Proceedings of the Postgraduateand Early Career Conferencein Medieval Archaeology (Wrocław 2024) eds. Jakub Sawicki, Michael Lewis, Maria Vargha

The papers in this second volume of MERC Papers began as presentations at the 3rd MERC Postgraduate and Early Career Conference in Medieval Archaeology, held in Wrocław in 2024. Most come from researchers at the start of their careers, some from more established colleagues. All have been revised and expanded since the conference, and all have gone through single-blind peer review.

That last point matters to us, and so does the way the volume came about. It exists because MERC members wrote, read, reviewed and edited for one another. At a time when scholarly publishing is largely a commercial business, it seems worth showing that a volume of this kind can still be made from within a research community rather than sold to it.

We hope this is the second of many.

Editors

Contents

Jakub Sawicki, Michael Lewis, Maria Vargha
Introducing

Weronika Bałdyga
The Natural and Cultural Landscape of Early Medieval Strongholds in the Wierzyca River basin

Matthias Biro Sarrias
The first results of the study of the Alcazar de Bayra: understanding the Nasrid border through its architecture

Letizia Dalle Vedove, Alessandra Coleschi
Exploring the rural landscape of Briatico through its farmhouses: fieldwork in 2023.

Jan Gryz
The Iron Age cemetery of Anundshög (Västmanland, Sweden) as the arena of a power struggle. The evidence of damaged mounds.

Gerard Matser
In the Shadows of Giants. The Forgotten History of Social Interactions in Brittany (8th–10th centuries) through Archaeology

Ghinwa Saba
The Evolution of the Defensive Architecture in Medieval Coastal Syria

Dominika Václavíková
Handicraft production in the forum of ‘Stare mesto’ near Zdar nad Sazavou, Czech Republic

Jana Škrgulja, Petra Nikšić
Material Culture and Group Identity in Southern Pannonia during Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages

Teodora Mladenović, Maja Kokanović
A Zooarchaeological Insight into Dietary Habits in Medieval Serbia: A Case Study of Gradina – Erčege Site (Southwestern Serbia)

Ana Medina
Exploitation and Consumption of Animals in Sefarad. First Approach to the Archaeozoological Analysis of the Jewish Quarter in Atienza (Guadalajara,
Spain)

Arne Kluge
The high and late medieval pottery from the Augustinerhof excavations in Nuremberg – a glimpse at an ongoing analysis

Andreia Rodrigues
Between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic: foreign ceramics that arrived in the Kingdom of Portugal during the Late Middle Ages

Bernát Rácz
Re-evaluating the Artistic Wealth of High Medieval Private Monasteries in the Great Hungarian Plain

Sylwia Siemianowska
Glass gaming pieces for a board game from Opole-Ostrówek (Silesia, Poland). Was hnefatafl played in the early medieval stronghold?

Henna Hörkkö
Archaeological Textile Fragments in the Light of Costume History: the Case of Archaeological Clothing Fragments from Medieval Turku

Mariusz Kohnke,
The catalogue of the Campo Santo Teutonico Museum by Joseph Wittig (1906)