Interpreting Transformations of People and Landscapes in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages: Archaeological Approaches and Issues

In this volume of papers, deriving from two conferences held in Rome and Leicester in 2016, nineteen leading European archaeologists discuss and interpret the complex evolution of landscapes – both urban and rural – across Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (c. AD 300–700). The geographical coverage extends from Italy to the Mediterranean West through to the Rhine frontier and onto Hadrian's Wall. Core are questions of impacts due to the socio-political, religious, military and economic transformations affecting provinces, territories and kingdoms across these often turbulent centuries: how did townscapes change and at what rate? What were the fates of villas? When do post-classical landscapes emerge and in what form? To what degree did Europe become an insecure, defended landscape? In what ways did people – cityfolk, farmers, nobility, churchmen, merchants – adapt? Do the elite remain visible and how prominent is the Church? Where and how do we see culture change through the arrival of new groups or new ideas? Do burials form a clear guide to the changing world? And how did the environment change in this period of stress – was the classical period landscape much altered through the attested depopulation and economic deterioration? And underlying much of the discussion is a consideration of the nature and quality of our source material: how good is the archaeology of these periods and how good is our current reading of the materials available? Combined, these expert studies offer valuable new analyses of people and places in a complex, challenging and crucial period in European history.

Table of Contents:
List of Contributors   Preface and Acknowledgements   Introduction: Changing Data and Changing Interpretations in the Study of Transformations of Late Antique Space and Society Neil Christie   1. Transformation in the Cities of Northern Italy between the Fifth and Seventh Centuries AD. Forms, Functions and Societies Gian Pietro Brogiolo   2. Rome. An Analysis of Changes in Topography and Population between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages Roberto Meneghini   3. The Transformation of Society in Late Antique Hispania (AD 300–700) Javier Arce   4. Per omnium villas vicosque cunctos: Rural Landscapes in Late Antique Southern Italy Roberto Goffredo and Giuliano Volpe   5. The Countryside of Southern Gaul from the Fourth to Seventh Centuries AD. Settlement, Landscape and Society Claude Raynaud   6. Villas, Visigoths and Evangelisation: Rural Archaeology in Late Antique Novempopulana Simon Esmonde Cleary   7. Rural Settlements in the Territory of Salamanca (Spain) between the Late Roman Period and the Early Middle Ages: Testing a Model Enrique Ariño   8. Transformation in the Avon Valley from the Late Fourth to Seventh Centuries AD: A Case Study from the West Midlands, England Abigail E. I. Tompkins   9. Changing Landscapes? Land, People and Environment in England, AD 350–600 Stephen Rippon   10. Diversity in Unity: Exploring Survival, Transition and Ethnogenesis in Late Antique Western Britain Roger White   11. Landscape, Economy and Society in Late and Post-Roman Wales Andy Seaman   12. Military Might for a Depopulated Region? Interpreting the Archaeology of the Lower Rhine Area in the Late Roman Period Stijn Heeren   13. Landscapes of the Limitanei at the North-Western Edge of Empire Rob Collins   14. People and Landscapes in Northern Italy: Interrogating the Burial Archaeology of the Early Middle Ages Alexandra Chavarría Arnau   15. Rural and Urban Contexts in North-Eastern Spain: Examining and Interpreting Transformations across the Fifth–Seventh Centuries AD Pilar Diarte-Blasco   16. Spatial Inequality and the Formation of an Early Medieval Landscape in the Centre of the Iberian Peninsula Lauro Olmo-Enciso   17. Discontinuities, Threads of Continuity, Academic Inertia and All That: Debating the Late Antique and Early Medieval Archaeologies of Inner Iberia Alfonso Vigil-Escalera Guirado

About the Author :
Pilar Diarte-Blasco is a post-doctoral research fellow at Leicester University working on the Urban Centres and Landscapes in Transition. The Mediterranean Far West in Late Antiquity project. Pilar is a specialist in Late Antique Archaeology and urban studies, with much experience in survey techniques, geophysics and the management and visualisation of archaeological data. Neil Christie is Professor of Medieval Archaeology in the School of Archaeology & Ancient History at the University of Leicester. He is author and editor of a number of books centred especially on late Roman to early medieval Mediterranean Europe, covering themes such as urban and rural change and defence.

Review :
...it is an essential publication for anyone working on the western Mediterranean and Europe from Late Antiquity into the Middle Ages. It [this collection] highlights new and interesting aspects – from the north to the south of Europe – of the factors and the change agents that affected settlement processes and the formation/transformation of new post-Roman societies. …the volume succeeds admirably in both providing a series of status quaestionum and sketching roadmaps for future scholarship to follow.