In the last decades there has been a significant increase in the use of environmental studies within urban archaeological contexts. An array of lines of research and of practice has emerged, primarily on the basis of human, animal and plant remains, focusing on subsistence, trading, social status, health, hygiene, craft production and pollution. There is a growing involvement of geoarchaeologists, deciphering complex site stratigraphies and explaining the spatial functioning of urban sites. Moreover the relationships between towns and their hinterland have also been investigated from an environmental perspective.
Today, it can be stated that the full potential of the existing environmental archaeological approaches is not yet always reached. Therefore, the aim of the present conference is to assemble researchers (archaeologists, historians, geoarchaeologists, physical anthropologists, archaeozoologists and archaeobotanists) working on urban archaeology to share their experiences, to explore the development of their disciplines and to discuss how results from different approaches can be more fully integrated.
Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Brussels, Belgium May 27-29, 2015
Call for papers:
