Joachim Werner (archaeologist)


Joachim Werner was a German archaeologist who was especially concerned with the archaeology of the Early Middle Ages in Germany. The majority of German professorships with particular focus on the field of the Early Middle Ages were in the second half of the 20th century occupied by his academic pupils.

Life

Werner was born in Berlin, where he took his school finishing examinations at the French High-School, and in 1928 he began his specialist study of Prehistory and Early History, Classical Archaeology and both ancient and middle History. Among his teachers were Max Ebert and Wilhelm Unverzagt in Berlin, Oswald Menghin in Vienna and Gero von Merhart in Marburg. In Marburg he obtained his doctorate on 7 December 1932 with the dissertation Münzdatierte austrasische Grabfunde, which under the guidance of Hans Zeiss undertook the project to develop an absolute chronology of the Merovingian period based upon graves which contained coins. Although it has often had to be revised since then, this work was nevertheless a milestone in the knowledge of the Early Middle Ages.
After the Machtergreifung of the National Socialists in 1933, he joined the Nazi Party and the Sturmabteilung, to deflect attention from the fact that his father and grandparents were members of the Romani people.
His appointments and occupations included:
His scientific interests included pre-Roman Iron Age and Germanic ethnic origins, late antique fortresses, Merovingian-age cemeteries and richly-furnished graves, Early Medieval Horse Peoples and the art of the Carolingian era. To these he added further similar researches into wealthy graves in South Korea.
From Munich he was able to lead countless excavation projects, above all in Late Roman fortifications:
Additional excavation projects took place in Austria, Italy and Slovenia: Kuchl, Invillino in Friaul, Hrusica und Vranje. The Organizational structure for these excavations was mainly the Commission for archaeological research into late Roman Rhaetia, founded by Werner, at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences.
In the publication of the Cemetery of Mindelheim Werner worked up a chronological typology of belt-buckles, which was later modified by his pupil Rainer Christlein with reference to the cemetery of Marktoberdorf. This remains even now an essential foundation for the chronology of the Merovingian age.
Werner supervised the doctorates of 33 students and the inauguration as lecturers of seven colleagues, namely Vladimir Milojčić, Georg Kossack, Hermann Müller-Karpe, Günter Ulbert, Walter Torbrügge, H. Schubart und Volker Bierbrauer.
Werner died in Munich.

Publications (Selected)