Exploring the Margins: Archaeology of Remote and Resource-Rich Landscapes

31st EAA Annual Meeting 2025 (Belgrade)

Belgrado. Serbia
Congreso. 2025

This session aims to gather case studies and theoretical proposals that address the concepts of remoteness and outlands. Remoteness is defined as a state of being distanced from, or lacking connection to, central cores. Geographically remote areas—such as the driest deserts, highest mountains, densest jungles, most isolated islands, freezing polar regions, and the edges of historical maps—have rarely been at the forefront of archaeological research. The concept of outlands refers to regions beyond the primary centres of settlement and agriculture, often encompassing forested areas, mountains, coastal zones, and open seas. These diverse landscapes, generally unsuitable for cultivation, have historically served various economic and cultural functions. Outlands also denote the resources and raw materials sourced from these areas, such as wood, iron, gemstones, meat, furs, and blubber—commodities crucial to broader networks and economies.

In archaeology, studies of remote lands and outlands have often been sidelined, with global historical processes largely interpreted from central or urban perspectives. As a result, these allegedly distant and marginal regions have been overlooked in discussions of major historical narratives. This session seeks to challenge this oversight, demonstrating that we can engage meaningfully with global themes and contribute to key narratives worldwide by focusing on remote lands and outlands. We therefore invite contributions that examine remote lands or outlands in relation to significant historical processes, including but not limited to the following:

• Revisiting centre-periphery models in archaeology

• Critically examining Big History

• Analysing global migrations and human expansions into these areas

• Considering remoteness and outlands through the lenses of connectivity and globalization

• Questioning the complementarity of non-agrarian production systems

• Examining the relationship between market-oriented production in these regions and capitalism

• Exploring the otherness and livelihood strategies of people from these lands

Remoteness. Outlands. Mountain Archaeology. Polar Archaeology. Wetlands Archaeology. Forest Archaeology.