Making hay while the sun shines? Socio-economic change,cereal production and climatic deterioration in Early Medieval Ireland

The Early Medieval period in Ireland (c. A.D. 400–1150) has been the subject of much archaeological and historical study. The recent application of various forms of archaeological sciences, as well as palaeoenvironmental studies, to the archaeological record have, however, added fresh impetus to this study area. It seems increasingly evident that significant changes to economy and society occurred during this period and were not recorded in detail in the contemporary documentary sources. This paper will attempt to outline those changes and to assess whether, or to what extent, they were influenced by climate change.     

The investigation of a medieval barrel-latrine from Worcester

The contents of a 15th century barrel-latrine from Worcester (U.K.) have been investigated. Twenty edible plant taxa were identified, mainly fruit, including gooseberry—an unusual find—while fig and grape may be exotics. Weld (used for dyeing) and linseed were also found. Seeds from cornfield weeds, wayside and wetland plants show the past presence of straw, hay and sedge, and the pollen spectra also show this. Broad bean, hemp/hop and borage pollen may represent food or drink, and abundant bran demonstrates the remains of cereal food like bread. Intestinal parasite ova give evidence of faeces, and the beetle remains are comparable with those from modern cesspits, the remains of grain and legume pests possibly coming from beetles consumed with infested food. The herring and eel bones may also have been eaten, but the chicken bones and larger fruit stones represent rubbish which would not have been swallowed. Some cloth remains were found. This study shows something of latrines, rubbish disposal, diet, living conditions and the general surroundings at the time.     

Flights into the past: full-waveform airborne laser scanning data for archaeological investigation

Airborne Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) is a quite recent (mid-1990s) remote sensing technique used to measure terrain elevation. Recent studies have examined the possibility of using LiDAR in archaeological investigations to map and characterize earthworks, to capture features that may be indistinguishable on the ground and to aid the planning of archaeological excavation campaigns.     

Remodelling the past – Archaeometrological analysis applied on Birka weight material using a 3D scanner & Computer-Aided Design

Archaeometrological analysis has traditionally involved reconstructing the originally intended mass of a weight by hand; measuring with a calliper or a profile microscope, as well as using the artefact’s displacement in water for factors such as volume and density. Ideally, corrosion was to be left intact, which is inconsistent with the goals of the conservationist. In all, the process was time consuming and may in some cases even have accelerated the deterioration of the artefacts.     

Comparative Approaches to Visions of Community

The aims of the first VISCOM conference were to compare different methods employed in the study of community to address new methodological perspectives for the analysis of categories of identification and belonging, the conditions and processes of the making of communities across large cultural and geo-political fields. At the same time, this exchange was meant to provide thorough reflections on the process of comparative research itself. This contribution sets out to discuss the diversity and creative tension of these methodological approaches before proceeding to outline how they may contribute to future collaboration both within the VISCOM project and beyond in interdisciplinary and, eventually, in transdisciplinary collaboration between historians and socio-anthropologists. The text thus focuses on the methodological tools and the very practical research processes addressed at the conference and in the case studies brought together in this thematic issue. It will specifically address the challenge to develop comparable, but contextually differentiated approaches to different types and amounts of medieval source material across time and space, viewing the methodological and conceptual framework of the project and the contributions of this issue as a toolbox. I will thus take up the claims of several contributors to more thoroughly contextualise the very conceptual notions underlying our research (such as identity, ethnicity and community) and argue in favour of a less “loaded” and more flexible conceptual vocabulary developed in close relation with the source material to cope with the high diversity of sources and methodological approaches.     

Investigation on the Yinjiawopu Site,a Medieval Salt Production Workshop in Northeast China

In 2014 and 2015, the Research Center for Chinese Frontier Archaeology at Jilin University and the Jilin Province Archaeological Research Institute jointly conducted two excavations at the Yinjiawopu Site, in Da’an City, Jilin Province, Northeast China. One burial, two canals, five leaching pits, two house-foundations, four hearths, 103 pits, two ditches, and over 800 pieces of artifacts dated from the 12th to the 13th centuries a.d. (the Liao-Jin period) were found. Analysis shows that these features belong to a salt production workshop. This study marks the first discovery of a salt production site in Northeast China. The archaeological, ethnographic, and historical materials from the site allow a reconstruction of the chaîne opératoire of salt-making by the inhabitants of the Northeast China Plain during this period. This study sheds light on the exchange and control of salt, on the activities and daily life of the inhabitants of the region, and on their relationship with the environment.     

Rats cannot have been intermediate hosts for Yersinia pestis during medieval plague epidemics in Northern Europe

The commonly accepted understanding of modern human plague epidemics has been that plague is a disease of rodents that is transmitted to humans from black rats, with rat fleas as vectors. Historians have assumed that this transmission model is also valid for the Black Death and later medieval plague epidemics in Europe. Here we examine information on the geographical distribution and population density of the black rat (Rattus rattus) in Norway and other Nordic countries in medieval times. The study is based on older zoological literature and on bone samples from archaeological excavations. Only a few of the archaeological finds from medieval harbour towns in Norway contain rat bones. There are no finds of black rats from the many archaeological excavations in rural areas or from the inland town of Hamar. These results show that it is extremely unlikely that rats accounted for the spread of plague to rural areas in Norway. Archaeological evidence from other Nordic countries indicates that rats were uncommon there too, and were therefore unlikely to be responsible for the dissemination of human plague. We hypothesize that the mode of transmission during the historical plague epidemics was from human to human via an insect ectoparasite vector.     

Royal burial and the cult of kingship in France and England, 1060–1330

In the late-eleventh and early twelfth centuries, French and English royal burials were relatively unceremonial, low-key affairs, a contrast with the obsequies of other contemporary rulers such as the Holy Roman emperors. One reason for that may be the dominance of reforming ecclesiastics in arranging the funeral rites in England and France; another, the importance attached by the monarchs to obtaining personalised intercession from ascetic monks. By the early fourteenth century, however, the French and English sovereigns were commemorated after death in magnificent ceremonies and monuments. In the intervening centuries, those kings and their followers had shown a growing interest in the creation and promotion of royal saint-cults; in the honouring of royal remains; in public and splendid funeral ceremonies and lawish tombs; and in the creation and development of imposing burial-churches at Saint-Denis and Westminster. During this time there was an increasing emphasis upon the image and panoply of monarchy in both kingdoms which was rooted to a large extent in the personal and political rivalry of their rulers. The new splendours of royal burials can be seen as one important part of those developments.     

The East Anglian chronicle

Abraham's sacrifice. Very early on, this Biblical theme became the subject of a number of representations who did not vary much, having a rich and precocious theology as their base: the sacrifice of Isaac prefiguring that of Christ on the Cross. The anecdotal development is one of the major variants. The dramatization of the scene in miniatures, especially noticeable from the 13th century onward, enriched the stylistic effects. The social changes that took place in medieval western Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries (the place of children, attitudes to death...) provoked a final evolution. The previous embellishments were reorganized to take into account the preoccupations of the day.     

The use of radiocarbon-derived ΔC as a paleoclimate indicator: applications in the Lower Alentejo of Portugal

Values of δ¹³C are frequently reported with radiocarbon dates from organic materials. In C₃ plants δ¹³C values have been linked to changes in water use efficiency as a response to arid conditions. By calculating ¹³C discrimination (Δ¹³C) from ¹³C isotopic composition (δ¹³C), archaeologists can gain potentially valuable inference into past climate conditions. Values of Δ¹³C reflect the process of discrimination against heavier ¹³C isotopes of carbon by comparing the δ¹³C of samples to that of the atmosphere, and can be calculated when records of atmospheric δ¹³CO₂ are available. The present study examines a 1300 year history of radiocarbon-derived Δ¹³C from the Lower Alentejo of Portugal using charcoal recovered from excavations of a series of medieval habitation sites in the study area. To calculate Δ¹³C, the posterior means generated from Bayesian change-point analysis of δ¹³CO₂ records were used. Archaeological data were then compared to contemporary ecological studies of Δ¹³C of the same taxa against instrumental records of climate. Values of Δ¹³C fell within mean ranges for the taxa through a period of population growth between the 7th and 10th centuries AD. During the height of the Medieval Warm Period in the 11th century AD Δ¹³C values frequently fell to low levels associated with arid conditions. At this time environmental degradation and erosion were documented. Values of Δ¹³C increased for a brief period in the early 12th century AD before the rural Lower Alentejo was largely abandoned for nearly two centuries. Another period of aridity occurred in the 16th and 17th centuries AD. Radiocarbon-derived Δ¹³C is a potentially useful paleoclimate proxy for archaeologists provided that results can be paired with observed Δ¹³C variation in studies that pair these data with instrumental climate records.