SMA Conference

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Society for Medieval Archaeology 2025 Conference: Fresh thinking and new ideas in the archaeology of medieval urban lives (c.600-1600)

 

This year’s conference will take place at the University of Leicester on the 13th and 14th September 2025, with a keynote lecture on the evening of Friday 12th September In Leicester Cathedral. The theme for the conference is Fresh thinking and new ideas in the archaeology of medieval urban lives (c.600-1600). To register for the event please click REGISTRATION LINK.

The development of urban life is a key theme within medieval archaeology, examined from a range of angles and through a variety of archaeological materials. Today, the majority of urban archaeology, at least in Europe, is undertaken in relation to development. The pace of developer-led work means that there are limited opportunities for the synthesis of new excavations, the reassessment of existing urban assemblages, archives and artefacts or for comparative discussions of both sets of archaeological data.

The 2025 Society for Medieval Archaeology conference seeks to facilitate fresh thinking on medieval urbanism. It will provide a forum to better explore new ideas on a range of topics including, but not limited to, the development of urban landscapes, urban environments, standards of living and the economic and political context of urbanisation.

 

The core themes of the conference are:
• New findings: How has research on existing archaeological archives, finds and datasets, as well as new excavations resulted in new insights into medieval urban life?
• New methods: How have new scientific and field methods opened new directions in medieval urban archaeology?
• New ideas: How do developments in archaeological theory encourage us to think about medieval towns and cities differently?

Our two keynote speakers will be Stephanie Wynne-Jones (University of York) and Søren Sindbæk (Aarhus University). We also have an incredible line-up of 24 speakers over the three days, details of which can be found below:

• Brandon Fathy: Vibrant Ipswich: New Perspectives on Urban Emergence in the Early Middle Ages

• Victoria Ziegler: A New Methodology for the Study of Urban Development in Early Medieval London AD850-1100

• Ivo Stefan: Continuities and Discontinuities of Urban Lives in “Slavic” Central Europe in the 8th – 13th Centuries

• Rachèl Spros: Urban Life in the Medieval Industrial City of Ypres

• John Lawson et al: Edinburgh’s First Burghers: New Scientific Research into Medieval Burials from St Giles Cathedral

• Blair Nolan: Regional Mobility and Survivorship in Medieval Lund, Sweden

• Rebecca Boyd: Women’s Work and Women’s Worlds in Ireland’s Viking-Age Towns

• Craig Cessford: Gender and the Archaeology of Later Medieval Cambridge

• Luisa Radohs: Individual Lifestyles in Late Medieval Cities – Archaeological Studies on the Material Dimensions of Urban Plots

• Abby Antrobus & Alejandra Gutierrez: Excavations at Redcliff Quarter, Bristol (2016–18): Living and Working in a Medieval Suburb

• Lennert Lapeere: Living in the suburbs: Reconstructing the Outskirts of Late Medieval Ypres (Flanders, Belgium)

• Alice Forward & Matthew Morris: Beyond the Wall: Life in Leicester’s Northern Suburb

• Kate Evetts: Forgotten Spaces: The Importance of Gardens in Medieval Urban Ecospheres

• Gwen Maurer: Navigating Urban Transformations: Zooarchaeological Insights into English Medieval Small Towns

• George Ellison: Rerunning the Rat Race: Assessing and Reconstructing the Settlement History of Viking-Age Towns through Micromammal Remains

• Paweł Cembrzyński: City of Stocks and Flows: Urban Ecology of a Medieval Mining Town

• Lars Morten Fuglevik: Imported Wares, Local Affairs: Pottery, Social Practices, and Urban Life in Medieval Oslo, Norway

• Wlim de Clercq et al: The Urban Outport System of Medieval Bruges

• Nigel Baker: Urban Shropshire: Growth and Contraction c.1100-1600

• Caroline Bourne: Urban Creation or Adaptation? Reassessing the Early Development of Swansea

• Paul Duffy: Dublin’s Scandinavian Churches – New Insights into the Lost Architecture of the City

• Monika Baumanova: Constructing Permanence in East African Urban Landscapes

• Arthur Redmonds: Keeping Time: Castles, Temporalities and the Urban Taskscape

• Kirstine Haase: New Life to Old Data – Exploring Urban Deposit Models Using Voxel Modelling

Details of previous conferences can be found here.