The Archaeology of Medieval Villages Currently Inhabited in Europe

131 Pages·2019·20.058 MB·English

by  Jesus Fernandez Fernandez, Margarita Fernandez Mier

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The study of deserted villages abandoned during the last millennium in Europe has been the primary focus F Villages Currently Inhabited
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of archaeological interventions in rural settlements over recent decades. However, most of the hamlets n
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and villages of medieval origin remain inhabited today and excavations in these small and medium- n in Europe
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sized settlements are more unusual. The Archaeology of Medieval Villages Currently Inhabited in Europe e
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focuses on these locations, giving examples of sites excavated in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, n
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France, Scandinavia and Spain. The case studies highlight the diversity of problems and debates around F
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this subject such as the meaning of the term ‘village’, the chronology beyond the last millennium with r
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continuities, discontinuities and ruptures, the integration of research into residential and working areas, n
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the role of local communities in research programmes and the need for multidisciplinary approaches to e Jesús Fernández Fernández
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address all these issues. Deserted villages research along with currently-inhabited settlement excavation M
has the important potential to achieve long-lasting historical syntheses on medieval settlement networks ie Margarita Fernández Mier
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in Europe. These five chapters offer challenging approaches to the above issues and proposals for future e
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research in the field from Spain to the North Sea. s)

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Jesús Fernández Fernández’s lines of research and interests focus on Medieval Archaeology, Historical h
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Archaeology, Landscape Archaeology, GIS and Heritage studies. His recent research interests and A
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publications focus on the landscape and settlement transformations in the Asturian area, particularly h
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in the early medieval period. Jesús has been the director of several archaeological fieldwork projects e
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and a member of research projects in various universities. Currently he is co-director with Gabriel lo
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Moshenska and Margarita Fernández Mier of the Villanueva de Santu Adrianu medieval settlement y
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excavation project. Currently he is teaching and researching at Oviedo University within the programme f
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Marie-Curie COFUND. Fernández is also a social entrepreneur and director of La Ponte-Ecomuseum, e
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an archaeological-museological community project in Asturias, founded in 2012 and an award winner ie
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in 2016 (Leading Culture Destination Awards) and 2019 (Hispania Nostra Awards for Good Practices in a
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Cultural Heritage). illa
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Margarita Fernández Mier is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Oviedo (Spain). Her s
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principal interest is the study of early medieval societies in the north-western Iberian Peninsula, as well as u
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the settlement analysis and the organisation of agrarian landscapes research. Margarita’s work is based re
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on written and archaeological records and a long term analysis, from Roman times to Middle Ages. She is t
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PI of the ‘Local spaces and social complexity: the medieval roots of a twentieth-century debate (ELCOS)’ In
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project: a interdisciplinary research group funded by the Spanish Government which aims to situate a
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the present-day rural communities of Southern Europe as inheritors of a centuries-long experience of it
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collective organisation from medieval times. Margarita is the lead investigator of the LLABOR research d
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group working on Agrarian and Public Archaeology in Spain and Latin America. E
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Archaeopress Archaeology www.archaeopress.com

The Archaeology of
Medieval Villages
Currently Inhabited
in Europe
edited by
Jesús Fernández Fernández
Margarita Fernández Mier
Archaeopress Archaeology
Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
Summertown Pavilion
18-24 Middle Way
Summertown
Oxford OX2 7LG
www.archaeopress.com
ISBN 978-1-78969-300-3
ISBN 978-1-78969-301-0 (e-Pdf)
© the individual authors and Archaeopress 2019
Cover images: Village of Villanueva de Santu Adrianu, mentioned in IXct. documents. View from the north.
Drawing and reconstruction of the buildings in the nucleated tun at the farm Seim, situated close to the
fjord in Vik in the Sognefjord, as it appeared around 1870. Uncertain buildings drawn in dotted lines.
(Drawing: A. Berg 1952).
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, or transmitted, in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the
copyright owners.
This book is available direct from Archaeopress or from our website www.archaeopress.com
Contents
List of Figures and Tables ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������iii
Author Biographies ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������v
Preface ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������vii
Introduction ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������1
Test pit excavation as a method for reconstructing the development of currently-occupied
rural settlements: Evidence from England ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������7
Carenza Lewis
Village Archaeology in France� A twenty-five year retrospective ��������������������������������������������������35
Edith Peytremann
Investigating medieval village formation in the Netherlands ��������������������������������������������������������53
J.P.W. Verspay, H. Renes, B. Groenewoudt, J. van Doesburg
Is this a village? Approaching nucleated settlements in Scandinavian contexts ���������������������������73
Ingvild Øye
The Archaeology of Currently Inhabited Villages in Spain: The Case of Asturias ��������������������������91
Margarita Fernández Mier, Jesús Fernández Fernández
Conclusion ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������117
Chris Wickham
i
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List of Figures and Tables
Test pit excavation as a method for reconstructing the development of currently occupied
rural settlements: evidence from England
Figure 1. A 1m square test pit under excavation in Pirton (Hertfordshire) in 2010. .......................................................11
Figure 2. Eastern England, showing the location of parishes included in the East Anglia CORS project between
2005 and 2017. ......................................................................................................................................................................13
Figure 3. Pirton as depicted on the 6” to 1 mile Ordnance Survey map c. 1880, with the three main zones of
settlement highlighted (Ordnance Survey map copyright University of Edinburgh/Digimap, reproduced
with permission). ..................................................................................................................................................................14
Figure 4. Test pits excavated at Pirton showing test pits producing Romano-British pottery (black/grey circles),
test pits which did not produce Romano-British pottery (white squares) and names of streets and farms
mentioned in text. ................................................................................................................................................................15
Figure 5. Test pits excavated at Pirton showing test pits producing early/middle Anglo-Saxon pottery (black/grey
circles) and test pits which did not produce early/middle Anglo-Saxon pottery pottery (white squares). .............17
Figure 6. Test pits excavated at Pirton showing test pits producing late Anglo-Saxon pottery (black/grey circles)
and test pits which did not produce late Anglo-Saxon pottery pottery (white squares). .......................................17
Figure 7. Test pits excavated at Pirton showing test pits producing high medieval pottery (black/grey circles)
and test pits which did not produce high medieval pottery (white squares). ...........................................................19
Figure 8. Test pits excavated at Pirton showing test pits producing late medieval pottery (black/grey circles)
and test pits which did not produce late medieval pottery (white squares). ............................................................19
Figure 9. Test pits excavated at Pirton showing test pits producing post-medieval pottery (black/grey circles)
and test pits which did not produce post-medieval pottery (white squares). ...........................................................20
Figure 10. CORS discussed in text showing percentage of habitative pits per historic period against average for
all East Anglian CORS included on Table 1. ......................................................................................................................24
Table 1. Test pits excavated within CORS in East Anglia by May 2017, listed alphabetically by parish name,
showing the number and percentage of excavated pits per parish producing possibly habitative numbers of
pottery sherds of Roman, Anglo-Saxon, medieval and post-medieval date ...............................................................26
Village Archaeology in France� A twenty-five year retrospective
Figure 1. Location of sites mentioned in the article ..............................................................................................................36
Figure 2. French functioning preventive archaeology .........................................................................................................39
Figure 3. Location of test pits areas on the 19th cadastre of Bonnée (Loiret), © S. Joly ..................................................41
Figure 4. Vic (Indre): location of excavation areas since 1998 on the current cadastre plan ........................................42
Figure 5. Location of test pits and excavations on the 19th Cadastre of Tremblay-en-France (Seine-Saint-Denis) ..44
Figure 6. Vauchrétien (Maine-et-Loire): location of the test pits on the current cadastre plan ...................................45
Investigating medieval village formation in the Netherlands
Figure 1. Cycle of archaeological heritage management (simplified). ...............................................................................54
Figure 2. Overview of all the initial archaeological sites (white = urban; black = non-urban). .....................................58
Figure 3. Overview of all the archaeological sites that are considered relevant by the set criteria. ............................58
Table 1. Overview of archaeological periods according to the Archeologisch Basisregister (ABR) used in this
article. .....................................................................................................................................................................................59
Figure 4. Overview of relevant sites by site type. Where multiple types are present the least generic is displayed. 59
Figure 5. The number of sites per archaeological period during the time frame 750-1650 from a total number of
190 sites. .................................................................................................................................................................................60
Figure 6. The habitation period of multi-phased sites measured in the number of ABR-periods they cover .............60
Figure 7. The archaeological period in which the multi-phased sites started. .................................................................60
Figure 8. The period in which the settlements started that continued to the nineteenth century (red) or the
present-day (blue). ..............................................................................................................................................................61
Figure 9. Overview of regions for which synthesising models on the formation of villages were available. ..............63
Figure 10. Overview of the combined outcome of the inventories of archaeological excavations, historical
geographical case studies and (supra)regional models. .................................................................................................65
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Is this a village? Approaching nucleated settlements in Scandinavian contexts
Figure 1. Prospect of Vik, c. 1930 with the medieval Hove church in front on the terrace behind an expanding
settlement facing the Sognefjord. The new Vik church from 1877 can be discerned to the left, while
Hopperstad stave church further west is out of the picture (Photo: Fylkesarkivet i Sogn og Fjordane, with
permission). ...........................................................................................................................................................................73
Figure 2. Section of the cadastre map from Vik, 1864: Above to the left, the clustered tun at Hopperstad, with
the stave church in its outskirts. On the eastern side of the river Hopra, the farm Hove appears with its three
clusters with the church in the centre (Sunnfjord og Ytre Sogn jordskifterett, with permission). .......................74
Figure 3. Drawing and reconstruction of the buildings in the nucleated tun at the farm Seim, situated close to
the fjord in Vik in the Sognefjord, as it appeared around 1870. Uncertain buildings drawn in dotted lines.
(Drawing: A. Berg 1952)........................................................................................................................................................77
Figure 4. Map showing nucleated farms from western Norway mentioned in the text (Drawing: P. Bækken). .........80
The Archaeology of Currently Inhabited Villages in Spain: The Case of Asturias
Figure 1. Example of traditional mosaic landscape from the Northwest of the Iberian Peninsula. Mountain
pasture area in Vigaña, Asturias. .......................................................................................................................................93
Figure 2. Location map of study cases in Asturias. ................................................................................................................96
Figure 3. Example of geoarchaeological survey. ....................................................................................................................97
Figure 4. Territory of Vigaña (Belmonte de Miranda), excavated sites and chronologies obtained: 1. El Castru:
fortified hillfort dated from the 6th century BC to the 1st century AD. 2. Las Corvas: Neolithic settlement with
crop spaces superimposed until today. 3. Arrichere: agrarian terraces from the nineteenth century. 4. La
Granda: agrarian terrace from the 16th century. 5: Las Murias: fields, not dated. 6: L’Eirón: agrarian terraces
from the 19th century. 7: La Sienra, agrarian space from the Neolithic to the present. 8: L’Hortal: possible
neolithic storage silos. 9: La Escuela: negative structures from medieval period. 10: Late medieval Necrópolis.
11: Medieval Necropolis: occupation from the seventh century AD to the present. 12: Braña d’Estoupiel.
lo: traces of activities linked to the megalithic structure of La Chalga. Livestock and artisan activities of
modern times. 13. Braña Folgueras: fences related to modern agricultural activities. 14. Hermitage of Linares:
settlement occupation from the ancient bronze to the final bronze with reuse as a necropolis from the X.C
century and subsequent use as chapel. 15: The Cuernu: megalithic structure. ........................................................99
Figure 5. Las Corvas: Neolithic settlement. Fireplace within domestic structures. .......................................................100
Figure 6. Hermitage of L.linares: bronze age structures....................................................................................................101
Table 1. Vigaña radiocarbon data. ..........................................................................................................................................102
Figure 7. San Pedru de Vigaña. Early medieval post holes under Late medieval necropolis. ......................................103
Figure 8. Village of Villanueva de Santo Adriano, mentioned in IXct. documents. View from the north. ................105
Table 2. Results of the surface archaeological survey. .......................................................................................................105
Figure 9. Prospected areas and surveys with codes. ...........................................................................................................106
Figure 10. Different structures excavated (S. Romano). 1. Paved floor of medieval origin. A fireplace above was
dated between XIIIth-XIVth centuries (CDR, UE7). 2. Post holes of the XIIth ct. (MUR, EU 12). 3. Detail of an
excavated agrarian terrace dated from XV-XVIIth ct. 4. Post hole and structures filled up by sediments dated
between the X-XI centuries (CDR, EU 11 -post hole excavated in EU 13). .................................................................107
Table 3. Stratigraphic sequences noted in the soil and chronological correlation between SUs. The century is
given where there is absolute dating. ............................................................................................................................109
Table 4. Villanueva radiocarbon data. ...................................................................................................................................110
Table 5. Vigaña and Villanueva archaeological results comparison. ...............................................................................111
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Author Biographies
Jan van Doesburg (1963) studied Medieval Archaeology at the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Since 1990 he is working for the Cultural Heritage Agency (Ministry of Education, Culture and Science)
as Senior Researcher Archaeology Middle Ages and Early Modern period. Jan is currently finishing his
thesis on land use, development of elite groups and castle building in the Kromme Rijn area (central part
of the Netherlands) during the Middle Ages. His main interest lies with medieval settlements, castles/
moated sites, post-medieval archaeology and material culture from the Early and High Middle Ages.
Jesús Fernández Fernández’s lines of research and interests focus on Medieval Archaeology, Historical
Archaeology, Landscape Archaeology, GIS and Heritage studies. His recent research interests and
publications focus on the landscape and settlement transformations in the Asturian area, particularly
in the early medieval period. Jesús has been the director of several archaeological fieldwork projects
and a member of research projects in various universities. Currently he is co-director with Gabriel
Moshenska and Margarita Fernández Mier of the Villanueva de Santu Adrianu medieval settlement
excavation project. Currently he is teaching and researching at Oviedo University within the programme
Marie-Curie COFUND. Fernández is also a social entrepreneur and director of La Ponte-Ecomuseum,
an archaeological-museological community project in Asturias, founded in 2012 and an award winner
in 2016 (Leading Culture Destination Awards) and 2019 (Hispania Nostra Awards for Good Practices in
Cultural Heritage).
Margarita Fernández Mier is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Oviedo (Spain). Her
principal interest is the study of early medieval societies in the north-western Iberian Peninsula, as well
as the settlement analysis and the organisation of agrarian landscapes research. Margarita’s work is based
on written and archaeological records and a long term analysis, from Roman times to Middle Ages. She is
PI of the ‘Local spaces and social complexity: the medieval roots of a twentieth-century debate (ELCOS)’
project: a interdisciplinary research group funded by the Spanish Government which aims to situate
the present-day rural communities of Southern Europe as inheritors of a centuries-long experience of
collective organisation from medieval times. Margarita is the lead investigator of he LLABOR research
group working on Agrarian and Public Archaeology in Spain and Latin America.
Bert Groenewoudt wrote his PhD on the applicability of non-destructive methods of prospection and
assessment of archaeological sites (1994). He studied Prehistory at the University of Amsterdam and
works as a senior landscape archaeologist with the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE).
Project manager of the Dutch Valetta Harvest Project (until 2016) and of the Archaeological Research
Agenda of the Netherlands. His research focusses on man-landscape interaction, long-term processes of
change, land-use dynamics and the archaeology of ‘marginal’ landscapes.
Carenza Lewis is Professor of Public Understanding of Research at the University of Lincoln and an
archaeologist with research interests in rural settlement and childhood. Formerly an investigator for
RHCME, presenter on Channel 4s television series Time Team and founding director of Access Cambridge
Archaeology, she has published widely while leading initiatives engaging wider publics with heritage
including the Higher Education Field Academy, Cambridge Community Heritage and Unearthing
Middlefields Utopia. Director of Our Lincolnshire, from 2019-22 she is leading Community Archaeology in
Rural Environments Meeting Societal Challenges (CARE-MSoC), a European Commission project exploring
the social benefits of involving residents of rural communities in the Netherlands, Czech Republic and
Poland in local archaeological excavations.
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Dr Edith Peytremann is currently research engineer at National Institut for preventive archaeological
research (Inrap) to Nantes and lecturer at the University of Nantes. She’s permanent Researcher at the
Centre de Recherches Archéologiques et Historiques Anciennes et Médiévales (CRAHM-UMR 6273 -
Caen). She holds a HDR (French post-doctoral degree allowing its holder to supervise PhD students). She
is also been Co-President of the French Association of Merovingian Archaeology since 2014. Her main
research topics are rural settlements and site of early Médieval Ages, burial practices of early Medieval
Ages and the furniture of early Medieval Ages except the pottery. She led and leads many archaeological
excavations in Lorraine, Franche-Comté, Alsace and the Pays de la Loire. She is the author of numerous
archaeological publications, the last of which is En marge du village. La zone d’activités spécifiques et les
groupes funéraires de Sermersheim (Bas-Rhin) du VIe au XIIe siècle.
Hans Renes (1954) is historical geographer at Utrecht University (Faculty of Geosciences) and professor of
heritage studies at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Faculty of Humanities), the Netherlands. He published
on many different aspects of landscape history of the Netherlands and Europe as well as on the relation
between landscape heritage and planning.
Archaeologist Johan Verspay (1982) is a Phd candidate at the University of West Bohemia where he
studies the transformation of the countryside of Brabant (NL & BE) during the Late Middle Ages and
Early Modern period. As a research staff member at the University of Amsterdam he recently completed
the Valetta Harvest project on medieval village formation. He is currently working on a follow-up project
(CARE-MSoc), in the Groene Woud region (NL) in which archaeology, historical geography and medieval
history are integrated to reconstruct the formation an development of villages through community
archaeology.
Ingvild Øye, Dr.philos. Professor emeritus of Medieval Archaeology, University of Bergen. Former posts
at the Medieval Collections of the University Museum of Bergen and the Bryggens Museum; Director of
Bryggens Museum and the medieval monuments Håkonshallen/Rosenkrantz Tower. She has published
books, parts of books and articles related to both rural and urban archaeology of the Middle Ages,
including landscape archaeology, settlement history within broader timeframes. Her publications also
comprise works on material culture, especially tools and technology, many related to agricultural and
textile production. She has been member in various national and international networks, a.o. as national
representative in the international network Ruralia conferences on medieval rural archaeology (2004-2015).
She is also member of the international Advisory Board of the journal Landscape History (2008-) and the
editorial board for the academic book series The Northern World, North Europe and the Baltic 400-1400 AD,
Economies and Cultures, Brill Academic Publishers. (2000-2016).
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