Europe: Eastern Europe (Geographic Keyword)
26-50 (87 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Current events have demonstrated that the archaeological sites, museums, and historic structures that compose the cultural landscape of Ukraine are suffering in the current conflict. In this poster, we summarize the recent collaborative efforts of the Cultural Heritage Monitoring Lab (CHML), Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative (SCRI), and University of...
Dogs of Death: An Evaluation of Canid Remains from a Mortuary Eneolithic Cave Site in Ukraine (2018)
Burials of dog skulls and full dog skeletons have been uncovered at several Eneolithic Tripolye (5100-2900 cal BC) sites suggesting that dogs held a special symbolic role for the Tripolye compared to other domestic fauna. To evaluate human-dog relationships in Tripolye culture and funerary context, we examined dogs from a single mortuary site (Site 17) located in Verteba Cave (3951-2620 cal BC), Ternopil Oblast, Western Ukraine. Symbolic representations of canids have been observed on some...
The Dogs of War: A Bronze Age Initiation Ritual in the Russian Steppes (2018)
At the Srubnaya-culture settlement of Krasnosamarskoe in the Russian steppes, dated 1900–1700 BCE, a ritual occurred in which the participants consumed sacrificed dogs, primarily, and a few wolves, violating normal food practices found at other sites, during the winter. At least 64 winter-killed canids, 19% MNI/37% NISP, were roasted, fileted, and apparently were eaten. More than 99% were dogs. Their heads were chopped into small standardized segments with practiced blows of an axe on multiple...
A Dynamic Past: The Prehistoric Interactions on the Plain Project (2018)
The collaborative, American-Hungarian Prehistoric Interactions on the Plain Project explores the past through the reconstruction of interactions. Investigations on interactions as an active mode of social investment and social construction challenges normative concepts of "culture" by modeling socio-cultural boundaries as a dynamic and negotiated process, as opposed to a static categorically assigned social unit. Moreover, our research contextualizes regional developments as the result of...
Environmental Change’s Impact on Settlement Development during the Late Neolithic at the Site of Csökmő-Káposztás-domb (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the Körös region of the Great Hungarian Plain, the Late Neolithic (ca. 5000–4500 BC) tell site of Csökmő-Káposztás-domb features an ancient paleomeander that weaves through the site. Magnetometry and systematic surface collection have identified a contemporaneous Late Neolithic settlement surrounding the tell, spanning almost 130 ha. Many Late Neolithic...
European and North American Mountain Archaeology and the Concept of Transhumance Applied to the Prehistory of Colorado’s Southern Rocky and Poland’s Tatra Mountains (2018)
Significant advancements have been made in mountain archaeology throughout the world in recent decades. A central and rapidly expanding research theme has been that of seasonal transhumance, movement of human groups between lower to higher mountain-foothills-piedmont environmental zones in order exploit annual economic resource variability. Emerging European mountain records suggest human transhumance, based in seasonal variability of both economic plants, migratory game species, and, much...
Every Year Is Getting Shorter, Never Seem to Find the Time: Evidence for a Fourth-Millennium Gap in Southeastern Europe (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Prior to the surge in radiocarbon dating over the last 15 years, the culture chronologies of Southeastern Europe were organized neatly in sequential centuries-long blocks for the fifth and fourth millennia. Recent research, however, has completely upended the traditional chronologies. With increased research and scholarship on the Copper Age / Chalcolithic...
From Mounds and Museums: Building a Bioarchaeology of the Early Bronze Age in the Apuseni Region of Transylvania (2018)
The Apuseni Mountains of southwest Transylvania, Romania, are amongst the richest gold and copper procurement zones in the world. Metals from this region helped fuel the rise of inequality across Europe during Late Prehistory, and the area is also home to a rich mortuary record, with archaeological survey identifying over one hundred mounded tomb cemeteries belonging to Bronze Age communities. However, none of these cemeteries have been fully excavated and only a small sample of skeletons has...
Gendered Trouble: Reconsidering the Role of Females in the Masculinized Spaces of Violence in an Early Bronze Age Population (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Women of Violence: Warriors, Aggressors, and Perpetrators of Violence" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Mierzanowice Culture (~2400–1600 BCE) communities in the Central European Early Bronze Age buried their dead in a formalized and gendered manner, in which males and females typically assumed mirror-opposite orientations in their respective graves. Furthermore, the archetypal "warrior" grave—whether simply an...
Health and Mortuary Treatment in Early Bronze Age Transylvania (2018)
Copper and gold resources from Southwestern Transylvania played a critical role in the emergence of inequality in European Late Prehistory. Communities in this metal-rich landscape, however, remain poorly understood. Though the highly visible tombs in the Apuseni Mountains where these communities buried some of their dead have been known to local archaeologists for decades, very little is known about the backdrop of health and disease in the region. Here, we present one of the first...
History of Research at Crvena Stijena, Montenegro, 1954–2016 (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 rockshelter of Crvena Stijena has been well-known for over 60 years as one of the most important prehistoric archaeological sites in the Balkan Peninsula. Discovered in 1954, its excavations in the ensuing decade by renowned Yugoslavian prehistorians revealed a...
The Histria Multiscalar Archaeological Project (2018–2022): Multidisciplinary Research and Consilience at the Mouth of the Danube (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 reports on the results of the first four seasons of excavation of the Histria Multiscalar Archaeological Project (HMAP) at the Greek and Roman site of Histria, on the Black Sea coast of Romanian Dobrogea south of the Danube delta. Histria was one of the earliest Greek colonies on the Black Sea coast and played a fundamental role in cultural...
I Would Walk 500 Miles: Survey of Copper Age Settlements in Eastern Hungary (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Copper Age (c. 4500-2800) of the Great Hungarian Plain was a period in which the widespread adoption of metallurgy and a series of large-scale population shifts substantially transformed the social landscape. However, research has primarily focused on the large cemeteries (e.g. Tiszapolgár-Basatanya), while the settlements and social structure of the...
Identifying Animal Management Practices Using Oxygen Isotopes in Neolithic Croatia (2018)
Transhumance is a typical Mediterranean adaptation for securing adequate forage and water for domesticates by seasonally bringing animals to new pasture. However the antiquity of this adaptation is unclear. We present new oxygen isotope data from the Dalmatian coast, Croatia, to test the hypothesis that Neolithic herds were seasonally transhumant. Incremental sampling of ancient animal teeth produced data that are compared with modern isotope data of water showing altitudinal variation to assess...
Integrating Research Methods with Local Regulations: Designing the Excavation and Proveniencing System for the Middle Paleolithic Excavations at 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. Theoretically informed research methods are only as good as the ability of the research team to put the methods into action. Between the well-intentioned plans of the PIs and the successful elucidation of fascinating anthropological questions lie the practicalities of...
The Integrity of Biomolecules across the Oral Matrix from Histria, Romania (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the Archaic period (seventh century–sixth century BCE), Greek colonists from Miletus founded the city of Histria. Located near the mouth of the Danube, this urban center experienced 13 centuries of environmental and demographic changes. Archaeological investigations over the past century have yielded a rich skeletal collection that is housed in the Fr....
The Körös Regional Archaeological Project, 20 Years of (Mostly Successful) Collaboration (2018)
The Körös Regional Archaeological Project was established in 1998 as a collaborative, multidisciplinary, research project focused on the later prehistory of the Körös region on the Great Hungarian Plain in the Carpathian Basin. Over the last two decades, the project has attempted to build upon the success of previous ambitious projects in the region by emphasizing not only the collaborative nature of the research endeavor but also by incorporating a robust training component into the project. In...
Landscape Learning during the Early Upper Paleolithic of Southeastern Europe (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeology and Landscape Learning for a Climate-Changing World" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The initial settlement of western Eurasia by anatomically modern humans is thought to have taken place in discrete dispersal phases ca. 50–40 ka ago. Here, lithic toolkits are thought to be linked to founding phases indicative of discrete, rapid, westward movements into and across Europe triggered by climate amelioration...
Landscapes of the Dead: Using GIS to Model Social Relationships in a Large Bronze Age Cemetery (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Geographic Information System (GIS) technology is an important tool for examining social relationships in large horizontally stratified cemeteries. This study applies GIS-based cluster analysis to identify multiscalar patterning at the Middle Bronze Age Maros cemetery at Ostojićevo, Serbia. Three successive scalar clusters were identified: (i) primary...
The Lengyel Interaction Sphere in East-Central Europe during the Fifth Millennium BC (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Wheels, Horses, Babies and Bathwaters: Celebrating the Impact of David W. Anthony on the Study of Prehistory" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Sites of the Lengyel Culture are found from the Drava River in Croatia to the lowlands of northern Poland during the fifth millennium BC. While the Lengyel Culture is clearly in the great "Danubian" tradition as a successor to the first farmers of this area several centuries...
Lithic Analysis of Paleolithic Surface Scatters from Pleistocene River Terraces in the Republic of Serbia (2018)
During the past two decades Paleolithic research in Serbia has rapidly expanded with numerous cave sites currently under excavation. However, this focus on caves in largely upland terrain may create a biased understanding of the Paleolithic record. Typically, open-air sites are integrated into research projects to correct for this bias. Unfortunately, Serbia has very few open-air sites, requiring us to use other sources of evidence as proxies for understanding the Paleolithic record in lowland...
The Meaning of a Sample of Teeth Pendants from the Paleolithic Bacho Kiro Cave in Bulgaria (Exc. 1971–1975) (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Variability: A Reassessment of Its Meaning, Afforded Range, and the Relation to Process" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Bone artifacts from the past are indicators of increased diversity in human behavior and culture. Determining the bone tool type can provide information about past technology, cultural provenience, symbolic expressions, and the type of exploited fauna that inhabited different geographical regions....
Medieval Transylvanian Church Burial Patterns and Demographics (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Papdomb archaeological site is located immediately outside the village of Văleni (Hungarian: Patakfalva), Romania in the historic region of Transylvania. Papdomb comprises the ruins of a medieval Székely church and its associated cemetery. Human interment within the walls of the church started in the second half of the 12th century and extended to the...
Middle Age Childhood: Bioarchaeology and Health of Children from a Medieval Cemetery Site (Gz10) in Giecz, Poland (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Life and Death in Medieval Poland" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The medieval cemetery in Giecz (site 10) is part of a complex of the early Piast state stronghold (Giecz, Greater Poland voivodeship, Poland). The cemetery is dated to the eleventh–twelfth centuries. The site has been excavated since 2014 as Slavia Field School in Mortuary Archaeology. During the seasons 2014–2021, over 150 graves have been discovered....
The (Missing) Archaeology of the Early Medieval Nomads (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Mind the Gap: Exploring Uncharted Territories in Medieval European Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The goal of this paper is to take a fresh, critical look at the work done on medieval nomads, especially in Eastern Europe, over the last three decades or so. It will focus on three crucial aspects. First, the relation between pastoralism (a separate problem for medieval archaeology) and nomadism, and the...