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The First Millennium A. D. in Europe and the Mediterranean

April 1994
American Journal of Archaeology 98(2):382

DOI:10.2307/506666

Authors:

Mark Hall

Content uploaded by Mark Hall

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The First Millennium A. D. in Europe and the Mediterranean by Klavs Randsborg

Review by: Mark Hall

American Journal of Archaeology,

Vol. 98, No. 2 (Apr., 1994), p. 382

Published by: Archaeological Institute of America

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382 BOOK REVIEWS [AJA 98

nated mass effort scarcely less than that of the original

builders of the aqueduct. In presentation

the work is first-

rate. There are 18 color plates

and a profusion

of 246 black-

and-white photographs and line drawings, of the highest

quality,

ensuring full and adequate illustration.

Nowadays

many books economize by printing their photographs in

with the text, on ordinary

paper instead

of as glossy

plates,

a result

that,

despite publishers'

assurances,

is seldom

wholly

satisfactory.

But here there is no problem. All pages are

glossy, even text, and reproduction is outstanding. Each

chapter has its own bibliography,

and there is an annotated

general one (112 entries)

at the end of the book;

regrettably

Norman

Smith's

challenging

article

in the Transactions

of the

Newcomen

Society

62 (1990-1991) 53-80 evidently

came out

too late for inclusion.

There follows a series

of 17 large-scale

full-color

topographical

maps (one foldout).

Finally,

at the very end, comes the greatest

surprise

of all.

There is no index. And the lack of one, in a book of this

sort, which will be used for reference, not continuous

read-

ing, is a deficiency

as serious as it is infuriating.

Otherwise

the book is first-rate

for the material

that it covers, within

the limits

that

it sets

itself,

and is recommended

to all libraries

and scholarly specialists.

A. TREVOR

HODGE

DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICS

CARLETON UNIVERSITY

OTTAWA, ONTARIO

KIS 5B6 CANADA

THE FIRST MILLENNIUM A.D. IN EUROPE AND THE

MEDITERRANEAN, by Klavs Randsborg. Pp. xviii

+ 230, figs. 83, pls. 9, with 4 appendices. Cam-

bridge University Press, Cambridge 1991. $54.95

(cloth) and $18.95 (paper). ISBN 0-521-38401-

X (cloth) and ISBN 0-521-38787-6 (paper).

In recent years the writings

of the earlier

generations

the Annales School have been discovered and utilized by

archaeologists.

Annalist

authors such as Bloch, Braudel,

Roy Ladurie,

and Wallerstein,

with their stress on regional

studies, the "longue

dur&e,"

and the "common

man,"

have

provided useful intellectual

models for archaeologists.

The latest book

by Klavs

Randsborg

incorporates

many

the approaches

and ideas from the Annales School. As the

title proclaims,

this book is a review and synthesis of the

archaeology

of Western Europe and the Eastern Mediter-

ranean in the first millennium

A.D. Randsborg's

ambitious

purpose is to provide the reader with an account of the

socioeconomic

development

of these two regions.

This book has its flaws (see below), but I do recommend

it for several reasons.

First,

for anyone working

in either the

archaeology

or history of the first millennium

A.D., it is a

veritable

gold mine of information.

The bibliography

is 32

pages long. It contains

summaries on climatic

trends, coin-

age, population estimates, settlement patterns, subsistence

trends, and trade for a variety of sites in the region of study.

The data are drawn from a wide range of site reports pub-

lished in Danish,

English,

French,

or German.

Second, this book provides a sobering and thought-pro-

voking perspective

on European

and Near Eastern

cultural

development in the first millennium. Randsborg

demon-

strates that while the historical record is full of conquests,

invasions,

and migrations

in the fifth century A.D., the ar-

chaeological record shows that change is fairly gradual

throughout the first millennium. Rural settlement

patterns

are complex, but most areas of the Mediterranean

and the

Near East were densely settled until the Early Byzantine

period (600-900). The villa

system

was in decline

in Western

Europe from A.D. 200 onward,

except in southern Britain.

A similar pattern is noted for towns and urban centers.

Towns continued to flourish

in the East

through

the seventh

century A.D., but in the West they contracted in size or

ceased to be inhabited

in the third through fifth centuries.

With the rise of states

and an increase

in long-distance

trade

in the last quarter

of the first millennium,

towns once again

began to flourish in the West.

Trade and exchange

are seen by Randsborg

as also

under-

going gradual

change. He asserts that commerce,

exchange,

and production

were not well developed in the early Roman

period; the main goal was to keep the army supplied with

food and weapons and the elites supplied with prestige

goods. The political

collapse

of the Western Roman

Empire

is seen as affecting trade and exchange only minimally;

instead,

Randsborg argues that the initial Muslim

conquests

of North Africa and the Levant

had a far more devastating

impact

on trade. The decline of the Western Roman

Empire

in late antiquity

is seen as coinciding with the rise of pro-

duction

centers,

emporia,

and strong

chiefdoms

in Germanic

Europe.

While some of these ideas are not new, Randsborg's

ap-

proach to them is. His arguments

and viewpoints

are based

primarily

on archaeological

evidence and not the written

record.

This book does have its faults. One of them is the heavy

emphasis on the archaeology

of Scandinavia.

In part this

reflects

Randsborg's

field of specialization,

but one has to be

aware that the Vikings

did not become a major

force in the

history of Europe and the Mediterranean

until the ninth

century

A.D. More attention should have been spent on the

archaeology

of the Byzantine

Empire,

the Carolingians,

and

the Merovingians.

An introduction

in which

Randsborg

sets out his research

questions

and hypotheses

is also missing

from this

book. The

brief introduction

only describes the nature of the archaeo-

logical record and problems

with it. Fortunately,

the final

chapter

does contain

a useful summary

and synthesis

of the

information

in the preceding chapters.

MARK HALL

ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH FACILITY

KROEBER HALL

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY

BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA 94720

INTERNET HALL@QAL.BERKELEY.EDU

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