Early Medieval Settlements The Archaeology of Rural Communities in North-West Europe 400-900

by Hamerow, Helena

• ISBN13: 9780199246977
• ISBN10: 0199246971
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-02-20
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The excavation of settlements has in recent years transformed our understanding of north-west Europe in the early Middle Ages. We can for the first time begin to answer fundamental questions such as: what did houses look like and how were they furnished? how did villages and individual farmsteads develop? how and when did agrarian production become intensified and how did this affect village communities? what role did craft production and trade play in the rural economy? In a period for which written sources are scarce, archaeology is of central importance in understanding the 'small worlds' of early medieval communities. Helena Hamerow's extensively illustrated and accessible study offers the first overview and synthesis of the large and rapidly growing body of evidence for early medieval settlements in north-west Europe, as well as a consideration of the implications of this evidence for Anglo-Saxon England.

Author Biography

Helena Hamerow is University Lecturer in Medieval Archaeology and Fellow of St. Cross College, Oxford.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	xi
Rural Communities in Early Medieval Europe: Archaeological Approaches and Frameworks	1	(11)
Houses and Households: The Archaeology of Buildings	12	(40)
Settlement Structure and Social Space	52	(48)
Land and Power: Settlements in their Territorial Context	100	(25)
The Forces of Production: Crop and Animal Husbandry	125	(31)
Rural Centres, Trade, and Non-Agrarian Production	156	(35)
Epilogue: Trajectories and Turning-Points	191	(4)
References	195	(26)
Index	221