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Abstract:
In recent years, the great potential of the technological analysis of archaeological materials has emerged. This approach allows in fact to obtain an anthropological reading of the assemblages, going beyond typology. Its premises are based on observations made in the ethnoarchaeological field which have shown how learning processes form the basis of technical traditions and their transmission from generation to generation. So, the identification of the chaînes opératoires permits to investigate the social dimension of production and, indirectly, to achieve a better comprehension of the communities within which determined traditions are handed down.
After a short presentation of the assumptions on which the technological analysis of ceramics is based, and its application, some case studies will be presented, including in particular that of the Predynastic settlement and necropolis of Nag el-Qarmila (First Nile Cataract region, Egypt). The assemblage from this small peripheral site is made of ceramic commonly attributed on a typological basis to the so-called Naqada culture, the Nubian A-Group culture, a Shale Ware with roots in the Egyptian Western Desert and Upper Egypt, and a few hybrid items. The identification of three different technical traditions and the analysis of their interactions allowed to understand whether their variability was functional or sociological, and better delineate the modes of pottery production. And the obtained data led to propose a new interpretative model for the “mixed” assemblage characterizing this site.
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Institute of Mediterranean and Oriental Culture PAS
invites you to the hybrid conference
"Connecting Stucco in the Mediterranean (c. 3000BCE - 1200CE). Methodological approaches and the state of research."
The conference connects experts in the Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, and Islamic periods up to ca 1200 CE to address common questions that can help to see long-term phenomena and cross-cultural exchanges in the Mediterranean.
Programme circulation is available here.
Practical info:
• Dates: 16-18 May 2024
• Location: Bilkent University and Erimtan Museum, Ankara (Türkiye) and Zoom.
• Registration for online attendance is required: https://connectingstucco.com/2023/10/15/registration-form/
• For more info: https://connectingstucco.com/ and
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The Abstract:
The Early Bronze IV period (2600-2000 BCE) in the southern Levant has traditionally been described as a rural interlude between the collapse of the region’s first proto-urban centres in the EB II-III and their rejuvenation as a network of city-states in the early MBA. During this period, populations are thought to have dispersed into village communities that practiced simple forms of agro-pastoral farming. These approaches have overlooked the significance of several small but well-defended “enclosure” sites. Such sites were new foundations on the well-drained slopes of the Jordan Rift Valley escarpment, in areas better suited to the cultivation of upland tree crops than the flood-prone Jordan Valley floor.
The Khirbet Ghozlan Excavation Project proposes a model of horticultural specialisation that interprets enclosure sites as processing centres for upland fruit crops such as olive, and suggests they were enclosed to defend caches of seasonally-produced cash-crop commodities such as oil. This model explores how high-value liquid products helped promote a complex rural economy that reconfigured aspects of earlier urban production within smaller-scale exploitation of niche environmental zones. Ultimately, such forms of economic resilience may have underlain the rejuvenation of urban systems in the early 2nd millennium BC. This paper presents the results of the 2017, 2019 and 2022 excavations at the 0.4 ha enclosure site of Khirbet Um al-Ghozlan near Kufr Abil in the Wadi Rayyan. It examines the archaeobotanical, architectural, ceramic and lithic evidence for interpreting the site as a specialised olive oil production and storage site.