The purpose of this workshop is to explore the relationship between lost documents and archives and Strong Asymmetrical Dependencies (SADs) in post-Roman Europe and the Mediterranean through uniting the research of the BCDSS with the international working group on 'Lost Documents and Archives in the Middle Ages.' Both research groups take as a working hypothesis that archives of SADs privilege records of those in power and aim to investigate how we can use "evidence of absence" as historical evidence. The exchange will focus on the question of lost documents and non-elites, asking 1) how patterns of loss shape our evidence of non-elites, and 2) how those patterns may nonetheless contribute to our understanding of non-elites, especially those under the heaviest conditions of dependence.