In my PhD thesis, I am studying the medieval over-sea distribution networks and their development, as well as geographical differences based on the archaeological material. My research is so-called big data -research, that is yet rare in humanities, where –with help of large sample sizes and data mining– questions that can not be answered by traditional humanities methodology are under investigation.

On the other hand, in the economic history point of view, archaeology provides a dataset with a unique perspective, as the material culture can bring out connections and historical economic features that are not visible from written sources, eg. toll catalogues. Archaeological material is also often more temporally comprehensive that the literary sources, which enables us to complete the missing data of the written documents.