Landscape Archaeology

In recent years archaeologists working at Norse sites across the North Atlantic have excavated a number of very small churches with cemeteries often associated with individual farms. Such sites seem to be a characteristic feature of early ecclesiastical establishments in Norse settlements around the North Atlantic and they stand in marked contrast to church sites elsewhere in Europe. But what was the reason behind this phenomenon?

From Greenland to Denmark and from Ireland to the Hebrides Iceland and Norway this volume presents a much-needed overview of small church studies from around the North Atlantic. The chapters gathered here discuss the different types of evidence for small churches and early ecclesiastical landscapes review existing debates and develop a synthesis that places the small churches in a broader context. Ultimately despite the varied types of data at play the contributions to this volume combine to offer a more coherent picture of the small church phenomenon pointing to a church that was able to answer the needs of a newly converted population despite the lack of an established infrastructure and throwing new light on how people lived and worshipped in an environment of dispersed settlements.

People have been living in Uist’s island landscapes for millennia; shaping and shaped by the unique environments of machair and moorland we see today. Uist Unearthed tells the story of 5000 years of the islands’ prehistory and history through five key archaeological sites.

Based on the award-winning Uist Virtual Archaeology Project this interactive book brings Uist’s past to life. Readers are invited to dig deeper and discover Uist’s unique archaeology through colourful and creative mixed media including illustrations infographics and photography enhanced with state-of-the-art augmented reality.

This book provides an excellent introduction to Uist’s archaeology for novices and professionals alike. It discusses the importance of Gaelic language and culture in our interpretation and understanding of archaeological landscapes. It is for all those interested in exploring alternative ways of reimagining interpreting and presenting the past through digital storytelling.

The Battle of Gaugamela in which Alexander the Great’s army faced the Persian army of King Darius III in 331 bce remains a famous date in history the last battle that led to Alexander’s conquest of the Achaemenid Empire. However the topography and chronology of the campaign have up to now remained little studied. Taking these two elements as its starting point this volume draws both on the latest archaeological research in the region and on recent advances in science (in particular GIS) to offer a completely new reconstruction of the Gaugamela campaign arguing for a much shorter campaign than has hitherto been understood. By turning the spotlight for the first time onto the geographical and topographical context of the campaign the author here also provides a new understanding of both the scale of Alexander’s military achievement and the long-term effects of the military reforms introduced by his father Philip II.

While archaeology is often considered to focus on the land that lies beneath our feet significant amounts of material culture have been lost to us beneath water whether in seas lakes rivers or submerged caves. The world of underwater archaeology however is increasingly recognized as a field that is vital to our understanding of the past. The chapters gathered together into this volume draw on research first presented at the Fourth Warsaw Seminar on Underwater Archaeology held at the University of Warsaw on 18–20 November 2021. From the seas of the Caribbean through to the Mediterranean and Norway and from Antiquity through to contemporary times the chapters presented here offer a dazzling array of different approaches to underwater archaeology and outline the potential that changing technology presents in this expanding field.

The fortified hilltop town of Capalbiaccio is a lost Etruscan settlement a site that developed out of prehistory to become an important colony and grain provider for the Roman Empire before being sacrificed to medieval intrigue and conquest by the Republic of Siena. The site together with the castle of Tricosto was first excavated forty-five years ago but the results were never published. Then in recent years archaeologist Michelle Hobart was invited to explore the area with a new team and employ the latest techniques of remote sensing to explore the landscape and fortifications. The results of both explorations are presented here for the first time in this volume which combines the invasive and non-invasive approaches of two generations of archaeologists to reveal what attracted settlers to this site from the inhabitants of the late Bronze Age through to the most important families of medieval Tuscany. This book employs the best of the latest geophysical techniques and time-tested approaches to ground the history of Capalbiaccio and to narrate how the fate of this small village was inextricably linked to regional and national networks as control of the territory and the settlement’s reason for being evolved over time.

From the rule of Justinian (AD 527-AD 565) up to the Islamic conquests in the Byzantine Empire the lands of the Mediterranean basin underwent significant change from the sixth to the ninth centuries AD. Urban and rural areas were transformed landscapes altered and material cultures saw a fundamental shift. But such changes were by no means uniform across the region. From Jordan Greece and the Danube to the Italian peninsula Sicily Spain and the Horn of Africa the contributions gathered together in this volume explore new advances and perspectives from the field of ‘Byzantine’ archaeology over the longue durée in order to shed new light on this period.

What was the impact of the reconquest of Justinian? What was the impact of Byzantium in archaeological record? What are the archaeological indicators of urban and rural transformations from the sixth to the ninth centuries? Did architecture represent a marker of socio-economic and cultural change within the Byzantine world? By engaging with such key questions and by drawing on new data from surveys excavations material culture and historical sources this volume offers new insights into archaeological perspectives on the broader Byzantine world.

In this volume two important veins of interdisciplinary research into the medieval period in Scandinavia and the Baltic region are merged namely the Christianization process and landscape studies. The volume authors approach the common theme of sacrality in landscape from such various viewpoints as archaeology philology history of religion theology history classical studies and art history. A common theme in all articles is a theoretical approach complemented by illustrative case studies from the Scandinavian Baltic or Classical worlds. Aspects of pagan religion as well as Christianity and the establishment of the early Church are considered within both geographical setting and social landscape while the study of maps place names and settlement patterns introduces new methodologies and perspectives to expose and define the sacral landscape of these regions. The contributions are put into perspective by a comparison with research into the sacral landscapes of Central Europe and the Classical world.

New interdisciplinary research methods and new models have been developed by the contributors to present new vistas of sacrality in the Scandinavian and the Baltic landscape. To open up these case studies a selection of over sixty images and maps accompanies this cutting-edge research allowing the reader to explore sacralization and the Christianization process within its medieval setting.