Archaeology of Social Inequality in Early Medieval Europe

EMA members are contributing to a major conference in Spain on the Archaeology of Social Inequality in Early Medieval Europe.

The aim of the conference is to discuss the theoretical challenges posed by the study of social and political inequality in early medieval societies in Western Europe. It will focus mainly on archaeology of rural communities. Traditional approaches have defined them as poor and unstable, in the framework of a self-sufficient economy that prioritized animal husbandry over agriculture. However, available archaeological evidence has upended that picture in recent years. It is also unfolding both the relevance of peasant agency and the true complexity of those small worlds. All these novelties are currently being discussed in the light of a research agenda centered on the emergence of villages, the formation of local elites, the creation of socio-political networks and the state, intensification of agrarian production and the role of identities and other strategies in the legitimation of social inequalities.

Andrew Reynolds will give a paper entitled, A case for the role of local stability in the formation of large-scale polities.

Other EMA colleagues also presenting include: Julio Escalona Monge (CSIC, Madrid), Iñaki Martín Viso (University of Salamanca), Catarina Tente (Universidade Nova de Lisboa), Alfonso Vigil-Escalera (UPV-EHU), and Juan Antonio Quirós (UPV-EHU).

More information is available at the conference website»