Mediterranean (Geographic Keyword)
126-150 (218 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Etruscan Centralization to Medieval Marginalization: Shifts in Settlement and Mortuary Traditions at San Giuliano, Italy" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Etruscan cemetery around the San Giuliano Plateau has been looted extensively, but salvage excavations of several emptied tombs have yielded results that increase our understanding of the funerary landscape. In the 2018 and 2019 field seasons, two vertically...
Love beyond What Is Lost: Expressions of Kinship through Mortuary Practice at Phaleron Cemetery (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. While discussions of kinship in Ancient Greece have largely been limited to the elite and their families, the Archaic cemetery of Phaleron (700–480 BC) provides a unique opportunity to investigate kinship relationships among people of lower socioeconomic status. This is especially true of interments of children, which can be interpreted not only as a...
Managing Forests in the 19th and Early 20th Century Bovese (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The town of Bova, located in the foothills of the Aspromonte in the province of Reggio Calabria, Italy, once dominated a region rich in forests and woods. Travelers from the 15th – 19th centuries commented upon the rich vegetation. Archival records ranging from tax declarations to legal disputes refer to the presence of trees and forests in locations around...
Manufacture of Late Neolithic Pottery from the Southern Balkans: An Integrative Approach (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Throughout their life, from manufacture to final discard, ceramic vessels participated in different human activities within Neolithic communities throughout the Balkans. As a result, vessels, potters, and users are involved in a relational interaction leading to a continuous negotiation of various aspects of the Neolithic world. The outcome of this relation is...
Maritime Imagery of the Amalfi Coast, a Pilot Study (2023)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The Amalfi coast, with its jagged peaks creates a series of village enclaves nestled into the small, relatively flat river valleys along the peninsula. Although geographically isolated, the towns along the peninsula have a network of interconnectivity stemming from their outward maritime focus. Even today, many locals and visitors...
Maritime Mobility during the Western Mediterranean Iron Age (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. Research on the topic of seafaring in the western Mediterranean during the Iron Age has often focused on Greek, Etruscan, Roman, and Phoenician activity. By contrast, the maritime endeavors of other coastal populations have largely been ignored. Yet, historical accounts and archaeological evidence indicate that...
Measuring Reduction Intensity in Laminar Cores: An Experimental Approach and Archaeological Application (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Reduction intensity analysis plays a key role in understanding the formation of lithic assemblages and the occupation patterns of Paleolithic sites. Furthermore, technological variability and core classifications can be better understood if the diachronic component of the reduction is taken into consideration. The Volumetric Reconstruction Method (VRM),...
Mediterranean shipbuilding: the case study of Calvi I (2021)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Ship Construction and Shipwrecks: A Journey into Engineering Successes and Failures (General Sessions)" , at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The Port of Calvi, located in the island of Corsica, southeast of the French mainland, was for several centuries a center of maritime activity in the Mediterranean. In 1979 French submariner Antoine Roucayrol found the shipwreck named “Calvi I”, the vessel was believed to...
Micromorphological Investigations of Site Formation History between Layers XVII and XVIII at Middle Paleolithic Rockshelter 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. Rockshelters are subject to many geological processes driven by natural and human agents alike. The sedimentary context that surrounds artifactual data is a vital resource to the scientific exploration of human behavior in the Middle Paleolithic. To connect assemblages and...
Microstratigraphic and Geochemical Contributions to the Study of the Burial Practices and Taphonomy of the Mycenaean Shaft Grave of the ‘Griffin Warrior’, Pylos, Greece (2018)
Results of a microstratigraphic and geochemical approach are presented here in reference to study of the Mycenaean ‘Griffin Warrior’ shaft grave at ancient Pylos. Soil and sediment micromorphology are used to address questions concerning the preparation of the tomb, the mode of corpse deposition, and taphonomy of the burial. Processes and activities such as the preparation and configuration of the floor and other earthen constructions inside the tomb are considered, as well as the rapidity of...
Middle Paleolithic Land Use in the Northern Adriatic: Preliminary Data from the Open-Air Site of Campanož (Croatia) (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Research on the Paleolithic in the Mediterranean Region" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The site of Campanož, located in the south of the Istrian peninsula, is a relatively new discovery of the Middle Paleolithic record of Croatia. Because it is a stratified open-air site, its discovery has opened questions regarding Middle Paleolithic land use in a region that has until now been heavily biased toward cave...
Minoans at Aghios Nikolaos? Preliminary Results of the Khavania Topographical and Architectural Mapping Project (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper presents the preliminary results of the Khavania Topographical and Architectural Mapping Project (2019), whose primary objective was to document all natural and anthropogenic features at the coastal site of Khavania, East Crete. Exploration of the eastern and southern shores of the Mirabello Bay has produced abundant evidence for cultural...
Mobilities of Potters and Pot Painters in Ancient Mediterranean: The Test Cases of Classical Athens and Southern Italy (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Movements of artists and artisans was a common phenomenon in Eastern Mediterranean both in prehistoric and historical times, with sculptors and wall painters being the most frequently mentioned in ancient texts. The mobility of makers of figured ceramics in Classical Athens and in Southern Italy has often been posited based on stylistic affinities, but not...
Mobility in North-Eastern Italy between the Late Roman and Byzantine Periods (2018)
The upheaval caused by the fall of the Roman Empire brought armies and new settlers in Italy in chaotic ways, producing significant changes to the socio-economic and political organization of the Empire. Material evidence has been irresolute in determining the actual significance of migratory movements due to the fast adoption of foreign customs to attain social power in the new political landscape. An interdisciplinary research using strontium isotope analyses on Late Roman and Byzantine...
Money and Inequality in Roman Mediterranean Gaul, ca. 125 B.C.–A.D. 100 (2018)
The Roman conquest of Mediterranean Gaul between 125-121 B.C. significantly altered the Celtic societies living in the region. Two of these dramatic transformations were the increasing use of coins in economic transactions, and a marked rise in socio-economic inequality within the conquered province. This paper examines the connections in Roman Mediterranean Gaul of the first century B.C. through the first century A.D. between the emergence of a monetized economy, debt, and increased...
Morgantina's Lost Port: Geoarchaeological Insights into the Paleohydrology of Central Sicily (2023)
This is an abstract from the "2023 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of Timothy Beach Part II" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The ancient city of Morgantina is today located deep in the dry Sicilian interior, more than 50 km from the sea’s edge and the expansive maritime networks of the Mediterranean. Yet, despite the site’s remote inland location, there is ample archaeological evidence that in antiquity Morgantina enjoyed the status of an...
A Mosque and a Castle: The Discovery of the Salemi Mosque (2018)
In the summer of 2007 an elaborate, colonnaded gypsum-plaster floor was discovered outside of the Salemi Castle in western Sicily. Believed to date sometime between the 10th and 12th centuries, this feature was constructed during a period when the island of Sicily was repeatedly invaded and conquered by a series of expanding political entities. As such, interpretation of this feature has proved to be somewhat difficult. However, its orientation in an eastward direction may suggest that this...
Multi-facetted Anthropology: Recent Work of the Athienou Archaeological Project in Central Cyprus (2018)
The Athienou Archaeological Project (AAP) has conducted multi-pronged investigations in central Cyprus over the past 27 years. The research has included excavation, survey, geophysical prospection, ethnoarchaeology, bioarchaeology, and cultural studies. The unifying thread in these endeavors has been a theoretical perspective that draws on Braudel’s concern with the central role of the environment in the Mediterranean’s historical development, world-systems analysis, and landscape archaeology....
Multi-isotope Evidence for Animal Husbandry, Transhumance, and Human Diet at San Giuliano, Italy (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Etruscan Centralization to Medieval Marginalization: Shifts in Settlement and Mortuary Traditions at San Giuliano, Italy" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The San Giuliano Archaeological Research Project (SGARP) offers an excellent opportunity to investigate potential diachronic changes in human-animal interactions from the Etruscan to Late Medieval periods in central Italy. Here, we report on faunal and human...
Neanderthals in Porto Selvaggio, Southern Italy (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Peninsular Southern Europe Refugia during the Middle Paleolithic" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Porto Selvaggio of southern Italy is where the Uluzzian culture was first identified and documented, providing key insights into the transition of the Middle to the Upper Paleolithic. The area has also yielded evidence of continuous Neanderthal occupations spanning MIS 5-3. Situated in the Natural Park of Porto Selvaggio,...
Neolithic Voyagers: Why Colonize the Mediterranean Islands—The Example from Cyprus (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The "Neolithic Revolution" in the Near East and Anatolia is the oldest known in the world. This transformative economic and social event occurred in several mainland locations, and conventional wisdom was that it did not spread to the adjacent Mediterranean islands until relatively late, essentially being a "Neolithic footnote." Cyprus has the oldest...
Network Models for the Emergence of Transportation Infrastructures in Central Italy (1175/1150─500 BC ca) (2018)
The period between the Late Bronze Age and the Archaic Age is a time of change and development in the Italian Peninsula, leading to the formation of the first city-states. In this study, we focused on the Tyrrhenian regions of Latium Vetus and Southern Etruria, by analyzing the emergence of the network of terrestrial routes as it has been inferred from archaeological evidences. Our goal was to explore the mechanisms that shaped the overall structure of these past transportation...
Never Built in a Day: Contextualizing Urbanism in Iron Age Western Sicily (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Iron Age was a transformative period in western Sicily, introducing the indigenous Elymian populations to Aegean and Levantine colonists who brought their own languages, crops, technology, materials, social customs, and ritual systems. Concomitant to the arrival of these foreigners was a transformation of indigenous lifeways. We examine this transformation...
New Multi-disciplinary Studies Re-shape our Understanding of Neolithic Peopling and Biocultural Adaptations in Western Liguria (Northwestern Italy) (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. Beginning in the mid-1800s, about 200 burials and an undefined number of scattered human remains have been reported from several caves and rock shelters in western Liguria. The skeletal series, excavated following the methodology of the time, were considered likely/probably/possibly "Neolithic" or "Middle Neolithic",...
Oh Deer: A Zooarchaeological Approach to Understanding Hominin Behavior during the Last Interglacial (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Our understanding of hominin subsistence behavior during the Last Interglacial is limited. Le Grand Abri aux Puces (GAP), a cave in Southern France in the foothills of the Alps, can provide a closer look into subsistence behavior as most of its layers are dated to the Last Interglacial. It has been suggested that hominins living around GAP during...