Conclusions. Medieval archaeology and natural disasters: what’s next?

Reflecting on the contents of this volume, the authors stress the following observations for making medieval archaeology relevant in disaster studies. • Medieval archaeology should seek to make a more active contribution to contemporary debates around resilience by providing evidence for how people have adapted to environmental risk in the past. • The application of archaeological theory to environmental hazards is not well developed. The impact of post-processual archaeology, for example, is not yet fully evident, although this volume does include several theoretically informed contributions. • Any study of resilience of medieval societies should consider an analysis of the vulnerability which caused a natural hazard to become a disaster. • Regional syntheses are required which summarise case studies of disasters at the landscape scale. • The adoption of a landscape archaeology approach should contribute towards assessments of the risk posed by natural disasters in the fu tu re. A holistic archaeological assessment of environmental disasters can generate valuable knowledge applicable to disaster risk reduction (DRR) programmes. Special emphasis must be placed on the dissemination and communication of results to the wider public. A