Mediterranean (Geographic Keyword)
126-150 (290 Records)
From the earliest occurrence of the boar's tusk helmet from Grave Circle B at Mycenae (ca. 1650BCE) to the latest from a sub-Minoan tomb from the North Cemetery at Knossos (ca. 1000BCE) presents a span of 650 years of reverence for this important accessory of Bronze Age warriorhood. Depictions and copies of this helmet in other cultures, including in the Hittite, Egyptian, and even later Roman cultures, demonstrate its pervasive and deeply respected meaning. Helmets of this kind were known to...
Iberian Mines and Imperial Matters: Re-conceptualizing Labor, Technologies, and Communities of Practice in Roman Iberia (2018)
The landscapes of the Iberian Peninsula were famous in antiquity for their richness in metals, and scholars have long claimed that these metals were a draw for colonial interest in the region from early on. This is especially true following the Roman conquest of Iberia in the late 3rd century BCE, when the scale of mining increased dramatically to accommodate the growing needs of the Roman empire. This was made possible through dramatic shifts in the organization of labor and the technological...
Images of Aphrodite, Sexual Desire, and the 'Chilly Climate' of Classical Archaeology (2019)
This is an abstract from the "What Have You Done For Us Lately?: Discrimination, Harassment, and Chilly Climate in Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since 1792, nine catalogues of surviving ancient Roman replicas of the Knidian Aphrodite—the first monumental image of an unclothed woman in Western art—have been compiled. During this time, the number of known ancient replicas has increased by two orders of magnitude, yet analyses of this...
Imperial Water: Fountains as an Expression of British Colonial Control in Cyprus in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (2024)
This is an abstract from the "World-Systems and Globalization in Archaeology: Assessing Models of Intersocietal Connections 50 Years since Wallerstein’s “The Modern World-System”" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As part of the ethnoarchaeological component of the Athienou Archaeological Project (AAP), a team has conducted a survey of the public drinking fountains built in the town of Athienou in central Cyprus during the British colonial period....
Implications for Submerged Prehistoric Archaeology: Coastal Geomorphological Mechanisms on the Local Scale in the San Pasquale Valley, Bova Marina, Reggio Calabria (2018)
Marine reconnaissance off the coast of San Pasquale, Calabria in southern Italy revealed a dense offshore terrestrial peat deposit dating to the mid Holocene. Subsequent radiocarbon dating of samples revealed a conflict with regional relative sea level curves and local patterns of terrestrial uplift. As such, initial analysis suggests that these deposits result from a local hyperpycnal flood event and are not subaerial drowned deposits resulting from Holocene coastal evolution and rapid marine...
The Importance of Identifying Specific Obsidian Subsources on Sardinia to Interpreting Long-Distance Trade in the Neolithic Central Mediterranean (2019)
This is an abstract from the "2019 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of M. Steven Shackley" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For the Central Mediterranean island of Sardinia, studies have shown that the usage of obsidian from specific subsources changed over time. Human selection may have been based on their accessibility, physical properties of the raw material, and the size and quantity available. In addition, socioeconomic factors, lithic...
In the Hands of the God or in the Depths of a Well? Examining the Evolution of Disability in the Ancient Mediterranean Basin (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This study presents a cross-cultural comparison of disability in ancient Greece, Rome, and Egypt from the beginning of the Bronze Age to the 4th century CE. I use archaeological and textual data to examine the temporal evolution of notions of disability in these three cultures. Results suggest that prior to Macedonian and Roman imperial expansion, Egypt’s...
Indigenous Persistence in the Balearic Islands: Carthaginian and Roman Colonial Engagements in the Western Mediterranean (2018)
The Balearic Islands are the westernmost island group in the Mediterranean. Of the four main islands of the group, Mallorca and Menorca were home to an indigenous Iron Age culture known as the Talayotic people. Their story is considered a minor one by many historians in the grand narrative of Mediterranean domination by Carthage and then Rome. Nevertheless, the archaeology of these two islands has revealed fascinating evidence of the scope and effects of ancient colonialism by these two powers....
Inferring Social Change from Archaeological Survey Data: Monte Bonifato and Calatubo as a Case Study (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent archaeological survey at Monte Bonifato and Calatubo, two prominent sites in western Sicily, has facilitated a comparative study of the two sites via artifacts recovered from surface contexts. Settlement patterns, land-use, pottery production methods, and artifact-class densities are discussed, demonstrating the variety and scale of social...
Insights into the Late Upper Paleolithic of the Northern Adriatic from Ljubićeva Cave, Istria (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. This paper presents the results of past and recent systematic research on the late Upper Paleolithic carried out in Ljubićeva Cave near Marčana, Croatia. The first excavations of the site occurred between 2008 and 2011 and yielded late Upper Paleolithic as well as Neolithic and Bronze Age discoveries. Since 2019, systematic...
Insular Resilience at the Edge of Empire: The Early Medieval Kastra of Kalymnos, Greece (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Studies of the shifts following the Arab defeat of the seventh-century Roman Empire generally pass over the Aegean islands that bear the marks of warfare and societal upheaval in their landscapes. The island of Kalymnos has untapped potential to inform an understanding of Roman-Arab warfare in the periphery. This report discusses the several phases of the...
Integrating Grapevine Palaeogenomics with Archaeobotanical Methods to Explore the History of Winemaking (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Increasing the Accessibility of Ancient DNA within Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Genomic analyses of archaeological seeds and other plant remains are playing an increasingly important role in unravelling domestication histories. In some cases, these findings are revising longstanding interpretations developed from archaeobotanical methods, and questions remain on how archaeological and genomic methods...
An Integrative Approach to Cave, Open-Air and Underwater Mousterian Sites of Dalmatia (Croatia) (2018)
Paleolithic sites situated in the Hrvatsko zagorje region of north-western Croatia (Krapina, Vindija) are well known because they contain important finds of fossil human remains associated with both faunal remains and lithic industry. However, in recent years, work on Mousterian sites in Dalmatia (south Croatia) has intensified. It focuses on three types of sites, (caves, open-air, and an underwater site) as well as on a systematic survey of the region. This poster briefly presents one of each...
Investigating Childhood Metabolic Health during the Rise of the Athenian Democracy (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. Sociopolitical change, such as that which occurred during the Archaic period in Athens (700–480 BCE), has the potential to increase food scarcity and physiological stress. When dietary diversity is negatively affected, women and children are often the first to suffer the effects of insufficient...
Investigating Copper Ingot Production in the Bronze Age Mediterranean Using 3D Technologies (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The 1960 excavation of the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1200 BC) shipwreck at Cape Gelidonya, on the southwestern coast of Turkey, revealed a ca. 1.2 ton cargo of copper ingots and tools. The metal cargo is defined by its great diversity, yet the ingot assemblage is predominantly Cypriot in origin while the tool metal derives from sources across the Mediterranean...
Investigating Imperialism on Early Hellenistic Cyprus: Excavations at Pyla-Vigla, 2019 and 2022 (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since 2008, the Pyla-Koutsopetria Archaeological Project (PKAP) has been excavating the site of Pyla-Vigla, located on a small plateau near Larnaca, Cyprus. Early small-scale excavations (2008, 2009, 2012, 2018) revealed what appears to be an early Hellenistic (330-250 BCE) fortification. In the early Hellenistic period, Cyprus was undergoing a massive...
Is There Evidence For Jewish Pirates Archaeologically? (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. While piracy is a modern phenomenon as much as an ancient one, piratical theory has been relatively opaque until recent years. Smugglers, buccaneers, and freebooter's fluidity and capriciousness is not reflected in the black-and-white morality of a quintessential pirate. Using modern pirate theory, this paper looks at the...
Isotopes and Texts: Animal Management Strategies in Ancient Greece (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Integrating Isotope Analyses: The State of Play and Future Directions" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Integrating textual sources, a largely qualitative dataset, with archaeological science, a largely quantitative dataset, is no easy task for archaeologists and historians. This paper reflects on the challenges and opportunities of integrating the textual and biochemical evidence for animal management in the ancient...
Jadeitite Axes in the Aegean and Anatolia–The Emergence of a New Network (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Two Approaches to Archaeological Jades: Source Characterization and Social Valuation" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The largest known jadeite source in the Aegean is located on the Cycladic island of Syros. During sampling, several patinated flakes and preforms of considerable age were identified, demonstrating, for the first time, the presence of several knapping places around the large jadeite boulders. In order to...
Journal study of the AJA and BASOR, 2015-2020 (2021)
Data on the gendered production of knowledge in Mediterranean archaeology collected for the book chapter "Gender and Power in the Practice of Mediterranean Archaeology" by Grace Erny and Dimitri Nakassis. In order to understand better the effects of sexism on knowledge production in the archaeology of the Mediterranean and Near East, we carried out a small pilot study on the six most recent years (2015-2020) of publications in two flagship journals: the American Journal of Archaeology (AJA),...
Landscape Histories and Terrestrial Networks in the Peloponnese: Results from the Western Argolid Regional Project (Offprint) (2024)
The Western Argolid Regional Project (WARP) is an intensive pedestrian survey of 30 km2, located northwest of Argos along the banks of the Inachos River. Using high-intensity collection strategies, WARP generated very fine-resolution data that provide insights into the ways this seemingly marginal area contributed to and was impacted by regional histories. A key question is how the network of mountainous routes that traverse this landscape, connecting the area to the Corinthia and Arkadia, may...
Landscapes of (Re)Conquest: Archaeologies of Cultural Transformation in Medieval Iberia and Occitania (2024)
This is an abstract from the "New Work in Medieval Archaeology, Part 1: Landscapes, Food, and Health" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper presents the highlights of the Landscapes of (Re)Conquest project (2018–2023), which has investigated the impact of conquest, migration and cultural transformation in the frontier societies of medieval Iberia and Pyrenean Occitania. Focusing on specific regional case studies, it considers how the creation...
Landscapes of Acquisition and Mobility: Sourcing Raw Lithic Materials and Their Distribution in Central Cyprus (2018)
Making use of several long-term survey projects in central Cyprus, the connection between chert sources, find spots and sites are analyzed using chemical and spatial analyses to examine the relationship between mobility and community structure. The Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) of some 150 samples shows that distinct types of chert were preferred, primarily Lefkara translucents. Spatial analyses investigate the associations between particular chert outcrops, small lithic scatters and larger...
Late Antiquity Revealed: Assessing Urban Change at Roman Nedinum in Northern Dalmatia, Croatia (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 2015, the Nadin-Gradina Archaeological Project (NGAP) began as a collaborative effort between the University of Zadar and University of Maine to unravel the long-term record of urban change in the Ravni Kotari region of northern Dalmatia, with a primary focus on the Nadin-Gradina archaeological site. Since its inception, the NGAP has confirmed a 2,500-year...
The Late Introduction of Metals in Southern Italy: Studies from Sicily and Calabria (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Metallurgy arrived quite late in Calabria, Sicily and Malta compared other regions, including the same Italian peninsula. Current hypotheses include an allogenous origin of metallurgy, brought by Aegean merchants, and an indigenous origin due to the presence of mines. The delicate state of many metals has prevented destructive analyses, but it has been...