Orbis Mediaevalis 5 - Ioan Stanciu

“Walking” Goods. “Walking” Ideas Economic and Cultural Routes in the Carpathian Basin and Neighbouring Areas (7th–14th Centuries)

On numerous occasions, archaeological research—frequently accompanied by various complementary analyses, especially in recent decades—has indicated that these generically termed “walking” goods are signs of contact and interaction between more or less different geographical and cultural areas, located at varying distances from each other. Such meanings are not always easy to decipher, which is why discussions on this subject remain necessary, followed by new or merely adjusted interpretations, as theoretical and methodological repositioning occurs over time, and not least, additional positive data. This was also the main focus of the conference that preceded this volume.
Undoubtedly, economic and cultural routes in the Carpathian Basin and neighboring areas are a subject of great interest, but one that involves different variables in terms of content, which must certainly be linked to particular regional specificities, not least the relationship with the ancient geographical landscape, the possibilities for its reconstruction, as well as the reconstruction of the changes that the climate has undergone. The period from the 7th to the 14th centuries is quite long, but if the four centuries following the year 1000 truly belong to the medieval world proper, it remains difficult to classify the preceding centuries within the framework of a relative Orbis Mediaevalis, as suggested by the title of the series whose fifth volume now appears. Many obscure (and little discussed) aspects of the content of the transformations or “transition”/“transitions” that occurred in the direction of the structures characteristic to medieval (feudal) society remain, the term “Early Medieval Period” being debatable in relation to the 6th/7th–9th/10th centuries, and increasingly used in Romanian archaeological literature and beyond. (Foreword)

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