Session: #153

Regular session

Archaeological finds are key to understanding the lives of past peoples, and this is especially true for the medieval period. Across Europe, our approach to understanding material culture differs, in many ways dictated by modern political boundaries, cultural differences and attitudes towards heritage protection: indeed, our lens to the past is manifestly through the present. This makes it difficult for archaeologists interested in archaeological small finds to understand them holistically, across states and areas that existed in the past but do not (necessarily) survive today. Therefore, this session's purpose is to encourage international/pan-European dialogue about the past through medieval small finds, with a particular focus (this time) on metal items.
Specifically, we are interested in contributions that: consider theoretical/digital approaches to analysing big data to understand broad trends in material culture across Europe (c. AD 1000-1550); or, look at specific object types across parts of Europe (even across regions) to understand typology, distribution, contacts and trade links etc; or, approaches to understanding the composition of finds, the sources of raw materials and (therefore) their ‘life story’. It is key that papers have a pan-European focus, but they may begin weaving their narrative of the past from a local (insular) perspective.

finds, medieval, material culture, pan-European, typology, distribution

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Michael Lewis (United Kingdom) ¹

Maria Vargha (Czech Republic) ²
Tibor Racz (Hungary) ³
Jakub Sawicki (Czech Republic) ⁴