“Linking Worlds” conference

The “Linking Worlds” conference, held at the Leibniz-Zentrum für Archäologie in Mainz from 18–21 June 2025, successfully brought long-overlooked corridors of medieval Europe to the forefront of academic discussion. While the Dnieper and Volga routes have long attracted scholarly attention, the Western and Southern Bug arteries, connecting the Baltic and Black Sea regions through Western Ukraine and Eastern Poland, have remained underexplored. This conference addressed this imbalance, bringing together an international group of scholars to shed new light on the cultural and economic exchanges that shaped Eastern and Central Europe, and the medieval world.