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Barbarian migrations and their archaeological traces: the example of South-West Gaul in the 5th century
Conference
Published on
29 May 2015
Updated on
13 June 2017
Colloquia
The archaeology of Migrations
International colloquium organized by Inrap, in partnership with the National Museum of Immigration History.
November 12 and 13, 2015 at the National Museum of Immigration History.
Archaeology of Migrations
by Jean-Luc Boudartchouk, Inrap
This fascinating topic has been debated for over a century: can we identify archaeological traces of Barbarian migrations, and if so, what are they? During the 19th and at the beginning of the 20th century, a golden age for classification, researchers systematically replied in the affirmative; after the Second World War, the response became dubitative, hesitant, at times even negative. The Great migrations and the arrival of the Goths are nevertheless a historical reality for South-West Gaul: the converging content of contemporary texts, even when examined through a critical lens, is unequivocal. Now that, for almost thirty years, the study of the material culture of migrating populations in the 5th century has made remarkable progress throughout Europe, this debate is more relevant than ever, to be tackled with new scientific support, and, one can hope, calm spirits.
Jean-Luc Boudartchouk, is deputy of Science and Technology in the Midi-Pyrénées region for INRAP (French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research), and member of UMR 5608 TRACES (archaeological research group on cultures, spaces and societies at the Université Jean Jaurès, Toulouse). A trained archaeologist and historian with a degree in political sciences, he specialises in the last periods of Ancient History and the Early Middle Ages. His current research, which focuses on cultural transformation, notably concerns the Gothic Kingdom of Toulouse (cf. BOUDARTCHOUK (J.-L.) – Processus politiques de déromanisation dans l’entité goth des Gaules, le Regnum Tolosanum (413-508), in Archéopages, special edition n°3, March 2012, p. 158-165).
Bibliography
Bibliography
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