what is the point of doing medieval archaeology anyway?

[P Prentice]

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i have this problem at the moment, , in which my LBA/EIA field-systems, which overlie one another, are punctuated by a 30m diameter timber post enclosure; - horizontal strat with longhouses and poss cult building are indicativel...

you have LBA/EIA field systems - plural? 30m dia timber post enclosure? long houses? you jester

[Wax]

So PP is any post medieval archaeology worthwhile?:face-stir:

[P Prentice]

So PP is any post medieval archaeology worthwhile?:face-stir:

only to pay the bills and provide pretty pictures on the website - just bores me rigid

[Wax]

Oh dear PP do you know how narrow minded your posts are making you appear? everything can be interesting with the right spin or story behind it. Something I am sure you have argued for on other threads.

[gwyl]

and you know the best bit about medieval and post-medieval archaeology - not to mention archaeology of the 20th C? you can test those hypotheses with increasing reliability. the 'problem' with prehistory is the magnitude of the time-scales and the amount that happened here in NW europe, which was frankly a bit of a backwater. looking to the east and the depth of strat and quality of gear is gopping. archaeology from NW europe will never compare; equally, if the theoretical discourses emanating from the near east are passable but not great, how much less developed are they going to be here, where we have a rnage of material culture and structural forms which are again not comparable.
come to the medieval and post-med and we are if not cooking with gas, at least matches in hand and looking for to turn it on...
for sure med needs more theory, and there is nothing cuter than a med arch squirming under the threat of theory, but whatev's; it's whatever does it for you. and surely not THAT rigid?

[P Prentice]

see - the best bit of med and post med arch is that you can read about it to see if its true. utterly pointless. and who needs all those pesky finds and material remains to clutter up our beautiful models and our grandiloquent histories?

[Wax]

One of the joys of historical archaeology is the way the physical evidence can actually disprove some of the written histories. The written record can lie, the material evidence is exactly that " material evidence" Hence forensic archaeology.

[Dinosaur]

i have this problem at the moment, although i'll tell you about that later, in which my LBA/EIA field-systems, which overlie one another, are punctuated by a 30m diameter timber post enclosure; the problem is the pottery is all much of a muchness and only strat sorts it all out, and the strat is very thin on the ground - boomboom - horizontal strat with longhouses and poss cult building are indicative but with only one or two exceptions are ther physical relations

so there you go.

but if you want to talk medieval smithing, well...

Phew, mine's bigger than yours then! How many rings of postholes u got? Got lots of charcoal can trade you for some pot, forgotten what that looks like, apart from that medieval stuff that's handy for telling you its a furrow and you can ignore it :face-approve:

Currently have 3 medieval smithing sites in the backlog, they seem to be following me around :face-crying:

[gwyl]

Phew, mine's bigger than yours then! How many rings of postholes u got? Got lots of charcoal can trade you for some pot, forgotten what that looks like, apart from that medieval stuff that's handy for telling you its a furrow and you can ignore it :face-approve:

Currently have 3 medieval smithing sites in the backlog, they seem to be following me around :face-crying:

single ovoid ring which started life as an arc of posts.

what are your smithing sites like? any structure remaining or is it all just a load of slag and hammerscale? i had an anvil-setting, hearth, bosh and traces of walls; antecedant just had walls, floor and slags. manor was originally cathedral-holding used to support scholarsinterestingly enough Alsted was also Canterbury holding

c'mon show us your'n

[P Prentice]

so they smithed slag in medieval land did they - well i never did