Letteratura scientifica selezionata sul tema "Archaeology, Medieval / Europe / Congresses"

This paper was conceived as a keynote lecture for the Medieval Europe Research Congress (MERC) 2012 in Helsinki. The author himself has gone a long way from the more or less exclusively ship-functionalist perspective he presented at the first conference of this kind, Medieval Europe in 1992 in York. The intention here is to inspire other maritime archaeologists who may be stuck in studying ship technologies to apply their knowledge in contextual and cross-disciplinary approaches to ships, landscapes, and the human mind of the Middle Ages. A few examples of possible ways are discussed, albeit admittedly incompletely. These include a number of examples from the author's own research, which were strongly under the influence of a functionalist and techno-practical perspective in the 1990s.

La historiografía sobre fortificaciones medievales en el ámbito medieval cristiano es tan amplia como dispersa. Abundan los estudios de carácter local abordados con metodologías y desde disciplinas diversas, empezando por los clásicos trabajos de Historia del Arte e Historia de la Arquitectura, y, por supuesto, los de contenido estrictamente histórico, planteados desde el estudio de las fuentes escritas y, más recientemente, desde la Arqueología. Faltan, no obstante, estudios de conjunto y aunque se ha abordado el tema de la conceptualización y clasificación tipológica de estas fortalezas, creemos que sigue siendo una asignatura pendiente en el ámbito de la castellología. El presente trabajo pretende pues abordar la problemática sobre la definición y límites del castillo medieval, para pasar después a plantear una clasificación tipológica y funcional de los castillos cristianos peninsulares, para lo cual tendremos en cuenta no sólo la producción historiográfica reciente, sino también nuestras propias investigaciones de base fundamentalmente arqueológica. Palabras clave: Castellología, castillo feudal, tipología castral, reinos cristianos peninsulares, poliorcéticaTopónimos: Península IbéricaPeríodo: siglos VIII-XV ABSTRACTHistoriography on the subject of medieval fortifications in the medieval Christian area is as wide as it is disperse. There is an abundance of local studies undertaken employing different methodologies, starting with the History of Art, the History of Architecture and, of course, those of strictly historical content, based on the study of written sources and, more recently, on Archaeology. However, there is a lack of comprehensive studies and, although the problem of the conceptualisation and typological classification of these fortresses has been addressed, I believe that this continues to be an unresolved issue in the field of castellology. This article aims to address the problem of the definition and limits of the medieval castle, and then propose a typological and functional classification of peninsular Christian castles, taking into account not only recent historiographical production but also my own archaeological research. Keywords: castellology, feudal castle, castral typology, peninsular Christian kingdoms, polyorceticPlace names: Iberian PeninsulaPeriod: 8th-15th centuries REFERENCIASAcién Almansa, M. (2002), “De nuevo sobre la fortificación del emirato” en Mil anos de Fortificações na Península Ibérica e no Magreb (500-1500). Actas do simpósio internacional sobre castelos, Lisboa, pp. 59-75.Almedia, C. A. F. de (1991), “Castelos e cercas medievais. 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Medieval seals, traditionally considered from the perspective of their documentary function, may also be studied as archaeological artefacts. Pilgrim badges were seal-shaped, and seal matrices and seal impressions can be found on church bells, in altars, and in burial sites. The context in which matrices are excavated provides valuable information on the practices of sealing and on the values attached to seals. This article also reveals a hitherto undescribed late medieval practice whereby papal and Scandinavian royal correspondents exchanged seal matrices.

Evidence from medieval Europe and modern China suggests that cooperation with strong executives plays a larger role in early legislative development than is generally acknowledged: that under conditions of absolutism (or near-absolutism), acceptance and exploitation of subordination may be a means to organizational development. In this article, the author relies primarily on interview data and Chinese field research to show that early legislative development can occur without significantly increasing conflict with established authorities and without winning autonomy. The author further argues that legislative embeddedness, as measured by clarified and expanded jurisdiction and increased capacity, is a product less of conflict than of executive support and attention, and that support and attention in the early stages of organizational development can be understood in terms of a legislature's presence, its reliability and usefulness, and the political standing of its leaders. The article's conclusion offers a new approach to early legislative development that shifts attention from conventional measures of institutionalization and hinges on understanding the process of embeddedness.

This thesis brings together all that is currently known of early medieval grave reopening in northern and western Europe. It investigates in detail an intensive outbreak of grave-robbery in 6th-7th century Kent. This is closely related to the same phenomenon in Merovingia: an example of the import of not only material goods but also a distinctive cultural practice. Limited numbers of similar robbing episodes, affecting a much smaller proportion of graves in each cemetery, are also identified elsewhere in Anglo-Saxon England. Although the phenomenon of grave-robbery is well-attested in Merovingia, this research is the first study at a regional level. The aim is to advance the debate about early medieval robbery from general discussion of interpretative possibilities to evaluation of specific models and their compatibility with the archaeological evidence. The conclusions have significant implications for the interpretation of grave-robbery across early medieval Europe. In Kent robbing is at a level that must be considered in any discussion of cemetery evidence. The poor publication record has inhibited recognition and analysis of robbing in the county. However, by using extensive archive material, this thesis has shown that the practice of ransacking graves was on a similar scale in East Kent as in Merovingia. This research identifies over 200 reopened graves across Kent, with at least 15 sites affected. At the most intensely robbed sites, an average of over 20% of burials were disturbed. Robbing is likely to have had a significant impact on artefact finds, especially from the late 6th century onwards. Grave-robbery opens a window onto the wider meanings and values of grave-good types within the early medieval period. The analysis in this thesis demonstrates that the main motive for reopening was the removal of grave goods. However, straightforward personal enrichment was not the goal. A deliberate, consistent selection of certain grave-good types were taken from burials, while other apparently covetable possessions were left behind. The desired grave-goods were removed even when in an unusable condition. It is argued that the selection of goods for removal was related to their symbolic roles in the initial burial rite. Their taking was intended to harm living descendants by damaging the prestige and strength of the dead. In addition to the robbed graves, there is a small number of graves spread across the sites which were reopened for bodily mutilation or rearrangement of skeletal parts. These closely resemble the better known deviant burial rites which were applied to certain corpses at the time of initial burial and are interpreted as a reaction to fear of revenants. In modern Britain burial is a finite and final process: the definitive disposal of a dead body. The archaeological and ethnographic records contain many examples of more complex series of events to enable the dead to move on from the living. The material remains of such processes can be seen in revisited and reopened graves, and in myriad manipulations of human bodies. This case study is a detailed, contextualised investigation of the after-history of burial monuments focused on the early Middle Ages.

This thesis investigates the archaeological potential of masonry mortars throughout North Atlantic Europe, with a particular focus on the buildings and environments of medieval northern and western Scotland. The results of an extensive non-intrusive survey of medieval and later buildings are presented, within which nine multiphase sites were subject to more comprehensive building, environment and materials analysis. The survey suggests that, in general, different mortar-making techniques had well-defined sub-regional distributions which are not simply a correlate of environmental availability, but developed in different ways over time. Moreover, all of the more comprehensively studied buildings contain evidence of striking material contrasts from phases to phase which has great potential in standing building analysis. Material contrasts in masonry evidence between building phases, between neighbouring buildings, between specific buildings and the regional corpus, and between the regions themselves, are then considered as evidence of changing cultural, chronological and environmental context. The relationship between secular and ecclesiastical buildings across the region is a particular concern. Qualitative lab-based and on-site material interpretations made throughout the thesis are supported by a programme of comparative experimentation. This thesis includes the first comprehensive investigation of lime mortars made from marine shells, the first evidence of lime mortars made from coralline algae, results from the first programme of dating medieval buildings in Scotland through radiocarbon analysis of relict mortar fuel, and microstructural analysis of a large range of medieval mortars from Norway to the Isle of Man. Wider research considers the initial emergence of mortared masonry in North Atlantic Europe and the relationship between clay and lime mortars. Ultimately, by placing the upstanding buildings archaeology at the centre of the medieval and later landscape this thesis will demonstrate that masonry mortars have significant potential to inform our understanding of the cultural and environmental context of lordship construction in the North Atlantic, providing a new focus for further interdisciplinary discourse.

The aim of the thesis is to identify long-term patterns in local economy and social processes at the site of Fabrika, using coarse ware, the pottery of food processing and storage, as an interpretative tool. I chose to focus on domestic utility ware, because I believe it is an under- utilised resource in late historical periods for studying local economy and social organisation. I aim to demonstrate that an in-depth analysis of coarse ware will shed light on aspects of life that the more prestigious artefacts in the archaeological record do not reflect well, and on which documents are usually silent. The site at Fabrika has a history that spans the 4th century BC to the 19th century AD. The thesis deals with the last phase of the site – the occupation of the Medieval and post-Medieval periods between the 13th and the 19th century. More specifically, this thesis comprises an analysis of the coarse ware on site: utilitarian vessels used in the daily preparation and storage of food. Study of the Byzantine period and beyond in Cyprus has concentrated mainly in the hands of historians and art historians. Until the last four or five years, only a few large Medieval sites have been the subject of particular study, notably the castles of Saranda Kolones and of Kolossi, and the site of Kouklia. As far as the ceramic of the period is concerned, the studies so far concentrated on the glazed fine wares, and there has never been a systematic attempt to establish a chronological framework to the coarse ware of the period. The second aim of this thesis is therefore to establish a preliminary chronology for this ware, and make it usable as an interpretative tool for future study.

Placed deposits have received increasing attention over the past 30 years, particularly in prehistoric British archaeology. Although disagreement still exists over the definition, identification, and interpretation of placed deposits, significant advances have been made in theoretical and methodological approaches to placed deposits, as researchers have gradually moved away from relatively crude ‘ritual’ interpretations toward more nuanced considerations of how placed deposits may have related to daily lives, social networks, and settlement structure, as well as worldview. With the exception of comments on specific deposits and a recent preliminary survey, however, Anglo-Saxon placed deposits have remained largely unstudied. This thesis represents the first systematic attempt to identify, characterize, analyse and interpret placed deposits in early to middle Anglo-Saxon settlements (5th–9th centuries). It begins by disentangling the various definitions of ‘placed’, ‘structured’, and ‘special’ deposits and their associated assumptions. Using formation process theory as a basis, it develops a definition of placed deposits as material that has been specially selected, treated, and/or arranged, in contrast with material from similar or surrounding contexts. This definition was applied to develop contextually specific criteria for identifying placed deposits in Anglo-Saxon settlements. Examination of 141 settlements identified a total of 151 placed deposits from 67 settlements. These placed deposits were characterized and analysed for patterns in terms of material composition, context type, location within the settlement, and timing of deposition relative to the use-life of their contexts. Broader geographical and chronological trends have also been considered. In discussing these patterns, anthropological theories of action, agency, practice, and ritualization have been employed in order to begin to understand the roles placed deposits may have had in structuring space and time and expressing social identities in Anglo-Saxon settlements, and to consider how placed deposition may have articulated with Anglo-Saxon worldview and belief systems.

abstract: The transition from Late Antiquity to Early Medieval Europe (ca. AD 400-900) is often characterized as a period of ethnogenesis for a number of peoples, such as the Franks. Arising during protracted contact with the Roman Empire, the Franks would eventually form an enduring kingdom in Western Europe. However, there is little consensus about the processes by which they formed an ethnic group. This study takes a fresh look at the question of Frankish ethnogenesis by employing a number of theoretical and methodological subdisciplines, including population genetics and ethnogenetic theory. The goals of this work were 1) to validate the continued use of biological data in questions of historical and archaeological significance; and 2) to elucidate how Frankish population structure changed over time. Toward this end, measurements from the human dentition and crania were subjected to rigorous analytical techniques and interpreted within a theoretical framework of ethnogenetic life cycles. Results validate existing interpretations of intra-regional biological continuity over time. However, they also reveal that 1) there are clear biological and geographical differences between communities, and 2) there are hints of diachronic shifts, whereby some communities became more similar to each other over time. These conclusions complement current ethnohistoric work arguing for the increasing struggle of the Frankish kingdom to unify itself when confronted by strong regionally-based politics.
Dissertation/Thesis
Doctoral Dissertation Anthropology 2015

Recent advances in the methods of skeletal age estimation have rekindled interest in their applicability to paleodemography. The current study contributes to the discussion by applying several long established as well as recently developed or refined aging methods to a subsample of 121 adult skeletons from the early medieval cemetery of Lauchheim. The skeletal remains were analyzed by 13 independent observers using a variety of aging techniques (complex method and other multimethod approaches, Transition Analysis, cranial suture closure, auricular surface method, osteon density method, tooth root translucency measurement, and tooth cementum annulation counting). The age ranges and mean age estimations were compared and results indicate that all methods showed smaller age ranges for the younger individuals, but broader age ranges for the older age groups.

The medieval and early modern periods in Norway and Europe were characterised by economic, social and environmental change. In particular, famines, epidemics, economic decline and climate change had effects on agriculture, population size, subsistence and health. The impact of environmental and social variables on human health has become increasingly prominent in the research literature. This research contributes to a broader understanding of the interactions between human health and our environment by studying a skeletal sample from 12th-17th century Norway and comparing it to a number of other skeletal samples from medieval and early modern Europe. Utilising a sample of human skeletal remains from the Library site in Trondheim (Norway), and data on pathological lesions from 38 European sites, this thesis quantifies the effects of these factors. The Library site sample was assessed for sex; age; stature; a number of pathological lesions and abnormalities, including dental caries, alveolar defects of pathological origin (ADP), ante-mortem tooth loss (AMTL), cribra orbitalia (CO), linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH), and non-specific signs of infection (NSI); and evidence for specific infectious diseases, such as syphilis and leprosy. The impacts of sex, phase and age on the frequencies of pathological lesions in the Library site sample were analysed and compared to those frequencies from the other European samples. Examinations revealed a complex picture of health and wellbeing during this period. Results indicated significant differences between the sexes in a number of instances, with higher frequencies of dental caries, LEH and NSI in males, and significantly higher frequencies of AMTL and CO in females. Prominent differences in frequencies of dental caries and LEH were also observed across the phases. It is likely that the majority of these differences were linked to social or biological factors, such as diet, which may be indirectly linked to environmental factors. Examinations also found evidence for endemic syphilis and probable leprosy in the Library site sample. Comparisons of the skeletons from the Library site to the others from Europe demonstrated that the health of the population from Trondheim was comparatively good, with the exception of high levels of NSI. Groupings of the skeletal samples in clusters by site were also apparent, probably influenced by common economic, social and dietary pressures. Finally, statistical modelling of the data from all the samples revealed significant relationships between pathological lesions and social and environmental variables. In particular, diet and settlement type were found to have a number of significant relationships with pathological lesions. Specific diets and settlement types were also associated with significantly higher frequencies of certain lesions. Modelling relative to latitude resulted in a single significant relationship with stature, whilst analysis of other environmental variables resulted in few significant relationships with pathological lesions. Further statistical modelling with a greater sample size, the inclusion of more variables and known data from historical documentation could produce a greater number of significant results when assessing these relationships. However, the complexities of these relationships are perhaps better served by a multi-disciplinary approach like the one taken here, rather than statistical modelling in isolation.

Medieval archaeology has developed very effective instruments for investigating the smaller rural settlements and local production and construction techniques, on which the documentary sources are scarcely fluent. However, documents assure precise hints or general references to which archaeologists do not give up. In the same way, the most abundant, although indirect institutional sources, and the technical literature, from the Modern Age to the nineteenth century, are very useful to understand this kind of construction, with local materials and according to local models and practices – widespread in rural Europe until the early twentieth century. The historic villages of the upper Tronto Valley, near Ascoli Piceno, can offer a good example in a territory devastated by the 2016 earthquake in which material sources have been heavily depleted. The documents - although discontinuous - often explain constructive choices. The nineteenth-century literature describes the territory in a transformation phase, still based on the scarce local resources, and returns the mentality and the expectations of the contemporaries. Literature and documents contribute to consolidating the role of the built heritage as a historical source, highlighting both the cultural depth and the nature of housing resources that characterize the individual buildings and villages.