Stećci are medieval tombstones. Scattered across the landscapes of the Western Balkans in their thousands, they amalgamate the historical, cultural and religious components of medieval societies in the region, and are expressions of identity, social systems, politics and religious belief. Through these monuments, a diverse spectrum of identities was enunciated, providing us with a rare opportunity to investigate the archaeo-historic development of medieval South-eastern Europe.

Using the example of pottery imported into the Channel ports of southern England, an approach to examining the role of pottery in the emergence and mediation of coastal communities is proposed here. Building on recent scholarship, it is argued that it is no longer tenable to see pottery as a carrier of identity, or as part of a ‘cultural package’, with meaning emerging with identity as people interact with pottery within and without port environments. The study proposes that imported pottery found meaning in different ways, depending on the context of acquisition and use. Hence it mediated different forms of community and identity. The article ends with a consideration of the wider implications of this approach for ongoing studies of material culture, trade, and urban identities in medieval Europe.

This paper seeks to explore how prayer and praying practice are reflected in archaeological sources. Apart from objects directly involved in the personal act of praying, such as rosaries and praying books, churches and religious foundations played a major role in the medieval system of intercession. At death, an individual's corpse and burial primarily reflect the social act of representation during the funeral. The position of the arms, which have incorrectly been used as a chronological tool in Scandinavia, may indicate an evolution from a more collective act of prayer up to the eleventh century AD to a more individual way of praying in the late and post-medieval periods.

The post-medieval castle is often neglected in English archaeology, with most analyses focusing on whether the castle was built for status or defence, a debate which has become known as ‘the Battle for Bodiam’. However, in the English Civil War between 1642 and 1651, many castles were fortified either for King Charles I or his rebellious Parliament. Although the fortification of castles during this period is often attributed to acts of desperation and a lack of more suitable defences, an examination of the Royalist occupation of Sandal Castle in West Yorkshire demonstrates how this view is simplistic. The decision to fortify Sandal can be directly linked to the Battle of Wakefield in 1460, when Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, the father of King Edward IV and Richard III, was killed outside its walls. This episode heavily influenced subsequent events, culminating in the occupation of the castle at the outbreak of the English Civil War. The importance of the past during this later conflict is reinforced by the faunal and artefactual assemblages, and the locations in which they were found (and consumed). The complexity of the social discourse at Sandal challenges current approaches in castle studies and highlights the need for a biographical approach which sees the interpretation and interaction of the castle through time and space as far more important than the motivations behind its initial construction. Such a way of proceeding complements existing methodologies but also relies on material culture and history to create a subtler interpretation of these complex buildings.

Between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries AD, the Lower Vistula valley represented a permeable and shifting frontier between Pomerelia (eastern Pomerania), which had been incorporated into the Polish Christian state by the end of the tenth century, and the territories of western Prussian tribes, who had resisted attempts at Christianization. Pomeranian colonization eventually began to falter in the latter decades of the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, most likely as a result of Prussian incursions, which saw the abandonment of sites across the borderland. Subsequently, the Teutonic Order and its allies led a protracted holy war against the Prussian tribes, which resulted in the conquest of the region and its incorporation into a theocratic state by the end of the thirteenth century. This was accompanied by a second wave of colonization, which resulted in the settlement pattern that is still visible in the landscape of north-central Poland today. However, not all colonies were destroyed or abandoned in between the two phases of colonization. The recently excavated site of Biała Góra, situated on the western side of the Forest of Sztum overlooking the River Nogat, represents a unique example of a transitional settlement that included both Pomeranian and Teutonic Order phases. The aim of this paper is to situate the site within its broader landscape context which can be characterized as a militarized frontier, where, from the later twelfth century and throughout much of the thirteenth century, political and economic expansion was combined with the ideology of Christian holy war and missionary activity. This paper considers how the colonists provisioned and sustained themselves in comparison to other sites within the region, and how Biała Góra may be tentatively linked to a documented but otherwise lost outpost in this volatile borderland.

In recent years, scientific methods of bio- and geoarchaeology have become increasingly important for archaeological research. Political changes since the 1990s have reshaped the archaeological community. At the same time environmental topics have gained importance in modern society, but the debate lacks an historical understanding. Regarding medieval rural archaeology, we need to ask how this influences our archaeological research on medieval settlements, and how ecological approaches fit into the self-concept of medieval archaeology as a primarily historical discipline. Based mainly on a background in German medieval archaeology, this article calls attention to more complex ecological research questions. Medieval village formation and the late medieval crisis are taken as examples to sketch some hypotheses and research questions. The perspective of a village ecosystem helps bring together economic aspects, human ecology and environmental history. There are several implications for archaeological theory as well as for archaeological practice. Traditional approaches from landscape archaeology are insufficient to understand the changes within village ecosystems. We need to consider social aspects and subjective recognition of the environment by past humans as a crucial part of human–nature interaction. Use of the perspective of village ecosystems as a theoretical background offers a way to examine individual historical case studies with close attention to human agency. Thinking in terms of human ecology and environmental history raises awareness of some interrelations that are crucial to understanding past societies and cultural change.

This article develops recent interpretations of mortuary practices as contexts for producing social memory and personhood to argue that early medieval cairns and mounds served to commemorate concepts of gender and genealogy. Commemorative strategies are identified in the composite character, shape and location of cairns and in their relationship with other commemorative monuments, namely Class I symbol-stones. The argument is developed through a consideration of the excavations of early medieval cists and cairns at Lundin Links in Fife.

In the years leading up to the First World War the academic understanding of the earthen mounds we know as mottes underwent a series of dramatic changes. Exploration of the paradigms behind these viewpoints tells us much about the way in which knowledge comes into being and is used. In particular, archaeologists have created their own foundation myths, complete with hero and demon figures, which serve to emphasize a progressive account of research. The reality is often somewhat more reactionary. In this paper I argue that archaeological histories have impeded understanding of the discipline as the complexities of research remain hidden. As viewpoints become entrenched, creative thought is stifled because the subject is believed to be understood. In castle studies, one a-priori paradigm is that the English motte-and-bailey castle was introduced by the Normans, an idea commonly attributed to Ella Armitage. This paper explores the context behind the adoption of this idea through a case study focusing on changes in understanding. Acrimonious dismissal of alternative points of view has maintained the dominance of this paradigm. I conclude that critical historiographies such as this best serve the development of future understanding of the discipline.

The author reviews the development of Islamic archaeology in Spain, Portugal and Morocco through its publications and fieldwork, identifying research themes such as ceramic studies, fortified settlement and landscape archaeology, irrigation and urban archaeology. Features excavated in Spain or Portugal can best be understood through ethno-archaeological studies of the Moroccan landscape and its living traditions.