The Jean-Marie Pesez Conferences on Medieval Rural Archaeology
Ruralia is an international association for the archaeology of medieval settlement and rural life.
It provides a colloquium of current problems in rural archaeology from most participating European
countries to strengthen the exchange of knowledge in, and the development of, archaeologically
comparable studies, and to make archaeological results available to other disciplines.
The time-range of Ruralia covers the centuries before and after the
Early and High Medieval periods as well, namely the period from ca. 500-1700 AD.
The key activity of the RURALIA association is a conference held every two years in one of the
participating countries. The conference languages are English, French and German.
The co-ordinating body of the RURALIA association is the RURALIA COMMITTEE,
made up of representatives of each of the participating countries, and led
by the president together with the executive committee. The association's first president
was Jean-Marie Pesez (1929-1998), whose name the conference series now bears.