Europe (Geographic Keyword)
176-200 (1,229 Records)
Binary models of gender are often uncritically applied in paleoanthropology, even if the biological sex or gender identity of a specimen or representation is ambiguous. In the Upper Paleolithic, indicators ranging from simple bifurcating lines to overt representations of secondary sex characteristics may be used to identify an illustration, engraving, or piece of portable art as "male" or "female." These taxonomic rubrics are rarely stated explicitly. Still, the impression given by an overview...
The centrality of small islands in Arctic Norway from the Iron Age to the recent historic period (2015)
The definition of island marginality in northern Norway was radically altered by the advent of motorized fishing vessels in the early 20th century. Prior to this development, small offshore islands were of central importance for settlement and marine related activity due to their proximity to fishing grounds. In this paper I discuss three settlements on small and ‘marginal’ islands in Arctic Norway from 68°19’ to 71°05’ N latitude that illustrate the centrality of such locations since the Early...
Centuries of warrior boat graves - the Valsgärde burial ground (2017)
The Valsgärde burial ground is one of key sites for the Viking phenomenon project. This burial site was used for more than 1000 years. It is the best preserved and the only "entirely" excavated boat grave site in Sweden. Here we can follow the changing burial rites and interactions with the world during the 1st Millennia AD. Valsgärde has been seen as a place where an unbroken series of male elite individuals were buried for nearly eight centuries. However, detailed studies of all burials, both...
Ceramics production and trade across the Great Hungarian Plain: Chemical analysis of Bronze Age ceramics from Békés 103 in Eastern Hungary (2016)
The Bronze Age in Europe is noted for an increase in foreign interaction and trade, yet some areas show few signs of receiving non-local goods. Using chemical analysis of Bronze Age ceramic pastes from the cemetery of Békés 103 and nearby clay sources, this poster seeks to investigate trade networks and exchange between the people of the site and other areas of the Great Hungarian Plain. Using LA-ICP-MS, we examine the extent of trade and the degree to which the community participated in the...
Ceramics production and trade in Western Anatolia: A reexamination of the ceramic mould-making process at Seyitömer Höyük in Kütahya, Turkey (2017)
During the Early Bronze Age at Seyitömer Höyük, ceramics began to be standardized in their shape and size through the use of a mould-making process. Evidence from the archaeological record suggests that this innovative technique was incorporated at the site due to the increase in trade and demand for ceramics from other settlements in Anatolia, from nearby Küllüoba to faraway Troy. The early use of a mould-making process established Seyitömer Höyük’s pivotal role as a ceramic hub and trading...
Ceramics provenience: chemical analysis of ceramics and clays in Eastern Hungary via LA-ICP-MS (2017)
This project explores the provenience of ceramics found at the Bronze Age Békés 103 cemetery. By answering the question of where these ceramics came from, it is possible to hypothesize which Bronze Age communities used the cemetery. To do this, clays were collected throughout Eastern Hungary for chemical analysis. Clay is often found along river banks, but many modern rivers may have been polluted. Instead, paleo-meanders of modern rivers were chosen as collection sites; these were identified...
Cetacean Exploitation in the Medieval London (2017)
Zooarchaeology aims to reconstruct the relationship between humans and animals based on the bone remains of these animals. However the field is often primarily concerned with (domesticated) terrestrial mammals, frequently neglecting cetaceans. This can be ascribed to the fact that zooarchaeological cetacean remains are often too fragmented for identification and a general lack of extensive cetacean reference collections for comparison, resulting in poor understanding of early human-cetacean...
Challenges in Integrating Archaeology into Late-Period Preservation Projects: An Example from Menorca, Spain (2015)
The island of Menorca, Spain, belonged successively in the 18th century to Spain, England, France, again England, and finally Spain. During this period, the British constructed their first purpose-built naval hospital on Isla del Rey, a small island in Mahon Harbor. To date, heritage-related efforts on Isla del Rey have focused on the architectural restoration of the hospital buildings, as well as on the development of exhibit spaces. In 2013, Boston University started a collaboration with the...
Changes in occupational patterns during the Middle Paleolithic: the case of Teixoneres Cave Unit III (MIS 3, Moià, Barcelona, Spain) (2016)
The aim of this work is to contribute to the debate about Neanderthal behavioral diversity from the Middle Paleolithic site of Teixoneres Cave (MIS 3, Barcelona, Spain). During the formation of Unit-III, the landscape was dominated by a deciduous forest with wet meadows and a progressive climatic tendency toward cooling and aridity. The alternation between large carnivores and human groups marks the upper part of the unit. In this sub-unit, human occupations correspond to small groups that...
Changes to the Western Eurasian Hominin Climate Niche (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The climate niches that early modern humans and our earlier hominin ancestors inhabited have undergone major changes over time. This study documents climate niche expansions, contractions, and stationarity across four time periods (Last Interglacial, Last Glacial Maximum, Mid-Holocene, and 1950¬–2000) in western Eurasia. Using spatially gridded global...
Changing Social Spatiality in Mounded Funerary Landscapes (2017)
Funerary landscapes, as places where all fractions of society meet to honour the rituals of social and identity-building importance, can be used to attain an insight into group-specific attitudes towards spatiality. These attitudes allowed for people's engagement with various elements of their environment as a means of deliberate creation of lasting ritual landscapes. However, social spatiality in funerary contexts is not static, but subject to changes in the group's perception of both their...
Changing the Picture – 1000 Hectare High Resolution Magnetometry on the Protected Zone of a World Heritage Site at Avebury, UK (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Monumental Surveys: New Insights from Landscape-Scale Geophysics" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Avebury and Stonehenge, two iconic prehistoric sites in the heart of England, both listed on UNESCO’s list of world heritage have undergone intensive research during the past century. Nevertheless, evolving technologies open access to new data on a landscape scale, thus adding more and surprising information helping to...
Changing weapons in a mutable landscape: exploring the relationship between Upper Paleolithic weaponry variability and drastic environmental changes in Western Europe (2016)
Lithic industries from the European Late Pleistocene archaeological record are marked by the presence of one of the most numerous and diverse set of artifacts identified as projectile weaponry tips. Variability in the morphology and technology of these tools has long been used for organizing the Upper Paleolithic archaeological record into distinct cultural and chronological units – the so-called techno-complexes – validating a direct association between transformations in projectile technology...
Changing with the times: An exploration of shifting attitudes and funerary treatment of children from the Roman to early medieval period in Britain (2016)
Throughout Britain, archaeological cemeteries and settlements are being increasingly subjected to in-depth site analyses. Large scale excavations and subsequent post-excavation work result in large bodies of osteological and artefactual data which, in turn, allow archaeologists to glean an insight into the social identity of past populations. Biocultural studies that specifically focus on the treatment and attitudes towards children living in Romano-Britain (1st-5th century A.D.) and early...
A characterization study of some of the earliest ceramic building materials from sites in Rome and its surrounding area (2015)
Roman roof tiles and architectural terracottas constitute an important resource for the study of the architectural development of early Rome, through the detection of different sources and perhaps workshops in the region of the Roman capital. Unfortunately, the location of possible clay sources available to the Roman tile-makers has been obscured due to the city’s extensive urbanization. However, a drilling project in the area of the Roman Forum and other sites offers important evidence of...
Characterizing Ephemeral Paleolithic Occupations at Arma Veirana (Liguria, Italy) (2017)
This paper presents a description of recently studied assemblages from Middle and Upper Paleolithic levels at the site of Arma Veirana, a large cave located in the mountainous hinterland of Liguria. While one Mousterian level shows an intense occupation, all other levels indicate rather short-lived, low intensity occupations. Beyond technological and typological analyses of these assemblages undertaken to characterize them, we also report preliminary data on raw material procurement patterns...
Charcoal analyses unraveling Cabeço da Amoreira Muge shell midden (Portugal) (2016)
Cabeço da Amoreira is a Mesolithic shell midden located near the Tagus river, 60 km from Lisbon, central Portugal. Charcoal analyses are an important tool to identify the wood used for fuel and therefore, understand the relationships between human societies and their landscape. Charcoal is abundant in the Cabeço da Amoreira shell midden. It is present in every context of the site, being part of its occupation horizons and formation processes. Here we present the results from charcoal analyses...
Chert vs quartzite edge reduction using a mechanical device and its relevance to lithic raw material variability, selection and use (2017)
Lithic raw materials diversity in archaeological assemblages is used to address a multiplicity of fundamental questions concerning the evolution of human behavior. Technological systems are considered to be the result of conscious human choices, likely related to different types of rocks characteristics, performance and effectiveness. To test this model, we developed an experimental program using hand-knapped standardized blades on quartzite and chert in an upgraded version of a mechanical...
Child Disability and Prostheses in Nineteenth-Century Britain (2018)
Introduction of dedicated paediatric medicine, was an advancement arriving in Britain late compared to its neighbours such as France’s ‘Enfant Malades’ in 1802. Paediatric hospitals were a consequence of physicians' financial aspirations rather than falsely portrayed ‘community need’ (Lomax, 1998). Their establishment contradicted longstanding attitudes surrounding children as ‘incomplete beings…whom it was wasteful to devote attention to’ (Porter, 1989). Oddly, amputation saw children harness...
Childhood and Adulthood Mobility at Medieval (1240s AD) Solt-Tételhegy, Hungary Reconstructed from Stable Oxygen Isotope Analysis (2016)
Between 2005 and 2009, archaeologists excavated more than 100 skeletons from the medieval (1240s AD) Hungarian site of Solt-Tételhegy. Little has been published about this archaeological settlement, and although previous stable isotopic research has described the migration patterns of medieval European peoples, here we present the first such study performed on a medieval Hungarian population. Stable oxygen isotope analysis was conducted on dental enamel from 23 individuals and on bone apatite...
Children and the ceramic industry in medieval England (2016)
This paper discusses the role of children in the ceramic industry in medieval England, using the work of medieval ceramics specialists Maureen Mellor and Stephen Moorhouse as a starting point from which new evidence relating to this subject can be assessed. Children’s involvement in pottery production manifests itself in a variety of ways, including fingerprints on ceramic sherds, decorative qualities on pots and tiles, and documentary references. Similar studies relating to pottery production...
"Children in a ragged state": Seeking a bioarchaeological narrative of childhood in Ireland during the Great Famine (1845–52) (2016)
More than half of all victims of the Great Famine in Ireland from 1845 to 1852 were children, but despite this fact relatively little attention, amongst a vast body of famine research undertaken to date, has been undertaken to explore their experiences and what realities they endured during this period. Following the archaeological discovery and bioarchaeological study of a large famine-period mass burial ground adjacent to the former workhouse in Kilkenny City, the physical experience of this...
Children of the Revolution: the rise of rickets in urban societies in 19th-century England (2016)
In the late 18th- to early 19th-century England, the impact of the Industrial Revolution on health was experienced by both manufacturers and workers alike, as it both changed the roles played by workers and the environment of urban living. Many of these workers would have been children, often as young as 9 years old, who found employment in factories to supplement the family income. The impact of industrialisation on the nutritional health of adults has been found in evidence such as shrinking...
The Chronological and Liturgical Context of Charnel Practice in Medieval England: Manipulations of the Skeletonized Body at Rothwell Charnel Chapel, Northamptonshire (2017)
The rare survival of a charnel chapel and the commingled remains of more than 2,500 individuals it houses at Holy Trinity Church, Rothwell, England provides a unique opportunity to investigate the postmortem manipulation of human remains in the medieval period. The apparent paucity of charnel chapel sites in England has led to the dismissal of charnelling as a marginal practice with little liturgical significance, a pragmatic solution to the need for storage of disturbed bones. Yet the evidence...
Chronology and Social Process in Bronze Age Spain (2017)
This research presents an evaluation of the use of morphometrics of ceramic vessels for organizing site chronologies and social interaction. The object of morphometric analysis is to study how changes in artifact shape covary with time and space. This particular method is tested against Bronze Age ceramics from the Valencian region in Spain along the Western Mediterranean. The characteristic stylistic homogeneity of these ceramics has proven especially resistant to chronological fine-tuning...