28.02.2024

EAA Urban Archaeology Community Newsletter (2/2024)

Hello all,

This afternoon we already had our next monthly Urban Archaeology meeting. It is always nice and good to see and talk to each other with some regularity and think about how we can help urban archaeology move forward. In this newsletter the latest news and a short report of what was discussed this afternoon:

Urban archaeology session at the EAA
Another urban archaeology session will take place at the EAA this year. There will be papers on research from Poland, Soba (Sudan), Denmark, Wales and the Netherlands. It promises to be a fun and interesting session!

The book
Meanwhile, all deadlines for the book In search of the Urban Habitat are known. This summer, 1 August, is the first deadline, namely for the first drafts. If you are still interested in contributing to the book, you can still do so! Let me know and I will send you more information. You can always make an appointment with me, of course.

Building networks
At the same time, another book that also touches on the subject of urban archaeology was published last week by Springer, namely Building Networks: Exchange of Knowledge, Ideas and Materials in Medieval and Post-Medieval Europe. For more information on it, follow this link: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-51963-5

Other tips:
Lecture on Marseille: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9ST9HJuMUw
Online seminar on Frankish Jerusalem, Friday afternoon 1 March. If you are interested, let me know and I can send you the link.

Synthesising research on urban archaeology in Europe
Another topic discussed today was the lack of synthesising research related to urban archaeology. It is a fairly universal problem that occurs in several countries. A project is going to start in Denmark to make a start on this. One difficulty remains to collect all the data as it is generally quite fragmented. This definitely plays out in other countries as well.
During the discussion, it was suggested whether it might not be an idea to look into the possibilities of starting a synthesising study on a European scale. That is certainly something to elaborate on.
In a few weeks, the EAC congress will take place in Brussels and Liisa, Paul and Jeroen will at least go there. We can go there to check whether there are any possibilities from that perspective. Especially as one of the working groups is just finishing its work.
Some European websites have already been shared.
https://heranet.info/funding/current-funding-opportunities/
https://erc.europa.eu/apply-grant

It was agreed to explore this further. If there are any members who would like to think about this and help out, please let us know. It will also come up again anyway at our next meeting, on Thursday 28 March.

Research on urban waste dumps (from 18th century onwards)
Member Kasper van den Berghe is doing doctoral research on post-medieval waste dumps. If any members have more information on this and/or have done research on this themselves, please let us know.

As mentioned, the next meeting is Thursday 28 March from 15.00-16.00 CET. I hope to you then, or maybe in Brussels within a couple of weeks!

All the best,
Jeroen