Using Zooarchaeology to Study Urban Origins in Antwerp, Belgium: Evidence from the Burcht and Gorterstraat Sites

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The State of the Art in Medieval European Archaeology: New Discoveries, Future Directions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The development of urbanism in northwestern Europe has been of interest to medieval archaeologists and historians since the days of Henry Pirenne, and these questions have been central to anthropological archaeology throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. One of the critical features of early cities is that they are home to craft specialists and others who are not primarily engaged in farming, fishing, and other methods of food procurement. Recent archaeological research in the city of Antwerp has shed light on the earliest periods of urbanism within the city. Animal bone remains from the 8th-to-10th-century Burcht sites and the 10th-century Gorterstraat site can be used to identify the roles of animal husbandry, hunting, and fishing in the subsistence economy early medieval Antwerp. Our data suggest that hunting of animals such as red deer, roe deer, beaver and wild boar played a greater role in the earlier Burcht assemblages, and that animal husbandry and fishing played a larger role in the somewhat later Gorterstraat economy.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The State of the Art in Medieval European Archaeology: New Discoveries, Future Directions   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 22914