In the article Resilience in Pre-Columbian Caribbean House-Building: Dialogue Between Archaeology and Humanitarian Shelter of Samson et al. (2015) the Caribbean architectural mode is presented. The...Show moreIn the article Resilience in Pre-Columbian Caribbean House-Building: Dialogue Between Archaeology and Humanitarian Shelter of Samson et al. (2015) the Caribbean architectural mode is presented. The only sites used in that research are near the coast and on the Northern Lesser Antilles and the Greater Antilles. In this thesis a site that was located more land inward, El Flaco on Hispaniola and a site from the Southern Lesser Antilles, Argyle on St. Vincent, were analyzed to see if those comply with Caribbean architectural mode. This is supposed to contribute to the knowledge of housebuilding trends or widely shared similarities in housebuilding throughout the Caribbean. The addition of the two sites indicate that the mode might be wider spread in more distinct locations. Both sites do comply to the mode even though their situation is very different. Seven characteristics have been analyzed. These are formulated by Samson et al. (2015) and in this thesis the sites of Argyle and El Flaco have been studied concerning these characteristics. It was quickly evident that not all characteristics are directly visible in the site plans of Argyle and El Flaco, but most can be found which leads to the conclusion that El Flaco and Argyle comply with the Caribbean architectural mode.Show less
Archaeological research into the early Middle ages in the southern Dutch province of Noord Brabant is relies on a theory of prof. Dr. Theuws regarding settlement patterns and development. Recent...Show moreArchaeological research into the early Middle ages in the southern Dutch province of Noord Brabant is relies on a theory of prof. Dr. Theuws regarding settlement patterns and development. Recent excavations in the town of Uden challenge this theory however. The aim of this paper is to challenge the theory with the main research-question: Can the excavation of the early medieval settlement and cemetery of Uden-West change the current theory of prof. Theuws on early medieval settlement-patterns and settlement development in eastern Noord Brabant, and if so, how? The theory of prof. Theuws focuses on habitation/cultivation areas (or H/C areas in short). Habitation supposedly started around 575 AD, and the earliest settlements were shifting settlements, whilst the earliest settlers avoided the smaller H/C areas. These settlements clustered during the late Merovingian period, but began to shift once more thanks to a population decline during the Carolingian and Ottonian period. A rise in the population forced settlements to cluster once more, and the settlements were eventually forced of the H/C areas in the Late Middle Ages to maximise the agricultural usage of the areas. Merovingian cemeteries were positioned outside of the H/C area. In Uden, however, the cemetery is positioned close to/towards the middle of the H/C area. Habitation also started about 40 years earlier than prof. Dr. Theuws theorised. The size of the population was also smaller, with a maximum of two families. The local cemetery was only used by the people that lived on the H/C area of Uden-West. Furthermore, there is no evidence for clustering of the settlement until 900 AD, and no indication for a decline in the population during the Carolingian and Ottonian period. Overall, based on the H/C area of Uden-west, a more flexible view should be adopted towards early medieval settlement patterns and settlement development, since a lot of H/C areas are now dismissed for early medieval habitation because they are believed to be too small.Show less
