Europe (Geographic Keyword)
751-775 (1,215 Records)
Beginning in 2009, the late Middle Paleolithic site of Abri Peyrony (also Haut de Combe-Capelle, as part of the Combe-Capelle sites, Dordogne, France) was reopened. Three seasons of fieldwork 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 yielded only Mousterian levels. Level L-3A is attributed to the Mousterian of Acheulian Tradition (MTA). The remaining levels,...
Neanderthal mobility in the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula: the patterns of chert exploitation at the Abric Romaní rock-shelter (2015)
Understanding the changes in the technological organization of prehistoric hunter-gatherers is important to research into hominin foraging activities. During the Middle Paleolithic, the coexistence or the replacement between Levallois and discoid technologies has frequently been recorded, but there is still no clear understanding of the reasons for their alternating and fragmented use in the archaeological record. This paper aims to contribute with new data to the current debate, by exploring...
Neanderthal Short-Term Occupations in Open-Air Sites: An Overview from Eastern Germany (2017)
Prehistoric hunter-gatherers frequently relocated in order to avoid foraging in previously depleted areas, and lakes and rivers played important roles in these movements as fix locations on the landscape where foragers could have access to water and ambush parched animals. The types of human occupations along lakes and rivers could have been various according to the aims of displacements (e.g., logistical, residential) and the activities carried out at the shore (e.g., bivouac, hunting station,...
Neanderthals on Naxos? New work at the early prehistoric chert source of Stélida (2015)
A two-year geo-archaeological survey of the Stélida chert source on Naxos (Cycladic islands) has documented Middle Palaeolithic activity across the site, both near the best quality chert outcrops and in front of two small rockshelters. The material is dominated by products from a discoidal core technology, followed by Levallois flake and blade industries. The assemblage part-relates to the Denticulate Mousterian, which in Greece – along with Levallois technologies – are exclusively related with...
Neanderthals, Denisovians and Modern Humans: What material culture differences can we see during their overlap ? (2017)
The time frame from 50-30 kya contains evidence for at least three distinct human populations spread across northern and western Eurasia. These groups faced serious environmental challenges, and seem to have existed in widely spread, small populations with perhaps very similar basic cultural adaptations. As indicated by shared genes, these groups were evidently in contact. How are these populations represented in material culture ? To what extent can we begin to see typological and...
Neglect of Significant World Heritage - Villa D'Elbeuf Portici Italy (2015)
This paper is meant to clarify some of the layers to the source of NeoClassicism from the beginning to the first half of the 18th century. The unknown Villa D'Elbeuf, next to Herculaneum, in southern Italy was the museum of the imagery for the ideals of NeoClassicism. Before being the Herculaneum Museum it was lived in and visited by many of the key aristocracy, literary, architectural and artistic global leaders of the NeoClassical era. The site of Villa D'Elbeuf in Portici is the termination...
Negotiating Power? Explaining Dispersed Low-Density Mega-sites in Late Iron Age Europe (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Theorizing Prehistoric Large Low-Density Settlements beyond Urbanism and Other Conventional Classificatory Conventions" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The mega-sites that emerged in the European Late Iron Age (ca. third century BCE–first century CE), often referred to as oppida, have struggled to be understood in the context of traditional concepts of urbanism. Comparative approaches to urbanism have, however,...
Neolithic Dietary Practices: Comparison of Stable Isotopes and Dental Microwear (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The aim of the paper is to reconstruct Middle and Late Neolithic dietary practices in Central Europe with the help of complementary evidence of stable isotope and dental microwear analysis. From a total of 171 individuals, carbon and nitrogen isotopic values were measured in bone collagen from 146 humans and 64 animals, and 113 individuals were included in...
Neolithic Enclosures in Neolithic Greece: A Geospatial Approach (2017)
The Neolithic in Europe is widely considered a key epoch. For the first time, societies got occupied with husbandry and settled for the cultivation of food-crops for sustenance. Thessaly (Central Greece) is of critical importance in this transformation serving as the gateway to what would become the widespread Neolithization of Europe which irreversibly altered the course of human history. In this archaeological setting, enclosures were essential parts of many settlements. Were they built as...
The Neolithic House, from Anatolia to Central Europe (2015)
It is accepted with good reason that the appearance of the Neolithic in Europe results from a phenomenon of diffusion, notably demic, from the Near East and more particularly Anatolia. At first sight, there are considerable differences between the Near Eastern houses, which are often small and stone-built with white plaster floors, and the large wood and and earth houses of Central Europe. In fact a more detailed analysis of the situation in intermediate regions, especially the north-west...
The Neolithic House: Ruth Tringham’s Interdisciplinary Approaches to (Re)Constructing Prehistoric Village Life in Southeast Europe and Anatolia (2015)
People create themselves through the houses they build. Ruth Tringham’s archaeological as well as anthropological inquiry has identified houses as active material culture entangled with both material and immaterial social values and rules. Architecture is the material expression of culture, both enabling and constraining the relationship between people and their actions. In archaeology, we receive the final phase of the use-life of a house, yet abundant evidence exists for its making and...
Neolithic Landscapes of Southern Germany: Insights from Regional Survey (2017)
Landscape archaeology in Central Europe has historically built on a foundation of high-resolution excavations of village structures. In this poster, we combine results of systematic plowzone survey carried out by two research groups to explore and reflect on the contributions of regional survey for understanding Neolithic land use in southern Germany. Surveys were conducted in two areas with contrasting archaeological records and geographic characteristics. On the southeastern Swabian Alb...
Neolithic Settlement Patterns in Calabria (1981)
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Neolithic Spread Models, Agricultural Islands and Pivotal Parameters: Impressions Gleaned from Simulating the Spread of Agriculture in the West Mediterranean (2016)
The significance of the spread of agriculture cannot be overstated and for this reason strong disagreement continues to arise over the processes responsible for the shift from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic. Four influential models have been proposed for the spread of agriculture in the west Mediterranean and can be applied to the circumstances of the Impresso-Cardial spread: the Wave of Advance Model, the Capillary Model, the Maritime Pioneer Colonization Model and the Dual Model. All four...
The Neolithic transition in Europe: Archaeology versus Genetics (2017)
There are two mechanisms of Neolithic spread: demic diffusion (dispersal of populations) and cultural diffusion (acculturation of hunter-gathterers). Archaeological data imply that demic diffusion was more important than cultural diffusion in determining the spread rate of the Neolihtic in Europe. But those results are very uncertain. We now use ancient genetic data in addition to archaeological data, and estimate the relative importance of demic and cultural diffusion. We find that demic...
A Network-Based Approach to the Study of Neolithic Pottery Production in the Tavoliere (Apulia, Italy) (2016)
The Tavoliere has one of the densest concentrations of Neolithic settlement in Europe and is known for its wide repertoire of pottery styles. Using network analysis techniques, this study explores Neolithic pottery production in the region by integrating typological analysis with petrography and elemental characterization using portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) spectrometry. In doing so, we reveal sets of choices made at multiple stages of the production processes and in turn shed light on the...
Networks of Material Mediation: Shopkeepers in Rural Community Social Dynamics (2017)
While archaeologists have explored networks of trade and exchange of manufactured goods between rural communities, regional market towns, and urban centers, less attention has been given to the way that rural shops and shopkeepers played a significant role in the accessibility and distribution of material goods in local economies. Focused on the emergence of rural shops in Western coastal Ireland and islands of Inishark and Inishbofin, 1840-1950, this study will contribute to an understanding of...
Networks of Social Stability in the Mediterranean Bronze Age (2016)
Certain social systems do not become more complex. They remain stable for considerable periods of time despite constant environmental and cultural change, a fact that remains a puzzle in archaeology. Research by Iberian archaeologists indicates that the Valencian Bronze Age in Mediterranean Spain may be such a case where material homogeneity represents a social system lasting with little change for nearly 700 years (BC 2200-1500). This trend stands in stark contrast to the complex social changes...
Networks through Time: Filling in the Gaps (2015)
The Middle Neolithic circular ditched enclosure of Goseck in Central Germany was built and used during the Stichbandkeramik period. Subsequently, during the Gatersleben period, another ditched feature was constructed, which intersected the earlier enclosure. However, between these two periods, in the intervening century, during the Rössen period, the site was not in use. This temporal gap has been glossed over in narratives of the site that stress continuity. This paper will examine the...
A New approach to warfare (2015)
Lines of evidence, such as weapons, skeletal remains of victims of trauma, iconography, fortifications, etc., that are typically used to argue for the presence or absence of warfare in a society are often ambiguous. As a result researchers frequently reach contradicting conclusions from the same data. In situations where there are few material remains this problem is magnified making conclusions about warfare hard to come to. I put forward a new approach to the discussion of warfare that shifts...
A New Bayesian Approach for Estimating Chronological Events and Phases with ChronoModel (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Constructing Chronologies I: Stratification and Correlation" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Many issues in archaeology concern the issue of phasing—the beginning, end, and duration of a given period. We define a “Phase” as a group of Events (Event dates) that share common features. Currently used Phase models implemented in many software packages employ statistical models that concentrate posterior Event dates....
New Data on Late Magdalenian Lithic Technological Organization at Lapa do Picareiro (2016)
Few Paleolithic sites in Portugal possess enough data to provide for a comprehensive analysis of Upper Paleolithic site function. However, Lapa do Picareiro, a cave site in the Estremadura region of Portugal, is exceptional in that it possesses continuous chronology and is continuing to produce high resolution data sets pertaining to site function, lithic technological organization, and subsistence. This poster compares and contrasts old and new lithic data sets from the late Magdalenian at Lapa...
New Insights into Early Celtic Cooking and Drinking Practices: Organic Residue Analyses of Local and Imported Pottery (2017)
Our research focuses on consumption practices, particularly on feasting in Early Iron Age Central Europe (7th-5th cent. BC). The aim is to integrate the cooking and drinking practices to complete our knowledge of Early Celtic societies. We try also to identify exchange networks linked to biomaterial exploitation and circulation. To conduct this study, organic residues of pottery from several Central European sites (in particular the Heuneburg and Vix - Mont Lassois) were analysed. A wide range...
New on-site method to evaluate the quantity and quality of collagen in archaeological faunal assemblages using a portable FTIR and ZooMS (2017)
Faunal remains play an important role in helping reconstruct Paleolithic hunter-gatherer subsistence and mobility strategies. However, differential bone preservation is an issue in southern European prehistoric sites, which often makes morphological identification impossible. Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS) is a new, low-cost method that will improve NISP statistical significance in a replicable way by using diagnostic peptides of the dominant collagen protein as a fingerprint of...
New Perspectives on Past Vitamin D Deficiency (2017)
Less than half of the current world population is estimated to have adequate vitamin D status and potential consequences are much debated. For those engaged in addressing the challenges that vitamin D deficiency poses, information on past deficiency provides an important time dimension to current debates. Over the last 15 years I have undertaken extensive collaborative work on past deficiency. Investigations at St. Martin’s, a 19th-century UK site, established diagnostic criteria and revealed...