Course Description

Prerequisite:

Admission open to all students with an interest in medieval history and archaeology. Students are recommended, but not required, to take EUH-3323 (Medieval Eastern Europe) or EUH-3182 (Medieval Archaeology) in advance.

Enrollment:

For a summer period of six weeks, the course enrollment is no more than 10 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 (EUH-4186). The course is offered in cooperation with the Institute of Archaeology and Museum Studies at the Masaryk University in Brno and will take place in Pohansko. 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. For more details, see the handout.

Textbooks:

• Kevin Greene. Archaeology. An Introduction. The History, Principles and Methods of Modern Archaeology. 4th edition. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 2002 [hereafter Greene]
• Coursepack

Assignments:

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, one exam, and satisfactory fieldwork. The exam 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. Make-up exam will be given for very serious reasons, in which case you will have to produce some official proof. The exam counts for twenty percent of the final grade. The fieldwork component will count for 70 percent, of which forty percent represents the journal kept during the four weeks of fieldwork. The remaining ten percent of your overall grade is for participation in class discussions.  

Course weekly schedule:

I. Fieldwork 

Introduction.  What is medieval archaeology?

• see also a short essay on artifacts

• Greene 8-36
• Hans Andersson, Barbara Scholkmann, and Mette Svart Kristiansen, "Medieval archaeology at the outset of the third millennium: research and teaching," in The Archaeology of Medieval Europe I. Eighth to Twelfth Century, ed. by James Graham-Campbell and Magdalena Valor (Aarhus, 2007), pp. 19-45 (Coursepack)
• see a brief presentation of Thomsen's Three-Age system
• 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"

Excavation and interpretation

• Greene 37-100
•  Jiří Golaň, Michal Kučera and Jiří Macháček, "The application of GIS in the archaeology: intra and inter site analysis in Breclav-Pohansko, Czech Republic," in Digital Earth Information Resources for Global Sustainability, ed. Milan Konečný (Brno, 1999), pp. 246-262 (click on the link to read the chapter)
• visit the site of the Harris Matrix

• Greene 101-129 
• Marek Krąpiec, "Dendrochronological dating of early medieval fortified settlements in Poland," in Frühmittelalterlicher Burgenbau in Mittel- und Osteuropa. Tagung, Nitra, vom 7. bis 10. Oktober 1996, ed. by Joachim Henning and Alexander T. Ruttkay (Bonn, 1998), pp. 257-67 (Coursepack)
• visit the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona

• Johnny De Meulemeester and Kieran O'Conor, "Fortifications," in The Archaeology of Medieval Europe I. Eighth to Twelfth Century, ed. by James Graham-Campbell and Magdalena Valor (Aarhus, 2007), pp. 316-341 (Coursepack)
•  Lumír Poláček, "Ninth-century Mikulčice: the 'market of the Moravians'? The archaeological evidence of trade in Great Moravia," in Post-Roman Towns, Trade, and Settlement in Europe and Byzantium, ed. by Joachim Henning (Berlin/New York, 2007), vol. 1, pp. 499-524 (Coursepack)
• Jiří Macháček, "Early medieval centre in Pohansko near Břeclav/Lundeburg: munitio, emporium or palatium of the rulers of Moravia?," in Post-Roman Towns, Trade, and Settlement in Europe and Byzantium, ed. by Joachim Henning (Berlin/New York, 2007), vol. 1, pp. 473-498 (Coursepack)
• visit the Polish hillfort at Grzybowo and the Viking-age emporium at Birka
  

• Lewis R. Binford, "Mortuary practices: their study and their potential,"in Approaches to the Social Dimensions of Mortuary Practices, ed. by James A. Brown (Ann Arbor, 1971), pp. 6-29 (Coursepack)
• Irene Barbiera, "Sixth-century cemeteries in Hungary and Italy: a comparative approach," in Die Langobarden. Herrschaft und Identität, ed. by Walter Pohl and Peter Erhard (Vienna, 2005), pp. 301-320 (Pack)
• Florin Curta, "The archaeology of identities in Old Russia (ca. 500 to ca. 650)," Russian History 34 (2007), 31-62 (Pack)
• Milan Stloukal, "The palaeodemography of medieval populations in Czechoslovakia," in From the Baltic to the Black Sea. Studies in Medieval Archaeology, ed. by David Austin and Leslie Alcock (London, 1990), pp. 209-15 (Coursepack)

• Andrzej Buko, "Pottery, potsherds and the archaeologist: an approach to pottery analyses," in Theory and Practice of Archaeological Research, ed. by Stanislaw Tabaczynski (Warsaw, 1998), pp. 381-408 (Coursepack)
• Paul Barford and Ewa Marczak, "Peasant households, potters, and phasing: early medieval ceramics from Podeblocie, Poland." Archaeologia Polona 30 (1992), 127-49 (Coursepack)
•  Zdeněk Smetánka and Bohumil Štveřák, "X-ray fluorescent analysis of gold and gilded jewels from the cemetery in Lumbe gardens at Prague Castle," Archeologické rozhledy 44 (1992), 418-30 (Coursepack)
• Florin Curta, "Blacksmiths, warriors and tournaments of value: dating and interpreting early medieval hoards of iron implements in Eastern Europe," Ephemeris Napocensis 7 (1997), 211-68 (Coursepack)
• see an introduction and samples of medieval pottery
• see an earring with a star-shaped pendant found in Lazuri (Romania) and a hoard of iron implements and weapons found in Sebenje (Slovenia)

• Andris Šnē, "Understanding power: on the study of the late prehistoric social and political structures in Latvia," in Culture and Material Culture. Papers from the First Theoretical Seminar of the Baltic Archaeologists (BASE) Held at the University of Tartu, Estonia, October 17th-19th, 2003, edited by Valter Lang (Tartu/Riga/Vilnius, 2005), pp. 53-70 (Coursepack) 
•  Naďa Profantová, "On the archaeological evidence for Bohemian elites of the 8th-9th century," in Central Europe in 8th-10th Centuries. International Scientific Conference, Bratislava October 2-4, 1995, ed. by Dušan Čaplovič and Ján Doruľa (Bratislava, 1997), pp. 105-114 (Coursepack)
  
• Falko Daim, "Archaeology, ethnicity and the structures of identification: the example of the Avars, Carantanians and Moravians in the eighth century," in Strategies of Distinction. The Construction of Ethnic Communities, 300-800, ed. by Walter Pohl and Helmut Reimitz (Leyden/Boston/Cologne, 1998), pp. 71-94 (Coursepack)

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 Pohansko, near Breclav in southern Moravia, on the border between the Czech Republic and Austria. Housing and meals will be offered on site. There will be field trips in the area (in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Austria) and a mini-van will be rented at a rate included in the total cost above.
 
 

© 2008 Florin Curta