Colloque international du 6 au 9 avril 2011

The advent of the Early Modern Age triggered profound changes on the history of Europe. Urban development and increased commercial exchanges went hand in hand with the spread of new cultural ideas and paradigms and major changes in religious geography. All this occurred in a framework of political alterations that were often determined by wars, themselves determined/transformed by a technical revolution in military art. It was also the era of the discovery of new worlds, the first globalisation, with products moving at a previously unknown scale, in which the Iberian kingdoms played a pioneering role. In the American, African and Asian regions, linked by lengthy sea voyages that defied the imagination and the technique of those times, contacts with the local populations led to different types of political domination, economic exploitation and cultural exchange, sometimes radically altering the existing pattern of life.

All these themes have been studied by historians of many areas and of diverse origins whose research has been based primarily on written, cartographic, iconographic or artistic sources. Archaeology is a recent discipline as far as this period is concerned in almost all the world so its contribution is still in its first stages. However, only the development of early modern, colonial or post-medieval archaeology will help enlighten us about many of the issues at stake; in certain fields it is the only available source for their study. Often, it is also archaeological research that is responsible for increasing the patrimonial values that exist for those periods and that allows for current development based on cultural economy.

The aim of this congress is to bring together young and renowned archaeologists who have produced works based on academic or protective contexts, which are suitable for our discussions on the various themes concentrating on the period between the fifteenth and the eighteenth centuries, both in the European context and in colonised areas. The goal is not only to encourage the development of early modern archaeology but also to establish bridges between the archaeological communities spread throughout various parts of the world, namely those concentrating their research on the Iberian kingdoms and their world expansion.

Themes

• Cities: urbanism, architecture and daily life
• Fortifications, battlefields and arms
• Religious buildings and burial practices
• Maritime landscapes, ships and life on board
• The countryside: landscapes and production means
• Ceramics: production, trade and consumption

6 to 9 April 2010 | FCSH - I&D Building ("Multiusos" rooms 2 and 3, 4th Floor)