Fließende Grenzen

This study is a multi-perspective and diachronic analysis of the levels on which transborder exchange across the River Rhine occurred in the Roman Imperial period. On the one hand, settlement structure, grave types, Germanic material culture, economic potential, and Roman import east of the Rhine are being described. On the other hand, the impact west of the Rhine is considered on the basis of the emporium at Gelduba, Germanic import, and graves. East of the Rhine there were manifold structures with fluid borders of cultural space, cultural elements, and cultural impulses. Settlements were situated next to watercourses, unfortified, and had heterogenous houses not belonging to a defined group of house types [“Hauslandschaft”]. In the mid-2nd century, Roman import multiplied not only around the Hellweg route, first brooches emerged, and a change of burial customs can be observed. Cemeteries west of the Rhine contained soldiers from all over the Empire plus Celtic and Germanic elements. In Late Antiquity, cultural borders became blurred. “Fluid borders” alludes to the Rhine, a certain permeability of political borders, and unbroken transitions of development in the course of time.