Post-Medieval Archaeology Research Articles

Laboratory Processing of City Collections: Chelyabinsk Case

The article focuses on issues of laboratory processing of archaeological finds discovered by excavations and dated the Modern Times. In 2013 it was established that an archaeological item should pass an age threshold of 100 years. It results in researches of post-medieval archaeology gaining an independent flow. So far, it is determined that traditional practices of laboratory processing are insufficient for researching collections of this period. Furthermore, they lead to a more complicated transfer of these materials to state-owned museums. Chelyabinsk determined the Modern Times cultural layer to be an archaeological monument back in 1991. It was registered in 1992. Over thirty years of urban researches step by step archaeologists formed approaches and principles for forming collections. Currently these approaches and principles are set out in the new revision of the Provisions for Archaeological Field Works and Research Reports. The article suggests three basic blocks of laboratory processing, such as collection studies, mass material studies and stamps studies. The paper gives specific examples of how this work applies to vessel graphic restoration, mass material statistic tables, crockery stamps tables. The research highlights issues of forming comprehensive findings and concepts of studies for the Modern Times archaeology. The article emphasizes lack of generalizing researches and specialized archaeologists.

Austro-Prussian War of 1866, Landscape Archaeology of the Battlefield of Sadowa-Königgrätz

The article attempts to present current results of landscape archaeology concerning a military conflict between Prussia and Austria in the summer of 1866 near Hradec Králové (Sadowa/Königgrätz). The aim is to introduce the possibilities of analysing individual available sources using the methods of battlefield archaeology, which is a sub-discipline of post-medieval archaeology. The historical period in question is not only a regional issue. This topic is mainly important with regard to protection of constantly endangered war relics, whose number in East Bohemia has been increasing in the past decade. The knowledge acquired from systematic and rescue excavations conducted in various parts of battlefields in the territory of Hradec Králové region demands new analysis to be appropriately evaluated and interpreted. The primary processing and treatment of finds are equally important as their spatial information and a successful setting into the chronological frame of well-known historical events. Archaeological knowledge thus sheds a new light on these events. The paper presents basic research topics and methods, to which increased attention is currently being paid within the context of archaeological sites. All of them use a wider view of the 1866 historical landscape, which was not distinctly modified for the purpose of military operations, but on the contrary significantly influenced their course and sequence. In order to properly interpret the acquired spatial data, it is necessary to reconstruct this historical landscape and to define the form of various activities which took place there during the war.

Source discrepancies in post-medieval archaeology – a case study of crypt burials at Seili church, Finland

ABSTRACT The island of Seili, in the south-western archipelago of Finland, is famous for its history as a leprosy colony and mental asylum. The island formed a small, hierarchical community run by priests and hospital officials. In this article, we examine the history of the burial crypt in Seili church by comparing information from historical documents and observations made during archaeological fieldwork. The material gathered from these two sources is conflicting, suggesting an interesting history in the use of the burial crypt. It seems that women’s coffins could easily be moved elsewhere from the crypt when new coffins belonging to males were interred. It is argued that identifying the buried individuals would be necessary for a taphonomic study of the mummification processes and ensuring that the information about the crypt is based on facts. However, the identification is difficult due to inconsistent historical records. This underlines the importance of Post-Medieval archaeology in studying sites connected to family histories.

Roger Leech and Pamela Leech, eds. The Colonial Landscape of the British Caribbean. Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology Monograph Series 11. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. 276 Pp. $70.00 (cloth)

Roger Leech and Pamela Leech, eds. The Colonial Landscape of the British Caribbean. Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology Monograph Series 11. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. 276 Pp. $70.00 (cloth) - Volume 62 Issue 1

Molana Abbey: an alternative view

SUMMARY: In a paper in the 2020 issue of Post-Medieval Archaeology Carter Hudgins and Eric Klingelhofer made the case for late 16th-century occupation of the Medieval monastery of Molana by the Elizabethan scientist Thomas Harriot. This present paper considers the evidence they put forward and offers a different interpretation. It is argued here that alterations to the masonry at Molana can mostly be attributed either to maintenance during the active life of the monastery, or to embellishments carried out in the 19th century. The evidence for post-Dissolution occupation of the site is slight, is limited to the church, and is interpreted as 18th-century reuse for religious worship.

Medieval And Post-Medieval Archaeology In The Sudan:, A Study Of Two Cemeteries At Mura, Northern State

Medieval And Post-Medieval Archaeology In The Sudan:, A Study Of Two Cemeteries At Mura, Northern State

Medieval landscapes of Greece and Turkey: a post-colloquium commentary

Our colleague Effie Athanassopoulos has done an excellent job in assembling a collection of papers to reflect the current state of the art for Medieval landscape archaeology in the Aegean and Anatolia. One of the shared themes in many of these papers is the state of maturity of this subfield of Mediterranean Archaeology. It echoes a much wider question in post-Roman studies for this large region, as to how progress in this period and area compares to what has been achieved in Western Europe. For example, the limitations of Byzantine Archaeology have repeatedly been raised by some of its practitioners and associated historians since the 1980’s, while Greek Post-Medieval Archaeology has been seen as even more a Cinderella-subject over the same period. To judge by this colloquium, much progress has been made: there is a larger body of researchers, who read each other’s work and share methods and questions to address, yet it is still a small community. In the practice of archaeological survey, recognised as a prime tool for landscape archaeology, we still find recent projects which choose to ignore the surface sites of post-Roman eras (e.g. the Antikythera Project). Nowadays, an excavation which dug away the recent levels to get at the Classical ones would be seen as scandalous, so why should we permit the equivalent to occur in regional survey, where nobody is going to revisit the same fields to compensate for such neglect?

Colloquium: The Medieval Countryside in the Aegean and Anatolia: An Archaeological Perspective

This volume brings together papers from the colloquium ‘The Medieval Countryside: An Archaeological Perspective,’ which was originally scheduled to take place in the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) Annual Meetings, in 2018, in Boston, MA. That year, a blizzard caused massive travel disruptions and led to the cancellation of the colloquium, since most of the participants could not make it to the meetings. Fortunately, it was included in next year’s program, in 2019, when the AIA Meetings were held in San Diego, CA. The Medieval and Post-Medieval Archaeology AIA Interest Group sponsored the colloquium. Five of the papers in this special section were presented at the colloquium. Three additional contributions have been included in order to broaden the geographical coverage and scope of this effort.

Transbaikalian Archaeozoology of the Russian Period: Materials from the Udinskiy Fort

Large-scale archaeological study of objects associated with the Russian conquest of Siberia is a relatively recent phenomenon compared to the archaeology of the Stone Age, the paleometal period, and the Middle Ages. A new field of study in Russian archaeology, it has not yet acquired its own terminological name, being called in the scientific publications by a variety of terms, such as “archaeology of the Russian period,” “late historical period archaeology,” “Modern Time archaeology,” “historical archaeology,” “post-medieval archaeology,” and the “archaeology of the Muscovite state and the Russian Empire.” As a result of the 2016 archaeological studies in the territory of the Udinskiy Fort located at the historical center of Ulan-Ude, an impressive archaeozoological collection was obtained in addition to the excavated archaeological, anthropological, and dendrological materials. Evaluation of the materials from this collection showed a presence of various categories of bone remains. Carcass-dressing waste, food waste, and ivory work, including items made from mammoth tusk, were identified. The archival materials allow dating the occupation layer by the time the fortification actually existed (i.e., the late seventeenth-early nineteenth centuries). The archaeological materials testify to the accuracy of this dating. Cattle bones are the dominant remains. All other domestic species are insignificant, while commercial species are sporadic in the collection. The cattle sizes are small and they fall into the range of qualitative variability of the aboriginal species. The food spectrum indicates a flesh diet of the inhabitants of the Udinskiy Fort. They mostly consumed beef, while other meats were insignificant. The bone remains allowed exposing certain taphonomic factors of the material preservation in a dry ground.

Artificial light, night-work and daycentrism in post-medieval and contemporary archaeology

Artificial light, night-work and daycentrism in post-medieval and contemporary archaeology

Forty years of Industrial Archaeology Review: A Personal View

ABSTRACTThis article presents a personal view of the origins and development of Industrial Archaeology Review in the 40th volume of its publication. This is preceded by an account of the earlier journals to publish articles on industrial archaeology, as well as a brief account of such articles in the sister journal, Post-Medieval Archaeology. A short history of Industrial Archaeology Review is included for future reference purposes. The range of authors contributing to the journal is considered, from the volunteers in local industrial archaeology societies to the professional archaeologists of the later period. Attention is given to the importance of the publication of the annual Rolt Memorial Lectures, as well as the occasional themed issues where articles on specific topics have been grouped together. Finally, the article suggests how best use can be made, in this article and in the journal generally, of the advantages of digitisation.

The expanding and deepening scope of historical archaeology

2017 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of both the Society for Historical Archaeology, in North America, and the Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology, in the UK. Each society celebrated this milestone by publishing a collection of forward-looking essays in their respective journals (see Brooks 2016; Matthews 2016). Although each group of practitioners has followed what might be best described as parallel, but not convergent, intellectual tracks, what they have shared is a common focus on the period of European expansion and colonialism starting in the late fifteenth century. Since that time, the two fields have grown much closer, while the larger intellectual project that is historical archaeology has seen its popularity grow across the globe. In many respects, these three volumes, while different, nevertheless provide a rich collection of chapters that reveal both the widening and deepening of the field.

Neighbourly ties: Characterizing local and Sicilian pottery in post-medieval Malta

The development of post-medieval archaeology has been uneven in the Mediterranean. While major advances have been made in areas, such as the Aegean and Italy, others have garnered little sustained archaeological interest. In Malta, one of the principal barriers to the development of post-medieval archaeology has been the lack of knowledge and published findings regarding one of the most important find-types: pottery. The present study presents the results of the first archaeometric (chemical and minero-petrographic) analysis of post-medieval pottery in Malta, which sheds light on the changing ceramic relationships between Malta and Sicily during the 17th to early 20th centuries. The results demonstrate that, on the one hand, locally-made Maltese pottery remained important throughout the post-medieval period, as did pottery from the Messina Straits area. While, on the other hand, pottery from the Syracuse area can be shown to be linked to the activities of the navy of the Knights of St John.

Political economy and global repercussions: reflections on past and present in global historical archaeology

SUMMARY: The seven articles of this special issue of Post-Medieval Archaeology provide a background to this paper. Their various interpretations and operationalizations have provided a plethora of perspectives and localities concerning past political economies. This paper aims to further the discussion of political economy and its relevance in historical archaeology. The very many connections between economy, identity, culture, production, mentality and perception are the foundations of this special issue and also of this article. The paper starts by looking back at how Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx used the concept of political economy and what it might mean in an archaeological context today. The examination then follows three brief cases of individuals in the early modern period and how they related to, and interacted with, the political economy of their time and space. The paper concludes by emphasizing the importance of putting material culture and spatial studies into the discussion in order to trace entanglements and connections of political economies of past societies.

'To Clapham's I go': a mid-late 18th-century Cambridge coffeehouse assemblage

The archaeological investigations at Corfield Court — known as St John’s Triangle at the time — were funded by St John’s College.The analysis of the material has been aided by generous grants from the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, and the Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology.

Archaeology of consumption in Ottoman urban centres: the case study of Iznik ware from the Belgrade Fortress in the 16th and 17th centuries

SUMMARY: This article advocates a holistic approach to consumption studies in the urban centres of the Middle Danube region during the Ottoman period (16th–17th centuries) using the example of Iznik ware from the Belgrade Fortress. Combined results of archaeological and scientific research provide insight into regional consumption patterns, which is important for the understanding of cultural variability across the Ottoman Empire. This work emphasizes the importance of contextualized studies of archaeological ceramics in the development of post-medieval archaeology.

Where the battle rages: war and conflict in Post-Medieval Archaeology

SUMMARY: War and conflict has been well represented in Post-Medieval Archaeology over the last 50 years with a range of research exploring the archaeology of conflict in the modern world. The aim of this article is to review themes of war and conflict as presented in Post-Medieval Archaeology and to track the changing nature of their scope and focus, such as the move towards an increasingly multidisciplinary approach encompassing all aspects of human conflict. By highlighting key articles and innovative research, this article also reflects on the impact and influence of the journal on the burgeoning discipline of conflict archaeology.

The contemporary in post-medieval archaeology

SUMMARY: Contemporary archaeology is an emerging field of enquiry within the wider discipline associated with the questioning of temporal boundaries in what we study and why we engage with material remains of the recent past more generally. This article argues that contemporary archaeology should be broadly defined at this stage in its development and therefore can be located in Post-Medieval Archaeology through research that explicitly engages with what it is to conduct contemporary archaeology, but also through those implicitly considering how the past intrudes into the present. We believe that Post-Medieval Archaeology will continue to highlight archaeological studies of the contemporary into the future.

Standing buildings and built heritage

SUMMARY: This essay examines the available archive of articles on standing buildings published in Post-Medieval Archaeology. After setting out some general trends evident in a brief analysis of the number of buildings archaeology articles published over the last 50 years, their subjects and authors, this essay places these articles in three key wider contexts: the relationship of buildings archaeology to architectural history; buildings archaeology in Post-Medieval Archaeology in an international context; and the Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology’s relative lack of engagement with modern buildings and contemporary built heritage.

The material culture of the modern world

SUMMARY: We discuss results of a content analysis of material culture articles in Post-Medieval Archaeology in the context of the development of historical archaeology as a discipline. We conclude that the journal remains an important outlet for detailed field reports, but in recent years, influenced by social and anthropological theories, the discipline has matured and articles have changed from antiquarian artefact presentations to contextualized material culture studies. Expansion of the journal’s temporal frame to include the recent past has so far had little effect, but the journal has benefited from the broadened international range of articles and the intellectual and theoretical backgrounds they convey.