Hamerow Helena. Early Medieval Settlements. The Archaeology of Rural Communities in Northwest Europe 400-900

Oxford University Press, 2002. — 225 p. — (Medieval History and Archaeology). — ISBN: 0–19–924697–1.The excavation of settlements has in recent years transformed our understanding of north-west Europe in the early Middle Ages. We can for the first time begin to answer fundamental questions such as: what did houses look like and how were they furnished? how did villages and individual farmsteads develop? how and when did agrarian production become intensified and how did this affect village communities? what role did craft production and trade play in the rural economy? In a period for which written sources are scarce, archaeology is of central importance in understanding the 'small worlds' of early medieval communities. Helena Hamerow's extensively illustrated and accessible study offers the first overview and synthesis of the large and rapidly growing body of evidence for early medieval settlements in north-west Europe, as well as a consideration of the implications of this evidence for Anglo-Saxon England.Rural Communities in Early Medieval Europe: Archaeological Approaches and Frameworks.
Houses and Households: The Archaeology of Buildings.
Settlement Structure and Social Space.
Land and Power: Settlements in their Territorial Context.
The Forces of Production: Crop and Animal Husbandry.
Rural Centres, Trade, and Non-Agrarian Production.
Epilogue: Trajectories and Turning-Points