Managing the archaeological heritage of Historical Flanders: medieval and early modern archaeology in a development-led context

Summary

Since the growth of urban archaeology in the 1970s, there has been a growing awareness of the significance of medieval and early-modern archaeological heritage in Flanders (Belgium).. The traditional entwinement of (post-)medieval and urban archaeology however, also resulted in the archaeology of the rural life remaining under-developed for a long time. With the application of the Valetta convention (only as late as 2000) a general increase in archaeological operations issued in the developer-led framework is noticeable in rural as well as in urban context. Yet, it seems medieval and later archaeology has benefit only little of this increase in research: rural life remains unexplored, and archaeological work in town and countryside has led to no systematic new insights. With a new law just being voted, our paper will try to give an overview on the evolution archaeology has underwent in Flanders both from a heritage policy and scientific perspective before and since the application of the Valletta convention, and it will examine in a comparative perspective which future lines of enquiry developed-led archaeology could follow for generating new narratives.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Ethics and Governance   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2014

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): SYM-29,02