A multi-proxy, diachronic and spatial perspective on the urban activities within an indigenous community in medieval Riga, Latvia

Banerjea, R. Y. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1786-357X, Badura, M., Kalejs, U., Cerina, A., Gos, K., Hamilton-Dyer, S., Maltby, M., Seetah, K. and Pluskowski, A. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4494-7664 (2017) A multi-proxy, diachronic and spatial perspective on the urban activities within an indigenous community in medieval Riga, Latvia. Quaternary International, 460. pp. 3-21. ISSN 1040-6182 doi: 10.1016/j.quaint.2017.02.006

Abstract/Summary

The research presented here represents thefirst urban medieval context in Latvia where an integrated, multi-proxy environmental sampling strategy has been applied. The establishment of Riga, the modern capital of Latvia, is synonymous with the Livonian Crusade, and the foundation of the medieval town is examined here. This study uses an intra-site comparison of environmental datasets from several buildings to provide a unique, high resolution, diachronic analysis of the daily life of the inhabitants within the pre-Hansa town, and specifically of the indigenous ‘Liv’ population during the period of the Livonian crusades, 1198e1291. The integrated zooarchaeological, archaebotanical, and geochemical datasets from two successive phases of buildings show a pattern of tradition and continuity in indigenous practices within the ‘Liv District’. Despite being located within Riga with access to wide trade networks, the environmental results from ‘Liv district’ show the self-contained, insular nature of the diet and craft activities of the inhabitants who exploited a range of open grassland, wetland and forest edge environments around the town.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/69322
Item Type	Article
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Science > Department of Archaeology
Publisher	Elsevier
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