Medieval Archaeology and Theory: A Disciplinary Leap of Faith

Abstract

In 1982, the occasion of the Society’s 25th anniversary prompted reflection on the discipline’s relationship with archaeological theory. Archaeological observations are theory-laden, and intensely dependent on extended networks of theoretical claims and assumptions. It may be argued that the empiricist position in medieval archaeology was reinforced by the positivist methodologies of processualism, which perpetuate a separation of theory and data. The explicit use of systems theory was short-lived in medieval archaeology, with the timing of Hodges’ pioneering works coinciding almost precisely with the demise of processualism. Some aspects of early medieval archaeology continue to spar more enthusiastically with theory than their later medieval counterparts. Within medieval studies, the archaeological perspective of ‘deep time’ may even lend a distinctive voice to medieval archaeology. The appetite for archaeological theory can generally be seen to follow an Anglo-Scandinavian axis, and medieval archaeology is no exception in showing more rapid theoretical development in Nordic- and English-speaking areas.

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