FF:AEA_66 Medieval Archaeology - Seminar - Course Information

AEA_66 Medieval Archaeology - Seminar

Extent and Intensity

0/2/0. 2 credit(s). Type of Completion: z (credit).

Teacher(s)

prof. PhDr. Zdeněk Měřínský, CSc. (seminar tutor)
doc. PhDr. Rudolf Procházka, CSc. (seminar tutor)

Guaranteed by

prof. PhDr. Zdeněk Měřínský, CSc.
Department of Archaeology and Museology – Faculty of Arts
Contact Person: Jitka Šibíčková
Supplier department: Department of Archaeology and Museology – Faculty of Arts

Timetable

Tue 15:50–17:25 zruseno C21

Prerequisites

Passive familiarity to handle the special (archaeological, historical) text in the English and German language.

Course Enrolment Limitations

The course is only offered to the students of the study fields the course is directly associated with.

The capacity limit for the course is 30 student(s).
Current registration and enrolment status: enrolled: 0/30, only registered: 0/30

fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with

there are 6 fields of study the course is directly associated with, display

Course objectives

The seminar covers the specialist issues enhancing the topics of the lectures and aimed primarily at the methodology of the branch, specifics of the field practice, and cooperation with other disciplines of social sciences, incl. methods of surveying and dating.

Syllabus

• 1. Definition of the term medieval archaeology, subject of the study and the timeframe (different approaches in various European countries); contact and overlapping with other fields of archaeology (industrial, post-medieval etc.). The main spheres of research and issues (history of technics; spiritual sphere; production and economy; social development and settlement). Archaeological sources of material nature and their usage in the work of a historian-medievist. 2. An outline of basic literature from the field of medieval archaeology and the work with this literature. Basic reference books of encyclopaedic and dictionary character, textbooks, special methodological studies and specifics of the field theory and practice (Harris method and other specifics of field documentation and guidance of medieval arch. research). Basic works and syntheses for Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia and monographs summarizing the issues relating to the individual parts of Europe. An outline of the main specialized European periodicals (incl. the USA). Methodical procedures and specifics of medieval archaeology methodology (archaeological process; sources and their criticism; operations related with formulation of the issues, diagnosis, analysis and interpretation). Main theoretical orientations and philosophical resources (positivism and neopositivism, structuralism, marxism, analytical and new archaeology, post-processualism etc.). The “Annales” French school and historiography (mainly medievistics). 4. Systematics of the medieval archaeology branch. Natural conditions, development of settlement, rural settlements, sacral objects, feudal manors, towns and their genesis, economy, social development, agriculture and crafts (production facilities and the individual spheres and groups of material culture relics), artistic craft. 5. History of research in the sphere of medieval archaeology (until 1945); the first targeted medieval researches (Bohemia and Moravia, Slovakia until 1918, Czechoslovakia, Germany); resources of hiving off the specialist medieval archaeology discipline (antiquarian, cultural – historical, fine-art historical approaches; the share of prehistoric archaeology and its methods; the benefit of application of stratigraphical method; J. E. Vocel, J. Koula, K. Guth, K. Hilbert, L. Niederle, G. Skalský, V. Mencl, I. Borkovský). Fine-art history (NM in Prague) and archaeological orientations (StAÚ in Prague, est. 1919). Research of the Prague Castle (since 1925), Vyšehrad and other localities. 6. Emergence of the medieval archaeology concept after 1945 (StAÚ in Prague, NM in Prague; J. Böhm, I. Borkovský and V. Denkstein); impulses in the Hussite movement research (Z. Nejedlý, Z. Drobná) and the discussion on the origins of feudalism (F. Graus, J. Böhm, K. Černohorský atd.); seminar meeting 1953 (theoretical, chronological, thematic and methodological definition of the discipline; V. Denkstein and others); impulses for the branch in the form of exhibitions by NM in Prague and MZM in Brno (the Hussite movement, medieval village and pottery). The first major post-war researches; medieval archaeologist founder generation. 7. Development of medieval archaeology in Moravia and in Slovakia. Moravia. The first researches of abandoned medieval villages, the development of Slavonic archaeology after 1945, and impulses for the High Middle Ages archaeology. Main research circuits, organization of scientific work, places of work, the most important researches and persons. Slovakia. The first excavations; organization of research places of work; development of research after 1945 and important persons. 8. Medieval archaeology as a typical interdisciplinary branch. Cooperating branches from the sphere of technical and natural sciences, social sciences and historical branches. The position of medieval archaeology within auxiliary sciences of history and its separation as an independent discipline. 9. Methods of prospecting and dating applied in medieval archaeology. Geophysical methods of prospecting, aerial photogrammetry, phosphate soil analysis, methods and principles of surface reconnaissance including geodesy survey of surface relics and ascertained situations. Dating methods, suitable and unsuitable (C14, thermoluminiscence, archaeomagnetism, pollen diagrams, dendrochronology, its principles and outcomes). 10. Cooperating branches of natural sciences (inanimate nature) and selected outcomes of cooperation. Geology, petrography and petroarchaeology, pedology, hydrogeology a hydrology, geography, orography and field morphology determining and co-creating the conditions for medieval settlement. Studied sites; researchers; outcomes. 11. Cooperating branches of natural sciences (animate nature except anthropology). Palynology, palaeobotanics, development of forest, microbiology and parasitology, entomology, malakozoology, palaeozoology. Studied sites; researchers; outcomes. 12. Anthropology and palaeodemography, palaeopathology and the cognition of health state of the population; their importance, methods and findings. An outline of analysed collections, sites, outcomes and research tasks. Demographic development of early and high medieval Europe, migration within the Euro-Asian space, types of populations, Black Death. 13. Cooperation with branches of social sciences, especially historic branches, and their outcomes. Medievistics, historic research and auxiliary sciences of history (diplomatics, palaeography, epigraphy, heraldry, genealogy, sfragistics, codicology, metrology, chronology, filigranology), numismatics, legal history, history of arts, historic geography and settlement geography (iconographic material, maps, vedutas and their utilization), ethnology and ethnography, linguistics and toponomastics, study of medieval routes and their relics, the development of boundaries, patrotinia, church history, liturgy and church symbolism. 14. Specific outcomes of scientific branches and social sciences cooperation within the framework of a complex cognition of processes influencing medieval social and economic development. Historical climatology, reconstruction of the natural environment and the extent of forest as well as its character; fluvial plane in early and high Middle Ages. 15. Medieval archaeology and the study of natural environment, reconstruction of early and late settlement area and chronological horizons of settlement. Area of discoveries, its picture and listings (archaeological topography), criticisms of finds and sources.

Literature

• LE GOFF, Jacques. Kultura středověké Evropy. Vyd. 2., Ve Vyšehradu 1. Praha: Vyšehrad, 2005, 702 s. ISBN 8070218088. info

Teaching methods

Working with scientific literature and other information sources, presentations of papers by students, class discussion about the topic.

Assessment methods

Active participation at seminary

Language of instruction

Czech

Follow-Up Courses

• AEA_04 Medieval Archaeology I

Further comments (probably available only in Czech)

Study Materials
Information on completion of the course: Ke získání kolokvia je třeba dostatečná a aktivní účast a splnění zadaných referátů.
The course is taught once in two years.

• Enrolment Statistics (Autumn 2014, recent)
  
• Permalink: https://is.muni.cz/course/phil/autumn2014/AEA_66