Staff Profile:Dr Aleks Pluskowski

Name:

Dr Aleks Pluskowski

Job Title:

Associate Professor

Responsibilities:

Areas of Interest:

• The environmental archaeology of medieval Europe, particularly human-animal relations.
• The archaeology of crusading and frontier societies.
• The environmental archaeology of colonisation in Europe and beyond
• Religious conversion and diversity in medieval Europe
• Inter-disciplinary medieval studies.
• Modern uses of the Middle Ages.

Postgraduate Supervision

Aleks is happy to discuss proposals for postgraduate research in any area of medieval European archaeology, but especially the archaeology of crusading, colonisation, religious conversion, religious diversity, authority and frontier regions. He is also happy to consider zooarchaeology proposals. For further information, please contact Dr Aleks Pluskowski

Research groups / Centres:

Medieval Social Archaeology Group

Landscape, Climate and Lived Environment Research Cluster

Key Facts:

Dr Aleks Pluskowski teaches the archaeology of later medieval Europe and crusading. His research focuses on the relationship between nature and culture in medieval Europe, particularly within frontier societies associated with crusading, colonisation, cultural encounters and religious transformations. Following a series of collaborative pilot projects at the castles associated with the Teutonic Order in Malbork (Poland), Feldioara (Transylvania, Romania) and Karksi (Estonia), he obtained a Starting Investigator Grant from the European Research Council for the Ecology of Crusading project (2010-2014, FP7/2007-2013, under grant agreement n° 263735) which examined the environmental impact of crusading, colonisation and religious transformation across the eastern Baltic https://research.reading.ac.uk/ecologyofcrusading/. The results have been published as a series of papers and two volumes by Brepols (forthcoming 2018)http://www.brepols.net/Pages/ShowProduct.aspx?prod_id=IS-9782503551326-1 and http://www.brepols.net/Pages/ShowProduct.aspx?prod_id=IS-9782503551333-1. He also published The Archaeology of the Prussian Crusade: Holy War and Colonisation, the first synthesis in any language (Routledge, 2013). He has subsequently collaborated with the University of Granada on pilot projects to examine the dynamics of the multi-faith frontier societies of medieval Iberia, with the aim of developing a major research programme in South Western Europe. In 2018 he was awarded an AHRC Research Grant in collaboration with the universities of York and Granada for the four-year project "Landscapes of (Re)Conquest: Multi-Cultural Frontiers in Medieval South Western Europe" https://research.reading.ac.uk/re-conquest/ .

Within the broader framework of his research projects, his own specialist focus has been zooarchaeology and inter-disciplinary perspectives of human-animal relations. He is the author of Wolves and the Wilderness in the Middle Ages (Boydell, 2006), which compares human responses to wolves and their shared environments in medieval Britain and Scandinavia. He has published several articles on responses to the wolf in the Middle Ages, as well as on the treatment of exotic animals, hunting space and animals as material culture in medieval society. In recent years he worked on the zooarchaeology of Venetian colonisation in the Eastern Mediterranean, collaborating with a team from the Università Ca'Foscari di Venezia, led by Professor Sauro Gellichi and based on excavations in north Italy and Montenegro. He is also involved in the MACH (Mauritius Archaeology and Cultural Heritage) project, focusing on the environmental impact of post-medieval colonisation. He has edited volumes on the topic of medieval animals and initiated the "Animals as Material Culture in the Middle Ages" conference series, which has been held in Cambridge (2005), Foggia (2006), Vienna (2007) and Budapest (2008). He also helped set up the "Medieval Animals Database", in collaboration with the Institut für Realienkunde des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit, Krems and the Department of Medieval Studies at the Central European University in Budapest. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, Deputy Editor of the journal Medieval Archaeology, a committee member of MERC (Medieval European Research Community) and leader of the Medieval Social Archaeology research cluster at Reading. He is regularly involved in organising and moderating sessions at international conferences, particularly those of the EAA (European Association of Archaeologists).

Research Projects:

• The Ecology of Crusading: The Environmental Impact of Conquest, Colonisation and Religious Conversion in the Medieval Baltic https://research.reading.ac.uk/ecologyofcrusading/
• Landscapes of (Re)Conquest: Dynamics of Multicultural Frontiers in Medieval South Western Europe
• The Environmental Impact of Venetian Colonisation in the Medieval Mediterranean, part of The Heritage of the Serenissima project (collaborating with Università Ca'Foscari di Venezia) https://research.reading.ac.uk/re-conquest/

Publications:

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Jump to: 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007

Number of items: 48.

2019

• Babos, H. B., Black, S., Pluskowski, A., Brown, A., Rohrssen, M. and Chappaz, A. (2019) Evidence for the onset of mining activities during the 13th century in Poland using lead isotopes from lake sediment cores. Science of the Total Environment, 683. pp. 589-599. ISSN 0048-9697 doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.05.177
• Brown, A., Poska, A. and Pluskowski, A. (2019) The environmental impact of cultural change: palynological and quantitative land cover reconstructions for the last two millennia in northern Poland. Quaternary International. ISSN 1040-6182 doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2019.05.014 (In Press)
• Banerjea, R. Y., Badura, M., Brown, A., Morandi, L. F., Marcinkowski, M., Valk, H., Ismail-Meyer, K. and Pluskowski, A. (2019) Feeding the crusades: archaeobotany, animal husbandry and livestock alimentation on the Baltic frontier. Environmental Archaeology: the Journal of Human Palaeoecology. ISSN 1461-4103 doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/14614103.2019.1589924
• Pluskowski, A., Valk, H. and Szczepański, S. (2019) Theocratic rule, native agency and transformation: post-crusade sacred landscapes in the eastern Baltic. Landscapes, 19. ISSN 1466-2035 doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/14662035.2018.1561009
• Pluskowski, A., Makowiecki, D., Maltby, M., Rannamäe, E., Lõugas, L., Maldre, L., Daugnora, L., Black, S., Müldner, G. and Seetah, K. (2019) The Baltic Crusades and ecological transformation: the zooarchaeology of conquest and cultural change in the Eastern Baltic in the second millennium AD. Quaternary International, 510. pp. 28-53. ISSN 1040-6182 doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2018.11.039
• Pluskowski, A. (2019) Ecologies of crusading, colonization, and religious conversion in the medieval Baltic: Terra Sacra 2. Brepols, Turnhout, Belgium. (In Press)
• Brown, A. D. and Pluskowski, A. G. (2019) Environment, colonisation, and the crusader states in medieval Livonia and Prussia: Terra Sacra, vol. 1. Brepols, Turnhout, Belgium. (In Press)
• Pluskowski, A., Brown, A., Banerjea, R., Makowiecki, D., Seetah, K., Rannamäe, E., Jarzebowski, M., Kreem, J. and Klavins, K. (2019) From the convent to the commandery: the pivotal role of the environment in defining the medieval Baltic Ordensland. Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte des Deutschen Ordens, 81. pp. 55-87.

2018

• Pluskowski, A., Brown, A., Szczepański, S., Banerjea, R. and Makowiecki, D. (2018) What does a frontier look like? The biocultural dynamics of the Lower Vistula borderland in the Middle Ages. In: Genius Loci - Laszlovszky 60, 16-17 November 2018, Budapest.
• Pluskowski, A., Seetah, K., Maltby, M., Banerjea, R., Black, S. and Kalnins, G. (2018) Late-medieval horse remains at Cēsis castle, Latvia, and the Teutonic Order’s equestrian resources in Livonia. Medieval Archaeology, 62 (2). pp. 351-379. ISSN 0076-6097 doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/00766097.2018.1535385
• Pluskowski, A. (2018) The archaeology of the military orders: the material culture of holy war. Medieval Archaeology, 62 (1). pp. 105-134. ISSN 0076-6097 doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/00766097.2018.1451590

2017

• Banerjea, R. Y., Badura, M., Kalejs, U., Cerina, A., Gos, K., Hamilton-Dyer, S., Maltby, M., Seetah, K. and Pluskowski, A. (2017) A multi-proxy, diachronic and spatial perspective on the urban activities within an indigenous community in medieval Riga, Latvia. Quaternary International, 460. pp. 3-21. ISSN 1040-6182 doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2017.02.006
• Brown, A., Badura, M., King, G., Gos, K., Cerina, A., Kalnina, L. and Pluskowski, A. (2017) Plant macrofossil, pollen and invertebrate analysis of a mid-14th century cesspit from medieval Riga, Latvia (the eastern Baltic): taphonomy and indicators of human diet. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 11. pp. 674-682. ISSN 2352-409X doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2017.01.016
• Thomas, G., Pluskowski, A., Gilchrist, R., Ruiz, G. G.-C., Andrén, A., Augenti, A., Astill, G., Staecker, J. and Valk, H. (2017) Religious transformations in the Middle Ages: towards a new archaeological agenda. Medieval Archaeology, 61 (2). pp. 300-329. ISSN 0076-6097 doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/00766097.2017.1374764

2015

• Brown, A., Banerjea, R., Dawn-Wynne, A., Stivrins, N., Jarzebowski, M., Shillito, L.-M. and Pluskowski, A. (2015) The ecological impact of conquest and colonization on a medieval frontier landscape: combined palynological and geochemical analysis of lake sediments from Radzyń Chełminski, northern Poland. Geoarchaeology, 30 (6). pp. 511-527. ISSN 0883-6353 doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/gea.21525
• Pluskowski, A. (2015) Before the werewolf trials: contextualising shape changers and animal identities in medieval north-western Europe. In: De Blecourt, W. (ed.) Werewolf Histories. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, Hampshire, pp. 82-118. ISBN 9781137526335
• Sawicki, Z., Pluskowski, A., Brown, A., Badura, M., Shillito, L.-M., Makowiecki, D., Zabilska-Kunek, M. and Seetah, K. (2015) Survival at the frontier of Holy War: political expansion, crusading, commerce and the medieval colonizing settlement at Biała Gora, North Poland. European Journal of Archaeology, 18 (2). pp. 282-311. ISSN 1461-9571 doi: https://doi.org/10.1179/1461957114Y.0000000071

2014

• Pluskowski, A., Sawicki, Z., Shillito, L.-M., Badura, M., Makowiecki, D., Zabilska-Kunek, M., Seetah, K. and Brown, A. (2014) Biała Góra: the forgotten colony in the Medieval Pomeranian-Prussian borderlands. Antiquity, 88 (341). pp. 863-882. ISSN 0003-598X doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00050742

2013

• Pluskowski, A. and Brown, A. (2013) From forest to field: the changing environment of Medieval Prussia. In: Pluskowski, A. (ed.) The archaeology of the Prussian Crusades: Holy War and Colonisation. Routledge, London, pp. 294-336. ISBN 9780415691703
• Pluskowski, A., Brown, A., Stančikaitė, M. and Daugnora, L., eds. (2013) Frontier societies and environmental change in northeast Europe. Archaeologia Baltica 20. Klaipeda University Press, Klaipeda. (edited journal issue)
• Pluskowski, A., Brown, A. and Girininkas, A. (2013) Frontier societies and environmental change in northeast Europe: introduction. Archaeologia Baltica, 20. pp. 7-8. ISSN 1392-5520 (Pluskowski, A., Brown, A., Stančikaitė, M., Daugnora, L (eds.) Frontier Societies and Environmental Change in northeast Europe. )
• Brown, A. and Pluskowski, A. (2013) Medieval landscape transformation in the south-eastern and eastern Baltic: palaeoenvironmental perspectives on the colonization of frontier landscapes. Archaeologia Baltica, 20. pp. 24-46. ISSN 1392-5520 (Pluskowski, A., Brown, A., Stančikaitė, M., Daugnora, L (eds.) Frontier Societies and Environmental Change in northeast Europe. )
• Valk, H., Brown, A., Rannamäe, E., Badura, M., Lõugas, L. and Pluskowski, A. (2013) Thirteenth century cultural deposits at the castle of the Teutonic Order in Karksi. Archaeological Fieldwork in Estonia, AVE 2012. pp. 73-92. ISSN 1406-3972
• Brown, A., Pluskowski, A. and Karczewski, M. (2013) Vegetation change in the Great Mazurian Lake District during the medieval period: the impact of conquest and colonisation on a frontier ‘wilderness’ landscape. In: Hoffmann, M., Karczewski, M. and Wadyl, S. (eds.) I Warmińsko-Mazurska Sesja Sprawozdawcza za lata 2008-2012 poświęcona pamięci prof. J. Okulicza-Kozaryna : książka abstraktów. Ośrodek Badań Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej, Białystok. ISBN 9788392577256
• Pluskowski, A. (2013) The castle and the warren: Medieval East Anglian fur culture in context. In: Bates, D. and Liddiard, R. (eds.) East Anglia and its North Sea World in the Middle Ages. Boydell, Woodbridge, pp. 152-173. ISBN 9781843838463
• Pluskowski, A. (2013) The dragon's skull: how can zooarchaeologists contribute to our understanding of otherness in the Middle Ages? In: Garcia, F. d. A. G. G., Vadillo, M. A. W. and Picaza, M. V. C. (eds.) Animals and Otherness in the Middle Ages. BAR International Series 2500. Archaeopress, Oxford, pp. 109-124. ISBN 9781407311166
• Pluskowski, A., Brown, A., Banerjea, R., Shillito, L.-M., Makowiecki, D., Seetah, K., Jarzebowski, M., Klavins, K. and Kreem, J. (2013) The ecology of crusading: the environmental impact of conquest, colonisation and religious conversion in the medieval eastern Baltic. In: Hoffman, M., Karczewski, M. and Wadyl, S. (eds.) I Warmińsko-Mazurska Sesja Sprawozdawcza za lata 2008-2012 poświęcona pamięci prof. J. Okulicza-Kozaryna : książka abstraktów. Ośrodek Badań Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej, Białystok. ISBN 9788392577256
• Brown, A. and Pluskowski, A. (2013) The impact of the Teutonic Order on the landscape of the Eastern Baltic: preliminary results of investigations on mire and lake sediments in Latvia. In: Kļaviņš, M. and Kalniņa, L. (eds.) Bog and lake research in Latvia. University of Latvia Press, Riga, pp. 62-74. ISBN 978998445697
• Banerjea, R., Karczewski, M., Karczewska, M. and Pluskowski, A. (2013) The role of geoarchaeology in understanding the formation and function of of Święta Góra (Staświny), Masuria, Poland: interim results from Feature 40. In: Hoffmann, M., Karczewski, M. and Wadyl, S. (eds.) I Warmińsko-Mazurska Sesja Sprawozdawcza za lata 2008-2012 poświęcona pamięci prof. J. Okulicza-Kozaryna : książka abstraktów. Ośrodek Badań Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej, Białystok. ISBN 9788392577256

2012

• Pluskowski, A. (2012) The archaeology of the Prussian Crusade: Holy War and colonisation. Routledge, London, pp427. ISBN 9780415691703
• Carson, S., Shillito, L.-M., Brown, A. and Pluskowski, A. (2012) Environmental assessment of samples from the castle site at Grudziądz, Poland. In: Wiewióra, M. (ed.) Zamek w Grudziądzu w świetle badań archeologiczno-architektonicznych. UMK, Toruń. ISBN 9788323128687
• Valk, H., Pluskowski, A., Brown, A., Rannamäe, E., Malve, M. and Varul, L. (2012) The castle of the Teutonic Order in Karksi: preliminary excavation results. Archaeological Fieldwork in Estonia, 2011. pp. 47-56. ISSN 1406-3972

2011

• Pluskowski, A., Brown, A., Shillito, L.-M. S., Seetah, K., Makowiecki, D., Jarzebowski, M., Klavins, K. and Kreem, J. (2011) The ecology of crusading project: new research on medieval Baltic landscapes. Antiquity. ISSN 0003-598X
• Pluskowski, A. (2011) The archaeology of paganism. In: Hamerow, H., Hinton, D. A. and Crawford, S. (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 764-778. ISBN 9780199212149
• Brown, A. and Pluskowski, A. (2011) Detecting the environmental impact of the Baltic Crusades on a late-medieval (13th-15th century) frontier landscape: palynological analysis from Malbork Castle and hinterland, Northern Poland. Journal of Archaeological Science, 38 (8). pp. 1957-1966. ISSN 0305-4403 doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2011.04.010
• Pluskowski, A., Boas, A. and Gerrard, C. (2011) The ecology of crusading: investigating the environmental impact of holy war and colonisation at the frontiers of medieval Europe. Medieval Archaeology, 55. pp. 192-225. ISSN 1745-817X doi: https://doi.org/10.1179/174581711X13103897378564

2010

• Pluskowski, A. (2010) Constructing exotic animals and environments in late Medieval Britain. In: Page, S. (ed.) The Unorthodox Imagination in Late Medieval Britain. Neale UCL Studies in British History. Manchester University Press, Manchester. ISBN 9780719078354
• Pluskowski, A., Seetah, K. and Maltby, M. (2010) Potential osteoarchaeological evidence for riding and the military use of horses at the castle in Malbork, Poland. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, 20 (3). pp. 335-343. ISSN 1099-1212 doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/oa.1048
• Mitchell, S., Price, N., Hutton, R., Purkiss, D., Patton, K., Raudvere, C., Severi, C., Aldhouse-Green, M., Semple, S., Pluskowski, A., Carver, M. and Ginzburg, C. (2010) Witchcraft and deep time - a debate at Harvard. Antiquity, 84 (325). pp. 864-879. ISSN 0003-598X
• Pluskowski, A. (2010) The wolf. In: O'Connor, T.P. and Sykes, N. J. (eds.) Extinctions and invasions: a social history of British fauna. Windgather Press, Oxford, pp. 68-74. ISBN 9781905119318
• Pluskowski, A. (2010) The zooarchaeology of medieval Christendom: ideology, the treatment of animals and the making of medieval Europe. World Archaeology, 42 (2). pp. 201-214. ISSN 0043-8243 doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/00438241003672815

2009

• Maltby, M., Pluskowski, A. and Seetah, K. (2009) Animal bones from an industrial quarter at Malbork: towards an ecology of a castle built in Prussia by the Teutonic Order. Crusades, 8. pp. 191-212. ISSN 1476-5276
• Valk, H., Pluskowski, A., Thornley, D., Brown, A. and Summerfield, C. (2009) Fluxgate gradiometry survey in the ruins of Karski Castle and palaeoenvironmental analysis in its hinterlands. Archaeological Fieldwork in Estonia. pp. 213-229.
• Pluskowski, A.G. (2009) What is exotic? Sources of animals and animal products from the edges of the medieval world. In: Jaritz, G. and Kreem, J. (eds.) The Edges of the Medieval World. UNSPECIFIED, Krems, pp. 113-129.

2008

• Pluskowski, A. and Seetah, K. (2008) The animal bones. In: Gelichi, S., Piuzzi, F. and Cianciosi, A. (eds.) Sachuidic presso forni superiore: ricerche archeologiche in un castello della carnia. All'Insegna del Giglio, Florence, pp. 98-103.

2007

• Trafford, S. and Pluskowski, A.G. (2007) Antichrist superstars: the Vikings in hard rock and heavy metal. In: Marshall, D.W. (ed.) Mass Market Medieval: essays on the Middle Ages in popular culture. McFarland, Jefferson, pp. 57-73. ISBN 9780786429226
• Pluskowski, A.G. (2007) Communicating through skin and bone: the appropriation of animal bodies in medieval western seigneurial culture. In: Pluskowski, A.G. (ed.) Breaking and Shaping Beastly Bodies: animals as material culture in the Middle Ages. Oxbow Books, Oxford, pp. 32-51. ISBN 978-1-84217-218-6
• Pluskowski, A.G. (2007) Who ruled the forests? An inter-disciplinary approach towards medieval hunting landscapes. In: Hartmann, S. (ed.) Fauna and Flora in the Middle Ages. Peter Lang, Frankfurt, pp. 291-323. ISBN 9783631563021

This list was generated on Sun Aug 25 07:59:25 2019 UTC.

Qualifications:

BA PhD (Cambridge)