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The ways in which archaeologists and historians analyse economies in the past often do not align with how economies are assessed today. Modern economics is primarily based on GDP, which is inherently grounded in monetary values, making it impossible to compare to or translate on to long-vanished societies. As our world is rapidly changing, however, economists are increasingly looking outside the GDP box. One direction in which they are heading is social metabolism, which assesses the ways that societies consume materials and energy from their surrounding environment – and one of the main ways that this is currently determined is through a modelling technique called Material Flow Accounting (MFA). This approach is completely removed from any monetary underpinnings and instead focuses on the flow of physical, quantifiable materials in and out of a society – an approach that aligns well with potential extrapolation to archaeological research.
In this month’s ‘Science Notes’, we are looking at a recent study by Adam Green and Simon Mair from the University of York, which aimed to see if MFA could be successfully adapted to an archaeological setting. As part of this research (whose results were recently published in the Journal of Archaeological Science; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2026.106524), the pair examined the Wharram Archive, an extensive open-access dataset compiled from more than 40 years of excavations at the Deserted Medieval Village of Wharram Percy in the Yorkshire Wolds (see CA 49, 193, and 200; below). While there are some discrepancies in the data, mainly due to evolving excavation methods used over such a long-running project, the team deemed the dataset large and robust enough to absorb any minor issues, and an ideal candidate for this ‘proof of concept’ study.
To adapt the dataset to be used in an MFA model, Adam and Simon identified two materials that were pervasive across both time and space: pottery and building stone. Focusing on Wharram Percy’s Site 9 and Site 12, which primarily contained domestic dwellings dating to between AD 1000 and 1500, they then analysed the data to determine the number of ceramic vessels in relation to their location and estimated date. For building stone, meanwhile, they georeferenced the excavation plans from Sites 9 and 12 to create a Geographical Information System (GIS; a computer-based framework used to analyse spatial data). This created five plans for Site 9 and four plans for Site 12, with each representing different periods of time. Adam and Simon then mapped the foundations of each building and calculated their square meterage to provide a built area measurement for each phase.
The next step was to assess how each of these materials had flowed in and out of the community. Inflow was easily calculated using the number of pottery vessels and stones present within each time period compared to the one preceding it. Outflow was a bit more difficult to determine, but Adam and Simon developed a model based on the estimated lifespan of each material which, by drawing on other research, they estimated at two years for pottery and 75 years for stone.
After comparing each material, Adam and Simon found that, while the quantities of pottery and stone were not correlated, there was a statistically significant relationship between the flow of each material into the site. Specifically, both pottery and stone inflows increased from roughly AD 1200 to 1400, reaching a noticeable peak c.AD 1350, before having a protracted period of decline. In line with their respective lifespans, the decrease in the inflow for stone was much slower than that of pottery. Notably, the inflow peak for each material occurred around the time of the Black Death in the mid-14th century, and it is probably no coincidence that material flow in Wharram Percy slowly petered out after that point.
The model highlighted the sheer quantity of material that was needed to support even a relatively small community. The project’s results suggest that more than 362 pottery vessels were required in order to maintain a stock of just 19 items between AD 1300 and 1400. No kilns were found at Wharram Percy, so all pottery was probably brought in from other locations and, as Adam and Simon highlight, ‘The inflow of such a quantity of material would have had environmental ramifications; pottery requires the extraction of clay, gathering of temper material, and extraction of firing fuels.’ They add that: ‘Quantifying these impacts could help frame a wide range of debates in archaeology and reveal whether Wharram Percy’s economy operated within its ecological boundaries, allowing archaeologists to test hypotheses about the collapse, reorganisation, and transformation of socioecological systems.’
This study is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the potential for using economic models in archaeology. By further adapting this MFA model for archaeological contexts and implementing protocols at the point of excavation, this area of study opens up a whole wealth of research opportunities that could not only help us better understand how economies functioned in the past, but could also provide examples for how economies might become fairer and more sustainable in the future.
Text: Kathryn Krakowka / IMAGE: Gernot Keller, CC BY-SA 2.5
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