Networks and Connections in Medieval Central Europe: Archaeological and Historical Approaches
Sponsoring Organization(s)
Institut für Ur- und Frühgeschichte , Christian-Albrechts-Univ. zu Kiel
Organizer Name
Donat Wehner
Organizer Affiliation
Institut für Ur- und Frühgeschichte , Christian-Albrechts-Univ. zu Kiel
Presider Name
Donat Wehner
Paper Title 1
The Schleswig Waterfront during the Late Eleventh Century: Topography and Actors of a Widely Connected North European Trading Center
Presenter 1 Name
Felix Rösch
Presenter 1 Affiliation
Christian-Albrechts-Univ. zu Kiel
Paper Title 2
Medieval Letters as Historical Sources? Some Methodological Reflections
Presenter 2 Name
Volker Scior
Presenter 2 Affiliation
Ruhr-Univ. Bochum
Paper Title 3
Transylvania: The Christening of the Funeral Rite in Early Middle Ages (Ninth-Eleventh Centuries A.D.)
Presenter 3 Name
Ioan Marian Tiplic
Presenter 3 Affiliation
Univ. "Lucien Blaga" din Sibiu
Start Date
12-5-2016 10:00 AM
Session Location
Schneider 2345
Description
Networks and communication have been important topics of research in medieval archaeology and history in recent years. Now that archaeologists have distanced themselves from older approaches which saw archaeological cultures as homogeneous formations, new theoretical understandings and practical methods have been developed in order to understand the contacts between groups of people that artefacts enable to identify. Studying historical forms of communication, historians have pushed our understanding of oral and written contact methods in medieval Europe ever further. Not only written documents, but objects of all sorts were used as symbolic transmitters of information. The approaches to studying these forms of connections in both disciplines, however, are too rarely considered side by side, let alone together. Further questions will concern the demarcation of the networks to analyze, the type of relations, their temporality and scale-level as well as the impact of the sources chosen and of the techniques employed on the results of scholarly enquiries. This panel proposes to explore these issues through interdisciplinary dialogue with a group of participants from the disciplines of archaeology and history. The panel will be co-organized by Dr. Donat Wehner (Archaeology, University of Kiel) and Dr. Sébastien Rossignol (History, Memorial University of Newfoundland). We expect presenters from German universities and research institutions, who will apply for travel funding from the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Services).
Networks and Connections in Medieval Central Europe: Archaeological and Historical Approaches
Schneider 2345
Networks and communication have been important topics of research in medieval archaeology and history in recent years. Now that archaeologists have distanced themselves from older approaches which saw archaeological cultures as homogeneous formations, new theoretical understandings and practical methods have been developed in order to understand the contacts between groups of people that artefacts enable to identify. Studying historical forms of communication, historians have pushed our understanding of oral and written contact methods in medieval Europe ever further. Not only written documents, but objects of all sorts were used as symbolic transmitters of information. The approaches to studying these forms of connections in both disciplines, however, are too rarely considered side by side, let alone together. Further questions will concern the demarcation of the networks to analyze, the type of relations, their temporality and scale-level as well as the impact of the sources chosen and of the techniques employed on the results of scholarly enquiries. This panel proposes to explore these issues through interdisciplinary dialogue with a group of participants from the disciplines of archaeology and history. The panel will be co-organized by Dr. Donat Wehner (Archaeology, University of Kiel) and Dr. Sébastien Rossignol (History, Memorial University of Newfoundland). We expect presenters from German universities and research institutions, who will apply for travel funding from the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Services).