Mediterranean (Geographic Keyword)
201-218 (218 Records)
Our presentation, based on an overview of archaeobotanical data from the Aegean from the Neolithic to the Late Bronze Age, attempts a synthetic approach to the cultivation of trees. This work is part of the PLANTCULT research project funded by the European Council Research (ERC Consolidator Grant, GA 682529). As archaeobotanical data we consider the macro-remains of fruits/seeds and burnt wood from archaeological sites. In addition, we use palynological information when available. Our goals are:...
Two Thousand Years of Pot-Making: Exploring Neolithic Ceramic Traditions in SW Calabria, Italy (2018)
This poster will examine the degree to which the task of pot-making changed from the Early/Middle (ca. 5700-5000 BCE) to the Late Neolithic (ca. 5000-4000 BCE) periods in SW Calabria, Italy. We will present the manufacturing sequences of all Neolithic wares, based on the results of more than a decade of stylistic, mineralogical, and physico-chemical analyses of ceramics from the sites of Umbro Neolithic and Penitenzeria, as well as the results of laboratory and replicative experiments using...
Unwritten Histories: The People of the Phaleron Cemetery (2018)
Ancient Athens is cited as the contentious caldron from which the western political tradition emerged. During the formative Archaic period (ca. 700-480 BC), Athenian history was marked by major political developments (e.g., early law codification, citizenship formalization), social stratification (e.g., classes), and conflict (e.g., tyrants). To date, such processes are known to us through texts, artistic representations, and elite-centered mortuary grounds. The collaborative Phaleron...
Upper Paleolithic Movement and Trade as Represented at the Abri Kontija 002 Rockshelter Site (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 Abri Kontija 002 rockshelter and cave located in the Istria Peninsula of Croatia provides a wealth of archaeological material dating to the Upper Paleolithic. Excavations beginning in 2014 produced several thousand artifacts, some of which can be traced to distant sources. This paper presents recently identified evidence...
An Urban Micromorphological Perspective on Neopalatial Environmental Changes at Bronze Age Palaikastro, Crete (2018)
Transitional phases between settlement periods on Bronze Age Crete are often associated with ‘natural’ destructive events. However, it is unclear whether these ‘natural’ destructive events and subsequent shifts in material practices were influenced by anthropogenic or environmental processes. For example, the end of the Neopalatial period on Crete occurred in the LM IB period; some researchers view LM IB destructive fires as indicative of human action during a phase of social and political...
Urban Planning and Access to Water in Pompeii (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The process of urbanization and urban planning plays an important role in understanding how people utilize their space to access resources. Pompeii’s water system includes a combination of household water collection features, primarily cisterns. However, an aqueduct system was installed in the first century AD providing new access to water leading to a variety...
Using ZooMS to Reconstruct Neanderthal Faunal Exploitation in the Early Sequence of 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. Crvena Stijena is one of the most significant Paleolithic sites in southeastern Europe. Although scientific excavations conducted here in the 1950s, 1960s, and since 2004 have uncovered several Middle Paleolithic faunal assemblages, the results of the early excavations were...
The View from Below: The Contemporaneous View and Role of the Rural, Marginal Areas of Anatolia during the Ottoman Period (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ottoman archaeology remains in its fledgling stage, struggling against modern research and political biases. This greatly effects the understanding of the rural and highland areas of Anatolia, where excavations or surveys are already less commonly conducted. Historical research has done a great deal to illuminate these places and people, and through art,...
Visibility and Memory on the San Giuliano Landscape (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. At the height of its occupation during the Etruscan period, inhabitants at the San Giuliano plateau in northern Lazio, Italy, constructed hundreds of rock-cut tombs in the surrounding escarpment, effectively creating a “city of the dead” adjacent to their city of the...
Walking into the Shadows in the Iberian Ritual Caves (6th–1st Centuries BC) (2018)
The power of the underground has attracted ritual practitioners over the centuries. Natural places, such as caves, have some intrinsic sensorial power which helps to create a ritual atmosphere. In the Iberian Iron Age (6th–1st centuries BC), ritual production has been recognized in some caves through the identification of the material patterns, along with other physical and sensorial particularities. Although each cave is different, those cavities in which we find evidence of ritual practice...
Weakness and Precariousness in Central Italian Urbanization (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Ephemeral Aggregated Settlements: Fluidity, Failure or Resilience?" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The urbanization of western central Italy has had a peculiar role in our intellectual history, starting with its most famous fruit, the "eternal" city of Rome. With evident teleology, the narrative about the emergence of the earliest agglomerations in the early first millennium BCE has taken the form of an ascending...
Were Neandertals the Original Snowbirds? Zooarchaeological Evidence from Greece (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. Compared to other parts of Eurasia, the southern Balkan Peninsula had a relatively stable climate during the Late Pleistocene. Zooarchaeological materials from the Asprochaliko Rockshelter in northwestern Greece provide evidence for hominin subsistence strategies in the Middle and Upper Paleolithic. In this study, we...
Western Argolid Regional Project (WARP), Chronotype Table (2020)
Chronotype table for the Western Argolid Regional Project (WARP), an intensive regional survey project in the Western Argolid from 2015-2019.
Western Argolid Regional Project (WARP), Field Manual 2014-2016 Seasons (2020)
The Western Argolid Regional Project (WARP) is an interdisciplinary archaeological project that sought to collect and interpret evidence of human activity from prehistory to the modern day in the western Argolid, Greece. Our survey area consists of 30 km2 to the northwest of the ancient and modern city of Argos, where the fertile Argive Plain transitions into a series of mountainous valleys along the course of the Inachos River, which we surveyed over three field seasons from 2014-2016. Although...
What the Spanish Brought with Them: Phenetic Complexity of the Spanish Population at Contact (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Approaches to Cultural and Biological Complexity in Mexico at the Time of Spanish Conquest" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Colonial contact in Mexico brought together populations from diverse regions of the world – Europe (especially Spain), Mexico, Africa, and eventually, Asia. While much attention has been focused on the contributions of these groups to the admixed population that resulted, this attention has...
Where Do We Go from Here? A Review of Prehistoric Forager Mobility in Liguria (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. Due to a suite of topographical and geomorphological factors, Liguria, and the Liguro-Provencal arc more generally, is an interesting natural laboratory in which to revisit some of the debates about forager mobility and its analysis that have unfolded over the past several decades. This paper presents an overview of...
With Precision Comes Variability: Complications in High-Resolution 14C Chronology in the East Mediterranean-Middle East (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Constructing Chronologies II: The Big Picture with Bayes and Beyond" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent years have seen major developments in accuracy and precision for several aspects of radiocarbon dating. There is a new annual-resolution (last 5K) Northern Hemisphere calibration curve, increased focus on sample selection and processing (chronometric hygiene), and widespread application of sophisticated Bayesian...
Zero to Hero: Elite Burials and Hero Cults in Early Iron Age Greece and Cyprus (2018)
Adulation of heroes, including the flawed, militaristic, authoritative men of Homeric epic was an important feature of ancient Hellenic culture. This phenomenon is reflected in cults and shrines built in the Archaic period. How did these so-called "hero cults" form, and can Early Iron Age (EIA) elite burials form a connection between the tomb cults of the Late Bronze Age (LBA) and the hero cults of the Archaic and later Classical periods? The purpose of this study is to examine EIA burials whose...