Mediterranean (Other Keyword)
1-25 (52 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Sicily holds a strategic position between the eastern and western Mediterranean. Fortified coastal towers have served as a component of coastal defenses since the establishment of the earliest Greek colonies on the island. During the Late Medieval period (fourteenth–sixteenth centuries), fortified coastal towers took on an intensified role as the Spanish...
The Ancient Methone Intensive Survey Project: New Research at a Harbor City in the North Aegean (2015)
Methone (located in Pieria, Greece) was a key trading hub in the prehistoric and historic North Aegean, visible in the discovery of an array of workshops, production tools, and imported artifacts, and by some of the earliest evidence for the Greek alphabet in the Mediterranean. The 2014-2016 Ancient Methone Archaeological Project aims to enrich our understanding of the settlement and situate it within the wider Mediterranean world. The principal components of the project–intensive surface...
Animal exploitation in the early prehistory of the Balearic Islands (2016)
The Balearic Islands were the last large islands in the Mediterranean to be settled, as late as the 3rd millennium cal BC. Currently, there is a good zooarchaeological record for the late 3rd and 2nd millennia cal BC, which allows the reconstruction of animal exploitation and management strategies in Mallorca, Menorca and Formentera. The results show that the obtainment of animal resources relied mainly on sheep, goat, cattle and pig husbandry. When this record is compared to the surrounding...
Archaeobotanical and Faunal Remains from the Roman Harbor Vada Volaterrana (2025)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this poster we present updated botanical and faunal data and interpretations from the ancient Roman harbor of Vada Volaterrana, located in the modern province of Livorno, Italy. The harbor was supported by a network of structures immediately surrounding the port at Vada's San Gaetano site. A 2015 GPR survey identified a series of rectangular...
Archaeological Field schools: Teaching Heritage Management. An Example from Menorca (2015)
The archaeological field school is a traditional means of training students in the practical skills of survey, excavation, recording, and artifact processing. Recent discussions about field schools have emphasized the need to approach fieldwork from a holistic perspective and incorporate the theory and practice of archaeological stewardship: preservation, interpretation, management, and public outreach of archaeological resources. In this paper we describe our experience in the development of a...
The Aurignacian sequence of Lapa do Picareiro (Portugal): Abrupt climate shifts and diachronic variability in land-use strategies (2025)
This is an abstract from the "Variability within the Aurignacian: New Research Outlooks" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Across Eurasia, abrupt climate shifts during the Late Pleistocene impacted human and natural systems. For the Iberian Peninsula, our knowledge of human adaptive responses during the Upper Paleolithic has improved in recent years with the development of new radiocarbon techniques and high-resolution paleoclimatic records....
Beyond Caves: Exploring the Diversity and Adaptation of Early Human Settlement Patterns in East-Central Europe (2025)
This is an abstract from the "Variability within the Aurignacian: New Research Outlooks" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. While caves have traditionally been seen as prime habitats for early hominins, the prevalence of open-air Aurignacian sites in East-Central Europe has long invited a broader investigation into the spatial preferences and adaptive strategies of early humans in the region. One such early adaptation that has been suggested are...
Coastal Echoes: Marine Mollusk Exploitation and Shell Bead Production at Riparo Bombrini (Ventimiglia, Italy) during the Early Upper Paleolithic (2025)
This is an abstract from the "Variability within the Aurignacian: New Research Outlooks" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. <html> Marine mollusks were first deliberately collected for food consumption and tool production during the Middle Paleolithic in Europe. However, it was with the emergence of Homo sapiens in the Early Upper Paleolithic that a profound shift occurred, leading to the systematic and extensive gathering of these marine resources....
Contextualizing Iron Age Cypriot State Formation in the Eastern Mediterranean (2016)
During the Archaic period (750-480 BC) the island of Cyprus underwent a dramatic transformation as new city-kingdoms rose to dominate the political landscape of the island. This shift resulted in increased competition for resources, establishment of political boundaries, and emergence of a pronounced social hierarchy within the new polities. The present study aims to investigate the development of these new polities in a broader geographic context, and to explore the ways in which cultural...
Cross-referencing proxies to refine the Aurignacian socio-cultural geographies (2025)
This is an abstract from the "Variability within the Aurignacian: New Research Outlooks" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Aurignacian is a pivotal technocomplex in European prehistory marked by the development of novel socio-economic strategies, and symbolic and cultural systems at a continental scale. In recent decades, efforts were made to outline the contour of the cultural provinces occupied by the human groups comprised within the...
Detecting Olive Oil and Other Mediterranean Plant Oils: Experimental Considerations in Differentiating Lipids in Ancient Residues (2016)
This paper presents an experimental research program that assesses the possibility of distinguishing olive oil from other oils derived from Mediterranean plants based on fatty acid profiles. Due to the olive’s prolific use in the region, its oil is often presumed rather than demonstrated to be present in ancient residues. Other residue studies have suggested that different organic products may be differentiated based on specific ratios of fatty acid pairs. To evaluate this approach, a sample of...
Down the Drain: Water Management in a Late Roman Urban Space (2025)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper presents analyses of Late Roman ceramics from the hydraulic systems of the Gymnasium complex at ancient Corinth, Greece. Ceramic objects from well-stratified deposits in multiple drains, used successively from the late first through late sixth centuries CE, provide evidence for patterns of community resilience and adaptive capacity over a...
Early Upper Palaeolithic Technical Behaviour at Apidima (Peloponnese, Greece): Technological Analysis of the Lithic Assemblage from Cave C (2025)
This is an abstract from the "Variability within the Aurignacian: New Research Outlooks" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Apidima cave complex (Caves A-E, Peloponnese, Greece) is among the most significant Palaeolithic sites in south-eastern Europe. Two fossilized human crania recovered from Cave A in the 1970s-80s, indicate the presence of an early H. sapiens population followed by a Neanderthal one in the Middle Pleistocene. Important...
An Engineered Ancient Water System: Water Delivery to a Pompeii House (2025)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. One of the wonders of the Ancient Roman civilization is that the engineered water systems were so “modern”. The access of the general public to fresh water, no doubt, resulted in improved public health and a flourishing civilization. A remarkable aspect of Pompeii is that portions of the public water system have been preserved due to the eruption of Mt....
Entrer Trois to Trois-D: Comparing Châtelperronian and Protoaurignacian Blade Technology (2025)
This is an abstract from the "Variability within the Aurignacian: New Research Outlooks" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We know that Neanderthals and Anatomically Modern Humans were exchanging DNA, but were they also exchanging ideas? In this paper, we investigate this question by comparing lithic technology across the so-called “Middle to Upper Paleolithic Transition” in western Europe. Assemblages studied include La Rochette couche 7...
An Ethnography of Looting: Constructing Alternative Archaeologies in Modern Cyprus (2025)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent shifts in archaeology have brought nuanced perspectives to undocumented digging and looting, acknowledging social justice issues tied to subsistence digging and expanding the definition of archaeology to embrace alternative and indigenous understandings of cultural heritage. Our project examines local, unscientific ways of understanding the past,...
Examining Collapse, Fragility, and Mycenaean Greece (2025)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Late Bronze Age (LBA) Greece, c. 1200 B.C.E. was a period of fiery transformation. During this final phase of the Bronze Age, the Mycenaean civilization was at its height. Greece was comprised of highly stratified palace-states and city-states, each with its own government structure. To understand the nature of the political decline experienced widely...
Exploring cultural transmission dynamics and chrono-cultural variability in the Aurignacian: Insights from the Italian Peninsula (2025)
This is an abstract from the "Variability within the Aurignacian: New Research Outlooks" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Aurignacian marks a critical phase in the expansion of Homo sapiens across Europe, defined by considerable internal variability. In Italy, this variability is evident as the earliest Aurignacian in the north appears contemporaneous with the Uluzzian in the south, highlighting distinct regional trajectories worth in-depth...
Exploring the Roman Occupation and Abandonment of Salemi, Sicily: The Cistern at Largo Cosenza (2015)
Excavations in Salemi, Sicily have discovered a large, bell-shaped cistern dating from the 1st century BC to the 1st century AD. This feature appears to be contemporaneous with a large mosaic floor identified nearby in 1893. The Roman cistern contained a wide variety of domestic debris attesting both the economic interconnectivity and independence of this site. This paper discusses the use and abandonment of the cistern, contextualizing the site within the broader, western Sicilian region. ...
First Case of Aurignacian in Central Iberia: The Assemblage of La Malia LU-V (Spain) (2025)
This is an abstract from the "Variability within the Aurignacian: New Research Outlooks" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Aurignacian shows an uneven distribution in the Iberian Peninsula. Protoaurignacian and Early Aurignacian industries are only clearly recorded in the northern regions, while south of the Ebro basin only late Aurignacian sites have been unquestionably documented, besides controversial cases. Yet, all these sites are located...
Ground Truth: How Residue and Other Paleobotanic Analyses Are Provoking New Interpretations on the Early Cypriot Neolithic (2025)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Our understanding of the early settlement of Cyprus has changed dramatically over the past few decades. We now know that people were on the island by at least the Epipaleolithic, and that the Neolithic, when Cyprus was permanently settled, is as old as on the mainland. Interdisciplinary research at the rare upland site of Ais Giorkis has revealed...
House Rules: Cultural Transmission and Egyptian Senet Games (2016)
Egypt has long been the focus of research on ancient board games, as it provides the longest history and greatest variety of games in the ancient world. Despite this, limitations on archaeological interpretation exist because of the unprovenanced nature of the material, as well as a focus on games from tombs of the nobility and pharaohs. Increasingly, evidence from within Egypt in the form of graffiti games on monuments and on ostraca, as well as Egyptian games found in the Levant where...
Indeterminate Early Upper Palaeolithic Assemblages as Signals of Variability during the Aurignacian in Iberia (2025)
This is an abstract from the "Variability within the Aurignacian: New Research Outlooks" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Aurignacian has long been associated with the emergence and expansion of modern humans across Europe. However, despite or because of its broad distribution, artefact assemblages attributed to the techno-complex show considerable variability at both regional and chronological scales. One current obstacle for understanding...
Introduction—Islands Connected or Unconnected: A Case Study of Malta (2017)
Islands gave birth to many cultural and economic adaptations in prehistory. After an introduction to the symposium, the paper will focus on the small archipelago of Malta, which demonstrates a particularly resilient trajectory of survival set against environmental and economic limitations, that lasted millennia. Compared with the neighbouring areas (Sicily, Sardinia, Italy) Maltese megalithic "Temple" culture presented an unparalleled c.1500 years of unbroken development, and this paper...
Investigating the Aurignacian as basic science in paleoanthropology (2025)
This is an abstract from the "Variability within the Aurignacian: New Research Outlooks" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Probably more so than any other technocomplex, research on the Aurignacian sensu lato has been a crucible of basic science in Paleolithic archaeology and paleoanthropology. Over the past century and a half, steady research on this industry has greatly refined our understanding of its defining features and, increasingly, its...