In the early Middle Ages, a network of maritime trading towns – emporia – emerged along the northern coasts of Europe. These early urban sites are among archaeology’s most notable contributions to the period between the disintegration of the Western Roman Empire and the growth of a maritime-oriented world in the Viking Age. Ribe, on the western coast of Denmark, is one of these sites. In 2017–2018 the Northern Emporium research project conducted seminal research excavations, which provided new foundations for the study of this nodal point between Western Europe, Scandinavia and the world beyond.

The two-volume final publication of the Northern Emporium project, published 2022–2023, presents an overview of the excavations and analyses to piece together the history of the emporium and its social fabric. The research employs novel, high-definition methods to explore the networks of the site, integrating an extensive use of geoarchaeology and 3D stratigraphic recording with intensive environmental sampling and artefact recovery, resulting in more than 100,000 artefact finds.

The results pose many new questions to our understanding of the archaeology and history of the Baltic and North Sea regions in the eighth and ninth century, but much further research is needed to unfold their implications. We are pleased therefore to invite you to the symposium New Light on Emporia and Networks, to mark the conclusion of the Northern Emporium project, and to continue to explore the new leads provided.

The symposium will be held on 26–27 October 2023 at the Centre for Urban Network Evolution at Aarhus University. It will bring together a group of leading researchers to debate aspects arising from the Northern Emporium project in a broader context of emporia and networks in early medieval Northern Europe. We aim to bring together people who would have a take about the wider implication of the results coming out of the dig that we could follow up within the project. They could be consequences for the understanding of other sites, particular find groups or for broader themes.