Medieval to Modern Transitions and Historical Archaeology
Part of: Society for Historical Archaeology 2020
This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Medieval to Modern Transitions and Historical Archaeology," at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.
Historical archaeologists working in the Atlantic world primarily focus on the 15th century and later, a period roughly characterized by the spread of European colonialism across the globe. However, the antecedents of this "historical" period lie in a medieval European social context, a period that is rarely addressed explicitly within later historical and post-medieval archaeologies. The processes by which medieval society became recognizable as "modern" followed dramatically different trajectories across the Atlantic world, from slow and incremental shifts in practice, to sudden disjunctures in social reproduction. Through the analysis of material culture, buildings, landscape practice, trade, and households over the last millennium, papers in this session draw primarily on a North Atlantic context to examine connections, transitions, and revolutions between the medieval and the modern.
Other Keywords
Trade •
Iceland •
Medieval •
Households •
North Atlantic •
demography •
bioarchaeology •
Architecture •
Stratigraphy •
Textiles
Temporal Keywords
Early modern •
medieval to early modern •
Medieval •
Seventeenth Century •
Medieval and Modern •
1400-1700 •
Medieval and Early Modern •
Early Medieval to Early Historic
Geographic Keywords
Coahuila (State / Territory) •
New Mexico (State / Territory) •
Oklahoma (State / Territory) •
Arizona (State / Territory) •
Texas (State / Territory) •
Sonora (State / Territory) •
United States of America (Country) •
Chihuahua (State / Territory) •
Nuevo Leon (State / Territory) •
Delaware (State / Territory)
Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-10 of 10)
- Documents (10)
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Building the ‘City on a Hill’: Merchants and Their Houses in 17th-century England and America (2020)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Medieval to Modern Transitions and Historical Archaeology" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The merchant’s household was a vital nodal point in emergent global networks of commodities and cultural exchanges as both provider and consumer of exotic, luxurious and fashionable objects, and the early modern period witnessed profound changes in the role of domestic space in the construction of social networks,...
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Colonialism and modernity in medieval (?) Iceland (2020)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Medieval to Modern Transitions and Historical Archaeology" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. This paper explores the implications of an archaeology of colonialism and modernity in Iceland. Colonialism in ‘Old Society’ Iceland was realized in the regulation of trade, and informal and formal administration by Norway, England, and Denmark. Colonial administrators and foreign tourists often viewed Iceland as...
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Competition, Reformation, and Modernization in Western Iceland (2020)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Medieval to Modern Transitions and Historical Archaeology" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Research on North Atlantic societies’ transitions from medieval to early modern cultures has recently become more theoretically engaged and informed. In Iceland, historical research has framed the most important processes in this transition as changes in religious affiliation and in the trading partners that linked...
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English Building Entanglements between Medieval and Modern (2020)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Medieval to Modern Transitions and Historical Archaeology" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. A building’s materials extend beyond the stone, brick, timber, and metals that are visible in its fabric. During the medieval period in England, materials such as timber and stone were managed and accessed through engagement with feudal powers. A series of entanglements, between lords, peasants, and the Catholic...
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Iceland During the 16th Century - Proto-Globalization at the Fringe of Europe (2020)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Medieval to Modern Transitions and Historical Archaeology" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. From the time of the settlement in the late 9thcentury Iceland has always been connected with Northern Europe, despite the island´s remote location. Strong political, religious and economic links existed with Norway, Denmark and then, in the later medieval period, with England and Germany. The 16thcentury is a time of...
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The Living and the Dead: The Icelandic Household From Early Medieval to Historic Times. (2020)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Medieval to Modern Transitions and Historical Archaeology" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. How does one reconstruct population demography in the past and what lines of evidence exist to assist in these interpretations? The census of 1703 recorded information about household composition in Iceland and this rich resource has been used as a proxy for early population demography. Until recently, actual cemetery...
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On Writing The Past Backwards (2020)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Medieval to Modern Transitions and Historical Archaeology" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Thinking about medieval and modern means involves working backwards – from New World settlement to European and African antecedents and origins. Such a project raises a series of issues and challenges. First, while there is extensive ldiscussion of how time is socially embedded, there is little on the reversal of...
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A Revolving Frontier: Change and Continuity in Marginal Icelandic Settlement, ca. 900-1900 CE (2020)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Medieval to Modern Transitions and Historical Archaeology" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Numerous farmsteads were established in Iceland's highland margins and back valleys during the late 9th and early 10th centuries, as part of the rapid process of settlement across the island. Many of these marginal farms were deserted sometime between the 11th and early 16th centuries, only to be re-settled...
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The Textile Trade with Iceland, AD 1400-1700. (2020)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Medieval to Modern Transitions and Historical Archaeology" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Archaeological textile collections from the North Atlantic and specifically Iceland represent an important data-set with potential for shedding new light on issues of international trade between these remote islands and Northern Europe. Woolen cloth produced by women, along with dried fish, was one of the most...
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'Thy Turrets and thy Towers are all Gone': Medieval Legacies in a 21st-Century City (2020)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Medieval to Modern Transitions and Historical Archaeology" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. While not known for its medieval heritage, the northern English city of Sheffield continues to be profoundly shaped by the fate of its medieval castle, hunting lodge and deer park. The castle was demolished during the Civil War of the mid-C17th, creating a rapid - almost catastrophic - disjuncture between the medieval...