Archaeology and Art History: Common Ground for the New Millennium

Abstract

AbstractARCHAEOLOGY and art history are closely allied disciplines, particularly for the study of the medieval period. This paper seeks to compare and contrast archaeological with art historical approaches to medieval material culture in terms appropriate to an archaeological audience, much as Stanisław Tabaczyński examined the relationships between archaeology and history in the pages of this journal only a few years ago.1 Rather than emphasize the distinctions between archaeology and art history, an attempt is made to focus on where these two disciplines intersect and how art history at the cusp of the new millennium differs from what archaeologists on both sides of the Atlantic often assume. This seeks to bring recent changes in art historical methods and theory to the attention of medieval archaeologists, suggesting that interdisciplinary cooperation between archaeology and the humanistic disciplines, including art history, should be strengthened.