Crafts and Social Networks in Viking Towns

Crafting Communities explores the interface between craft, communication networks, and urbanization in Viking-age Northern Europe. Viking-period towns were the hubs of cross-cultural communication of their age, and innovations in specialized crafts provide archaeologists with some of the best evidence for studying this communication. The integrated results presented in these papers have been made possible through the sustained collaboration of a group of experts with complementary insights into individual crafts. Results emerge from recent scholarly advances in the study of artifacts and production: first, the application of new analytical techniques in artifact studies (e.g. metallographic, isotopic, and biomolecular techniques) and second, the shifted in interpretative focus of medieval artifact studies from a concern with object function to considerations of processes of production, and of the social agency of technology. Furthermore, the introduction of social network theory and actor-network theory has redirected attention toward the process of communication, and highlighted the significance of material culture in the learning and transmission of cultural knowledge, including technology.

The volume brings together leading UK and Scandinavian archaeological specialists to explore crafted products and workshop-assemblages from these towns, in order to clarify how such long-range communication worked in pre-modern Northern Europe. Contributors assess the implications for our understanding of early towns and the long-term societal change catalysed by them, including the initial steps towards commercial economies. Results are analyzed in relation to social network theory, social and economic history, and models of communication, setting an agenda for further research. Crafting Communities provides a landmark statement on our knowledge of Viking-Age craft and communication

Table of Contents

PART I: CRAFTING CONTEXTS

1. Steven P Ashby & Søren M. Sindbæk: Introduction: Crafting networks and Viking urbanism.

2. Johan Callmer : The Study of Viking-Age crafts

3. Søren M. Sindbæk: Viking-Age Urbanism, Social networks and cultural exchange

PART II: WITHIN AND BEYOND THE DOMESTIC SPHERE

Steven P Ashby & Søren M. Sindbæk: Introduction: Between domestic circles and urban networks.

Lise Bender Jørgensen (Norwegian University of Science & Technology, Trondheim): Textile Production in Viking-Age Scandinavia.

Penelope Walton Rogers (The Anglo-Saxon Laboratory, York): Textile Production in Late Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Scandinavian Britain.

Ailsa Mainman (York Archaeological Trust): Ceramics in the North Sea area c.700-1100

PART III: SKILLS AND MOVEMENT

8. Steven P Ashby & Søren M. Sindbæk : Introduction: Constructing Specialism.

9. Johan Callmer (Humboldt University, Berlin): Bone and antler working in Viking-Age Scandinavia

10. Steven P. Ashby (University of York): Chains of Innovation: combmaking in Viking-Age Europe

11. Patrick Ottaway (PJO Archaeology):The Archaeology of Blacksmithing and the rise of urbanism in northern Europe

PART IV: MASTERS AND APPRENTICES

12. Steven P Ashby & Søren M. Sindbæk: Introduction: the Transmission of Expert Knowledge.

13. Unn Pedersen (IAKH, University of Oslo): From bronze casting to non-ferrous and precious metalwork in Viking-Age Scandinavia.

14. Penelope Walton Rogers (The Anglo-Saxon Laboratory, York): Non-ferrous metalworking in the British Isles

PART V: EPILOGUE

15. Pierre Lemonnier: Conclusions and perspectives.