Europe (Geographic Keyword)
551-575 (1,217 Records)
In the 7th and 8th century CE, Scandinavian societies developed a stratified social structure based on ownership of land dominated by relatively few people. When the population grew during the 8th century this created a society with few opportunities not least among the landless who were partly engaged in handicraft at rural production sites linked to the urbanized European economy. This created a situation in which raiding, conquest, colonization and state formation became attractive...
In the trail of dancing lions: iconography and community on early Crete (2015)
This paper examines the formulation of an early iconographic tradition on late third-early second millennium BCE Crete as a means of gaining insight on the development of a novel scale and variety of community ideology. During this period stamp seals began to be crafted from imported ivory and engraved with figural motifs involving lions, each belonging to a highly distinctive iconography reproduced across the island. These changes coincide with evidence of other social developments, including...
In the Twilight of a Brave New World: From Multimedia Work Areas to Material Transformations in the Late Chalcolithic and Neolithic in Bulgaria and North Greece (2015)
Putting together gold and graphite to decorate a pot for example, has not become a widespread practice in the Balkan later prehistory but a mark of an intriguing entanglement of innovation and tradition, materials and images. This paper considers evidence of specialist production according to Costin's model as it can be surmised on the basis of data from Chalcolithic and Late Neolithic contexts in Bulgaria and north Greece. It reflects on how mixing materials and techniques in search for a...
Inclusive Heritage: Learning from Urban Art in Berlin (2017)
Alternative, subcultural, or otherwise non-mainstream forms of heritage are increasingly being recognized, both in the social imaginary and in the discipline. Such moments provide archaeologists with opportunities for actively working towards a more inclusive and diversified heritage practice. Specifically, my work explores the potential of urban art walking tours and workshops in the borough of Kreuzberg (Berlin, Germany) from a contemporary archaeological standpoint. As tour guides present...
Increasing the resolution from climate change to weather events: understanding past land-use management on the Svalbarð estate, North East Iceland. (2016)
Climate change has commonly been invoked as the most major force in determining land-use in the Norse settlement of Iceland. Recently, climate studies in the North Atlantic have focused on regional-scale shifts in temperature, ice-cover, and storminess. In contrast, the post-settlement period is increasingly understood from excavation and analyses of the material culture associated with farming practices, as well as literature-based and geomorphological perspectives. While climate evidence...
Indo-European Languages and Archeology (1955)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated. Most NADB-R records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us at comments@tdar.org.
The influence of prey availability on ice age hunting strategies: Tracing Magdalenian reindeer migratory patterns using strontium isotope (87Sr/86Sr) analysis of reindeer teeth from Verberie (Oise, France). (2015)
The Magdalenian (18-11kya) marked a time of dramatic climate instability in western and central Europe, ushering in changes in the predation strategies of late Paleolithic groups who hunted migratory reindeer herds. For Magdalenian populations, a clear understanding of migratory patterns was crucial for survival, particularly when Epipleistocene climate fluctuations were causing previously unseen types of resource distribution. Here we present the results of strontium isotope (87Sr/86Sr)...
Inland Connectivity in Late Antique Mallorca (Balearic Islands, Spain) (2017)
The Balearic Islands lie in a strategic position within the Western part of the Mediterranean and played an important role in the trade routes crossing the Mare Nostrum. Therefore, connectivity of the island by sea has always been considered. However, inland connectivity has not been addressed in detail probably due to the lack of information on communication routes. The paper explores the inland connectivity of sites in the late antique landscape based in a combination of spatial analysis and...
An Inland Response to ‘Orientalization’: Funerary Ritual and Local Practice in Central Italy (2017)
Greater trade and connectivity has often been associated with changes in cultural practice. This is particularly the case for the Orientalizing period for which the traditional view holds that objects, ideas and practices from the eastern Mediterranean exerted tremendous influence on local Italian communities during the 8th and 7th centuries BCE. This paper articulates the subtle differences between the presence of imported objects, changes in material culture, and alterations in cultural...
Insights into site formation processes at La-Roche-à-Pierrot, Saint Césaire (Charente-Maritime, France): A microstratigraphic perspective (2015)
The extinction of the Neanderthals remains an open question and the current chronological, archaeological and paleoclimatic evidence reflects complex scenarios. In this context, southwestern Europe is an interesting region because as it represents not only a "dead end" for the east-to-west migration of anatomically modern humans but may have acted as a potential 'refugium' for local Neanderthal populations. Several sites in the region play a key role in ongoing debates concerning the...
Integrating Faunal and Lithic Data to examine Neandertal Subsistence at the Late Mousterian Site of Abri Peyrony, France (2017)
New excavations at the late Middle Paleolithic site of Abri Peyrony (also Haut de Combe-Capelle) in France yielded rich lithic and faunal assemblages, as well as pieces of manganese dioxide, bone tools, and much needed information about the site’s formation and antiquity. The site preserved only Mousterian material, which derives from three main layers of sediments. The site is best known for its Mousterian of Acheulian Tradition (MTA) assemblages, and Level L-3A can be attributed to the MTA....
Integrating Faunal and Lithic Evidence from Quina Mousterian Contexts in Southwestern France to Investigate Neandertal Subsistence Strategies and Mobility (2017)
The interpretation of Middle Paleolithic archaeological assemblages has been the subject of spirited debates among researchers of Neandertal behavior for over half a century. While these debates have classically centered on analyses of lithic assemblages (e.g., the "Bordes-Binford debate"), it is important to recognize the value of incorporating the associated faunal records in our approach to these questions. Differences in lithic assemblages may be affected by factors like mobility, which may...
Integrating Lithic Microwear and sourcing to improve understanding of socioeconomic behaviour in the British Mesolithic (2017)
We present the results of an integrated study of lithic microwear analysis and lithic sourcing at the large Mesolithic site of Stainton West. Microwear analysis helped to understand why the site was so large and how the occupants supported themselves while at the site. Microwear analysis of 700 artefacts led to 49% identification of use. There is much diversity in tool use: hide working, butchery (meat/fish), impact, antler/bone working, wood working, and plant working. Various patterns were...
Integrating Neandertal Legacy: From Past to Present (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Interdisciplinary Research into the Late Pleistocene of Europe" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 2020, a four year Action, entitled Integrating Neandertal Legacy: From Past to Present (iNEAL) (CA19141) financed through the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST), started. The Action is aimed at assessing and addressing biases in Neandertal legacy and creating a pan-European (and wider) network of...
Integrating Satellite Imagery and Ground-Based Remote Sensing to Reconstruct a Neolithic Village (2017)
As part of a long-term project aimed at modeling the emergence of large, nucleated, Neolithic villages in the Carpathian Basin, the Körös Regional Archaeological Project (KRAP) collaborated with the Institute of Mediterranean Studies at the Foundation for Research and Technology, Hellas (IMS-FORTH), to integrate multi-spectral satellite imagery and ground-based remote sensing techniques to reconstruct the spatial organization of the Szeghalom-Kovácshalom settlement, which covered more than 100...
Integrative 3D Recording Methods of Historic Architecture, Burg Hohenecken Castle from Southwest Germany (2016)
This paper explores the methodology and application of laser scanning and photogrammetric recording methods to a very complex castle ruin. These methods allow for exact measurements to be made and the production of 3D digital models of the structure in question. The models built from the respective data combine the measuring strength of laser scanning with the visual aesthetics of photogrammetry. The case study is the medieval castle Burg Hohenecken in the city of Kaiserslautern in southwest...
Intensification of Aquatic Resource Exploitation at the Terminal Pleistocene/Early Holocene Boundary? (2015)
Intensive and specialized exploitation of marine resources has traditionally been attributed to the Early Holocene in Europe, from c. 11,500 cal BP (e.g. Clark 1965, 1975; von Brandt 1984) as a response to changing climate, reduction in large mammal biomass, and consequent broadening of the resource base. However, the technical sophistication of fishing gear recovered from Early Holocene archaeological contexts is suggestive of a long history of development. This paper presents a synthesis of...
Interpretation of Middle Paleolithic Scraper Morphology (1987)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated. Most NADB-R records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us at comments@tdar.org.
Interpretation of Plant Remains: Bulgaria. In: Papers in Economic Prehistory (1972)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated. Most NADB-R records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us at comments@tdar.org.
Interpreting a Deserted Medieval Village through Geophysical Data (2017)
Ground-penetrating radar is often used as a way to collect from reflections from buried features, which are then processed into colorized horizontal amplitude maps to visualize these features in the horizontal plane. While this is a good way find and visualized features in "batch mode" there are other less commonly employed methods to process the data. The Castles in Communities project in Ballintubber, Ireland project has collected GPR data sets from multiple years to produce standard GPR...
Interpreting Ecclesiastical Mobility: A pXRF Study of Medieval Gravestones in Ireland (2015)
Western Ireland’s early medieval (700-1200 AD) landscape—dotted with stone cemeteries and structures—provides an ideal setting for studying ecclesiastical lifeways through methods of raw materials characterization. Archaeological analyses and oral history suggest that people living in small ecclesiastical communities between the 6th and the 12th centuries exchanged and transported gravestones. While traditional archaeological analysis of the shape and stylistic design of gravestones from five...
INTERPRETING LONG-TERM USE OF RAW MATERIALS IN POTTERY PRODUCTION: AN HOLISTIC PERSPECTIVE (2015)
Potters can exploit certain clay resources for long periods of time due to several reasons of different nature. In this presentation I will address how raw material procurement can be made according to ecological, economic and functional concerns, but also considering social and symbolic phenomena. In order to test these different theoretical perspectives and promote more holistic positions in the interpretation of the raw material procurement I will present a case study focused on the Late...
Interpreting Recycling in the Roman Glass from Colchester (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. By the time of the Roman invasion of Britain in AD 43, the Roman glass industry had reached its height, largely due to the development of a glass-blowing technique which allowed glass vessels to be produced in greater quantities and variety of shapes contributing to its wider use. Antimony, a decolorizer used in the glass industry of Egypt produced the...
Interpreting the Archaeology of Pregnancy Loss (2017)
The status of pregnancy loss as taboo in Western culture, as well as the poor preservation of fetal remains, contributes to the absence of pregnancy loss from the anthropological study of funerary practices. Furthermore, pregnancy loss is rarely viewed by society as a legitimate cause for bereavement and perhaps consequently, has been overlooked in the archaeological record. Additionally, grief associated with a miscarriage or stillbirth is often described as a novel phenomenon, while parental...
Interrogating "Property" at Neolithic Çatalhöyük (2015)
Neolithic Çatalhöyük poses an interpretative challenge: while there is evident distinction among houses in elaboration, concentration of mortuary remains, and generational persistence, this did not translate into the kinds of material advantages that can be discerned as dietary privilege or preferential mortuary treatment. This has led to the characterization of the people of the site as "fiercely egalitarian". In this paper, I reconsider the established facts from the perspective of the...