Romania (Country) (Geographic Keyword)
776-800 (1,123 Records)
The transition to the Middle Bronze Age in the Carpathian Basin encompassed a broad range of changes in material culture, settlement and social organization. Upon first glance, the Körös-Region was no different from its neighbours. Tell sites emerged, population increased, farming intensified, and people engaged in long distance trade. The international Bronze Age Körös Off-Tell Archaeology (BAKOTA) project has studied this area through settlements and mortuary archaeology for over 11 years. Our...
Perception et analyse des scènes dans l'art paléolithique européen (2017)
En art paléolithique, les "scènes" sont rares et leur identification repose le plus souvent sur la présence d'un acteur humain ou anthropomorphe. Paradoxalement, la thématique paléolithique compte moins de 5 % de figures humaines pour 95 % d'animaux. Cela signifie que la majorité des assemblages que l'on retrouve dans les grottes sont constitués d'images animales. Or dans nos cultures, l'image humaine est centrale et lorsque nous parlons de scène, nous recherchons intuitivement la référence à...
Performative Aspects of Early Monumental Architecture at Late Bronze I Phlamoudhi-Vounari, Cyprus (2018)
The small (1 hectare) site of Phlamoudhi-Vounari was built in Late Cypriot IA:1 and abandoned early in Late Cypriot IIA, a lifespan of c. 200 years. This paper presents a 3D model and spatial analysis suggesting that the site functioned as a stage during community gatherings (and greeting visitors). Vounari’s plan is unique on Cyprus: a likely man-made, eight-meter-high mound topped with a sequence of superimposed structures. Initially built with open access to the summit from the higher south...
Personal Ornaments and the Middle Paleolithic Revolution (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Culturing the Body: Prehistoric Perspectives on Identity and Sociality" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic transition is a watershed. By the later Upper Paleolithic, all continents were occupied, all the world’s ecosystems were exploited, and all aspects of ethnographically observed hunter-gatherer culture the archaeological record can preserve are indeed found. Prior to about 100,000 years...
Petrographic Analysis of Ceramics from Umbro Greek, Southern Calabria, Italy (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Here we present the first results of petrographic analysis on ceramic sherds from Umbro Greek archaeological site, a Classical period farmhouse in Southern Calabria, Italy, dating from the 5th to 4th centuries BCE. The site is located on the Umbro plateau, halfway between the Ionian Sea and the Aspromonte Massif, an area extensively researched by the Bova...
Petrographic and Chemical Analysis of Grinding Stones Collected in Shkodra, Albania (2017)
The Shkodra Archaeological Project (PASH) took place in the Shkodra region of northern Albania. Shkodra presents a wide variety of ecosystems and landscapes, which interact with each other, leading to variation in human settlement, social behaviors, and land use, from prehistory to modern times. During the project, fifty-nine grinding stones were collected from various sites. Preliminary analysis shows that they vary in size and type, are composed of different materials, and belong to different...
Phenotypic Perspectives on Biological Variation at Phaleron (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. Phaleron is an important site in the history of ancient Athens and preserves a unique record of life in the past. One of the more compelling aspects of the site is the range of mortuary treatments documented there, including multiple groupings of non-normative burials, a series of co-interments...
Phoenician Settlements: A Story of Integration and Cultural Assimilation (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since the second millennium BCE, the Phoenicians linked east and west through their established trade networks across the Mediterranean. We investigate the extent of Phoenician integration with the communities they settled across the western Mediterranean. Skeletal samples from Phoenician burial sites in Lebanon, Italy, Spain, and Tunisia were collected. We...
Photogrammetry, Excavation Surfaces, and Sediment Packages: Measuring Site Occupational Intensity at Crvena Stijena, Montenegro (2023)
This is an abstract from the "The Late Middle Paleolithic in the Western Balkans: Results from Recent Excavations at Crvena Stijena, Montenegro" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In order to understand changes in the way hominins have used a site through time, it is critical to understand temporal changes in artifact density (i.e., a quantitative measure of the number of artifacts relative to the amount of supporting sediment in a given stratigraphic...
Phytolith Assemblages as a Proxy for Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction in the Southern Caucasus (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Pleistocene Landscapes and Hominin Behavior in the Armenian Highlands" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Southern Caucasus is a biodiversity hotspot, encompassing a spectrum of environments from temperate forests to semidesert steppes. Having seen hominin occupation since 1.8 Ma, the region offers a unique opportunity to study the expansion and evolution of the genus Homo, as well as their interaction with the local...
Picturing the Written, Read, and Spoken Prayers to Zell: Devotional Therapeutics for (In)Fertility and Motherhood at Mariazell (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeologies of Motherhood" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the mountains of the Austrian province of Styria, the Catholic pilgrimage shrine of Mariazell claimed many healing miracles during the later Middle Ages (ca. 1200–1550). Notably, many of these miracles address ailments of fertility and parenthood, including infertility, miscarriage, stillbirth, and infant death. Early sixteenth century visual culture of...
Pilgrims and Pebbles: The Taskscape of Veneration on Inishark, Co. Galway (2017)
This paper explores how a relational approach centered on the concept of taskscape could reinvigorate analyses of how pilgrimages create, sustain, or transform human-environment relations. Medieval and modern traditions of pilgrimage in Ireland are renowned for their engagement with ‘natural’ places and objects, such as mountains, springs, and stones. Some take this focus as evidence of an animistic pre-Christian heritage, but few have questioned how such practices structured peoples’ ideas and...
Pixellated Survey: Archaeology at Monte Bonifato, Sicily (2018)
Site-specific archaeological survey of forested environments can be challenging, particularly when ground disturbance is prohibited. Site-specific archaeological survey serves as an essential component of archaeological exploration, delineating areas of past human activities on complex multi-component sites. This paper presents the preliminary results of the first season of the Alcamo Archaeological Project, a site-specific survey of the forested summit of Monte Bonifato in western Sicily. This...
Place, Practice, and Pathology: Dental pathology in Medieval Iceland (2017)
This study focuses on the cultural, political, and biological factors that led to the formation of a unique pattern of dental pathology within an Icelandic population at Haffjarðarey, Iceland between the 13th and 16th Centuries . The Haffjarðarey church and cemetery clearly served as an important meeting place and burial site for the surrounding region during this period. A paleopathological analysis of the population reveals a high rate of ante-mortem tooth loss, severe tooth wear, and...
Pleistocene Occupation of the Greek Islands: The Perspective from Crete (2017)
Palaeolithic stone tools have been identified on a number of Greek islands recently. These include the oceanic island of Crete, where lithic artifacts on the southern coast at Plakias occur in association with raised marine beaches and paleosols in karstic depressions dated to > 130 kyr, and on the northern coast at Mochlos Bay associated with as-yet undated Pleistocene alluvial fans. Other islands, including Ayios Efstratios, Alonissos, Gavdos, Kephalonia, Lesvos, Melos, and Naxos, have also...
Pleistocene–Holocene Transition at Arene Candide Cave, Liguria (Italy): A Geoarchaeological Approach (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Hunter-Gatherer Archaeology of Liguria: Recent Research and Insights" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Arene Candide is a cave located along the coast of Liguria and repeatedly excavated for scientific studies since the second half of the nineteenth century. The sedimentary sequence has been accumulated within the cavity from Pleistocene to Holocene, conferring to this site an essential role for the understanding of the...
Political and Economic patchworks in Viking Age Iceland (2017)
The 9th century Norse settlement of Iceland resulted in a system of semi-territorial petty chiefdoms, with local and island-wide regular assemblies. The volcanic island was divided up into four quarters, each with three or four local assemblies. Farmers had to pledge their allegiance to one of the chiefs within their quarter, creating a patchwork of alliances. Farms themselves may also have been cobbled together from non-contiguous blocks which allowed access to different environmental...
Political Change and the Social Power of Potters at Idalion, Cyprus during the First Millennium BCE (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Mediterranean Archaeology: Connections, Interactions, Objects, and Theory" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. On Iron Age Cyprus, the polities are described as "city-kingdoms" that are autonomous, independent, and led by kings. Idalion is one such polity located in the south central region of Cyprus. Using petrographic analysis, I investigated the way craft production was impacted by economic, social, and political power...
Politics and Possibilities in Prehistoric Europe: An Alternative View on Power and Wealth (2024)
This is an abstract from the "In Defense of Everything! Constructive Engagements with Graeber and Wengrow’s Provocative Contribution" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. An overarching idea of *The Dawn of Everything* is that archaeologists should be encouraged to explore the past as a world of possibilities, not the least with regard to social and political organization. Taking up this call, this paper will reexamine two of the main conceptual...
Pollen in Nautical Archaeology (2018)
The inclusion of pollen analysis into the excavations of shipwreck sites has improved our understanding of the cargoes these vessels carried, the timing of the wrecking event, and, in some cases, the processes of ship construction. Vaughn Bryant spearheaded many of these advances in the palynology of nautical archaeology through his mentorship of nautical archaeologists at Texas A&M, of which, the author here is one. This paper will highlight the important steps Bryant and his students have...
Pompeii’s Pitfalls: The Vulnerability of Water Supply in the Wake of Natural Disasters (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Past, Present, and Future of Water Supplies" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Roman water-supply system of Pompeii, Italy, has provided numerous insights into resource management and urbanization in the ancient Mediterranean world. It also provides a unique parallel for understanding the impacts of climate change and natural disasters on urban infrastructure today and in the past. Prior to the eruption of Mount...
Population Replacement and Radiation and the Decline of the Great Moravian State (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. Great Moravia is credited by historians as the first Slavic state, existing briefly in the ninth and early tenth centuries. Internal disputes, Magyar incursions, conflicts with the Frankish Empire, and climate change events contributed to the decline and demise of the Great Moravian state. Although these events are supported by archaeological...
Population, area, and infrastructural measures for Roman cities of the Imperial period (2019)
Data analyzed in: Hanson, John W., Scott G. Ortman, Luis M. A. Bettencourt, and Liam C. Mazur (2019). Urban form, infrastructure, and spatial organization in the Roman Empire. Antiquity 93(368).
A Portable Photogrammetry Rig for the Reliable Creation of High-Quality 3D Artifact Models in the Field (2015)
3D modeling is becoming an increasingly utilized tool in archaeology. Currently, there are three principal ways of obtaining 3D models of objects: laser scanning, white light scanning, and photogrammetry. Photogrammetry is becoming increasingly popular since it is relatively inexpensive, mobile, and requires less equipment that has the possibility of malfunctioning. This poster presents a photogrammetry rig consisting of materials that can be obtained easily in the US. These include a kitchen...
Post-Mortem Interactions with Human Remains at the Covesea Caves in NE Scotland (2017)
As liminal places between the above-ground world of daily experience and the underworld, caves form a persistent focus for human engagements with the supernatural. As such they have frequently been used as places for the dead, whether as final resting places or as places of transformation. Late Bronze Age human remains were recovered from the Sculptor’s Cave, on the Moray Firth in North-East Scotland, during the 1920s and 1970s. They suggest the curation and display of human bodies and body...