Historical Archaeologies in Europe

Abstract

The historical archaeologies in Europe are like a mosaic of different, partly overlapping traditions. The different parts consist of classical archaeology, provincial Roman archaeology, Byzantine archaeology, medieval archaeology, postmedieval archaeology, and industrial archaeology. In addition, historical archaeology can be found in some marine archaeology and in some “prehistoric” archaeology. In the latter case it is a question of protohistorical periods, such as the pre-Roman Iron Age in Central and Western Europe, and the post-Roman Iron Age in Northern and Eastern Europe. Taken together, the subjects cover all “historical” periods in Europe, but they do not represent a uniform archaeological tradition. The division into special branches, each with its own distinctive character, is largely due to the fact that the definitive “archaeological” professionalization took place at widely different times.