Ballasting the Hanse. Baltoscandian Erratic Cobbles in the Later Medieval Port Landscape of Bruges.

The find of a remarkable group of vividly coloured rounded cobbles on the fields and in the monuments of the late-Medieval outer ports of Bruges has initiated a multi-disciplinary research into the function, provenance and wider economic meaning of these exotic stones. Geological examination demonstrates that the stones can be considered as ballast of varied lithological nature. A substantial part are constituted by glacial erratics which have been collected along the Baltoscandian shores. Another group can be traced to the NE-British coasts. Because of the clustering of stones at Hoeke, specific attention is drawn to the connections between Bruges and the Hanse, and to the Hanseatic settlement of Hoeke which hosted the staple of stockfisch and various other Hanseatic activities. The paper adds to the discussion of ballast stone as a meaningful archaeological object category, in particularly when studied in a broader methodological context including archaeological, geological and historical research.

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