Prerequisite:

Admission open to all students, with an interest in medieval history and archaeology. Students are recommended, but not required, to take EUH-3122 (High Middle Ages) or HIS-3931 (Medieval Archaeology) in advance.

Enrollment:

For a summer period of six weeks, the course enrollment is no more than 8 students. Students taking this course cannot re-take it for more academic credit.
 
 

Credit

This course is offered for six (6) semester hours of coursework. The credit for these hours is to be applied entirely to History (HIS-4956). The course is offered in cooperation with the Department of Archaeology at the National University of Ireland in Galway (NUIG) and will take place in Granard, Co. Longford. Classes will be taught , using lectures and class discussions, supplemented by on-site visits, laboratory work and fieldwork. Participation in an ongoing research excavation will be an integral part of the course. Two week-end field trips are included in the course schedule.

Textbooks:
 

• Kevin Greene. Archaeology. An Introduction. The History, Principles and Methods of Modern Archaeology. 3rd edition. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 1995 [hereafter Greene]; on two-hour reserve in Library West
• Kieran Denis O'Conor. The Archaeology of Medieval Rural Settlement in Ireland. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 1998 [hereafter O'Conor]; on two-hour reserve in Library West

There is no attendance policy, but you are responsible for attending all lectures and reading the required texts. The basis for evaluation of performance will be class participation, two exams and satisfactory fieldwork. The exams will consist of  two parts: an identification and/or multiple-choice part, and a short essay, in which you will be asked to synthesize your knowledge of the topic, dropping in facts to show that you understand the concrete aspects of that topic. Only the first exam will be cumulative. In other words, the second examination will cover only the material since the first examination. Make-up exam will be given for very serious reasons, in which case you will have to produce some official proof. Each exam counts for 20% of the final grade. The fieldwork component and the written paper will count for the remaining 50%. The remaining 10% are for participation in class discussions.

Course weekly schedule (lectures and discussions):

May 6: Introduction. Archaeology in the classroom, archaeology in the field.
May 7: What is medieval archaeology?

• see also a short essay on artifacts

• O'Conor, Introduction

Greene 8-36

see a brief presentation of Thomsen's Three-Age system, as well as the short biographies of Gustaf Kossinna and Oskar Montelius

see Jennifer Stephens's essay on the influence of A. H. Lane-Fox Pitt Rivers on the development of modern archaeology

• Greene 159-184
• see also Dietrich Hakelberg, "Blicke in die vaterländische Vorzeit - Regional and national identities and the history of German archaeology"

• see also Holger Grönwald, Raiko Krauß and Gerson H. Jeute, "Ethnoarchaeology in Bulgaria"

• Greene 37-57
• see some aerial photographs and a few applications of aerial archaeology
• see also a GIS application to an archaeological project in Burgundy (France)

• Greene 58-100
• visit the site of the Harris Matrix

May 17: Dating the past: methods of dating

Greene 101-129

see a brief presentation of the principles of radiocarbon dating and a short essay on luminiscence dating of pottery

visit the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona

• see a brief survey of early medievalhouses and building techniques  in England
• see a survey of timber-framed architecture and visit the medieval village of Wharram Percy

• O'Conor 41-71
• see a distribution map of the most important sites mentioned in the lecture
• for an early rural site outside the frontiers of the Roman Empire, see a brief presentation, as well as the plan and the excavated long-houses (with reconstruction) and manor from Feddersen Wierde

• for a minimal bibliography on paleoethnobotany and its applications, see the Dung File; for a complete list of web sources on zooarchaeology, visit the Zooarchaeology Web Page

• O'Conor 75-94
• see a survey of crannogs in the Inner Hebrides
• see a short presentation of Yeavering, a seventh-century palatial complex in Northumbria
• see a brief presentation and a view of Ostrów Lednicki
• visit Slöinge, a high status site in southwest Sweden
• visit Westminster Palace (facade and interior vaults) and Nonsuch Palace

• O'Conor 17-39
• see an image of the earliest castle, the keep of Doué-la-Fontaine
• for an example of barbican, see the plan of Hadleigh Castle
• for an example of kitchen range, see the plan of Skenfrith Castle
• visit three castles in Wales: Dryslwyn, Dolforwyn, and Montgomery Castle
• see the Edlingham Castle in Northumberland and Château Gaillard in Eure
• see also the Crusader castle of Krak des Chevaliers (Homs, Syria)
• visit the Tower of London

May 28: Forts and earthen ramparts

• see the image of an eleventh-century motte in the Bayeux Tapestry and a brief presentation of motte-and-bailey and ringwork castles
• see a map and a picture of Offa's Dyke, the inscription on the Pillar of Eliseg, and the three main building phases of Danevirke
• see the large hillfort at Starigard (Oldenburg, Germany)
• visit also the Moravian hillfort at Breclav-Pohansko,  the Viking stronghold at Trelleborg, the Polish hillfort at Grzybowo

• for an example of Eigenkirche, see the church of St. Dionysius at Esslingen
• for an example of parish church, see the plan of the All Saints Church in Brixworth (Northamptonshire)

for an example of burials within the church, see the fifth-century graves underneath the main nave of the Saint Germain Church in Auxerre

• Sheila Bonde and Clark Maines, "The archaeology of monasticism: a survey of recent work in France, 1970-1987," Speculum 63 (1988), no. 4, 794-825 [available online]
• see a distribution map of some of the sites mentioned in this lecture
• see a view of the Irish monastery of Clonmacnoise (with a detailed view of the tower)
• see the plan and images of the refectory, crypt church, and a reconstruction of the Benedictine abbey at San Vincenzo al Volturno
• visit the Benedictine abbey at Psalmodi
• for examples of Cistercian houses, see a general view of the Vauclair Abbey (Gothic church, drainage system, and fountain) and two views of the Pontigny Abbey (exterior and interior)
• for examples of priories of canon orders, see the Augustinian house of Bolton and the Premonstratensian house at Dryburgh

          Program costs  (housing, meals, excursion)  -    $820
          Tuition & fees                                             -    $180
          Total cost                                                    -    $1,000

Airfare tickets, passports, visas, adequate medical insurance (including emergency repatriation insurance), and other travel expenses are the responsibility of students. Upon request, assistance with group rates for airfare may be provided.

The excavation site is located in Granard, Co. Longford, about 30 miles south from the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, 70 miles west-north-west from Dublin and about 60 miles east-north-east from Galway. Housing and meals will be offered in a B&B motel in Granard, which also offers breakfast and packed lunch. There will be bus trips around the area, and a van may be rented at a rate of $50-60 per day.
 
 

© 2002 Florin Curta