Quanto erano 'longobardi' i Longobardi meridionali? Sepolcreti e pratiche funerarie nel ducato di Benevento (secoli VI-VIII)

Archaeological research on the cemetery areas of the Lombard period in southern Italy has highlighted some substantial differences with respect to the burial grounds excavated in the central-northern area of the peninsula, primarily the scarcity of weapons and precious objects in the grave goods and the limited diffusion of strip cemeteries with earthen tombs. This contribution proposes an overall review of the data and above all of the approaches used to date to analyse the southern necropolises in an attempt to interpret the funerary practices present here not so much as an expression of ethnic identity, which in the case of the Duchy of Benevento would be qualified by the scarcity of 'Lombard' markers, but rather as an expression of local instances, characterised by the need for social affirmation of the elites in a politically centralised context such as that of Benevento.