Abandoned Rural Settlements and Landscape Transformations in the Early Modern and Modern Period: Innovative Methodological Approaches of Historical Archaeology within a Central European Context

Summary

Settlement and landscape transformations in Central Europe during the Early Modern/Modern period were beyond interest until 1990s and, ironically, remain insufficiently recognised despite better preservation of sites, larger collections of artefacts and broader data sources. Nevertheless, complexity of sites, often with extensive destructions, and a requirement of integration very variable data sources (especially a combination with written evidence and historical maps is significant) generate a specificity of historical archaeology in term of the applied methodology and differ it from prehistoric/medieval archaeology.

This paper presents two innovative methodological approaches which constitute ‘advancing frontiers’ in the research of postmedieval/modern rural settlement. 1) Close range photogrammetry (Structure from Motion method) as a tool for a field documentation (its advantages compared to conventional techniques will be discussed). 2) GIS as a platform for an integration and evaluation of archaeological, written and cartographic evidence (case study of the impact of Thirty years’ war on settlements).

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions) 2017   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2017

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

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PaperId(s): 552