Europe (Geographic Keyword)
26-50 (1,158 Records)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Throughout the development of nautical archaeology, the debate about defining terminology of individual ship timbers, how each ship was originally conceptualized, and when and why changes in construction methodology took place continue with the discipline. Over the last three decades, archaeologists Patrice Pomey and Eric Rieth...
Agrarian Landscapes of coastal Croatia: a view from Nadin-Gradina (2017)
Generalized models of Mediterranean agroecosystems often elide the specific historical and political contexts in which food production necessarily takes place. This paper presents new historical-ecological research currently underway at the multi-period settlement site of Nadin-Gradina near the Adriatic coast of southern Croatia, a typically "Mediterranean" landscape that has hosted a dynamic social-political history of repeated invasion, migration, and colonization by a variety of human actors....
Agricultural risk management in Mediterranean environments: a computational modeling approach (2016)
Small-scale agriculturalists in the Mediterranean Basin rely on multiple strategies including diversification, intensification, and storage to maintain a stable food supply in the face of environmental uncertainty. Each of these strategies requires farmers to make specific resource allocation decisions in response to environmental risks and is thus sensitive to variability in both the spatiotemporal pattern of risk and the ability of farmers to perceive that pattern. In this talk, I present an...
The agroecology of inequality: Novel bioarchaeological approaches to early urbanization in western Asia and Europe (2016)
In this talk we use case studies to compare the agroecology of relatively egalitarian Neolithic communities (low ginis) with that of early urban societies featuring high levels of inequality (high ginis). We use a combination of novel archaeobotanical and -zoological approaches to investigate arable land management. Neolithic sequences in western Asia, the Aegean and central Europe present contrasting settings in which early farmers developed labour-intensive cropping strategies that buffered...
Agropastoralism in Bronze Age Transylvania: An analysis of faunal assemblages from the Geoagiu and Mureş Valleys (2015)
The Bronze Age was a period of dynamic social transformations in Transylvania. Unfortunately, there have been no systematic archaeological studies of the subsistence economy that funded, and was affected by, the social transformations of emergent inequality. In this poster, I present the first analysis of faunal assemblages from Bronze Age contexts in Transylvania. The faunal assemblages, collected during the 2012-2014 surveys of the Geoagiu and Mureş Valleys, provide the first opportunity to...
Air As Therapy: Open-Air Treatment For Mental And Physical Disease 1890-1914 (2021)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Disability Wisdom for the Covid-19 Pandemic" , at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. In May 2020, Professor Alan Penn of the British Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) told MPs that ‘science suggests that being outside in sunlight, with good ventilation, are both highly protective against transmission of the [corona]virus.’ Present-day medical researchers are not the first to link fresh...
Air Sea Rescue Logbook Project: Analysis and Mapping of Rescue Missions and Reported Aircraft Losses from World War II, Europe (2022)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. During World War II, British Air Sea Rescue Military Craft Units (ASRMCU) conducted rescue missions of downed aircraft and aircrew, including American aircraft and aircrew, in Europe-Mediterranean waters. Each ASRMCU recorded rescue missions and reported crashes using logbooks. The purpose of the Air Sea Rescue Logbook project is...
Alepotrypa Cave and Regional Networks of Southern Greece (2016)
During the Final Neolithic (4500-3200 BCE) there appears to have been a major restructuring in the regional settlement networks of southern Greece. This included a general shift in activity from the north to the south with a significant increase in the number of of small, short lived sites in southern Greece, particularly in coastal locations. Trade and exchange also appears to have intensified, with exotic materials moved further and more frequently than in previous periods. Alepotrypa Cave,...
The ambivalence of caves and rockshelters in medieval Norway (2017)
Caves and rockshelters occur frequently in Norway and they were extensively used as dwelling-sites for humans in most periods of the prehistory. During the transition to the medieval period (AD 550 – 1500), however, archaeological excavations show that their use changed significantly. From then on, they mainly served as offering sites, burial sites and as workshops for metal smiths and stone masons. This change may have been related to a change in the perceptions of caves and rockshelters. One...
Analysis of color and fracture patterns on burned bones from the Békés 103 Bronze Age cemetery (2016)
In this study we use color and fracture patterns of burned bone to reconstruct cremation temperatures and the conditions of the body prior to cremation in highly fragmented skeletal material from a Bronze Age cemetery in Eastern Hungary. Using a Munsell Soil Color Book we were able to qualitatively measure the color of cremains in order to estimate burning temperature. Determining whether or not the body was burned with flesh relied on two methodologies: the analysis of color patterns across the...
The Analysis of Late Antiquity (c. 4th to 6th century AD) Human Remains from Veii-Campetti, Italy (2016)
Veii was a prominent ancient Etruscan city, which eventually fell to Roman rule in 396 BC. After its fall, Veii was abandoned and then turned into a municipality during the rule of Augustus. Within the site of Veii, is the Campetti complex south-west, which houses several different structures. In the earlier periods of occupation (circa the late 7th to 4th century BC), the archaeological area functioned as an urban sanctuary, in which water played a major role. When Augustus turned it into a...
Analysis of Plant Remains from the Bronze Age Site of Pecica Şanţul Mare (2015)
The site of Pecica Şanţul Mare, Romania is among the most important settlements of the European Bronze Age to understand the origins and control of metalwork networks that redistributed the metal resources of the western Carpathian Mountains throughout prehistoric Europe. The study of the ways vegetal resources were used by the inhabitants of Pecica will provide crucial information about the level of social, political, and economic complexity achieved during the Bronze Age. In particular...
Analysis of possible anatomical order in microexcavated Bronze Age funerary urn material from Hungary (2016)
On-going excavations conducted by the BAKOTA project at the Bronze Age cemetery of Békés 103 in Eastern Hungary have uncovered 69 human burials, the majority of which are cremated skeletal remains deposited in ceramic urns. Cremains are an often-overlooked archaeological resource as information regarding age at death, sex, and pathologies can be more difficult to assess after a body has been burned. While demographic information may be limited in this context, the stratigraphic distribution of...
Analysis of the state of preservation and determination of raw material of Gravettian mammoth ivory personal ornaments (Dolní Věstonice, Czech Republic) using Micro Computed Tomography (2015)
This poster examines the utilization of non-destructive and non-invasive microCT analysis to identify raw materials used to fabricate Gravettian artifacts, assess their current state of conservation and work out a procedure for treatment of artifacts in a problematic state of preservation. Raw materials and manufacturing technology of Gravettian personal ornaments from Dolní Věstonice (Czech republic) made from hard animal tissues, such as mammoth ivory, can only be identified using the microCT...
Analysis of the Vertebral Pathologies among Individuals from Fourteenth- to Eighteenth-Century Polish Cemeteries: Comparison between the Village and Town Inhabitants in Greater Poland (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Life and Death in Medieval Poland" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Vertebral degenerative changes are one of the most common pathologies found among historical human skeletal remains. They occur naturally with age and/or as a result of activity-related stress or illness. This study examines human remains discovered during the archaeological excavation of cemeteries from the town Dzwonowo (fourteenth–eighteenth...
Analyzing activity areas when only one material remains: The interpretation of low density, "empty" spaces in open air Middle Paleolithic sites (2015)
It is common for open air sites dating to the Pleistocene to lack organic preservation, including bone. Many of these sites also do not contain features such as hearths. Therefore, the dominant signal that remains is the result of lithic reduction. Because knapping is a reductive process, it creates a large amount of waste material and this debris dominates the artifact count numerically and volumetrically. Lithic pieces associated with other types of activities, such as wood working or...
Analyzing Magdalenian social networks in their environmental context (2016)
This research argues for a refocus of the study of prehistoric social networks that involves contextualizing the inter-site links often interpreted as indicators of social interactions between different groups. It focuses on the social networks created during the 3 sub-periods of the Magdalenian in the Cantabrian and Dordogne regions, and visible through similarities of portable art representations. It uses Species Distribution Modeling and Maximum Classification Likelihood on faunal presence...
Ancient DNA analysis and the Indo-European dispersal (2017)
New methods for analyzing ancient human DNA are introducing a new "molecular archaeology". aDNA permits us to detect mating networks, to see ancestry evolve across generations as populations expanded or died out, to track migrants and their genes across geographic space, and to say whether and with what frequency migrants and the indigenous population mated at the destination. aDNA analysis is an unprecedented tool for the study of ancient migrations, kinship, and biological adaptation. This...
Ancient DNA analysis to investigate the history of malaria and malaria genetic adaptations in Europe (2016)
Historical records and epidemiological studies can be a wealth of information about ancient diseases, nevertheless in some cases DNA evidence is also needed. The data showing high frequencies of malaria genetic adaptations (MGA) in modern and historical populations testify to the presence of malaria in the past along the Mediterranean coast. However, neither modern epidemiological data nor historical records can explain the differences in MGA frequencies that we observe in some regions....
Ancient Hominin Bone Proteomes: Improving our Understanding of Past Human Behavior through the Study of Ancient Bone Proteins. (2017)
The analysis of ancient proteins is increasingly used to study archaeological and anthropological bone specimens from prehistoric time periods. This ranges from large-scale ZooMS screening (Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry) of morphologically unidentifiable specimens to the targeted analysis of ancient bone proteomes from humans through the application of LC-MS/MS. Here, some biological and phylogenetic results that can be obtained through the analysis of ancient human bone proteomes will be...
Ancient human genomes suggest three ancestral populations for present-day Europeans (2015)
Ancient DNA can reveal historical events that are difficult to discern through the study of present-day individuals. To investigate European population history around the agricultural transition, we sequenced complete genomes from a ~7,000 year old early farmer from the Linearbandkeramik (LBK) from Germany and an ~8,000 year old hunter-gatherer from Luxembourg. We also generated genome wide data from seven ~8,000 year old hunter-gatherers from Sweden. We compared these genomes and published...
The Ancient Methone Intensive Survey Project: New Research at a Harbor City in the North Aegean (2015)
Methone (located in Pieria, Greece) was a key trading hub in the prehistoric and historic North Aegean, visible in the discovery of an array of workshops, production tools, and imported artifacts, and by some of the earliest evidence for the Greek alphabet in the Mediterranean. The 2014-2016 Ancient Methone Archaeological Project aims to enrich our understanding of the settlement and situate it within the wider Mediterranean world. The principal components of the project–intensive surface...
"And Make Some Other Man Our King": Mortuary Evidence for Labile Elite Power Structures in Early Iron Age Europe (2017)
"...we have been set free... by our most tireless prince, King and lord, the lord Robert... Yet if he should give up what he has begun, seeking to make us or our kingdom subject to the King of England or the English, we should exert ourselves at once to drive him out as our enemy... and make some other man who was well able to defend us our King" (Declaration of Arbroath April 6, 1320). The Romans in 1st century BC Gaul and the English in 14th century AD Scotland described the political...
Anglo-Saxon and Viking Ship Burials as Indicators of Rank and Wealth (2015)
This study compares the funerary practice of ship burials in Anglo-Saxon and Viking societies. The custom of ship burial is an expression of rank and wealth held by an individual during their lifespan. In addition to common outward appearance of rank shown through such funerary treatment, similar artistic traditions are evident from grave goods and hoards. Items such as jewelry, furniture and boats are crafted in related styles that also express their owner’s rank through the materials and...
Animal diaspora and culture change (2015)
Animal introductions are frequently equated with the introduction of new dietary ingredients; however, this paper will argue that access to 'meat' is seldom the motivation for the importation of exotic species. By examining a number of case-studies pertaining to Britain it will be proposed that many faunal introductions were both inspired by, and resulted in, social, economic and ideological change. Many species were associated with specific deities and because they were imported from beyond the...