Mediterranean (Geographic Keyword)
51-75 (218 Records)
This is an abstract from the "The Movement of Technical Knowledge: Cross-Craft Perspectives on Mobility and Knowledge in Production Technologies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Despite marking the beginning of glazed ware production in Cyprus in the 13th century, the Paphos-Lemba production was a short-lived one and was replaced by other productions in the Famagusta, Lapithos, and Nicosia region. However, we know very little about the glaze...
Digital Deforestation: DTM Generation with Agisoft Photoscan (2018)
Image-based Modeling (IBM) is an increasingly-applied technique for field archaeologists for generation of high-resolution spatial data. IBM is effectively and easily applied for generation of Orthophotographs and Digital Surface Models (DSMs). Yet raw DSMs are not suitable for analysis or mapping purposes in vegetated environments due to the fact that they contain measurements of trees, bushes, and even architecture, ancient and modern. Archaeologists often instead require Digital Terrain...
Digital Heritage in Archaeology in the 21st Century (2018)
The recent ‘digital turn’ in archaeology has spurred methodological advances and new research directions, with wide ranging impacts at multiple scales. The proliferation of imaging, remote sensing, laser scanning and photogrammetry applications has, at times, outpaced considerations about data archiving, digital epistemologies, and accessibility. This can lead to circumstances in which the creation of digital datasets is privileged over public dissemination or scholarly output – a situation that...
Disability and Accommodation in the Eastern Mediterranean: Case Studies from New Kingdom Egypt and Classical Greece (2018)
Although the archaeology of marginalized groups has been increasingly discussed in recent scholarship, people with disabilities remain largely unstudied. Recent works on this topic have paved the way for a dedicated examination of people with disabilities in the archaeological record. This paper reviews published material to critically examine physical evidence for disability and accommodation in New Kingdom Egypt and Classical Greece, both areas and periods with rich material culture, extensive...
Double Handled Vessels at Seyitömer Höyük in Kütahya, Turkey: The Manufacture, Use, and Trade of Depas Cups (2018)
During the Early Bronze Age, the site of Seyitömer Höyük in Western Anatolia, served as both a center for ceramic production and trade. Through the innovative use of a mold-making technique, as well as a clay coil and wheel combination method, potters were able to produce a standardized diverse ceramic repertoire at a fast rate. Within the site assemblage, a variety of ceramic types are represented, including the depas amphikypellon, a two handled drinking vessel. Depas vessels originating from...
Dungeons, Altars, and Slaves: The Subterranean Material Culture of Christian Slaves in Early Modern Morocco (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The treatment of European Christians held in servitude in Early Modern North Africa continues to be the subject of contention. Robert Davis argues that, out of the million or so Christians brought to North Africa between 1530 and 1780, most were never ransomed and died as slaves. Nabil Matar questions Davis’ claims, in part, because of an absence of...
Early Bronze Age Burial Structures of the Eastern Adriatic and Their Possible Connections with the Aegean (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The paper discusses connections between the eastern Adriatic coast and the Aegean during Early Bronze Age. This is the period when Cetina Culture saw its birth in the hinterland of the eastern Adriatic coast (present day Croatia). The pottery typical of the Cetina Culture subsequently spread to the Italian and northern Adriatic coasts, central Balkan...
Early Middle Paleolithic Blade Lithic Technology from the Site of Via San Francesco (Liguria, Northwestern Italy): Geoarchaeology, Chronology, and Cultural Features (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. During MIS 5, in northwestern Europe, there are lithic assemblages characterized by the application of laminar methods performed on volumetric cores through a careful maintenance of lateral and distal convexities. In southern Europe, although blades are reported in several Mousterian contexts, nothing comparable to...
Earthquakes as Nonhuman Agents in the Roman – Late Antique Mediterranean (2018)
Recent studies of the sociology of contemporary earthquakes have emphasized the generative physical spaces of potentiality created by these disasters: the destruction of earthquakes, while traumatic for survivors, also clears the way for large-scale infrastructural and architectural development programs that can re-shape aged urban environments to better reflect changing societal values and priorities. This paper offers a survey of earthquakes as non-human change agents in the Roman and Late...
Eating and Drinking in the Medieval Castle of San Giuliano (Province of Lazio, Italy) (2018)
The medieval Italian settlement pattern was transformed from the 8th - 12th centuries as people moved to inhabit defensible hilltops. The precise timing and reasons for this historical process, known as incastellamento, are not well understood. We initiated the San Giuliano Archaeological Research Project to provide high-resolution archaeological data for understanding this phenomenon. Two seasons of survey and excavation atop the San Giuliano plateau have identified walls and structures...
Enclosure and Surveillance: The Development of a Disciplinary Landscape in Bronze Age Cyprus (2018)
Monumental architecture, specifically in the form of structures classified as "fortifications," emerged on Cyprus at the end of the Middle Bronze Age, but these massive constructions remained in use for only a brief period of time. This period, however, is of critical importance to the transformation of Cypriot society from a relatively egalitarian village-based society to the urban-focused, politically complex society of the Late Bronze Age. Using the cluster of fortresses in the Agios...
The Environmental Setting of Cypriot Rural Sanctuaries (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the first millennium BCE the countryside of Cyprus was marked by a large number of extra-urban sanctuaries. Previous studies have discussed the function of these shrines in demarcating or negotiating political boundaries between the island’s city states, and their decline under Ptolemaic and Roman rule. This study seeks to investigate the environmental...
Erotic Tokens for Sex and ‘Special’ Services: New Spintriae from Archaeological Contexts (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The project "Token Communities in the Ancient Mediterranean", held at the University of Warwick, is currently examining token production on a wide scale, assessing new finds from European museums. Roman "tesserae" (tokens) may be defined as monetiform objects produced and used instead of money in specific civic contexts. As a Research Fellow in the on-going...
The Ethnoarchaeology of Stone Craft Production in Athienou, 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 town of Athienou in Cyprus lies at the southern edge of the fertile Mesaoria Plain. In addition to its agricultural focus, the region has been home to many traditional crafts, such as the making of lace and cheese. In addition, artisans have fashioned a variety of objects from the local limestone called "the stone of Athienou". Ancient sculptors made...
Everything Old Is New Again: Considerations for Re-examining the Previously Excavated Material of Hellenistic- and Roman-Period Armenia (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The South Caucasus Region: Crossroads of Societies & Polities. An Assessment of Research Perspectives in Post-Soviet Times" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Throughout the twentieth century, archaeological investigations into the Hellenistic and Roman periods in Armenia sought to understand the ancient kingdom’s place in the broader Mediterranean sphere. The projects often worked to identify cultures and cultural...
Expanding the Boundaries of Cultic Space: An Investigation of Nature in Greek Cultic Spaces in the Argolid and Messenia (2800–146 BCE) (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The importance of landscape to ancient Greek cultic activity has been long acknowledged. Beliefs and stories about Greek gods and lesser deities were firmly situated in the visible physical world. Despite our acceptance that this was a widespread practice, few modern archaeological studies consider these visual and topographical relationships on a regional...
An Experimental Archaeological Approach to Persian Period Mortaria Construction through the Lens of Tell el-Hesi (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Mortaria are vessels associated with kitchen pottery, particularly in the Persian period (approx. 550–330 BCE), and are often overlooked for flashier finds. In the 1970s, during excavations of Israeli site Tell el-Hesi, questions regarding vessel construction arose about recovered fragments of mortaria: namely that they were not wheel-made. At Hesi in...
Experimental Archaeology as a Tool for Understanding Microbotanical Taphonomy (2018)
Microbotanical residue analysis, particularly starch grain and phytolith analysis, of ground stone artifacts has become a well-established method for investigating subsistence practices, plant processing patterns, and tool use at prehistoric sites around the world. Within the Aegean, however, where wheat and barley are the primary staple grains, microbotanical analysis of stone tools has only recently been incorporated into on-going research. A collaboration between PlantCult, a European...
Exploring the Engagement, Imagination, and Alignment of Potters and their Practices in Neolithic S. Calabria, Italy (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. In this presentation we use the results of a raw materials survey, replicative experiments in the field and the laboratory, and physicochemical and mineralogical analyses of local geological clays and archaeological ceramics from the sites of Umbro Neolithic and Penitenzeria in Southern Calabria, Italy to ask 3...
Exploring the Evidence for Infectious Diseases in Byzantine Thebes, Greece (2018)
The excavation of an early and middle Byzantine cemetery, located in the former Sanctuary of Ismenion Apollo in Thebes, Greece, has provided an opportunity to examine the impact of infectious diseases in post-Classical Greece. The cemetery appears to be associated with a previously undocumented hospital, probably connected with the nearby church of St. Luke the Evangelist. The skeletons were found in rectangular rock-cut graves, all of which contained multiple burials. Two non-standard graves...
"Fair Greece, Sad Relic:" Greek Archaeology at the Intersections of Power (2018)
In this paper, I address the challenges faced by Classical archaeologists who wish to practice engaged archaeology in Greece. Two aspects of Classical archaeology’s disciplinary history are particularly important for understanding the relationship between Greek archaeology (as practiced by American archaeologists) and modern Greece: first, Greek archaeology’s early and close relationship with the ideology of Hellenism and, second, the ways in which archaeological work in Greece has intersected...
Fast Fashion? Pelt Procurement in the Late Pleistocene at le Grand Abri aux Puces, France (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The origins of hominins using animal pelts as body covering, i.e. clothing, is an important adaptation to reconstruct. Throughout history, our hominin ancestors have adapted to living in temperate and glacial climates, as well as expanding into novel environments, like the Neanderthals in Europe over the past 300,000 years. However, there is currently no...
Feasting with the Dead: Preliminary Analysis of Faunal Remains at the Put Dragulina Roman Cemetery (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Put Dragulina, a Roman cemetery site dating between 100 AD and 300 AD, was excavated as part of rescue projects during 2011 and 2017 in Trogir, Croatia. At least 84 individual graves were excavated with associated burial goods. Along with the recovery of human remains, over 250 fragments of animal bone were recovered. This poster presents the identification...
Feral Fields of the Eastern Adriatic Coast (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Finding Fields: Locating and Interpreting Ancient Agricultural Landscapes" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. On Mediterranean islands and coastal areas of southern Europe, extensive field systems of drystone walls, terraces, and clearance cairns are common landscape features that attest to generations of landscape modification for cultivation. Tracing the precise chronologies of these fields is perennially challenging....
Filling the Envelope: a History of Archaeobotanical Research in Cyprus (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Pushing the Envelope, Chasing Stone Age Sailors and Early Agriculture: Papers in Honor of the Career of Alan H. Simmons" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since the first experiments with the method of flotation in 1962, the sub-discipline of archaeobotany (paleoethnobotany) has developed and revolutionized our understanding of the origins and spread of agricultural systems worldwide. The history of modern...