Encore: A Transformative Force: The Environmental Impact of the Baltic Crusades

Indiana Jones: Myth, Reality and 21st Century Archaeology

The crusaders who launched a bloody holy war against the pagan societies of the Eastern Baltic left a profound legacy – the construction of spectacular castles that still exist today as ruins or preserved as historical monuments, and the development of towns that reorganized the region into a uniquely European society and brought it under Christendom. But the effect that these crusading armies had on the landscape goes even further than architectural changes. Dr. Aleks Pluskowski and Dr. Alex Brown are members of a project team using zooarchaeological, palaeobotanical, geoarchaeological and historical data to study the environmental impacts of the Baltic Crusades and the role they played in this transformative time in history. What effect would these have had on the pre-Christian tribes whose belief systems were tied closely into the natural landscape? Tune in tonight, and find out how the ecological transformations that took place as a result of the Crusades were closely tied with the cultural changes that accompanied them.