Transformation in Migration Period Animal Art

Germanic animal art functioned within different contexts throughout the Migration Period. Obtaining an understanding of these contexts can be arrived at in various ways. This paper discusses the regularities that seem to exist within a group of ‘primitive’ art forms as presented in a classical structuralistic text by Claude Lévi‐Strauss. It is not the aim to criticize structuralism or apply it as such, but to extract elements from the text which will function in the context of this study. The intention is to demonstrate that, in spite of the problems related to structuralism, a structural perspective may illuminate issues which otherwise would be hard to approach.