From the Baltic to the Black Sea - Studies in Medieval Archaeology (Hardcover)

A study of the closed world of medieval Eastern Europe which opens up a neglected archaeological tradition to English-speaking readers. It suggests new approaches to the formative period when migrating tribes emerged into the light of written history and founded the states on which the nationalities of modern Europe are based. The book examines early European ethnic formations and states, the demography of medieval populations and the nature of rural settlement and urban development. There are chapters on the contact between Byzantium and medieval Hungary and Scandinavia, with an assessment of the Byzantine influence on Avar goldsmiths, as well as descriptions of new research into Avar chieftan-burials and into coinage in the late Viking Age. There is also analysis of the medieval populations of Czechoslovakia and Denmark, of social organization in Poland and cultural conflict in Livonia. Finally studies of early settlement in Bohemia and the Danube valley are complemented by detailed accounts of the origin and growth of three great medieval cities - Lubeck, Prague and Kiev. "From the Baltic to the Black Sea" challenges the intellectual assumptions of medieval archaeology, question