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Katarina Predovnik
Univerza v Ljubljani
Historical archaeology at the interstices between 
archaeology and history: a history from things or an 
archaeology with texts?
Historical Archaeologies
There is no single definition of historical archaeology. Since its inception in the United 
States in the 1960s it has been defined as archaeology of the modern world (Deetz, 
1977; Orser, 1996; Funari, 1999, 44), and is largely synonymous with post-medieval 
or archaeology of the (early) modern period as practiced in Europe (Courtney, 1999; 
Gaimster, 2009; Mehler, 2013, 14, Tab. 1; Predovnik, 2008; 2013, 70–71). In the Ger-
man-speaking countries, historical archaeology has recently come to encompass also 
the modern and contemporary periods of the later 19th, 20th and even 21st centuries (cf. 
Jürgens et al., 2020), a remit that in the anglophone tradition is known as the archaeol-
ogy of the contemporary past (Buchli et al., 2001; McAtackney et al., 2007; Harrison 
et al., 2010; Dixon, 2011).
European archaeologists have long been reluctant to adopt the term “historical 
archaeology”, and although it has gradually become more widespread it has also be-
come more ambiguous. In various regions and research contexts it can denote (later) 
medieval, post-medieval, and even contemporary archaeology. In this paper, the term 
historical archaeology will be used as a shorthand for all of the above. It is thus syn-
onymous with another, far less commonly used umbrella term of “the archaeology of 
later periods” denoting all archaeological research into the periods following the early 
Middle Ages (cf. Predovnik, 2008, 82).
Another, broader definition of historical archaeology has been proposed by some, 
claiming that it is the archaeology of all literate societies (Deetz, 1977, 5; Andrén, 1998). 
It would therefore apply to many of the well-established archaeological subdisciplines, 
such as Egyptology, Ancient Greek, and Ancient Roman Archaeology, to name but a 
few. This methodological definition of historical archaeology underlines the unique 
position of historical archaeologists, who can work with a variety of sources, from the 
material to the written and even oral. However, as many critics have noted, the sheer 
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invention or introduction of writing in any given society does not automatically mean 
that the production of written messages is abundant and diverse enough, or that the 
preservation of written documents is such as to allow for an epistemologically sound 
analysis and confrontation with material sources (Mehler, 2012, 14). In most Central 
European countries such a situation only arises in the late medieval period (Mehler, 
2013, 13). German researchers refer to such historical situations, which lend them-
selves to investigation by historical archaeologists, as “densely documented periods” 
(dicht überlieferte Epochen; Igel, 2009).
Historical archaeologies have taken a long time to become established as legiti-
mate subdisciplines of archaeology. They were shaped by the power struggles between 
the disciplines of history and archaeology, in which the nature of archaeological and 
historical sources, their epistemology, and interpretative potential were questioned 
(Predovnik, 2000; 2013). Heated debates revolved around the claims to objectivity and 
accusations of subjectivity in the production of knowledge, supported with “circular 
arguments and counterclaims” (Mayne, 2008, 93; Orser, 2002, 271). Historians saw 
archaeology as a subordinate discipline with highly limited interpretative potential, 
“a handmaiden to history” (Noël Hume, 1964), while archaeologists pointed out the 
subjective and biased nature of material sources. Although this debate has gradually 
died down, these views have not yet been entirely surpassed. 
Archaeology and History: Between Othering and Inspiration
Archaeology’s relationship with the discipline of history is inconsistent and uneasy 
(Ribeiro, 2019). On the one hand, archaeology has always sought its own separate 
disciplinary identity, but on the other hand it is inextricably linked with and has 
often been inspired by historiography, as they both produce knowledge about the 
past. The two disciplines explore different sources using different methodologies, 
but there is a certain epistemological closeness between the two, as they both exhib-
it a “fundamentally inferential character” (Thomas, 2015, 11; cf. van Wijngaarden 
et al., 2020).
In the European tradition, archaeology is conceived of as a historical discipline 
that produces narratives about the past based on the material evidence it investigates. 
This presupposes a historical understanding of the past focused on historical inter-
pretation, rather than on causal explanations of the observed phenomena. Historical 
interpretation is hermeneutic in nature and historical understanding takes the form 
of a narrative within which the observed historical actors, events and processes are 
contextualized (Ribeiro, 2018, 22–23). Even though historical epistemology is intrinsic 
to archaeology as a humanistic discipline, it has rarely been theorized explicitly (cf. 
Frommer, 2007; Ribeiro, 2018).
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From its antiquarian beginnings, archaeology developed as a separate discipline 
in the 19th century in parallel with the birth of evolutionary theory, the introduction 
of the principles of geological stratigraphy, and finally, the rise of cultural history. The 
concept of archaeological culture as a spatially and chronologically distinct entity, 
composed of clearly observable material traits and phenomena, took shape in the late 
19th and early 20th centuries. In this, a strong influence from anthropology is evident. 
The connection with history became more pronounced in Central European archae-
ology only after the Second World War in reaction to the abuses of the concepts of 
archaeological culture and the so-called Kulturkreislehre under National Socialism 
(Mehler, 2013, 11, with references). These traditions were labelled culture-historical 
archaeology by later critics, as they favoured historical, particularistic interpretations 
of past cultures, which were often equated with historically documented peoples. In 
these narratives, time was conceived as uni-directional, and history was explained in 
teleological terms (Webster, 2008). For historians, however, the label culture-historical 
archaeology can be misleading, as it has little in common with the cultural history as 
understood and practised by historians.
In the 1960s, the so-called new or processual archaeology rejected the particular-
istic culture-historical epistemology as subjective and non-scientific, propagating the 
application of the more rigid, positivist epistemology of the natural sciences with gen-
eralization, quantification and modelling of data, the use of statistical analyses, as well 
as the generation of knowledge claims by formulating and testing hypotheses. Proces-
sual archaeologists emphasized the need for archaeology to explain cultural processes 
and not simply to describe the diversity and reconstruct the history of past cultures 
(Binford, 1968; Clarke, 1973; Renfrew, 1973). While the American processual school 
led by Lewis Binford advocated the search for universal laws of human behaviour, this 
idea was not adopted by British proponents of processualism.
The reactions that followed in the 1980s and early 1990s were diverse, but the 
various critical voices and new understandings of archaeology are usually subsumed 
under the umbrella term of post-processual archaeology (Hodder, 1982; Preucel, 1991; 
Yoffee et al., 1993). Whatever their exact intellectual orientation, post-processual ar-
chaeologists found common ground in the rejection of scientific epistemology as ulti-
mately de-humanizing (Shanks et al., 1987, 77). They advocated a more interpretative 
archaeology and embraced qualitative approaches. Historical context and historical 
particularism returned once more to the remit of archaeological interpretation. 
Even though the processual vs. post-processual debate dominates the Western, 
Anglo-American narratives about the development of archaeological theory and epis-
temology in the second half of the 20th century, it should be noted that these schools 
of thought exerted little influence over other national traditions of archaeology (Trig-
ger, 1996, 312–313). Central European archaeology remained firmly entrenched in the 
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time-honoured tradition of culture-historical archaeology, peppered with occasional 
nods of compliance with the Marxist, or rather, historical materialist ideology propa-
gated in the former Communist countries (Biehl et al., 2002, 28; Novaković, 2002, 341). 
This is not to say that Central and Eastern European archaeologists were intellectually 
isolated or that they did not take part in the methodological and conceptual develop-
ments of the discipline. Fruitful connections and collaborations with foreign, Western 
researchers were not uncommon. An interesting case in point is Polish archaeology, 
which developed close ties with the proponents of the French Annales School of his-
tory in the 1960s (Tabaczyński, 2014).
The Annales School with its structuralist approach, an emphasis on social history, 
multi-scalar analyses, and the idea of total history has found resonance with many proces-
sual and post-processual archaeologists (Bintliff, 1991; Knapp, 1992; Tabaczynski, 2014). 
One of the most attractive and immediately applicable ideas was Braudel’s concept of the 
three separate, yet intertwined time scales, the short-term (the histoire événementielle), as-
sociated with events, the medium-term (the conjonctures), in which the social and eco-
nomic processes unfold, and the long-term (the longue-durée), related to the geological 
and environmental histories, as well as the history of mentalities (cf. Ribeiro, 2019, 8–9).
As is so often the case with intellectual borrowings, these ideas were introduced 
to archaeology with a considerable delay, once they had already been heavily criti-
cized and were superseded by novel approaches within the discipline of history. What 
Braudel’s historical project failed to achieve was linking the short-term to the other 
two temporal scales, thereby removing human agency from historical explanation. The 
issue of how human actors shape and transform the very social structures and envi-
ronment that constrain and guide their actions remained unresolved in Braudel’s own 
work, as well as in its applications in archaeology (Ribeiro, 2019, 9–11).
One answer to this problem was the use of studies favouring the small-scale in 
history. Microhistory is a historical approach based on detailed observation and quali-
tative analysis of the particular and the unquantifiable as a method to understand the 
relationship between the agent and the underlying social structures, mentalities, and 
institutions shaping social practice (Ginzburg, 1993; Ribeiro, 2019, 14). A growing 
interest in microhistory can be observed in recent years among archaeologists with 
various theoretical backgrounds and professional interests (Kaeser, 2008; Hupperetz, 
2010; Nebelsick et al., 2017; Ribeiro, 2019). In fact, microhistory is often invoked 
merely as a metaphor for a detailed and contextually rich analysis of archaeological 
sites or objects. However, as Artur Ribeiro points out, microhistory combines detailed 
attention for the particular and individual with a concern for the wider structures and 
processes in society. By adopting the microhistorical approach, archaeology can “be-
come more attuned to a narrative understanding of the past and to a qualitative way of 
conducting archaeological research” (Ribeiro, 2019, 17–18).
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Another conceptual and methodological inspiration that archaeologists took from 
historians, was the history of the everyday (Alltagsgeschichte; Jaritz, 1989). It is a tru-
ism that the archaeological record contains remnants of the everyday, often mundane, 
actions and concerns of past people. Moreover, the perspective of the everyday seems 
appropriate for investigating the omnipresent and constitutive materiality of human 
lives (Robin, 2020). This is not a new research orientation within archaeology, and 
since the 1980s it has been heralded by some historians and archaeologists as an inher-
ently interdisciplinary task (cf. Elkar, 1990, 273, 281, 301–302).
A History from Things
Archaeology is, by definition, the study of past societies through their material re-
mains and traces. To this end, it has developed a unique set of research methods and 
theoretical concepts, but it also relies heavily on analytical tools, explanatory models, 
and theories borrowed from a range of other disciplines, the humanities, social, and 
natural sciences. If anything, archaeology can be defined by this eclecticism. Attempt-
ing to explore and understand the totality of human experience in the past, it is forced 
by the very nature of its subject matter to embrace all possible ways and means in 
pursuit of this goal.
In the last two decades, the intellectual landscape of archaeology seems to have 
shaken off the shackles of the processual/post-processual debate and become less polar-
ized, but it could also be described as fuzzy. The recent advances in the analytical tech-
niques offered by the natural sciences, such as AMS radiocarbon dating, ancient DNA 
and stable isotope analyses on the micro-scale, as well as the developments in remote 
sensing and computational tools enabling big data analyses on the macro-scale, have re-
defined many fields of study and revolutionized the practice of conducting archaeologi-
cal research (Kristiansen, 2014). While these methodological shifts push archaeology 
closer to the processual ideal of scientific epistemology, interpretative approaches are by 
no means wholly absent or divorced from the application of archaeological science. The 
new attitude has been labelled the “new empiricism” (Hillerdal et al., 2015).
In search of new paradigms, archaeology once more exhibits its dynamic, eclectic 
nature and resilience. While some insinuate the death of archaeological theory (Bintliff 
et al., 2011; cf. Thomas, 2015), others claim that archaeology should re-invent itself as 
the discipline of things, advocating a return from concerns and concepts borrowed from 
social theory, anthropology, philosophy, and historiography to the uniquely archaeo-
logical way of exploring and interpreting the past, recognizing that material things are 
the true, unique subject matter of archaeology (Olsen, 2010; Olsen et al., 2012).
This focus on the material is the very essence of archaeology, but it is shared with 
a range of other disciplines, such as anthropology, ethnology, art history, material cul-
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ture studies, and science and technology studies. Even historiography has experienced 
a “material turn”, with a growing number of historians realizing the importance of 
material things for the personal and social lives of people, and their relevance to the 
study of any given society, past or present (Green, 2012).
Material culture frames all of our actions and experiences and is constitutive of 
them. Material culture sheds light on our production and consumption of goods, 
our power relations, social bonds and networks, gender interactions, identities, 
cultural affiliations and beliefs. Material culture communicates all kinds of hu-
man values, from the economic or political to the social and cultural. And whilst 
historical objects cannot offer a direct and clear window on past worlds they are 
a powerful form of evidence, and a ‘provocation to thought’, they are as complex, 
deceptive, partial and multi-layered as textual survivals. (Hannan et al., 2017)
Material culture is a legitimate object of study for historians who are interested in 
the totality of the human experience, bringing historiography closer to the objectives 
and approaches of anthropology and archaeology (Lubar et al., 1993; Auslander, 2005; 
Harvey, 2009; Hannan et al., 2017). It is important for historians to acknowledge that 
the study of material culture enriches history and helps build more nuanced and com-
plex narratives about the past than the exclusive use of written documents. It “changes 
the very nature of the questions we are able to pose and the kind of knowledge we are 
able to acquire about the past” (Auslander, 2005, 2).
This convergence of research interests and approaches between the two disciplines 
of archaeology and history is commendable, yet one fundamental difference remains. 
While for historians material things may be valid objects of study, they are not in 
themselves used as independent sources of information about the past. For archae-
ologists though, things are both the primary source of information and the object 
of study. One could say that historians – at least the more “materially oriented” ones 
– write “history with things” whereas archaeologists produce “history from things”. 
The two disciplines, connected in their ambition to understand the past, coexist and 
complement one another precisely because they look “at fundamentally different data 
with different methods and different motivations” (Frieman, 2023, 1).
An Archaeology with Texts
If archaeology and historiography are both studying the past and they both, ideally, share 
an interest in the material aspects of the past, what is the relevance of historical archaeol-
ogy? Is it a redundant concept or a separate field of study positioned at the interstices of 
the two disciplines? Historical archaeology is defined by the abundance and variety of 
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both material and textual sources available to study the past. While this is often hailed 
as its strength, transcending disciplinary boundaries has been considered anathema by 
many and has indeed delayed the formation and accep tance of historical archaeology – 
whether studying the (later) medieval, early modern period, or even the contemporary 
past – by practitioners of the various disciplines it straddles (Predovnik, 2013, 86).
Historical archaeology is first and foremost archaeology, taking the material re-
mains of people in the past as the starting and focal point of its inquiries. It applies 
the methodological and conceptual tools developed by archaeology to produce nar-
ratives about the past (history) from things. But it can also complement and confront 
data gleaned from the material sources with other types of evidence (textual, pictorial, 
oral) to arrive at a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the lived experience of 
people in the past. It is thus an archaeology with texts.
Consequently, historical archaeology is often regarded as inherently interdiscipli-
nary (Oliver, 2020, 264), even transdisciplinary (Little, 2007, 14; Predovnik, 2013; Mül-
ler, 2015, 8), bringing together “multiple lines of evidence” and enabling “multifaceted, 
multidimensional, and highly contextualized” analyses (Orser, 2010, 116). It investigates 
“material histories”, starting the exploration from the things themselves, delving into the 
otherwise undocumented realms of daily life, the objectified cultural and social struc-
tures and processes, ideologies, contestations, and power struggles among groups and 
individuals (Hicks, 2003, 326; Hicks et al., 2006, 2–3). This study of things is framed with 
the study of textual and oral evidence, so much so that historical archaeology has even 
been dubbed “text-aided” (Little, 1992) and “documentary” (Beaudry, 1993).
However, the aim of conceptual and methodological synergies and interdisci-
plinary collaboration implied in the name of the discipline often seems beyond reach. 
Some claim that historical archaeologists should be both archaeologists and historians, 
able to study autonomously both archaeological and historical sources instead of hav-
ing to rely on the textual evidence that has “already been interpreted and assessed by 
historians with regard to other research questions” (Mehler, 2013, 18). This is hardly a 
universally attainable goal, though, as it would require from the practitioners of histor-
ical archaeology, who are mostly educated as archaeologists, an additional set of skills 
they simply do not possess (Igel, 2009, 41). Interdisciplinarity through collaboration 
should be a reasonable alternative. But is it?
It seems that the disciplines of (historical) archaeology and history dwell on sepa-
rate banks of a great divide (Mayne, 2008, 93; van Wijngaarden et al., 2020). Decades 
after historical archaeologies first made their appearance, the lack of dialogue and co-
operation with historiography is painfully obvious. While it is self-evident that each 
discipline should have its own sources, methods, research agendas, and therefore a dis-
tinct disciplinary identity, the all-too-often exhibited lack of interest and understanding 
for the contributions of one or the other to the study of the past is not acceptable.
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Part of the problem is that archaeologists and historians do not “speak the same 
language”. Material and textual sources are separate and independent strands of evi-
dence requiring separate research methodologies. Their nature, epistemological po-
tential, and relevance for the construction of knowledge about the past have been de-
bated intensely over the years. Anders Andrén (1998, 153–175) suggested that mate-
rial and textual evidence can be related through five shared methodological tools: clas-
sifications, identifications, correlations, associations, and contrasts. Similarly, Patricia 
Galloway (2006, 42) identified four ways in which archaeologists engage with the two 
types of sources: by using material evidence to test or confirm literary sources, by us-
ing textual evidence to identify and date material evidence, by integrating both strands 
of evidence to construct totalizing accounts of lifeways, socio-cultural groups or even 
events, or by trying to identify dissonances between the material and the textual to 
look for historically undocumented lives and practices.
Undoubtedly, connecting information from the material and textual sources 
is fraught with difficulties. Identification of material remains with places and peo-
ple mentioned in documents is rarely possible, and the same problem arises with 
the use of documents to date archaeological finds and contexts. Another hurdle is 
the incompatibility of the resolutions of archaeological and historical chronologies. 
Whilst historians mostly operate with exact dates, archaeology relies on relative se-
quences of observed contexts and finds and defines time through spatial distribu-
tions of material remains. The advances in “absolute” dating methods, such as den-
drochronology and AMS radiocarbon dating with Bayesian modelling, which have 
revolutionized prehistorical archaeology, are less relevant to historical archaeology, 
as the dates they can provide are still too coarse for direct correlation with the his-
torical chains of events. Even when exact dating of an archaeological find or feature 
is achievable, e.g. through dendrochronology, a critical interpretation of the date is 
required, taking into account the biography of the dated object and its relevance for 
the archaeological context in which it was uncovered.
There are no simple solutions, but there is room for dialogue. Archaeologists and 
historians study the same past but approach it in different ways and from different 
viewpoints. Confrontation and correlation are possible, provided the nature of the di-
verse strands of evidence we investigate is duly considered. Archaeology is not a trans-
lation of history to another medium, it is not a mere illustration and objectification of 
history. Its strength lies in the themes that it studies, in the uncovering of the material, 
often banal facets of human agency, but also in the exposure of the entanglements of 
the material with the ideational (cf. Frieman, 2023).
Historical archaeology with all its chronological and thematic subdivisions has 
become a legitimate, vibrant disciplinary field and can no longer be dismissed as ir-
relevant. It is not a mere “handmaiden of history”, a set of techniques procuring data to 
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resolve historical research questions. The historian Alan Mayne (2008, 94) pointed out 
the true research potential of historical archaeology in these poignant words:
Relishing and puzzling through the ambiguities of diverse but intersecting 
data sets and scales of reference has the effect of decentering historical under-
standing and thereby stimulating analytical innovation. The study of people, 
objects, places, activities, and events that had seemed to be on the edges of 
historical significance is helping to reformulate historical understanding by 
adding agency, complexity, and hence relativist sensitivity to our grasp of the 
influences and horizons that constituted the social world of the past.
A common claim made by historical archaeologists is that their research gives 
voice to the voiceless, the illiterate masses who are absent from or are not represented 
adequately in documentary sources. It is “a perfect way in which to study the lives of 
men and women who had been largely forgotten in history or who had been pushed 
aside as insignificant by past historical observers” (Orser, 2002, 305). This remains a 
point of contention, however. On the one hand, it is belied by many excellent historio-
graphical studies of marginal and subordinate social groups and individuals (Mayne, 
2008, 94), and on the other hand, subaltern voices are “frustratingly elusive” in the 
archaeological record and have “left as faint a trace in the material world as they did in 
the written documentation” (Hall, 2000, 19; cf. Predovnik, 2000, 38).
Equally questionable is the notion that material evidence bridges the gap between 
the past and present, somehow compacting time (Mayne, 2008, 103), as objects pos-
sess their own temporalities and biographies. It is certainly true that archaeological 
artefacts exist in the present, yet the belief that we can experience and understand 
them as people in the past did is fundamentally flawed. This is not to say we cannot 
interpret them through careful observation and recording of their material and spatial 
contexts, merely, that we should never expect the past to be “familiar” and easily know-
able through our encounters with its material traces (Tarlow et al., 1999). 
Conclusion
There are many varieties and ways of doing historical archaeology. Some practitioners 
are more historically minded than others, some more theoretically explicit than oth-
ers, some favour the anthropological or sociological approaches, while others embrace 
the full potential of engaging with the natural sciences in analysing the material evi-
dence. This diversity is not a sign of the discipline’s weakness or lack of identity but 
rather one of strength, as archaeologists endeavour to enrich and complement our 
understanding of the not-so-distant past.
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The title of this paper presents a false dilemma. Historical archaeology is – or, 
ideally, should be – both a history from things and an archaeology with texts, but it 
can only strive to achieve that in close collaboration with historiography. Not in the 
naïve sense that it should either succumb to “the tyranny of the historical record” 
(Champion 1990) or that, to avoid it, it should eschew the documentary evidence and 
historical interpretations altogether. Instead, it should confront the material and tex-
tual evidence, and look for gaps and inconsistencies, but also for converging strands 
of evidence to construct nuanced and insightful interpretations of the past. Often, un-
resolved questions will be the outcome of such an exercise, and this is to be welcomed 
since finely tuned and appropriately formulated questions are the fuel that drives re-
search forward. We should not expect definite and clear answers but rather the messi-
ness inherent to material culture and fragmentary documentary evidence. Therein lies 
the potential to understand the past – not as it really was, but as it might have been.
Acknowledgments: This paper was co-funded by the Slovenian Research and Innova-
tion Agency in the framework of the Research Programme P6-0247 Archaeology.
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Historična arheologija na stičišču arheologije in zgodovine: 
zgodovina iz stvari ali arheologija z besedili?
Ključne besede: historična arheologija, srednjeveška arheologija, posrednjeveška ar-
heologija, arheologija in zgodovina 
Članek obravnava razmerje med arheologijo in zgodovinopisjem z vidika historične 
arheologije. Ta ni enovito znanstveno podpodročje in jo je mogoče opredeliti na raz-
lične načine. V tem članku izraz historična arheologija zaradi priročnosti uporabljamo 
kot krovno poimenovanje za (poznejšo) srednjeveško in posrednjeveško arheologijo 
ter arheologijo sodobnosti.
Historična arheologija je prvenstveno arheologija, saj se osredotoča na materialne 
ostanke in gradi znanstvena spoznanja o preteklosti (zgodovino) iz stvari. Vendar lah-
ko podatke, pridobljene iz materialnih virov, dopolnjuje in sooča z drugimi viri (be-
sedilnimi, slikovnimi, ustnimi), zatorej je arheologija z besedili. To predstavlja meto-
dološki in epistemološki izziv. Mnogi opozarjajo na nevarnost »tiranije zgodovinskih 
virov«, nekritičnega zanašanja na besedilne informacije in dajanja prednosti le-tem v 
primerjavi z materialnimi podatki. 
Številne (historične) arheologe so navdihnili različni koncepti in pristopi iz zgo-
dovinopisja, kot so denimo kulturna zgodovina, analovska šola družbene in ekonom-
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ske zgodovine, Braudelov koncept dolgega trajanja, zgodovina vsakdana (Alltagsge-
schichte) in mikrozgodovina. Obratno pa večina zgodovinarjev spoznanj arheologov 
ne upošteva. To je vredno obžalovanja, saj materialni viri ponujajo pomembne uvide v 
nekdanje življenjske svetove in jih ne bi smeli prezreti. 
Historical archaeology at the interstices between archaeology 
and history: a history from things or an archaeology with texts?
Keywords: historical archaeology, medieval archaeology, post-medieval archaeology, 
archaeology and history
This paper explores the relationship between the disciplines of archaeology and his-
tory through the lens of historical archaeology. This is not a unified subdiscipline and 
has indeed been defined in various ways. Here, the term will be used as a shorthand for 
(later) medieval, post-medieval and contemporary archaeologies.
Historical archaeology is first and foremost archaeology focusing on material re-
mains and producing knowledge claims about the past (history) from things. But it 
can complement and confront the data gleaned from the material sources with other 
types of evidence (textual, pictorial, oral), so it is an archaeology with texts. This rep-
resents a methodological and epistemological challenge. An uncritical reliance on tex-
tual information over the material has often been warned against as “the tyranny of 
the historical record”.
Many (historical) archaeologists have been inspired by various historiographical 
concepts and approaches, such as cultural history, the Annales school of social and 
economic history, Braudel’s concept of the longue-durée, the history of the everyday 
(Alltagsgeschichte), and microhistory. Conversely, the knowledge produced by archae-
ologists tends to be disregarded by most historians. This is unfortunate, as the material 
evidence offers important insights into past lifeworlds and should not be ignored. 
O avtorici
Katarina Predovnik je izredna profesorica za arheologijo na Oddelku za arheologijo 
Filozofske fakultete Univerze v Ljubljani, kjer poučuje arheologijo mlajših obdobij. Kot 
raziskovalka se posveča materialni kulturi visokega in poznega srednjega veka ter zgo-
dnjega novega veka in teoretskim vidikom arheologije mlajših obdobij. V zadnjih letih 
raziskuje predvsem slikano namizno keramično posodje iz 15. do 17. stoletja v osrednji 
Sloveniji in vodi terenske raziskave na območju opuščenega srednjeveškega trga Gu-
tenwerd na Dolenjskem. Je (so)avtorica treh znanstvenih monografij, več znanstvenih 
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člankov ter članica mednarodnih uredniških odborov več uglednih znanstvenih revij. 
Bila je članica in zakladničarka Izvršnega odbora Skupnosti za raziskovanje srednje-
veške Evrope (MERC) v okviru Evropskega združenja arheologov (EAA), trenutno pa 
je zakladničarka EAA. Je tudi članica Stalnega odbora mednarodnega kastelološkega 
združenja Castrum Bene ter znanstvenih sosvetov Nemškega kastelološkega društva in 
Avstrijskega društva za arheologijo srednjega in novega veka. 
E-naslov: katarinakatja.predovnik@ff.uni-lj.si
About the author 
Katarina Predovnik is an associate professor of archaeology at the Department of Ar-
chaeology, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana. Her research focuses on the materi-
al culture of the High and Late Middle Ages and the early modern period, and the the-
oretical aspects of historical archaeology. She is currently studying the painted ceramic 
tableware of the 15th to 17th centuries from central Slovenia and directing fieldwork at 
the site of the abandoned medieval market town of Gutenwerd in southeastern Slove-
nia. She is the (co-)author of three scientific monographs, several scientific papers and 
member of international editorial boards of several prestigious scientific journals. She 
was a member and treasurer of the committee of the Medieval Europe Research Com-
munity (MERC), which is part of the European Association of Archaeologists (EAA), 
and is currently acting as Treasurer of the EAA. She is also a member of the Permanent 
Committee of the Castrum Bene International Castellological Association and of the 
International Scientific Advisory Boards of the German Society for Castle Studies and 
of the Austrian Society for Medieval and Modern Archaeology. 
E-mail: katarinakatja.predovnik@ff.uni-lj.si
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