This edited volume delves into the current state of Iron Age and Early Medieval research in the North. Over the last two decades of archaeological explorations, theoretical vanguards, and introduction of new methodological strategies, together with a growing amount of critical studies in archaeology taking their stance from a multidisciplinary perspective, have dramatically changed our understanding of Northern Iron Age societies. The profound effect of 6th century climatic events on social structures in Northern Europe, a reintegration of written sources and archaeological material, genetic and isotopic studies entirely reinterpreting previously excavated grave material, are but a few examples of such land winnings. The aim of this book is to provide an intense and cohesive focus on the characteristics of contemporary Iron Age research; explored under the subheadings of field and methodology, settlement and spatiality, text and translation, and interaction and impact. Gathering the work of leading, established researchers and field archaeologists based throughout northern Europe and in the frontline of this new emerging image, this volume provides a collective summary of our current understandings of the Iron Age and Early Medieval Era in the North. It also facilitates a renewed interaction between academia and the ever-growing field of infrastructural archaeology, by integrating cutting edge fieldwork and developing field methods in the corpus of Iron Age and Early Medieval studies. In this book, many hypotheses are pushed forward from their expected outcomes, and analytical work is not afraid of taking risks, thus advancing the field of Iron Age research, and also, hopefully, inspiring to a continued creation of new knowledge.

About the Author
Charlotta Hillerdal is a lecturer in the Department of Archaeology, University of Aberdeen. She holds a PhD from Uppdala University. Her research interests focus on early medieval Scandinavia and the Baltic Sea region, Viking Age Russia, and contact period western Canada and Alaska. Kristin Ilves is an assistant professor in maritime archaeology at the University of Helsinki. Her research interests are in maritime, island and coastal archaeology, maritime cultural landscapes, archaeological method and theory and late Iron Age settlement archaeology.

Reviews
This affordably priced catch-up on some exciting new work was a pleasure to read and review. The volume adopts a commendably interdisciplinarian approach, at its broadest combining two aspects of material culture, archaeology and text and, at a more micro-level, bringing together several sub-disciplines within archaeology. These fruitful combinations are directed towards exploring (and unsettling) the long-debated concept of centre-periphery. ... [I]t remains an excellent contribution to the field. * Medieval Archaeology *
...consider new ways of understanding archaeological landscapes as they use works of art created by Poraj-Wilczynska to question conventional perspectives on landscape. * Antiquity *



Book Information
ISBN 9781789254501
Author Charlotta Hillerdal
Format Hardback
Page Count 200
Imprint Oxbow Books
Publisher Oxbow Books