Mediterranean (Geographic Keyword)
151-175 (218 Records)
This paper presents the final results of organic residue analysis from the Early Bronze Age settlement and associated cemeteries of Sotira Kaminoudhia. A total of twelve pottery samples were analyzed using Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry (gc/ms) as part of a larger research program that aimed to identify prestigious, organic substances that would have been utilized on the eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus during the prehistoric Bronze Age. Three categories of prestigious substances...
An Osteological and Isotopic Assessment of Diet at Ancient Corinth and Ancient Paphos (2018)
Corinth and Paphos were two key centers of the ancient Mediterranean during the Hellenistic and Roman eras. While the commercial and political lives if these communities have been studied, less is known about aspects of day to day life such as diet and health. Here we present some insights based on paleopathology and collagen stable isotope analysis. This study (n = 275 individuals for Paphos; 94 individuals for Corinth) suggests populations that were under a certain amount of stress. Mean...
Overlapping Traces: Categorizing Ceramic Use-Wear across Functions (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Practitioners of ceramic use-wear analysis often document qualitative patterns to distinguish between past behaviors as well as taphonomic processes. If comparisons can be operationalized in a quantitative framework, analyzing assemblages across sites at a regional scale could inform our understanding of normative patterns of use as well as the diversity of...
Panem Bonum Fert: The Panis Quadratus as an Archaeologically Defined Cereal Grain Consumption Metric in First-Century Rome (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This study is focused on cereal grain consumption in ancient Rome and the food value of the commercially produced Roman bread product, the Panis Quadratus, in the Roman daily diet in first century AD. While some Roman-era cereal grain consumption estimates have been published in recent decades, no study has yet attempted to consider the assemblage of...
Peaks Above, Plains Below: The Deeper Context of Settlement Patterning in Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Crete (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper presents an analysis of the long-term dynamics of settlement patterning on the Greek island of Crete, with a particular focus on the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age. Alongside - or in the absence of - other forms of archaeological data, changes in settlement patterning have been central to debates around political and economic change on the...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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 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...
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...
Pottery assemblage data from Roman Britain (2023)
Data analyzed in: Ortman, Scott, Olivia Bulik, Rob Wiseman, José Lobo, Luis Bettencourt and Lisa Lodwick (2023) Transport Costs and Economic Change in Roman Britain. European Journal of Archaeology:1-24 AND Wiseman, Rob, Olivia Bulik, José Lobo, Lisa Lodwick and Scott G. Ortman (2023) The Impact of Transportation on Pottery Industries in Roman Britain. Open Archaeology 9(1).
Pottery Production at Idalion, Cyprus: Investigating First Millennium BCE Politics and Culture through Ceramic Petrography. (2018)
On the island of Cyprus, the first millennium BCE was a period of change in politics and culture brought about by new people, new governance, and new technology. This paper attempts to analyze these changes using one site. Idalion is located in the east-central part of the island. The polity went through many changes from its founding, c. 1200 BCE, through the first millennium BCE and I have begun to investigate some through petrographic analysis of pottery. Pottery production can represent...
Prehistoric Obsidian Use in Southern Italy: Primary Acquisition and Down-the-line Exchange in Calabria, Basilicata, and Campania (2018)
Obsidian was a significant component of daily life in southern Italy during the Neolithic period (ca. 6000-3000 BC). Intensive surveys by Ammerman and colleagues in the 1970s identified a widespread presence of Neolithic obsidian in Calabria, generally thought to have come from the island of Lipari, mostly on the basis of its being the closest, along with general visual characteristics. While it was also thought possible to have small amounts of obsidian from the further away tiny island of...
A Preliminary Overview of the Lithic Raw Material Outcrops Southeast of Crvena Stijena (Area of Vilusi–Grahovo–Boka Kotorska), 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. The Crvena Stijena rockshelter is located on the Banjani Karst Plateau in westernmost Montenegro. Excavations at one of the longest human occupation sequences in the Balkans yielded 20 Middle Paleolithic layers containing numerous artifacts and faunal remains. Recent...
Preservation and Perception: Archaeobotanical Patterning and Site Formation Processes in Mycenaean Messenia (2018)
Despite the increased application of spatially intensive sampling for archaeobotanical remains at large Mycenaean sites in Greece, the recovered assemblages are typically small and show poor preservation. Here, we consider the macrobotanical assemblage recovered through flotation of more than 7000 L of sediment at the site of Iklaina, in Messenia, in conjunction with microbotanical remains (starches, phytoliths) to illuminate cultural and natural site formation processes that have either...
Project SIREN: Machine learning and the ancient naval battle site at the Egadi Islands, Sicily (2023)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Re-Visualizing Submerged Landscapes", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. On March 13, 241 BC off the western coast of Sicily a Roman naval force intercepted a Carthaginian resupply mission on its way to Sicily. Project SIREN is an endeavor to capture and use the experience gained through years of survey work on the Battle of the Egadi Islands Survey Project (2005-2021). Utilizing remote datasets including...
The Proximity of Communities to the Expanse of Big Data (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeological Vision in the Age of Big Data" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. While members of the communities living near or on archaeological sites have frequently been hired around the world to dig on archaeological excavations, they have very rarely participated in the recording or documentation of those excavations. They have played even less of a role in designing the structures of either paper or electronic data...
Putting the Mold to the Test: The Application of Experimental Archaeology to Compare the Mold and Potter’s Wheel in Bronze Age Anatolia (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Moving across Syria-Mesopotamia to Anatolia and finally to the Aegean, potters during the Bronze Age gradually began to shift their ceramic repertoire from hand-made and coil-made ceramics to wheel-made pottery. Despite this rise in innovative manufacturing technology (the potter’s wheel), some sites in Western Anatolia, namely Seyitömer Höyük, exhibit...
(Re)Conquests: Creating New Societies at the Frontiers of the Medieval Western Mediterranean (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The State of the Art in Medieval European Archaeology: New Discoveries, Future Directions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper introduces the key questions of the "Landscapes of (Re)Conquest" research programme which is investigating the character of frontier societies in the medieval SW Mediterranean in the context of multiple conquests and regime changes. How did conquering authorities deal with the creation...
Recent Insights and Research on Paleolithic of Istria: Examples from Romuald’s Cave (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 recent decade saw a rapid rise in the research on Paleolithic sites in Istria. This renewed interest started with field surveys and continued with new research projects aimed at better understanding of biocultural patterns and adaptations of hunter-gatherers in the region during the Pleistocene. The research included new...
Reconfiguring Social Networks: The Emergence of Social Complexity Before and After Urbanism on Cyprus (2018)
Despite the lack of cities, the Prehistoric Bronze Age on Cyprus (2400-1700 cal BC), an island in the Eastern Mediterranean, witnesses high wealth inequality and spatiotemporal variation in the emergence of social complexity or hierarchical social networks. Previous research has shown that social networks are malleable and cycle between egalitarian and hierarchical in different facets of complexity (control of labor, access to resources, participation in trade networks) through the Prehistoric...
Reconstruction of the Diet at the Iron Age Site of Cvijina Gradina, Croatia (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Cvijina Gradina, located along the Zrmanja River in present day Croatia, was once one of the largest Liburnian settlements during the Iron Age period (6th – 1st century BC). The settlement was prominent in the region’s economic and sociopolitical sphere, leaving behind significant bioarchaeological evidence of diet to be researched. Based on the fragmentary...
Regional Connections and Variations in the Archaeology of Healing and Disability: The Temples of Asclepius (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. Asclepius was worshiped as the god of healing throughout the Mediterranean from c. 500 BCE to 400 CE. Temples to the god "Asclepieia" have been found across the region, from Epidaurus in Greece, to Pergamon in Asia Minor, to Tiber Island in Rome. In antiquity, asclepieia were renowned as places where the sick...