Câteva consideraţii asupra arheologiei străzii în spaţiul urban medieval şi premodern al Europei Centrale şi de Est

Abstract

Some Remarks Regarding the Archaeology of Street in the Medieval and Early Modern Urban Environment of Central and Eastern Europe

The street is one of the defining features of an urban setting regardless of era and geography. Consequently, the archaeology of street is an important module of any urban archaeology, and the medieval towns of Central and Eastern Europe are no exception. The street of a medieval town is defined both as structure and function and, as such, its archaeology reflects both these definitions. In terms of archaeology of medieval street, one can also add the corpus of artifacts and small finds that are inherent to any historically defined space shared by a human community for a time of significant length. This corpus of small, mobile, finds are “parasitizing” the structural and functional characteristics of the street, forming its own category of characteristics. The archaeology of the historical street, ancient as well as medieval and modern, cannot be studied comprehensively unless one considers all three groups of features together (structural, functional and parasitic). However, all archaeological features of the street vary regionally, as a consequence of geography, cultural setting and politics, but the coherence of interpretation is achieved and maintain throughout by means of separating methodologically the structural, functional and parasitic features and then analyzing them together. Any source, apart from the archaeological finds, is to be considered and utilized, cartography, narratives as well as contemporary imagery.

Keywords: cobbler, dirt lane, drainage, Great Novgorod, medieval urban structures, pavement, raised walkway, street flooring wooden street.