It seems to me that the connection between archaeology and historic re-creation and re-enactment societies is a natural one. Groups such as the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) seek to not only re-enact past events but to learn about past lifeways and technologies. Though many useful and important things are recorded historically, it is only through the study of the material cultural record of the past that we can add a day-to-day texture to historical events and periods of time. This essay will discuss many of these issues in the upcoming segments.

***(Material culture is the material made and/or used by humans, it is the very stuff that we excavate and analyze in archaeology.)***

Why Do We Dig?

One of the questions often asked of archaeologists dealing with historic-era sites (in this case Medieval or related-era sites) is: "If we already know about this stuff, why are we digging it up?" This is an excellent question and one that deserves particular attention.

First, archaeologists are often after different sorts of information than is present in written texts or preserved in oral traditions. For example, while a fair bit of information exists on how the upper classes lived on manors or in castles, relatively little is known about those people who lived around and among these elites. We know preciously little about the lives of farmers, crafts people, and even the attendants to the elite members of society. Archaeology helps us gain insights into these aspects of life and may be the only avenue through which we can document them.

Second, what we do know from written records is often biased toward the perspectives and needs of the literate classes. We know next to nothing of how common people really felt about their lots in life, their lords and ladies, and even the ways in which they plied their crafts. It is only through the recovery and analysis of actual materials that we can begin to reconstruct very specific sorts of technological activities. Likewise, it is only through the collection of material that tells us about society as a whole and how a given group of people fit it into (the residents of the sites that we excavate) that we can begin to articulate the different aspects of medieval life together. It is important to note, though, that this process is always informed by what documentation of the past that does exist. Thus archaeologists do not disregard history but instead use it and, hopefully, help refine or create it.

Third, we also dig because not everything was written down, even regarding the elite classes. For example, we don't understand the actual flow of wealth and materials within or between some castles, towns, or estates even though some records exist. What exists, though, does not record the whole story of what happened and what happened in every portion of a given location through time. With some luck, archaeologists have a chance to recover material remains that will inform us about a broad range of activities that were not of interest to medieval chroniclers but which are of keen interest to students of material things (and thus to those who recreate those material things).

What do We Dig Up?

Two related and common questions for archaeologists are "what sorts of things do you dig up and how do you know these things are important?" Again, the answers may prove insightful for medievalists. First, we dig up everything that we can, from castle walls to cess pits. In fact, the latter are often much more informative about medieval life than are the former since the cess pits contain a sampling of everyday garbage (and hence material culture) from a variety of sources. Simply put, we will excavate anything that we think can tell us about the past.

In terms of identifying what is important, well, there are several different levels of answers. The simplest answer is simply to note that every bit of information we can dig up is important since it tells us something about past activities. In a data-neutral world this is true. Yet, after excavating tonnes (literally) of medieval pottery from a single site not every new piece of pottery that we find adds substantially to what we know of life at the site. It does add in terms of quantity and possible variation, but for the most part add little else. On the other hand, finding a coin, piece of artwork (in any form, even a carved comb) adds a new dimension to our view of what was present on the site and, possibly, what people were doing in the past. Thus, archaeologically-speaking, unique items sometimes get the most attention but these are only part of a larger collection of material culture from the site (called the assemblage).

Some interesting things that archaeologists have particular interests in that historians perhaps did not include such things as faunal remains (animal bone) and waste pits. Faunal remains, for example, can tell us a great deal about past life that can be of use to re-enactors. First, they document the day-to-day diets of the people living on the site. While we have records for grain stores, feasts, and the like, we have little that documents in detail the calorie and protein intakes of medieval people. Similarly, we have few records on the origin of much of the food that was eaten. Thus, by documenting each bone we can identify the species that was consumed, its age at collection for consumption, its manner of butchery, and, sometimes, its manners of preparation and ingestion. For example, the Romans living in Great Britain possessed very different animal use patterns than did the Roman-Britains who remained following the withdrawal of the legions and, in turn, these folks had different patterns of animal use than did the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and others who migrated into the United Kingdom at the end of and following Roman control.

Cess and waste pits are also useful places for archaeologists to excavate (though they are hardly the light discussion at polite dinners!). All humans produce garbage and bodily waste. This material has to be dealt with in some manner or another and, often, there is a patterning to human waste removal. The placement of waste pits of all sorts as well as their contents tell us very important things about past life. While we have an image of medieval life in cities as being somewhat squalid to begin with, we usually do not think about how this squalor is distributed across the landscape. In post-Roman York, for example, tanners and those people processing dead animals tended to be located in proximity to one another and, when possible, near the edges of settlements. As settlements grow, however, these undesirable and once marginalized areas are incorporated into the growing urban sprawl. In such instances either well-defined districts emerge or, as often happened in York, there was some relocation and reworking of neighborhoods. We know from the distribution of waste pits what sorts of activities were performed in a given area and what sorts of material culture was available to people engaged in these activities. We can even document the rise and fall of the fortunes of certain industries and neighborhoods. This sort of ebb and flow of success is useful to medievalists because it documents the sorts of things that people desire to obtain as their fortunes increase as well as the sorts of things that they hold on to the longest as their fortunes decrease. Better yet, since material culture can often be dated through coins or physical properties (amounts of Carbon etc.) present, then we can identify what sorts of things wealthy, becoming wealthy, and poor individuals had at a common point in the past.

Putting the Archaeology to Work

Much of what has been written in this essay thus far has been designed to introduce the casual reader to archaeology and some of the things that we can learn from it. This section is designed to give a reader some ideas of the specific sorts of information useful to medievalists that might be garnered from archaeological sources. Much of this is in list form due to time constraints, but I think you will be able to make some of the connections that are implicit. If not, or if you are just curious, please feel free to email.

**Personal adornment, including beads, jewelry, closures, fasteners and related items, including shape, manner of construction, and material.

**Personal garb, including fabric, weave, colors, dyes, shapes, and life expectancies.

**Armor as actually used, rather than museum pieces which tend to be the exceptions rather than the rules of how things were built (they did survive and often are of superior quality due to curatorial standards and interests in acquisition). Specific sorts of injuries are more indicative of certain types of combat and blow strategies than are other types of injuries.

**Bodily injuries and damage from conflict, diet, or even marriage patterns (especially for central and eastern Europe).

**Manufacturing processes, including the construction and implementation of tools, jigs, dies, punches, and related tools.

**Economic and political relations between different towns and residences, including identifying what resources that residents of different areas would have had access to.

**Medical practices, both in terms of tools used and their effects on the preserved elements of human bodies (usually restricted to bone).

In the end, this list is still limited, as is my space here. I hope that this brief primer, for all of its faults, and brevity, may help you identify new uses to make your research and re-enactment more enjoyable.