Archaeological data now show that relatively intense human adaptations to coastal environments developed much earlier than once believed—more than 125,000 years ago. With our oceans and marine ...fisheries currently in a state of crisis, coastal archaeological sites contain a wealth of data that can shed light on the history of human exploitation of marine ecosystems. In eleven case studies from the Americas, Pacific Islands, North Sea, Caribbean, Europe, and Africa, leading researchers working in coastal areas around the world cover diverse marine ecosystems, reaching into deep history to discover how humans interacted with and impacted these aquatic environments and shedding new light on our understanding of contemporary environmental problems.
Archaeology impacts the lives of indigenous, local, or descendant communities. Yet often these groups have little input to archaeological research, and its results remain inaccessible. As ...archaeologists consider the consequences and benefits of research, the skills, methodologies, and practices required of them will differ dramatically from those of past decades. As an archaeologist and a Native American, Sonya Atalay has investigated the rewards and complex challenges of conducting research in partnership with indigenous and local communities. In Community-Based Archaeology, she outlines the principles of community-based participatory research and demonstrates how CBPR can be effectively applied to archaeology. Drawing on her own experiences with research projects in North America and the Near East, Atalay provides theoretical discussions along with practical examples of establishing and developing collaborative relationships and sharing results. This book will contribute to building an archaeology that is engaged, ethical, relevant, and sustainable.
The immense outpouring of archaeological discoveries this past century has shed new light on ancient East Asia, and China in particular. Yet in concert with this development another, more troubling, ...trend has likewise gained momentum: the looting of cultural heritage and the sale of unprovenienced antiquities. Scholars face difficult questions, from the ethics of working with objects of unknown provenance, to the methodological problems inherent in their research. The goal of this Element is to encourage scholars to critically examine their relationships to their sources and reflect upon the impact of their research. The three essays in this Element present a range of disciplinary perspectives, focusing on systemic issues and the nuances of method versus ethics, with a case study of the so-called 'Han board' MSS given as a specific illustration. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.
In Incidental Archaeologists, Bonnie Effros examines the archaeological contributions of nineteenth-century French military officers, who, raised on classical accounts of warfare and often trained as ...cartographers, developed an interest in the Roman remains they encountered when commissioned in the colony of Algeria. By linking the study of the Roman past to French triumphant narratives of the conquest and occupation of the Maghreb, Effros demonstrates how Roman archaeology in the forty years following the conquest of the Ottoman Regencies of Algiers and Constantine in the 1830s helped lay the groundwork for the creation of a new identity for French military and civilian settlers. Effros uses France's violent colonial war, its efforts to document the ancient Roman past, and its brutal treatment of the region's Arab and Berber inhabitants to underline the close entanglement of knowledge production with European imperialism. Significantly, Incidental Archaeologists shows how the French experience in Algeria contributed to the professionalization of archaeology in metropolitan France. Effros demonstrates how the archaeological expeditions undertaken by the French in Algeria and the documentation they collected of ancient Roman military accomplishments reflected French confidence that they would learn from Rome's technological accomplishments and succeed, where the Romans had failed, in mastering the region.
By examining the stunning stone buildings and dynamic spaces of the royal estate of Chinchero, Nair brings to light the rich complexity of Inca architecture. This investigation ranges from the ...paradigms of Inca scholarship and a summary of Inca cultural practices to the key events of Topa Inca's reign and the many individual elements of Chinchero's extraordinary built environment. What emerges are the subtle, often sophisticated ways in which the Inca manipulated space and architecture in order to impose their authority, identity, and agenda. The remains of grand buildings, as well as a series of deft architectural gestures in the landscape, reveal the unique places that were created within the royal estate and how one space deeply informed the other. These dynamic settings created private places for an aging ruler to spend time with a preferred wife and son, while also providing impressive spaces for imperial theatrics that reiterated the power of Topa Inca, the choice of his preferred heir, and the ruler's close relationship with sacred forces. This careful study of architectural details also exposes several false paradigms that have profoundly misguided how we understand Inca architecture, including the belief that it ended with the arrival of Spaniards in the Andes. Instead, Nair reveals how, amidst the entanglement and violence of the European encounter, an indigenous town emerged that was rooted in Inca ways of understanding space, place, and architecture and that paid homage to a landscape that defined home for Topa Inca.
Western visitors at the Blätterhöhle Baales, Michael; Heuschen, Wolfgang; Kehl, Martin ...
PloS one,
05/2023, Letnik:
18, Številka:
5
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Until now, it was considered certain that the last reindeer hunters of the Ahrensburgian (tanged point groups) existed exclusively in northwestern Central Europe during the Younger Dryas Cold Period ...(~ Greenland Stadial 1). The excavations carried out since 2006 on the forecourt (Vorplatz) of the small Blätterhöhle in Hagen on the northern edge of the Sauerland uplands of southern Westphalia (North Rhine-Westphalia, western Germany) have now changed this view. Beneath a surprisingly extensive sequence of Mesolithic find horizons, Pleistocene sediments could be reached whose excavations yielded a Final Palaeolithic lithic ensemble of the Younger Dryas, unusual for the region and beyond. It is characterised by numerous backed lithic projectile points of high variability. Comparisons suggest a typological-technological connection with the Western European Laborian / Late Laborian. Neither in the nearer nor in the wider surroundings has a comparable lithic find ensemble been found so far. In addition, there is a lack of clear evidence for the reindeer in the fauna. Surprisingly, the vast majority of radiocarbon dates of bones and charcoals from the investigated archaeological horizon of the Final Pleistocene proved to be significantly older than expected from their stratigraphic position. This phenomenon has not yet been clarified.
Current archaeological practices are now fully immersed in the
computing and digital era. This process, common to all sciences, is
leading to an important methodological renewal of the discipline,
...materialising in the emergence of new lines of research with a
promising future, and computational methods are playing a key role
in this panorama. Remote sensing studies, the use of drones, LiDAR
data, virtual reconstructions or modern statistical simulation
techniques are, amongst others, research fields that require the
use of computing science.
Arqueología computacional del territorio aims to
describe some of the current analytical approaches to model past
cultural landscapes, their evolution, and their relationship with
the human societies that inhabited them. To this end, the use of
Geographic Information Systems and spatial statistics is proposed,
using territorial and landscape archaeology as a theoretical
framework.
The research that follows is articulated around the use of
open-source software and, specifically, R Statistics, a programming
language that is gradually becoming one of the most important tools
in archaeological research. Its use allows for transparent,
accessible, and reproducible research while promoting
interdisciplinarity and a real democratization of scientific
knowledge.
La Arqueología se encuentra hoy plenamente inserta en la era
informática y digital. Este proceso, común al conjunto de las
Ciencias, está suponiendo una importante renovación metodológica de
la disciplina, hecho que se materializa en el surgimiento de nuevas
líneas de investigación con prometedor futuro.
Los métodos de computación juegan en este panorama un papel
clave. Estudios de teledetección a partir de imágenes satelitales,
uso de drones, datos LiDAR, reconstrucciones virtuales o modernas
técnicas de simulación estadística son, entre otros, campos de
investigación que requieren el uso de la informática.
Este trabajo tiene por objetivo describir aproximaciones
analíticas para modelizar y estudiar paisajes culturales
pretéritos, su evolución y relación con las sociedades humanas del
pasado. Para ello, se propone el uso de Sistemas de Información
Geográfica y la estadística espacial, utilizando como marco teórico
la arqueología del territorio y del paisaje.
Las investigaciones que siguen se articulan en torno al uso de
software de código abierto y, en concreto, R Statistics ,
un lenguaje de programación que paulatinamente se está convirtiendo
en una de las herramientas más importantes en la investigación
arqueológica actual. Su uso permite realizar investigaciones
transparentes, accesibles y reproducibles, al tiempo que promueve
la interdisciplinariedad y una democratización real del
conocimiento científico.
Le corpus étudié dans cet ouvrage forme un ensemble de quatre cents figurines en terre cuite trouvées à la fin du xixe s. sur les rives du lac salé de Larnaca, au sud-est de Chypre. À partir du ...dépouillement des archives de l’époque, l’auteure reconstitue un catalogue complet et détaillé des objets dont elle précise l’origine. Ces représentations, largement dominées par la figure d’une femme trônant coiffée d’un haut calathos végétal, mettent en lumière tous les aspects de l’artisanat de l’argile dans le milieu chypro-phénicien, des savoir-faire et de leur transmission, de l’organisation du travail à l’intérieur des ateliers. Elles révèlent aussi les procédés techniques ingénieux dont usaient les Kitiens. L’étude s’intéresse en détail aux modalités d’utilisation et d’intégration des types iconographiques en contextes rituels. Elle met encore plus en évidence la question de la présence d’Aphrodite et d’Artémis dans les cultes périurbains, mais aussi de dieux d’origine phénicienne ou égyptienne comme Astarté, Umm, Eshmoun-Melqart et Bès. L’analyse des liens entre l’environnement marin et le caractère des divinités permet à l’auteure de mettre en lumière la dimension culturelle et rituelle liée au sel et à la mer dans le paysage religieux chypriote, phénicien et levantin. L’ensemble de l’étude révèle, en somme, l’importance historique du développement des cultes dans le royaume de Kition au ive s. av. J.-C.
