Download or read book Social complexity in early medieval rural communities written by Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo and published by Archaeopress Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2016-12-31 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents an overview of the results of the research project DESPAMED funded by the Spanish Minister of Economy and Competitiveness. The aim of the book is to discuss the theoretical challenges posed by the study of social inequality and social complexity in early medieval peasant communities in North-western Iberia.
Download or read book Social Inequality in Early Medieval Europe written by Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo and published by Brepols Publishers. This book was released on 2020 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The goal of this book is to discuss the theoretical challenges posed by the study of social and political inequality of local societies in Western Europe during the Early Middle Ages. Traditional approaches have defined rural communities as passive bodies, poor and unstable in the framework of a self-sufficient economy. In the last few decades the crisis on social approaches both in medieval history and archaeology have missed the opportunity to re-evaluate the role of peasantry and other subaltern groups, even if new written ad material evidences have eroded the traditional assumptions. Conversely, scholars focused on elites and aristocracies have promoted very powerful agendas and projects. As a consequence of the 2007-2008 recession, Social Sciences have begun to be interested in social and economic inequality, opening new avenues for a reassessment of social history. The Early Medieval period has been identified by different scholars as a key term for the analysis of political complexity and social inequality in a long-term perspective. The study of local societies has become one of the most fruitful arenas to innovate medieval archaeology and history, using approaches related to the microhistory. This book, dedicated to Chris Wickham, is formed by fourteen papers centred on the study, from both written and material records, of early medieval local communities, which tend to propose a complex framework of social inequality in the local scale.
Download or read book Social Inequality in Early Medieval Europe written by Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The goal of this book is to discuss the theoretical challenges posed by the study of social and political inequality of local societies in Western Europe during the Early Middle Ages. Traditional approaches have defined rural communities as passive bodies, poor and unstable in the framework of a self-sufficient economy. In the last few decades the crisis on social approaches both in medieval history and archaeology have missed the opportunity to re-evaluate the role of peasantry and other subaltern groups, even if new written ad material evidences have eroded the traditional assumptions. Conversely, scholars focused on elites and aristocracies have promoted very powerful agendas and projects. As a consequence of the 2007-2008 recession, Social Sciences have begun to be interested in social and economic inequality, opening new avenues for a reassessment of social history. The Early Medieval period has been identified by different scholars as a key term for the analysis of political complexity and social inequality in a long-term perspective. The study of local societies has become one of the most fruitful arenas to innovate medieval archaeology and history, using approaches related to the microhistory. This book, dedicated to Chris Wickham, is formed by fourteen papers centred on the study, from both written and material records, of early medieval local communities, which tend to propose a complex framework of social inequality in the local scale.
Download or read book The Archaeology of Medieval Villages Currently Inhabited in Europe written by Jesús Fernández Fernández and published by Archaeopress Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2019-08-29 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Archaeological interventions in European rural settlements have largely focussed on villages abandoned during the last millennium. Most hamlets and villages of medieval origin remain inhabited, however, and excavations have been scarce. This book details excavations of inhabited sites in the UK, the Netherlands, France, Scandinavia and Spain.
Download or read book Social Complexity and Complex Systems in Archaeology written by Dries Daems and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-02-22 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Social Complexity and Complex Systems in Archaeology turns to complex systems thinking in search of a suitable framework to explore social complexity in Archaeology. Social complexity in archaeology is commonly related to properties of complex societies such as states, as opposed to so-called simple societies such as tribes or chiefdoms. These conceptualisations of complexity are ultimately rooted in Eurocentric perspectives with problematic implications for the field of archaeology. This book provides an in-depth conceptualisation of social complexity as the core concept in archaeological and interdisciplinary studies of the past, integrating approaches from complex systems thinking, archaeological theory, social practice theory, and sustainability and resilience science. The book covers a long-term perspective of social change and stability, tracing the full cycle of complexity trajectories, from emergence and development to collapse, regeneration and transformation of communities and societies. It offers a broad vision on social complexity as a core concept for the present and future development of archaeology. This book is intended to be a valuable resource for students and scholars in the field of archaeology and related disciplines such as history, anthropology, sociology, as well as the natural sciences studying human-environment interactions in the past.
Download or read book Legions of Pigs in the Early Medieval West written by Jamie Kreiner and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-27 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exploration of life in the early medieval West, using pigs as a lens to investigate agriculture, ecology, economy, and philosophy From North Africa to the British Isles, pigs were a crucial part of agriculture and culture in the early medieval period. Jamie Kreiner examines how this ubiquitous species was integrated into early medieval ecologies and transformed the way that people thought about the world around them. In this world, even the smallest things could have far‑reaching consequences. Kreiner tracks the interlocking relationships between pigs and humans by drawing on textual and visual evidence, bioarchaeology and settlement archaeology, and mammal biology. She shows how early medieval communities bent their own lives in order to accommodate these tricky animals—and how in the process they reconfigured their agrarian regimes, their fiscal policies, and their very identities. In the end, even the pig’s own identity was transformed: by the close of the early Middle Ages, it had become a riveting metaphor for Christianity itself.
Download or read book Neighbours and strangers written by Bernhard Zeller and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-24 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores social cohesion in rural settlements in western Europe from 700–1050, asking to what extent settlements, or districts, constituted units of social organisation. It focuses on the interactions, interconnections and networks of people who lived side by side – neighbours. Drawing evidence from most of the current western European countries, the book plots and interrogates the very different practices of this wide range of regions in a systematically comparative framework. It considers the variety of local responses to the supra-local agents of landlords and rulers and the impact, such as it was, of those agents on the small-scale residential group. It also assesses the impact on local societies of the values, instructions and demands of the wider literate world of Christianity, as delivered by local priests.
Download or read book Environment and Society in the Long Late Antiquity written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-01-04 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Environment and Society in the Long Late Antiquity brings together scientific, archaeological and historical evidence on the interplay of social change and environmental phenomena at the end of Antiquity and the dawn of the Middle Ages, ca. 300-800 AD.
Download or read book Agrarian Archaeology in Northwestern Iberia written by Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo and published by Archaeopress Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2023-04-06 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Devoted to the archaeological study of the societies and agrarian landscapes of Northwestern Iberia in the longue durée, this book brings together the results of some of the main projects carried out in recent decades from off-site records, providing a fresh perspective for the understanding of historical landscapes.
Download or read book The Visigothic Kingdom in Iberia written by Santiago Castellanos and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2020-11-13 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The structures of the late ancient Visigothic kingdom of Iberia were rooted in those of Roman Hispania, Santiago Castellanos argues, but Catholic bishops subsequently produced a narrative of process and power from the episcopal point of view that became the official record and primary documentation for all later historians. The delineation of these two discrete projects—of construction and invention—form the core of The Visigothic Kingdom in Iberia. Castellanos reads documents of the period that are little known to many Anglophone scholars, including records of church councils, sermons, and letters, and utilizes archaeological findings to determine how the political system of elites related to local communities, and how the documentation they created promoted an ideological agenda. Looking particularly at the archaeological record, he finds that rural communities in the region were complex worlds unto themselves, with clear internal social stratification little recognized by the literate elites.
Download or read book The Collapse of Complex Societies written by Joseph Tainter and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1988 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dr Tainter describes nearly two dozen cases of collapse and reviews more than 2000 years of explanations. He then develops a new and far-reaching theory.
Download or read book Debating medieval Europe written by Stephen Mossman and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2020-12-07 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Debating medieval Europe serves as an entry point for studying and teaching medieval history. Rather than simply presenting foundational knowledge or introducing sources, it provides the reader with frameworks for understanding the distinctive historiography of the period, digging beneath the historical accounts provided by other textbooks to expose the contested foundations of apparently settled narratives. It opens a space for discussion and debate, as well as providing essential context for the sometimes overwhelming abundance of specialist scholarship. Volume I addresses the early Middle Ages, covering the period c. 450–c. 1050. The chapters are organised chronologically, and cover such topics as the Carolingian Order, England and the ‘Atlantic Archipelago’, the Vikings and Ottonian Germany. It features a highly distinguished selection of medieval historians, including Paul Fouracre and Janet L. Nelson.
Download or read book The Long Sixth Century in Eastern Europe written by Florin Curta and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-05-12 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Long Sixth Century in Eastern Europe, Florin Curta offers a social and economic history of East Central, South-Eastern and Eastern Europe during the 6th and 7th centuries.
Download or read book Urban Transformations in the Late Antique West Materials Agents and Models written by André Carneiro and published by Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra / Coimbra University Press. This book was released on with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is the fruit of a highly productive international research gathering academic and professional (field- and museum) colleagues to discuss new results and approaches, recent finds and alternative theoretical assessments of the period of transition and transformation of classical towns in Late Antiquity. Experts from an array of modern countries attended and presented to help compare and contrast critically archaeologies of diverse regions and to debate the qualities of the archaeology and the current modes of study. While a number of papers inevitably focused on evidence available for both Spain and Portugal, we were delighted to have a spread of contributions that extended the picture to other territories in the Late Roman West and Mediterranean. The emphasis was very much on the images presented by archaeology (rescue and research works, recent and past), but textual data were also brought into play by various contributors.
Download or read book Northwest Europe in the Early Middle Ages c AD 600 1150 written by Christopher Loveluck and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-10-24 with total page 490 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christopher Loveluck's study explores the transformation of Northwest Europe (primarily Britain, France and Belgium) from the era of the first post-Roman 'European Union' under the Carolingian Frankish kings to the so-called 'feudal' age, between c.AD 600 and 1150. During these centuries radical changes occurred in the organisation of the rural world. Towns and complex communities of artisans and merchant-traders emerged and networks of contact between northern Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Middle and Far East were redefined, with long-lasting consequences into the present day. Loveluck provides the most comprehensive comparative analysis of the rural and urban archaeological remains in this area for twenty-five years. Supported by evidence from architecture, relics, manuscript illuminations and texts, this book explains how the power and intentions of elites were confronted by the aspirations and actions of the diverse rural peasantry, artisans and merchants, producing both intended and unforeseen social changes.
Download or read book The Archaeology of Peasantry in Roman Spain written by Jesús Bermejo Tirado and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2022-01-19 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume aims to present an updated portrait of the Roman countryside in Roman Spain by the comparison of different theoretical orientations and methodological strategies including the discussion of textual and iconographic sources and the analysis of the faunal remains. The archaeology of rural areas of the Roman world has traditionally been focused on the study of villae, both as an architectural model of Roman otium and as the central core of an economic system based on the extensive agricultural exploitation of latifundia. The assimilation of most rural settlements in provincial areas of the Roman Empire with the villa model implies the acceptance of specific ideas, such as the generalization of the slave mode of production, the rupture of the productive capacity of Late Iron Age communities, or the reduction in importance of free peasant labor in the Roman economy of most rural areas. However, in recent decades, as a consequence of the generalized extension of preventive or emergency archaeology and survey projects in most areas of the ancient territories of the Roman Empire, this traditional conception of the Roman countryside articulated around monumental villae is undergoing a thorough revision. New research projects are changing our current perception of the countryside of most parts of the Roman provincial world by assessing the importance of different types of rural settlements. In the last years, we have witnessed the publication of archaeological reports on the excavation of thousands of small rural sites, farms, farmsteads, enclosures, rural agglomerations of diverse nature, etc. One of the main consequences of all this research activity is a vigorous discussion of the paradigm of the slave mode of production as the basis of Roman rural economies in many provincial areas. A similar change in the paradigm is taking place, with some delay, in the archaeology of Roman Spain. After decades of preventive/emergency interventions there is a considerable quantity of unpublished data on this kind of rural settlements. However, unlike the cases of Roman Britain or Gallia Comata, no synthesis or national projects are undertaking the task of systematizing all these data. With the intention of addressing this current situation the present volume discusses the results and methodological strategies of different projects studying peasant settlements in several regions of Roman Spain.
Download or read book Records and Processes of Dispute Settlement in Early Medieval Societies written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-11-20 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can dispute records shed light on the study of dispute settlement processes and their social and political underpinnings? This volume addresses this question by investigating the interplay between record-making, disputing process, and the social and political contexts of conflicts. The authors make use of exceptionally rich charter materials from the Iberian Peninsula, Italy, and Scandinavia, including different types of texts directly and indirectly related to conflicts, in order to contribute to a comparative survey of early medieval dispute records and to a better understanding of the interplay between judicial and other less formal modes of conflict resolution. Contributors are Isabel Alfonso, José M. Andrade, François Bougard, Warren C. Brown, Wendy Davies, Julio Escalona, Kim Esmark, Adam J. Kosto, Juan José Larrea, André Evangelista Marques, Josep M. Salrach, Igor Santos Salazar, and Francesca Tinti.
