This volume is the first comprehensive study of the material imprint of slavery in early medieval Europe. While written sources attest to the ubiquity of slavery and slave trade in early medieval British Isles, Scandinavia and Slavic lands, it is still difficult to find material traces of this reality, other than the hundreds of thousands of Islamic coins paid in exchange for the northern European slaves. This volume offers the first structured reflection on how to bridge this gap. It reviews the types of material evidence that can be associated with the institution of slavery and the slave trade in early medieval northern Europe, from individual objects (such as e.g. shackles) to more comprehensive landscape approaches.
Autorentext
Felix Biermann is an Associate Professor of early medieval archaeology at the University of Szczecin, Poland. His research interests include the archaeology and history of the Baltic Sea area, Middle and Eastern Europe from c. 500-1500, with special emphasis on social and economic structures, interregional contacts and the archaeology of fortified settlements.
Inhalt
Introduction: An 'invisible commodity'? Marek Jankowiak and Felix Biermann
Part One: Comparative perspectives
Chapter 1. The arrogation of slavery: Prehistory, archaeology, and pre-theoretical commitments concerning people as property; Timothy Taylor
Chapter 2. Recent approaches to the archaeological investigation of slavery in Africa; Paul Lane
Part Two: The British Isles
Chapter 3. To tread the paths, and traverse the moors: Investigating slavery in early medieval western Britain; Katie Hemer
Chapter 4. The archaeology of slave trading in Viking Age Britain and Ireland: A methodological approach; Janel Fontaine
Part Three: Scandinavia
Chapter 5. The norm and the subaltern. Identifying slaves in an early medieval Scandinavian society; Anna Kjellström
Chapter 6. Legacy of the disowned. Finding ambátts in high medieval Scania and Östergötland through ceramic production; Mats Roslund
Chapter 7. Bonded people. Making thralls visible in Viking-Age and early medieval Sweden; Torun Zachrisson
Part Four: Central Europe
Chapter 8. The slave trade in Great Moravia: reality or fiction?; Jií Macháek
Chapter 9. Slavery and slave trade in early medieval Czech duchy: Archaeology of slavery or slavery of archaeology?; Ivo tefan
Chapter 10. Archaeological evidence for slavery among the early medieval north-western Slavs; Felix Biermann
Chapter 11.Tracing the Saqaliba: slave trade and the archaeology of tenth-century northern Europe; Marek Jankowiak
Index