Europe (Geographic Keyword)
576-600 (1,215 Records)
Islands gave birth to many cultural and economic adaptations in prehistory. After an introduction to the symposium, the paper will focus on the small archipelago of Malta, which demonstrates a particularly resilient trajectory of survival set against environmental and economic limitations, that lasted millennia. Compared with the neighbouring areas (Sicily, Sardinia, Italy) Maltese megalithic "Temple" culture presented an unparalleled c.1500 years of unbroken development, and this paper...
Investigating Environmental and Social Influences on Primate Curiosity (WGF - Post PhD Research Grant) (2019)
This resource is an application for the Post PhD Research Grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation. Human behavior is characterized by the motivation to seek out new knowledge, often leading to discoveries or innovations. Already as infants, we are curious about the world around us. Paradoxically, scientific work on curiosity in non-human animals is surprisingly rare and we know remarkably little about the origins of curiosity and how the trait is distributed and expressed among non-human...
Investigating Social Significance and Differentiation of Buildings through Painted and Figurative Decoration, Built-In Furnishings, and Portable Finds (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A number of sites from the Balkans and Greece dated to the fifth millennium BC, Karanovo and Dikili-Tash among others, provide evidence for a special status of built spaces. A comparative study of painted and figurative wall decoration, built-in furnishings, and portable finds in their archaeological context demonstrates that similar architectural layouts...
Investigating the Modelling of Neanderthal Population Size (2017)
Developing some understanding of how many hominins occupied the landscape at any one point in prehistory can provide important insights into basic behavioural patterns, how these differed between hominin species, and how they changed over the course of the Pleistocene. Population density is an important factor in subsistence behaviours, mobility patterns, and the nature of group interaction. A number of approaches have been used by researchers to provide estimates for effective Neandertal...
Investigating the Residential History of the Esplanada Mass Graves at Phaleron, Greece (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Bioarchaeology of the Phaleron Cemetery, Archaic Greece: Current Research and Insights" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Cemeteries are spaces in which social and political identities are publicly negotiated between the living and the dead. Three mass graves, termed the “Esplanada,” at the Phaleron cemetery, Greece, are a clear and public statement that has captured significant attention since they were first...
Investigating the symbolic aspects of flint in the making of prehistoric cultures: The case of the Middle Magdalenian of Southwestern France (2015)
Recent research on Magdalenian flint provisioning strategies in southwestern France, particularly from sites associated with decorated caves, have opened doors to new interpretations regarding the role that these materials played in the construction and maintenance of Magdalenian society. Beyond the traditional typological and technological factors that seem to mainly fluctuate according to circumstances, more consistent symbolic functions appear to have been imbedded in most of these materials,...
Investigating the toolkit for building a Neolithic house: microwear and the missing majority (2015)
Many microwear studies focus on one material category. Instead we explored the technological and functional interconnectivity of different tools used in one chaîne opératoire. During the experimental reconstruction of a Late Neolithic houseplan excavated in the Dutch wetlands, we made use of a variety of implements: stone axes and adzes, bone and antler objects, and tools of wood. In total 120 tools were used for almost 20,000 minutes during the four week construction period. We recorded the...
Investigating Wood Acquisition Strategies from Archaeological Charcoal: Implications for the Bronze Age Site of Pecica Şanţul Mare (2015)
The Bronze Age site Pecica Şanţul Mare is an important fortified tell settlement in Arad County, Romania. Situated along the river Mureş, Pecica lies within a unique resource zone between the ore rich region of the Western Carpathian Mountains and Carpathian Basin. While metal production and regional connectivity are associated with the site, it is poorly known how wood fuel for metal work was acquired. Archaeological charcoal remains are often used to reconstruct local woodland compositions of...
An Investigation into Ochres from Arene Candide Cave: Implications for Mineralogical Properties and Provenance Studies in the Liguria Region (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Advances in the Prehistory of Liguria and Neighboring Regions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Arene Candide Cave, a key sequence for western Mediterranean prehistory, became famous in 1942 after the discovery of a Gravettian adolescent buried in a pit filled with ochre and spectacularly ornamented. At the end of the last glaciation, with a similar choice, at least 20 Final Epigravettian burials were...
An Investigation into Topographic Distribution Patterns Associated with Wetlands Surrounding Bog Body Burial Sites (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. History is imprinted in our landscapes, and the creation of bog deathscapes indicates the agency of wetland environments to the mortuary customs of European Iron Age and North American Archaic Age communities. The functionality and ideological value of bog landscapes vary spatially and temporally, yet there is a unilateral use of bogs as unique burial...
Investigations of a microfaunal assemblage: Emergence of pest-host relationships at Aşıklı Höyük, Turkey (2015)
Small vertebrate remains are often ubiquitous in archaeological contexts, with rodent and microvertebrate activity recognized as a common source of disturbance. On the other hand, small vertebrates can have great significance for archaeological interpretation because they provide key evidence, directly or indirectly, on human subsistence and settlement behaviors, such as food storage, sedentism, seasonality, and site abandonment. This poster presents the results of a preliminary analysis of the...
Ireland in the Iron Age: Interaction, Identity, and Ritual (2018)
The relationship between Ireland and both Britain and continental Europe has often, both explicitly and implicitly, cast Ireland as either subsumed under the "British Isles" or as being "peripheral" to cultural life there and on the Continent. This terminology simultaneously ignores the unique aspects of Irish social and cultural life while suggesting that any study of culture there is not relevant to a broader understanding of the human experience. However, the archaeological record suggests a...
The Irish lithic landscapes project: current chert provenancing research in prehistoric Ireland (2015)
The Irish Lithic Landscapes project is investigating the places where prehistoric communities obtained the raw materials for their flaked stone tools during the Irish Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Early Bronze Age, which dates to c. 8,000–2,000 BC. While Ireland has a very rich archaeological heritage, there is a significant gap in the island's raw material sourcing research. This project will begin to fill this gap, and therefore deepen our understanding of the prehistoric communities there. The...
Is length significant? LBK longhouses and the their social context in central-eastern Europe (2015)
In studies of LBK societies, one of the categories of feature which are potentially indicative of differences in social status are longhouses that are notable for their substantial length (e.g. over 33 m). The author examines this issue based on examples of LBK longhouses in Poland. Rescue excavations carried out during the past decade along the routes of planned motorways have led to the discovery of over 100 new longhouses together with their broader settlement contexts. This has provided a...
Island Obsidian Distribution and Socioeconomic Patterns in Prehistoric Sicily and the South-Central Mediterranean (2016)
Sicily is located in between two small island sources of obsidian, Lipari and Pantelleria. Their use of obsidian starting in the Early Neolithic (ca. 6000-6500 BC) is well documented, but only over the last few years have intensive studies been done on the specific sources and subsources of artifact assemblages from many museums and superintendencies. With the use of a portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) spectrometer, the specific source of many hundreds of obsidian artifacts from sites in Sicily...
Island, Mainland, and the Space Between: The Role of Geography in Shaping Community Historical Trajectories of 19th and 20th Century Ireland (2017)
This study looks at the relationship between geographical ‘islandness’ and community formation in Western Ireland. In this paper we investigate to what degree geography shapes the social, economic and political experiences of a community. Furthermore, we examine to what extent these elements of community composition strengthen or diminish their influence on each other. We compare the 19th and 20th century island communities of Inishbofin and Inishark, Co. Galway against the complementary...
Islands and Invasives: The Archaeology of Plant and Animal Translocations (2015)
This presentation aims to show how the progresses of biological knowledge allows archaeology to take advantage of the paleontological and archaeozoological documentation accumulated during the last 40 years on the islands, to increase its set of evidence –admittedly indirect -- on the early seagoing in the Mediterranean. It presents a brief review of the geographical and paleogeographical frameworks as well as the basics of island biogeography and focuses on the different ways in which mammals...
Isotopes and Environments: Exploring Palaeoenvironmental Change during the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic in the Cantabrian Region, Northern Spain (2016)
The Cantabrian region Northern Spain was an archaeologically important region throughout the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic, and was home to some of the last surviving Neanderthals in Europe, and during the Last Glacial Maximum the region acted as a refugium for plants, animals and humans. Changes in the environment are thought to have been driving factors behind the extinction of the Neanderthals, the rise of Anatomically Modern Humans (AMHs), and later the development of the rich cave art...
Isotopic Analyses of Diet in Late Prehistoric Southwestern Transylvania (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Southwestern Transylvania houses a rich prehistoric archaeological record, as well as abundant natural resources, including salt, tin, and some of the richest copper and gold deposits in Europe. The Mureș River, which connected prehistoric communities in Eastern and Central Europe, also flows through the region. Despite its status as an economic and...
Isotopic Investigations into Dietary Patterns of Early Medieval Communities in Thuringia, Germany (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Life and Death in Medieval Central Europe" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Early Medieval period in Central Europe was a time of pronounced socioeconomic differences, as well as sociopolitical unrest. While the former Roman infrastructure was deteriorating, the costs of importing foods and other material goods into Thuringia increased, exacerbating differences in food availability between the various sectors of...
Isotopic tracking of trophic relationships (predation, competition, commensalism) between paleolithic humans and predators (2017)
Predators are usually considered not so informative in zooarchaeological investigations, except when their bones carry cut-marks. They are more viewed as a disturbing factor for the bone assemblage. However, tracking their paleoecology using stable isotopes in their bones can yield valuable information on several key aspects of their relationships with paleolithic human populations. Especially carbon and nitrogen stable isotopic composition in bone collagen of predators compared to those of...
"It comes from gathering": Collaborative Archaeology and Future Directions (2017)
This session interrogates the practice, theoretical foundations, and outcomes of collaborative archaeology, and explores how collaborators are transforming our discipline today. Today’s papers demonstrate how collaborative archaeology offers epistemological resources that traditional, public and even community archaeology cannot provide, and how collaborative approaches force us to reexamine the disciplinary goals, practices, and outcomes of archaeological practice widely. We have divided the...
It Must Be Right, GIS Told Me So! Questioning the Infallibility of GIS as a Methodological Tool (2016)
While the benefits of GIS are widely touted among archaeologists today, less attention has been paid to the potential pitfalls and drawbacks of this undeniably important methodological tool. One of the greatest challenges of geospatial modeling is unbalanced data; due to the nature of the archaeological record, we can never assume that the remnants of past behavioral processes we are working with constitute a fully representative sample. Rather, our datasets are reflective of differential social...
Just a Scratch: An Experimental Application of Reverse-Microwear Analysis (2017)
In the summer of 2013 a thin piece of slate with peculiar, jagged grooves was recovered from the excavation of the Buzzart Dykes medieval park landscape in the council area of Perth and Kinross, Scotland. Unclear whether the grooves were natural or anthropogenic we employed a new method of examination, known as "reverse microwear analysis," to understand what material made the scratches. A series of experiments were conducted where slate pieces were incised using a variety of different stone and...
The Kambos project. Remote sensing applications and archaeological approaches for the reconstruction of the disappeared cultural record of the Western Thessalian plain. (2017)
The Thessalian Plain has been at the fore of Neolithic research in Greece and Europe since early 20th century exploration in the area which documented an intensively occupied landscape during both Prehistoric and Historical periods. Despite the Thessalian Plain's potential for archaeological research, western Thessaly has provided scarce evidence of occupation. This might be related to the extensive modifications it has been subjected to during the last 45 years. These have rendered the Western...