Jewelry, topography and architecture: indicators of social stratificationin the early visigothic periodin Spain and Southern France

Reflection of the social organization in the funeral context is one of the leaststudied aspects of the sites dating to the Visigothic Period in the Western Mediterranean.However, new research such as a comprehensive study of the funeral offerings, topographyof cemeteries and their links to the ‘centers of power’ offers a possibility to identifyarchaeological attributes of social stratification and map out the hierarchy of the gravesexamined. They also help define some aspects of diachronic development of the social andeconomic organization of both rural and urban communities. Eventually, a new perspectiveof examining material traces of social and economic processes as well as their relationshipwith other cultural phenomena is suggested.