El presente trabajo aborda el estudio de la figura del servidor del ka durante el periodo cronológico del Reino Antiguo. Por medio de una amplia selección de fuentes se emprende la reconstrucción de las principales características que definieron este título ahondando en sus funciones específicas y en los contextos en los cuales las ejercieron. El carácter de la documentación nos ha impuesto un enfoque iconográfico y de análisis textual y arqueológico que combinado ha permitido obtener el máximo rendimiento posible a la evidencia disponible. Con ello, el servidor del ka se revela como una figura fundamental en la implementación de la religión funeraria del Reino Antiguo. Su papel principal fue efectuar el culto debido a los difuntos particulares garantizando su bienestar a través de la presentación de ofrendas. Pese a ser este su carácter primario, su posición como un miembro del grupo de parentesco del propietario le sitúa, además, como una parte activa en la gestión de las propiedades del difunto con el objetivo de garantizar los productos necesarios para el culto funerario. This book examines the figure of the ka-servant during the chronological period of the Old Kingdom (Third to Sixth Dynasties).
In a number of significant sites of the vast ancient pasturelands of the Old World, generations of wandering shepherds have left their testimony in the form of graffiti drafted on the rocks, sometimes in their tens of thousands, over a period of hundreds of years from ancient to modern times. The phenomenon is a conspicuous one, and has considerable significance for two reasons. On the one hand, the study of such pastoral graffiti may convey fresh ethnoarchaeological information as to the circumstances of the pastoral activities and the pastoral economy of the past. On the other hand, these signs, which can be often fully alphabetic as well as drawing upon ancient symbolic repertoires, can be of some aid in the interpretation of rock art as a whole genre of human expression, and projected back, in their significance and their modes of appearance, the earliest times of prehistory.
Este libro presenta la investigacio¿n sobre la explotacio¿n alimenticia y tecnolo¿gica de restos de artiodäctilos, Hippocamelus bisulcus (huemul) y Lama guanicoe (guanaco) provenientes de contextos arqueolo¿gicos heteroge¿neos del Holoceno medio y tardi¿o de Fuego-Patagonia en Chile. Anälisis especi¿ficos arqueozoolo¿gicos y tecnolo¿gicos entregan como resultado las diferentes etapas vinculadas al procesamiento de estas dos especies desde la desarticulacio¿n hasta la fracturacio¿n de huesos largos y falanges para la obtencio¿n de me¿dula como recurso alimenticio. Resultados fracturas de huesos largos permitieron vincular patrones de desbaste para la obtencio¿n de soportes y posteriores procesos tecnolo¿gicos para la confeccio¿n de una importante diversidad de artefactos o¿seos. Los anälisis permitieron determinar procesos tecnolo¿gicos para el tratamiento de los huesos, aplicados indistintamente a una u otra especie para la elaboracio¿n de la industria o¿sea, complementando de esta manera un estudio integral y la proposicio¿n de cadenas operativas globales de tratamiento por parte de grupos cazadores-recolectores en Fuego-Patagonia. This book presents research on the dietary and technological exploitation of the remains of artiodactyls, Hippocamelus bisulcus (huemul) and Lama guanicoe (guanaco) from the heterogeneous archaeological contexts of the Middle and Late Holocene in Chile. Specific archaeozoological and technological analyses demonstrate the different stages linked to the processing of these two species from disarticulation to the fracture of long bones and phalanges to obtain marrow as a food resource. Results of long bone fractures allowed us to link patterns of grinding to obtain supports and subsequent technological processes for the manufacture of a wide variety of bone artifacts. The analyses made it possible to determine technological processes for the treatment of bones, applied indifferently to one species or another for the elaboration of the bone industry, thus complementing a comprehensive study and the proposal of global operational treatment chains by hunter-gatherer groups in Fuego Patagonia.
Medieval cetacean (whales, dolphins, and porpoises) exploitation has frequently been connected to various medieval societies, including the Basques, Norse, Normans, and Flemish. Primarily for the ninth to the twelfth centuries AD, it has been argued that the symbolic significance of cetaceans surpassed their utilitarian value and that their consumption was restricted to the social elite. The extent to which active whaling was practised remains unclear. The identification of zooarchaeological cetacean fragments to the species level is hard and as a result they are frequently merely identified as 'whale', resulting in a poor understanding of human-cetacean interaction in the past. Zooarchaeological research as part of this study has revealed that medieval cetacean exploitation was widespread and especially the harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena), common bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus), and the North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis) were frequently targeted. The exploitation additionally seems to have often been restricted to the social elite.
The Resilience of the Roman Empire discusses the relationship between population and regional development in the Roman world from the perspective of archaeology. By adapting a comparative approach, the focus of the volume lies on exploring the various ways in which regional communities actively responded to population growth or decline in order to keep going on the land available to them. The starting point of the theoretical framework for the case studies is the agricultural intensification models developed by Thomas Malthus and Ester Boserup. In order to advance the debate on the validity of these models for identifying the societal and economic pathways of the Roman world, the contributors incorporate the concepts of resilience and diversity into their approach, and shift attention from the longue-durée to how people managed to sustain themselves over shorter periods of time. The aim of the volume is not to discard the theories of Malthus and Boserup, but rather to deconstruct overly strict Malthusian or Boserupian scenarios, and as such introduce novel and more layered ways of thinking by exploring resilience and variability in human responses to population growth/decline in the Roman world.
How did the 'Fall of the Roman Empire' change social and economic networks in eastern Gaul, and how did new 'barbarian' political frontiers shape those changes? Synthesising historical and archaeological approaches, this interdisciplinary study combines text-based prosopography with distribution analysis of ceramics and 'pseudo-imperial' coins in Burgundy and beyond. The study reveals that the frontiers of the second Burgundian kingdom (5th-6th centuries) curtailed traditional movements along one of Europe's key riverine corridors and reshaped, temporarily, the mental geographies imagined by local Gallo-Romans, until Merovingian princes conquered the region. The book includes the most thorough assessment to date of the distribution of Burgundian coins found across France. Illuminating the Burgundian kingdom's internal dynamics and its foreign relations, this assessment revises current understandings of the circulation of gold money across sixth-century Gaul, correcting over-generalisations that can obscure the importance of political frontiers at the end of antiquity.
This study examines the origins of complex society in the Maya Lowlands during the Middle Preclassic period. Excavations at Cahal Pech - a mid-sized Maya settlement in the Belize River Valley - revealed complex architectural sequences over a 600-year developmental period, which spans the time of the earliest permanent villages in the area and the emergence of institutionalized hierarchy characteristic of later Maya civilization. The author uses spatial analysis to investigate artifact distribution patterns related to architectural change and marshals a diverse dataset to support a network framework for understanding developing complexity. This new theoretical framing expands on studies of long-distance exchange to examine how households and communities could gain advantage by participating in interaction networks, and how the positioning of some entities in networks could have produced socioeconomic inequalities that became entrenched through time.
This book is the first systematic collection and discussion of dwellings in the Umayyad 'cities' (mad¿¿in) and 'palaces' (qü¿r) of Bil¿d al-Sh¿m. Giuseppe Labisi offers an overview of the apartments within and identifies the architectural models that inspired Umayyad dwellings. This study also allows the precise identification of the origin of pre-Islamic dwelling models and their reinterpretation in Umayyad domestic architecture. Through classification, the author has been able to group the apartments of qü¿r chronologically by the reigns of the Umayyad caliphs. The identification of the dictates of Islamic domestic tradition and the characteristics of early Islamic Arabia and Late Antique houses offer original insight and allow us to situate the Umayyad residences of Bil¿d al-Sh¿m in their wider cultural context. Additionally, Umayyad dwellings have been classified and presented in a rich catalogue as an appendix within the text.
En este libro se presentan y discuten resultados de estudios sobre diagénesis ósea en restos humanos y de mamíferos grandes, recuperados en una región subtropical del sur de Sudamérica: el centro-este de Argentina. Tales estudios se llevaron a cabo desde la perspectiva teórico-metodológica de la tafonomía regional, cuyo objetivo es el reconocimiento de espacios dentro de los cuales hay mayores probabilidades de depositación, enterramiento y preservación de huesos. En este marco, un objetivo central fue especificar las condiciones que producen tasas variables de destrucción del registro óseo, así como identificar áreas con potencial de preservación diferencial de huesos. Para ello, se construyeron modelos espaciales predictivos basados en las propiedades de los suelos, mediante el uso de Sistemas de Información Geográfica (SIG). Estos modelos fueron luego contrastados con información empírica obtenida de análisis específicos realizados sobre huesos recuperados en sitios arqueológicos del área.This book presents and discusses the results of studies on bone diagenesis in human and large mammal remains, recovered in a subtropical region of southern South America: the central-eastern area of Argentina.
The domestication of the wild boar and the emergence of the domestic pig are a fundamental aspect of the Neolithic and a key moment in human history. This book represents the most comprehensive zooarchaeological study to date of the origins and evolution of the domestication of the pig in the Italian peninsula, from a wide regional scale and a diachronic perspective. Some key archaeological questions addressed concern how and when the process of pig domestication commenced in Italy, how it evolved, and how it compares with the wider European and Middle Eastern scenarios. Through the collection of mainly biometrical data from several Italian prehistoric sites, this book explores changes in pig management through time, from the Upper Palaeolithic to the Bronze Age. The results are articulated with both historical changes in Italian societies and evidence from other areas, to achieve a comprehensive understanding of domestication.
At Lamanai and Ka'kabish, two Precolumbian Maya centres in north-western Belize, archaeologists have researched the environment, architecture, and long-term occupation of the civic-ceremonial centres. The sites' rural or hinterland populations, however, which were presumably critical to the support of the centres, have not been studied. These populations are key to an understanding of the sites' long histories, which survived the Maya collapse (AD 600-900), flourished during the transition to the Postclassic period (AD 900-1500), and continued to be a focus of settlement in the Spanish Colonial period (AD 1521-1708). By reconstructing the spatial and temporal dynamics of Ka'kabish, Lamanai, and the inter-site settlement zone, and comparing them to environmental evidence from pollen cores collected in the New River Lagoon, this study sheds much-needed light on the processes that promoted the continuity in evidence in this region.
During three millennia of the Neolithic in southeastern Europe important changes in the social organisation, everyday practices and beliefs formed a diverse and rich cultural landscape expressed in settlement patterns, architecture and numerous aspects of material culture. A growing body of data uncovered over the last few decades shows striking variety in settlement organisation, from single-layered, short-lived sites to long-lived tell settlements located in different geographical settings. In addition, small sites (e.g. 0.5 ha) and extended settlements also appear in most sub-regions. This volume brings together new data on the Neolithic of southeastern Europe, emphasising the organisation and use of space within the regions of Northern Greece, the Balkan hinterland and north-western Turkey. To this end, individual chapters focus either on the intra-site organisation of recently excavated settlements or provide an up-to-date synthesis on the regional level, combining old and new data.
The amphorae dating from the Submycenaean to the end of the Protogeometric period, brought to light in the Kerameikos cemetery, represent a high quality sample of Athenian output of the shape; this is due to their belonging to intact, archaeologically significant contexts. These vessels, usually employed as cinerary urns in the 'trench-and-hole' tombs, can be found also as grave goods or among the debris of the pyre offerings. The amphorae in this volume are re-examined with the help of new drawings and by adopting the 'envelope' method for their comparison. It has thus proven possible to recognise several typological groups, and to collect information about the process of standardisation of the vases and the organisation of the production process. Moreover, analytical reviews of the burials containing the amphorae and of the physical placing of the grave and pyre goods within the tomb shed new light on the cremation rite performed and on the connections between Athens and other sites employing a similar ritual. Undertaken with the assistance of the Institute for Aegean Prehistory.
Casalmoro lies along the Chiese river in the province of Mantua, in the northern Po Plain, and it represents the biggest known settlement area for Final Bronze Age Italy. This was one of the new settlements founded in the twelfth century BC north of the Po, in the region between eastern Lombardy and Veneto, after the crisis of the Terramare culture. This work provides a typological analysis and a chronological definition of the finds, and presents a significant amount of pottery and bronze artefacts for the first time. It then proposes a framing of Casalmoro in its regional context and in relation to other areas of the Italian Peninsula at the beginning of the Final Bronze Age. This settlement area constitutes an important context both for chronological aspects and to understand the processes leading to the birth of the proto-urban centres at the dawn of the Iron Age.
This volume proposes a theoretical and methodological framework for the study of "yellow" coffins, which is one of the most extensive corpus of funerary objects from Ancient Egypt, and the most complex in terms of decoration. It presents a synthetic view on Egyptian coffin decoration during the II millennium B.C. together with in-depth examination of a sample of nine previously unpublished burial assemblages. Dating from the 21st-22nd Dynasties, these objects were chosen to showcase the stages of development in coffin decoration detected in the "yellow" corpus, as well as variations in style and layout. A new formal typology of this corpus is proposed, allowing a better understanding of the dynamics of coffin decoration in Theban workshops.
Este libro es un estudio sobre la navegación prehispánica y los paisajes culturales marítimos en Mesoamérica. La autora presenta un estudio de caso para explicar la conectividad espacial entre el Altiplano Central y la costa del Pacífico a lo largo del río Balsas, antes y después de la llegada de los españoles. A través de un enfoque interdisciplinario que integra la arqueología marítima, la arqueología del paisaje, la etnohistoria y las ciencias de la información geográfica, propone un marco teórico-metodológico para reconstruir el transporte prehispánico y los sistemas de conectividad por vías acuáticas. El objetivo del trabajo es establecer la relevancia del estudio de la navegación prehispánica como parte del proceso de construcción de paisajes culturales marítimos en Mesoamérica. Se subraya el papel de la navegación para explicar el desarrollo de la complejidad social, los mecanismos de intercambio interregional, la cohesión de unidades regionales y algunos aspectos de la cosmovisión indígena vinculados a la concepción del entorno natural.This book is a study on prehispanic navigation and the maritime cultural landscapes in Mesoamerica, using an interdisciplinary approach that integrates maritime archaeology, landscape archaeology, ethnohistory, and geographic information sciences.
Este trabajo pretende ser una aproximación práctica al sistema portuario de Almería a través del estudio de su paisaje cultural marítimo. De esta forma, se identificarán los elementos de este paisaje que habrían pertenecido al sistema portuario de Almería durante la Alta Edad Media. Mediante el análisis de un mosaico de fuentes, se han podido clasificar en tres bases de datos principales: elementos antrópicos emergidos, elementos antrópicos subacuáticos y elementos naturales, así como identificar su función y su rol en este sistema portuario. El proyecto incluye el análisis espacial de los mismos, desarrollado a través de sistemas de información geográfica (GIS).Al-Ándalus desde el mar studies the port system of Almeria in early medieval times. By analysing a mosaic of sources, it has been possible to classify the data as well as identify its function and its role in this port system. The project includes in-depth spatial analysis using geographic information systems (GIS).
This book represents research presented at the 1st International Conference on Classical Antiquities, held in Rome from 15th to 17th May, 2019 at the 'Tor Vergata' University. The conference focused on the ancient Mediterranean between the 6th century BC and the 7th century AD, stimulating dialogue across different disciplines -from ancient history to medieval literature and archaeology - producing innovative research, original methodologies, and comparative studies. Questo libro contiene i risultati del I Convegno Internazionale di Antichità Classiche, svoltosi a Roma il 15/17 maggio 2019 presso l'Università degli Studi di Roma "Tor Vergata". L'obiettivo della conferenza è stato quello di stimolare un dialogo internazionale e interdisciplinare fra i vari settori dell'antichistica, al fine di confrontare fra loro dati e metodologie afferenti a discipline diverse. L'attenzione degli studiosi si è concentrata nel bacino del Mediterraneo Antico, in un arco cronologico compreso fra il VI sec. a.C. e il VII sec. d.C.
This book presents findings on Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Nuragic settlement dynamics in two selected areas of the east coast of Sardinia, placing them in a wider context of Nuragic settlement in Sardinia and Central Mediterranean prehistory and protohistory. The research addresses the use of coastline, investigates the relationship between domestic and ritual sites, and provides a chronology of settlement. These issues are analysed using data gathered through a series of landscape surveys conducted in both study areas of the east coast of Sardinia, as well as Geographical Information Systems (GIS). The results demonstrate significant differences between the Nuragic settlement patterns, architecture, and distribution of ritual sites in different areas of the east coast, emphasising the need to study the Bronze Age and Early Iron Age settlement dynamics in Sardinia in their local context.
This research analyzes the use of space by hunter-gatherers during the Archaic Period in the Southern Puna of Argentina (Antofagasta de la Sierra, province of Catamarca, 2500 and 8500 years BP).
By conducting a study of archaeology and the built environment within an East African context, this monograph aims to actively promote the conservation of culturally important and endangered environments, and to use archaeology to address fundamental questions of identity within the process of colonialism in East Africa in the nineteenth century. Through a comparison of material remains the study places an emphasis upon Tanzania with comparative analyses drawn from Kenya and in so doing it is proposed that methods of colonial subjugation through landscape and seascape use can be better understood. The work aims to offer an essential insight into the origins of contemporary East African identities and address questions of ideological intent versus practice on the part of colonial powers. By concentrating primarily upon the Tanzanian towns of Tanga, Pangani, Bagamoyo, Dar es Salaam, Chole, Kilwa Kivinje and comparing these to the Kenyan town of Mombasa it is intended that a better understanding of the nineteenth-century colonial experience and its legacy can be achieved. The research adopts a landscape approach, which takes as its lead the interaction between humans and the non-human environment, as well as assessing the development of architecture and town morphology. The study furthers the development of archaeology within the maritime sphere by approaching the physical remains of maritime peoples with regard to their position in the wider landscape and seascape. It also addresses the implications of colonial involvements in the activities of indigenous peoples and the global implications of trade and development of East African states and identities. From a theoretical perspective this research develops further the growing awareness of the important relationship between those periods and practices considered 'historical' and those 'archaeological'. By embracing the multivocality of both and looking more deeply at the context and environment in which different sources are manufactured, the project not only develops further understandings of the East African colonial periods but also adds to the growing development of interdisciplinerary archaeo-historic research.
This volume undertakes to research the major issues regarding the early agricultural occupations in Martinique. These include the dating of the occupations, the environment, the ways of managing the island area, the spatial organization of the village, the pottery, and the lithic tool kit. The author sets out to reintegrate all the information collected into the regional context in order to identify divergences and recurrences. The ultimate goal was to be in a position to discuss the nature of the societal development mechanisms underlying the beginning of the formative cultures in the Antilles. The program began from the existing knowledge on the eleven early Saladoid deposits already inventoried in Martinique and a great amount of fieldwork (the sites at Fond-Brûlé, Moulin l'Etang, Anse Couleuvre, and particularly in Vivé).
This study examines patterns of pottery production and consumption at the Maya city centre of Lamanai during the Terminal Classic to Early Postclassic period (A.D.800-A.D.1250). The central focus is on pottery that was deposited in the central precinct as part of ritual and ceremonial activities and events. Through an analytical framework that involves the detailed examination of stylistic and technological variation within the ceramic assemblage, as well as ceramic depositional patterns and the wider cultural and environmental setting within which pottery was manufactured, used and deposited, this study investigates the kinds of factors that contributed to ceramic change during this period of cultural transition. Chapter 2 presents a summary of previous research on the Terminal Classic to Postclassic period, focussing on the ways in which perceptions have changed as the level of knowledge of Maya cultural patterns during this time period has expanded. In Chapter 3 the focus narrows to current characterizations of ceramic economic patterns during the Classic and Postclassic periods. Chapter 4 offers a methodology for the analysis and interpretation of Maya ceramics that attempts to overcome the limitations of conventional approaches. Chapter 5 presents the geological and environmental setting of ceramic production on both the local and regional levels. Chapter 6 provides the archaeological contexts of the whole and reconstructed vessels and sherd assemblages included in the study. Chapters 7 to 10 present and discuss the results of the physical analyses of the pottery, highlighting temporal trends in their stylistic and technological characteristics. In Chapter 11, all of the lines of evidence presented and discussed in the preceding chapters are broughttogether and community level patterns of ceramic production and consumption at Lamanai are reconstructed for the time period under investigation.
This study reconstructs the socio-economic and technological aspects of a marble workshop from the Chalcolithic site of Kulaksýzlar in western Anatolia. A comprehensive analysis of material remains from the surface surveys carried out at this site has been utilized, along with the results of replication experiments and ethnographic evidence, to deal with several archaeological and theoretical considerations, including: Determining how Kulaksýzlar marble working was organized and what the economic, social, and symbolic relations of production were; discussing what this specialized craft activity implies for our understanding of the Chalcolithic western Anatolian culture and society; and demonstrating one way that specialized craft activity may have developed independently in pre-urban times. The available archaeological evidence presented an opportunity to outline a model of how pre-urban specialization occurred at Kulaksýzlar in western Anatolia before the Bronze Age.
The main goal of this research is to know the exploitation of the faunal diversity during the Holocene in the Horn of Africa, especially in the arid plain of Gobaad in Djibouti and in the mountainous region of Wolayta in Ethiopia. For that purpose, the author has studied faunal collections (more than 70 000 remains and 34 species) from five archaeological sites occupied from the 5th millennium BC to the 1st millennium AD. Both these regions offer very different natural environments, in which the presenceof specialized societies of hunter-gatherers is evident. By integrating the findings of this research with data from the neighbouring countries, and by comparing them with all archaeological data, it appears that the diffusion of farming came from acculturation more than migration. The environmental and cultural diversity of the Horn of Africa encouraged the emergence of numerous patterns for the later adoption of pastoralism.
Volume 53 in the series of Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology focuses on the old sultanate of Darfur, in the westen part of modern Sudan, and, in particular its stone architecture from c. AD 1000-1750 (before its fall to the forces of European colonialism). Proper archaeological work has yet to begin in Darfur and a full study of the known physical evidence, with the associated traditions, has yet to be completed. This volume presents a study of the physical and linguistic evidence, and oral traditions that take regional contexts into account, and therefore provides a framework for archaeological investigation. The existing literature is examined in depth to separate fact from fiction, and to suggest the most promising avenues for further research.
This book includes papers from the proceedings of the Manchester Conference on Archaeology and Religion held at Ashburne Hall, The University of Manchester, in September 2002.
This study, the result of excavations stretching back to 1975, looks at the process of village formation during the second holocene era at Dhars Tichitt and Oualata in Mauritania, which make up the first large scale villagisation in the Sahara region.
Tell el-Hayyat, the focus of this volume, is situated in the Jordan Rift Valley approximately two kilometres east of the Jordan River on the first terrace above the present floodplain. This work details the authors' investigations of agrarian economy andecology as they illuminate the roles of rural communities in the larger context of the first urbanized civilizations. The study explores the ways in which small farming villages like Tell el-Hayyat contributed and responded to the rise and fall of Bronze Age town life in the southern Levant. A rural perspective is particularly appropriate for this region amid its long legacy of sedentary agriculture, dynamic urban-rural relations, and their ecological consequences.
This volume presents a zooarchaeological study of eleven Gallo-Roman bone assemblages retrieved over the past fifteen years from rescue excavations in Paris. The Roman occupation of 'Lutecia' is divided into four periods (1st c. BC - 4th c AD). The limits of the antique city on the left bank of the Seine are situated within the 5th and 6th districts of today's city of Paris. Only a restricted area of the right bank is occupied. Two Necropolises are known and are located at the south and south east of these limits. Until now, no Iron-age occupation has been found under the Roman city. Eight of the studied assemblages are habitat contexts, two are located in dump areas of the city, and the last specialized in ceramic production. The finds help to improve our understanding of Gallo-Roman society while emphasizing the influence of the conquest on native peoples. Considerable progress has been made towards a more comprehensive understanding of the provisioning of urban contexts, the hierarchy of food and the status of consumers. In addition, light is shed on some aspects of butchery and meat redistribution and the post-conquest orientation of agriculture. This work increases the resolution of zooarchaeology in the analysis of antique societies and these advances will further increase the interest of classical archaeology in the collection and study of animal bones.
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