorst between Cologne and Xanten. The earliest, Tiberian burials are cremation burials in urns, accompanied by pottery and metal objects identified as Elbe-Getmanic in character. In the second half of the first century, this original core of settlers from east of the Rhine may have been joined by a substantial group of newcomers from northern Gaul who buried their dead in a manner characteristic of their homeland, namely in square enclosures. Each enclosure contained at least one cremation burial. Although the settlement to which the cemetery belonged has not yet been located, the burials allow a reconstruction of the size of the settlement and the number of households in it. Only about 30 settlers lived here in the early first century, increasing to between 80 to 200 (12-30 households) in the early second century.
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