Onderzoeksproject

Connected Communities in Early Medieval Europe

What kinds of pan-European connections linked communities across early medieval Europe, and what social infrastructures allowed these networks to function beyond political, cultural and geographic boundaries?

Looptijd: 2026 - 2032
Contact: Frans Theuws
Financiering: ERC Synergy Grant
Partners: Masaryk University (Brno, Czechia) | Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Milan, Italy)
KU Leuven (Belgium) | Uppsala University (Sweden) | University of Freiburg (Germany)
Centre national de la recherche scientifique (Paris, France) | National Museum of Antiquities (Leiden)

The COCO project challenges the idea that post-Roman Europe fragmented into isolated ethnic kingdoms. While early medieval writers, members of political and intellectual elites, shaped this narrative, the archaeological record suggests a different story. Shared practices and material culture have been reported in burials across Europe, indicating a highly connected world, a pattern also supported by emerging ancient DNA research. This project goes beyond genetic links to uncover how these connections were created and maintained. By analyzing material culture, its circulation, and the spread of ideas, we explore the networks of ordinary people and their role in shaping early medieval Europe.

Societal relevance

COCO seeks to deepen the understanding of Europe’s early medieval history by focusing less on what divided people and more on what connected them. Less on elite stories and more on the lives of ‘common’ people. By revealing long-distance connections and shared practices across the wider population, the project will add historical reflections to contemporary discussions of mobility, interaction, and European interconnectedness.

The project has a strong outreach programme to share new archaeological insights into early medieval connectivity with the wider public. Part of the project’s data is publicly shared through the ‘Navigating Early Medieval Europe’-portal and offers relevant information to stakeholders in archaeology, heritage and education.

Scientific relevance

The project aims to establish an alternative historiographical perspective on early medieval Europe by moving beyond elite-centered narratives and focusing on the agency of ‘common’ people throughout the continent. It challenges traditional narratives of isolation, ethnic borders and rural autarky following the breakdown of Roman authority in the west. To explore how material culture and ideas moved across such a vast area, COCO will employ a broad, multidisciplinary approach and bring together experts from across Europe. This strategy will not only deepen understanding of the subject but also help overcome challenges such as nationally focused studies, fragmented databases, and language barriers.

Why LU?

Great research is done in collaboration. In this Synergy grant, Masaryk University, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, KU Leuven, Uppsala University, University of Freiburg, the Centre national de la recherche scientifique, National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden and Leiden University, in the role of the corresponding host institution, will build on the achievements of previous projects, which include a unique pan-European database and well-established research networks. Leveraging the existing infrastructure enables continued development of the resources already in place.

Material and Methods

COCO brings together a wide range of archaeological, historical, geological, metallographic, and chemical expertise, enabling cutting-edge research on glass beads, ancient iron, meeting places, and funerary practices. Furthermore, a shared, open-access pan-European information system supports data exchange and comparative analysis, replacing the current patchwork of national databases. This coordinated, multidisciplinary approach enables the large-scale investigation required to reconstruct early medieval Europe’s networks of connection.

The project comprises several interconnected work packages, each with a distinct focus. Nevertheless, collaboration remains fundamental: team members work closely both within individual work packages and across them to exchange insights and foster a shared understanding of the past.

Beads, Exchange and Networks

Beads offer an extremely useful category of material objects for studying pan-European connectivity. They are found in cemeteries throughout nearly every part of early medieval Europe, were available to large parts of the population, and were exchanged over large distances. Close analysis and scientific methods (such as pXRF, μXRF, LA-ICP-MS, and MC-ICP-MS analyses) allow us to trace the provenance of glass beads and thus reconstruct the routes they travelled.

Research questions include:

Which connections do the spatial and temporal distributions of specific bead types in the region reveal and how can these be characterised? What are the provenances of the beads found in the region and how do these change throughout the period of study? How were (strings of) beads assembled, used and valued in the region and how did this develop throughout the period of study?

Iron and iron objects, exchange and networks

Like beads, iron was widely available to populations across Europe. Iron objects from archaeological contexts between 450-900 are omnipresent and are used in almost all spheres of life: agricultural, artisanal, religious and military. Previous research has found ironworking to be present in rural communities, even locating some ‘rural craft centres’. On the other hand, the source of iron ore was less evenly distributed. This work package will bring together data from several inventories already carried out, strengthen the chemical data repository, reconstruct a ‘chaîne opératoire and compare chemical signatures of ferrous objects in order to map pan-European connections.

The main research question is:

What is the spatial, temporal and social nature of early medieval connections through which the exchange of ferrous objects, semi-finished products and raw iron takes place on a pan-European scale?

Circulation of ideas (mortuary culture)

The COCO project not only aims to study the exchange of objects, but also considers the exchange of ideas. Archaeologically, this is possible through analysis of the funerary ritual. Throughout Europe, there were shared but also differing practices in how to care for the dead. Instead of seeing differing funerary rites as evidence for distinct ethnic identities, we see funerary practices as representative of how local burial communities chose to commemorate their deceased. As communities of ritual practice, they developed,

negotiated, and transmitted ideas about mortuary treatments. By investigating burial practices that occur across large geographical distances, we aim to investigate what shared ideas circulated concerning the treatment of the dead, focusing on what communities shared rather than what divided them.

The main research question is:

In what ways and why did people choose to engage in shared practices, to care for their dead in shared ways, to create monumental and cemetery forms which are recognisable over wide areas? What do shared ways of treating the dead reveal about interconnectedness and the exchange of information in the early Middle Ages: what connections enabled the communication of shared ideas and actions over large distances?

Meeting places and meeting events

If objects and ideas are to travel, then it is ultimately people who must meet. This subproject aims to shed more light on the infrastructure and networks that allowed for pan-European connectivity, with a particular focus on ‘meeting places’ and ‘meeting events’. This departs from a more narrow search for towns, central places, market places and harbours, and instead searches for more ephemeral (to us) places where people could have met and exchanged, such as temporary landings, assembly places, festivals and so on. To achieve this aim, this subproject seeks to first build a model based on anthropological and historical data, and then seek to develop an ‘archaeology of visitors’ that can help reveal ephemeral landscapes.

The main research question is:

Where and how did people meet and exchange goods, ideas and create social bonds? What was the spatial, material, social and cultural infrastructure that enabled early medieval communications and what were their life trajectories in the early Middle Ages?