Europe (Geographic Keyword)
376-400 (1,158 Records)
The approaches and perspectives of Historical Ecology are solidly grounded in interdisciplinary objectives. Wide-ranging projects, such as the one Carole Crumley initiated and has sustained in France, demonstrate the utility of integrating interdisciplinary objectives into research that seeks to understand long-term changes in a landscape. As the original set of archaeological objectives in Crumley’s project changed over time, Historical Ecology emerged as a robust conceptual framework that...
Experimental archaeology and perishable material culture: using traditional museums and open air museums to investigate the missing majority. (2016)
In living contexts the majority of material culture is formed from organic materials, but on most archaeological sites only the inorganic elements are preserved. The perishable material culture thus forms the 'missing majority'. The fragmentary records and fragmentary remains of perishable material culture stored in museums can offer new ways of understanding artefacts made from organic materials. A mosaic approach has been used to offer new interpretations of artefacts using original museum...
Experimental Archaeology as a Method to Replicate the Ornaments of the Arma Veirana Burial: Overview of the Ongoing Experiments (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The discovery of an Early Mesolithic (10,000–9000 cal BP) newborn buried in Arma Veirana Cave (Erli, Italy) is very important both for the rarity of prehistoric newborn burials and for the richness and diversity of its grave goods. Those are composed of 84 perforated *Columbella rustica and four perforated *Glycymeris sp. with different levels of use-wear. Our...
Experimental Reconstructed Vinča Gradac Phase Copper Smelting (2018)
Recent dating projects have determined the oldest known date for copper smelting to appear around, 5000 BCE, associated with Vinča (Gradac phase) sites in the Morava Valley, Serbia. Recent Studies of Vinča metallurgy (Radivojevic 2010) were directed towards the characterisation of slags and associated minerals, and their provenance. This body of work has had important implications for theories relating to the beginnings of metal-using communities. Despite this important research, few studies...
Explaining Diachronic Trends in Paleolithic Subsistence in Central Europe (2015)
This paper examines changing patterns of subsistence during the Lower, Middle and Upper Paleolithic of Central Europe. We present data on faunal assemblages from our excavations in Germany and look at the extent to which the selection and exploitation of prey reflects expectations from behavioral ecological models. We also consider how these faunal assemblages inform us about the evolution of social and economic behavior during the Middle and Late Pleistocene. SAA 2015 abstracts made available...
Exploiting, Exchanging, and Establishing Boundaries: Lithic Trade during the Neolithic on the Great Hungarian Plain (2015)
There has already been extensive analysis of Late Neolithic material culture on the Great Hungarian Plain. Much of that research, however, typically has been restricted to one site as opposed to multiple sites within a region. This paper explores assemblage variation in lithic materials from multiple sites across the Plain. By identifying differences in lithic materials, one can assess the extent to which lithics either reflect or even potentially reinforce social boundaries. In addition,...
Explorations in LEXT Image and Profile Capture for Dental Enamel Surface Morphology (2016)
The field of bioarchaeology is leading to significant advances in our understanding of the lives of past populations. A particular area of interest in this field lies in the consideration of the early life determinants of later life conditions. The consideration of non-specific skeletal stress markers has been at the forefront of this research. Dental enamel grows incrementally, and because it does not remodel once formed, a permanent record of growth disruption is preserved. Traditionally,...
Exploring Cooperation and Hierarchy among Napoleonic Soldiers by Reconstructing Dietary Variation using Stable Isotope Analysis (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Cooperative Bodies: Bioarchaeology and Non-ranked Societies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Historical evidence indicates that two strategies characterized diet provisioning in Napoleon’s Grand Army: rationing and cooperative foraging. Drawing on practice theory, we examine which strategy dominated Napoleonic soldier diet during military service. Although the amounts distributed varied by rank and corps, rations...
Exploring Intersectionality through Osteobiography: A Case Study from Early Medieval Ireland (2017)
Over the last decade, social identity has become well established as an area of bioarchaeological research. Although bioarchaeologists now examine a variety of identities in past societies (such as gender, age, and disability), it remains challenging to discuss the ways in which multiple identities intersect in the creation of individual lives. The construction of osteobiographies provides a means of investigating these intersections, in particular the interrelation of age with other aspects of...
Exploring sex-based variation in infant feeding practices in Byzantine Greece using stable isotope analysis of dentin serial sections (2017)
This paper explores whether sex-based differences in infant feeding practices existed at the early Byzantine Greek site of Nemea (5th-6th c.). Dentin serial sections were obtained from the permanent first molar and first premolar from 31 adults (11 males, 8 females, 12 unidentified) and analyzed for stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes. The isotopic data demonstrated that most individuals were breastfed and fully weaned at a mean age of 2.6 with a range of 1.8 to 3.6 years. Sex-based differences...
Exploring the Late Prehistoric (8000-2400 BC) human-environment interaction in the Western Taurus Mountains, SW Turkey (2016)
This paper presents a case study on human-environment dynamics in the Burdur Region (SW Turkey) during Late Prehistory (8000-2400 BC). Previous archaeological research in the area mainly focused on the fertile lowland areas, which revealed distinctive periods of continuity and collapse of farming communities, followed by a total abandonment of the plain areas for nearly a millennium, i.e. during the Middle Chalcolithic (5500-4100 BC). The working hypothesis is that people moved to more temperate...
Exploring the Roman Occupation and Abandonment of Salemi, Sicily: The Cistern at Largo Cosenza (2015)
Excavations in Salemi, Sicily have discovered a large, bell-shaped cistern dating from the 1st century BC to the 1st century AD. This feature appears to be contemporaneous with a large mosaic floor identified nearby in 1893. The Roman cistern contained a wide variety of domestic debris attesting both the economic interconnectivity and independence of this site. This paper discusses the use and abandonment of the cistern, contextualizing the site within the broader, western Sicilian region. ...
The Eye in the Sky: Use of an Aerial Drone to Record Landscape Alteration in the Malloura Valley, Cyprus (2017)
The use of unmanned aerial vehicles or drones on archaeological projects has proliferated over the past few years. As with many new technologies, the use of drones has gone through several phases. Initially, there is the fascination with a new instrument, followed by more sober assessment of how the equipment can be used to address questions of scholarly interest. In an effort to record the changes in the local landscape of our study area in central Cyprus, the Athienou Archaeological...
Fabrics of space and time: Multiscalar analytical approaches to social process in the Middle Bronze Age Aegean (2015)
Acknowledging analytical scale, or emphasizing the importance of moving coherently from macro to micro to elemental, is not a new concept within ceramic analysis. The work of David Peacock since the 1970s has demonstrated the necessity of a multiscalar approach, yet our attempts to combine techniques that bridge these various scales of analysis have met with mixed success, particularly when confronted by assemblages that include a spectrum of fine to coarse wares. This paper highlights recent...
The faces behind the façade: monuments and their associated practices in Neolithic Britain (2015)
Over the last forty years the analysis of monuments has lain at the center of our understanding of Neolithic societies. Interpretative approaches toward monuments range in scale from the overarching view of Renfrew’s emerging chiefdoms to embodied perspectives focusing on their materiality. Regardless of analytical scale, most accounts treat monuments as complete architectural forms and fail to grasp the significance of the wider activities that surrounded their construction and use. This paper...
The Fast and the Furious. Innovations in Archaeological Visualisations at the Beginning of the 21st Ct. (2018)
The aim of the paper is to discuss current possibilities of complex approach to 3D virtual presentation of archaeological information, both to public and professional archaeologists. Virtual archaeology including 3D objects, reconstruction of building structures and even past landscape scenes has been for several years a standard and specific way of documentation and interpretation. However, what is currently changing is the general availability of the necessary technologies. A common feature of...
The fat of the land: An energetics approach to Paleolithic bone fat exploitation (2017)
I present an energetics approach to Neanderthal and anatomically modern human (AMH) exploitation of prey carcasses for bone marrow and bone fat, crucial nutritional resources during glacial periods in Paleolithic Europe. Previously established differences in daily caloric budget between the two groups predicate variation in behavioral cost thresholds, or a point at which an individual decides that the cost of processing a food resource outweighs the gain and abandons the task. A higher...
Fauna from the Eneolithic Mortuary Site of Verteba Cave, Ukraine (2015)
Animals associated with human burials provide insight into mortuary rituals of ancient groups. This study is the examination of faunal remains from Verteba Cave (3,951- 2,620 cal BC), a site in western Ukraine associated with the latest period of Eneolithic Tripolye-Cucuteni (TC) culture. Relative abundances of taxa were compared to published data from other TC sites. Remains from red deer and cattle are the most frequent fauna of the Verteba Cave assemblage. The sample also has a high...
Faunal evidence for the Neolithic colonization of Franchthi Cave, Greece (ca. 7000-6500 cal BC) (2015)
Franchthi Cave is a pivotal case in research on the mechanisms of the forager-producer transition in the southern Balkans region. Publications on this site have documented the geological, artifactual and macrobotanical records, but detailed information on the faunas is lacking. This zooarchaeological study focuses on the Final Mesolithic and Initial Neolithic periods and the question of whether livestock were adopted as isolated components by late Mesolithic foragers or the site was colonized by...
Faunal Remains from Medieval San Giuliano Plateau (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Etruscan Centralization to Medieval Marginalization: Shifts in Settlement and Mortuary Traditions at San Giuliano, Italy" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A large number of faunal remains were uncovered during the four seasons of excavation (2016–2019) at the San Giuliano Plateau (SGP), Italy. The collection consists of species that are typical to inland sites in the northern Mediterranean during the Medieval period,...
"The fear guards the sacred". The Sacred Natural Sites of Epirus, NW Greece (2015)
In various parts of the world local societies have effectively maintained mature groves through religious rules. A network of such sacred groves characterize the mountainous cultural landscapes of Epirus. These serve as protective wood belts above villages or form groups of veteran trees around churches. Except of settlements protection against natural hazards as also aesthetic functions, these locally-adapted management systems could regulate the use of natural resources for the community....
Feeding Vessels in Later European Prehistory (2018)
Small vessels with spouts, from which liquid can be poured, are known from settlements and graves of the European Bronze and Iron Ages. Sizes, shapes and decorations are highly variable, and although they generally fit the period-specific style, they represent a functional type. One explanation for this vessel form is libation – the act of pouring a liquid as a sacrifice to a deity. Recent discoveries, however, reinforce an association with children’s graves and suggest a function as feeding...
Female mobility in the Viking Worlds (2015)
Recent reassessments of the gender balance among Viking Age Scandinavian populations in the British Isles have suggested a greater presence of immigrant women than previously thought. At the same time, increasing support for a view of the Viking world as a diaspora, with a sustained network between the original and the acquired homelands, has necessitated a better understanding of the mechanics of the migration process. This paper evaluates interdisciplinary evidence for the level of mobility...
Feminism, Gender, and Heterarchy (2016)
When archaeologists, largely led by Carole Crumley, began applying the concept of heterarchy to prehistoric contexts, the focus was on social organization writ large. We generally used heterarchy to debate, illuminate, and/or clarify models of non-egalitarianism, stratification, and hierarchy. The concept seems to have come out of analyses of 20th century political systems. Some archaeological scholars of heterarchy have diversified into discussions of other aspects of human experience, such as...
Fetal Burials at San Giuliano (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Etruscan Centralization to Medieval Marginalization: Shifts in Settlement and Mortuary Traditions at San Giuliano, Italy" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The burial of unbaptized fetuses at San Giuliano exposes friction between the institutional church and medieval Italy's laity. The church's theology of Original Sin, baptism, and salvation left young children especially vulnerable to dying unbaptized and being denied...