Medieval Europe

Medieval Europe Basel 2002
International Conference of Medieval and Later Archaeology
10th to 15th September 2002

Among the phenomena of Europe today can be numbered the concentration and regionalisation of people, the formation of nations, the cultural adaptation and search for identity in both linguistic and religious minorities, and the growth of globalisation and shadow economy.

These have an astonishingly close correspondence to the structures of the Middle Ages of Europe. The Medieval and Later Archaeology opens up different and diverse view-points about the development and problems of structures which have disappeared or survived in all the modern centres and regions of Europe. Traditional areas were characterised by cultural, economic, religious and ethnic factors. Archaeology is able to show the growth, the change or the disappearance of special zones and centres.

Archaeological finds, and their cultural interpretation, reflect centres, regions, borders and at the same time the various contacts between people of different language, ethnicity or religion all over Europe.

The definition of centre, region and periphery is mainly dependent on the observer’s perspectives - in the scholarly past as well as today.