The Medieval Archaeology of Korea: Its Conceptual Framework and Examples

Abstract

It has been 15 years since medieval historian Ahn Byungwoo suggested the need for medieval archaeology in “A Study on the Development of Medieval Archaeology and the History of Koryŏ” in 2003. 1 Medieval archaeology has gradually become a familiar term to Korean archaeologists and historians since then. In 2017, the Korea Middle Ages Archaeological Society was founded, providing an official platform for research in medieval archaeology. However, despite the external growth of the field, it is difficult to say that research in medieval archaeology has intensified in Korean archaeology. Only a handful of studies on medieval archaeology have been published in major academic journals, and most of them end up focusing on chronology or regional aspects of the medieval period. This becomes evident in the examination of the subjects and time periods explored in research papers that have been published in the Journal of the Korean Archaeological Society. Table 1 shows the classification of historical archaeological studies that were published from 1994 to 2018. Table 1. Classification of Studies on Historical Archaeology Published in the Jour-