Archaeology in a town, a town in archaeology. Selected issues of archaeological research of historical towns

Abstract

In the introductory article of a volume that presents archaeological and other disciplinary research into a historical town, selected issues are discussed in the framework of the complicated research process required to understand the past of historical towns. This new field of science is facing many methodological and organizational problems. The main theme of this article is that the further development of archaeological explorations of the town requires the definition of terminology, holistic research methods (most of all stratigraphy) and an acceptance of an interdisciplinary canon. Historical archaeology dealing with towns has transformed itself into a specific field of archaeology that uses familiar excavation techniques, but differs from prehistoric archaeology by drawing on sources from other fields like history, town-planning, architecture, cultural anthropology and with its own descriptive language of past times.