From West to East: Current Approaches to Medieval Archaeology
This volume is a collection of current work in medieval archaeology, mainly as it is practiced in North America, with a comprehensive view rather than a local or regional perspective, allowing scholars from different regions access to research from across the medieval world. It includes chapters from well-established professors and up-and-coming scholars. The majority of the papers came from the first annual conference in medieval archaeology held at the State University of New York at Cortland in 2013. This conference gave those located in North America who were interested in medieval archaeology, both of Europe and the Mediterranean world, a chance to see what the latest developments were in the discipline. This volume includes both methodological and theoretical approaches, such as integrating remote sensing with laser scanning or exploring the definition of ethnicity; chapters include Viking Vinland, castles in Ireland and England, several Byzantine and Islamic-era sites in the eastern Mediterranean, and various other topics, ranging from a church in Hungary to the social construction of the medieval diet.
Scott D. Stull completed his PhD in 2002 at Binghamton University, exploring houses from medieval England and colonial-era New England. Since then, he has continued his work in both areas. He has taught medieval archaeology since 2010, and is currently a Lecturer at the State University of New York at Cortland. His recent publications have been on sites in North America, notably the 2014 article in Archaeological Discovery titled “Colonial Houses and Cultural Identity in New York State’s Mohawk River Valley” with Michael Rogers and Kevin Hurley. His forthcoming work includes a paper with Michael Twomey (Ithaca College) on the houses in Chaucer’s Miller’s and Reeve’s Tales.
"The study of the material culture of the Middle Ages in North America has long been the domain of art and architectural historians, with the theories and methods of archaeology and anthropology making few inroads into the landscapes, buildings, and artifacts of the medieval world. Pursuing medieval archaeology in the United States thus has particular challenges, which are well illustrated by the list of contributors to this volume. [...] The papers feature a welcome variety of methodological approaches, including excavations, landscape and geophysical survey, artifact studies, historical research, and building analysis, representing the wide spectrum of current medieval archaeology."
Aleksandra McClain University of York American Anthropologist, 118: 2 (2016)
"Overall, this collection of papers utilizes a broad range of perspectives and methods, from access and spatial analyses to landscape studies and zooarchaeology. [...] From West to East contains some real gems and, along with Austin and Alcock’s still widely used volume, it joins the regiment of books that will inspire students to take up medieval archaeology on both sides of the Atlantic."
Aleks Pluskowski Department of Archaeology, University of Reading Speculum, 91: 3 (2016)
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