Being on the Inside, Forgetting to Look Out: The Need for a Historical Archaeology of Global Relevance

Abstract

Historical archaeology in Scandinavia is an expand- ing field, but despite its global nature, the discipline is trapped in methodological nationalism. The early modern and modern societies are generally studied us- ing the current national borders even though the ma- terial culture should not be constrained in this way. By illustrating with both theoretical and empirical ex- amples, the objective of this paper is to bring about a greater awareness of the global nature of the material culture and the interactions that took place between peoples in Europe and beyond.

Keywords

• Early modern
• globalization
• Eurocentrism
• methodological nationalism
• material culture
• production