An Archaeology of the Invisible? Tracing Poverty and its Ideology in the Viking Age and Urban Settlements
Abstract: Publications have recently drawn attention to archaeology’s historically predominant focus on prestige items and the elite, highlighting the need for a greater focus on society’s lower classes. A few studies have discussed how, or even whether poverty can be addressed in historical archaeology. However, the phenomenon has not seen the same attention in Viking Age studies, despite the great deal of research into social hierarchies and the various identities within them. This study will discuss poverty in Medieval and Viking Age ideology and investigate whether these ideologies are expressed archaeologically in Viking Age urban settlements. Considering the nature of this topic as a study of a social phenomenon that is presumably tied to a lack of material remains, the goal of this study is not to find single criteria that is indicative of poverty, but rather to provide a theoretical toolkit and an aggregate of criteria which can be used to investigate poverty. Social structures and ideologies will be examined through a literature study of existing research on various Early Medieval written sources of the Viking Age, an analysis of existing discourses on Christian ideology of the Middle Ages, as well as a survey of existing archaeological research that is relevant to consider for this topic or future studies. The case study of Kaupang will be used to test whether the perspectives can be applied in practice to specific urban sites in order to conclude what aspects of poverty can be discussed archaeologically.
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