The European Countryside during the Migration Period

Patterns of Change from Iberia to the Caucasus (300–700 CE)

Irene Bavuso, Angelo Castrorao Barba, Irene Bavuso, Angelo Castrorao Barba

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2023
• eBook ISBN: 9783110778502
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

Research on late antique and early medieval migrations has long acknowledged the importance of interdisciplinarity. The field is constantly nourished by new archaeological discoveries that allow for increasingly refined pictures of socio-economic development. Yet the perspectives adopted by historians and archaeologists are frequently different, and so are their conclusions. Diverging views exist in respect to varying geographical areas and scholarly traditions too.

This volume brings together history and archaeology to address the impact of the inflow and outflow of migrations on the rural landscape, the creation of new settlement patterns, and the role of migrations and mobility in transforming society and economy.

Such themes are often investigated under a regional or macro-regional viewpoint, resulting in too fragmented an understanding of a widespread phenomenon. Spanning Eastern and Western Europe, the book takes steps toward an integrated picture of territories normally investigated as separate entities, and critically establishes grounds for new comparisons and models on late antique and early medieval transformations.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Contributors
• Patterns of Change: Multiregional Views on the Migration Period
• Changing Times: The Allocation of Land to Barbarian Settlers in the Late Roman World
• The Afterlife of Roman Villas in Italy Between the 5th and 8th Centuries CE
• Towns, Countryside, and Agrarian Changes in Post-Roman Hispania
• Changing Settlement Patterns Between 300 and 700 CE in Southern Germany
• The Migration-Period Countryside in the Former Roman Province of Pannonia
• Changing Settlements, Land Use, and Agriculture in the Caucasus Between the 5th and 8th Centuries CE
• La civilisation matérielle des Goths ‘urbains’ et ‘ruraux’ en Crimée de la deuxième moitié du Ve au VIIe siècle
• Buried in Ruins. Early Medieval Burial Communities and Late Antique Sites in North-Western Noricum Ripense
• Social ‘Mobility’ or ‘Distancing’? Spatial Organisation of Early Medieval Graveyards in South-Western Germany
• New Communities in Old Landscapes?
• The Impact of Raiding and Migration on Balkan Settlement Patterns and Rural Economies, 5th–8th Centuries CE
• Early Medieval Landscapes and Societies in European Lower Mountain Ranges: The Vosges and Jura, 6th–7th Century
• Small Lands and Mobile Objects: Socio-Economic Change in Northern Francia, 5th to 8th Century
• Conclusion
• Index of Names and Places