Medieval pottery, coins, and metalwork unearthed by metal-detectorists and community groups in South Wales are revealing a forgotten web of maritime connections between Wales, Ireland, France, and Iberia between 1000 and 1500 CE. This matters because a wave of retirements among medieval finds experts has left a growing backlog of recent archaeological discoveries unstudied. The project fills a gap in knowledge about how ordinary people—not just merchants in major ports like Bristol and Dublin—used seaways for fishing, pilgrimage, trade, and conquest. Without this research, the material evidence of Wales’s medieval Atlantic links sits largely unexamined in museum collections and citizen-science records. If successful, the project will produce a new expert in medieval portable material culture, trained for careers in academia, museums, or commercial archaeology. It will also enhance public understanding through outreach events and digital displays, strengthening collaboration between professional archaeologists and the metal-detectorists and community groups who often make the discoveries. This is primarily curiosity-driven fundamental research into medieval social and economic history, with no immediate practical application—but similar work has reshaped how we understand the movement of people, goods, and ideas across pre-modern Europe.
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Context Recent research on maritime connections between Britain and Atlantic Europe (including France and Iberia) during the Middle Ages, and maritime engagement in medieval Wales, hint at far greater use of seaways by a broader spectrum of people than previously appreciated. Welsh connections have been studied in detail for the early medieval period but new discoveries of later-medieval excavated and stray-find evidence have received limited attention. In addition to exchange networks mediated via ports, such as Bristol and Dublin, the evidence now hints at more direct interaction between Wales, Ireland and Atlantic Europe between c. 1000-1500 CE., both from new archaeological discoveries and textual research activities of Welsh people in Ireland, France and Iberia. Lack of research on these recent discoveries has been influenced significantly by a growing crisis in Welsh and UK archaeology caused by the retirement of many experts on medieval finds. Aims and Objectives This studentship project aims to: 1) provide new narratives of interaction between South Wales and Atlantic Europe between c. 1000-1500 CE, by identifying representative contexts of connection within medieval Britain and western Europe; 2) produce an expert on the portable material culture of medieval Wales for the academic-, museum- or commercial archaeological sectors; 3) enhance understanding of Amgueddfa Cymru (AC) medieval collections and enhance public participation in archaeological/cultural heritage through outreach/knowledge exchange events with regional (museums) and ‘citizen science’. The aims will be pursued using two case-study regions in southeast and southwest Wales, respectively. The key research questions comprise: 1) what was the true extent of coastal exchange/embarkation points beyond port-towns to assess extent of maritime engagement? 2) what was the geographic scope and scale of connections? 3) what were the contexts of connection and maritime engagement? (fishing, exchange, pilgrimage, conquest, acculturation) Portable objects (metalwork, coins, ceramics) provide the data, principally from Amgueddfa Cymru (AC) collections, augmented by targeted material from Newport, Porthcawl, Swansea, Tenby, and Scolton-Manor museums, and PAS/Heneb HER records generated by community groups and metal-detectorists. Potential Applications and Benefits Specific outputs will comprise the PhD thesis, publications, enhanced collections at Amgueddfa Cymru (AC) and Welsh regional museums, and the digital displays. It will deliver inclusivity between academia, AC, regional museums and citizen science partners, meeting the Welsh Heritage Consortium ‘everyone represented’ CDP4 research priority. The project will have supported the development of an expert finds researcher with flexible skills for a career in academia, commercial archaeology, or the museum/wider culture-heritage sector. In recognition of the debt to citizen science, there will be three outreach/knowledge exchange events, held at AC and regional museums, hosting metal-detectorists, community archaeology groups and PAS/Heneb/Cadw colleagues. A web-based platform will also host the project website and a digital display and disseminate project results to the public.
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