Medieval archaeology is the study of humankind through its material culture, specialising in the period of the European Middle Ages.
The period covers the upheaval caused by the Fall of the Western Roman Empire and cultures such as the Vikings, the Saxons, and the Franks.
The rich nature of the medieval written record means that archaeology has often been seen as the "handmaiden to history",[1] especially in the Late Middle Ages.
[4] Michel de Boüard, the University of Caen, Ecole pratique des Hautes Etudes, and the Polish Academy of Sciences were instrumental in establishing medieval archaeology as a field in France in the second half of the 20th century.
The first wave was influenced by landscape history and processual archaeology; scholarship focused principally on historical, economic and technological questions and targeted individual sites and monuments for study.