The late Minoan IB Marine Style

The Marine Style motifs are examined and evidence suggests the possibility of dividing the octopus and argonaut into three types, A, B, and C. Types A and B are stylistic divisions but Type C is possibly also chronologically later. The origins of the Marine Style and its history in LMII are also discussed and a comparison is made with the Marine representations in other media. An examination of the shapes on which the Marine Style appears shows that the pear rhyton was possibly introduced in LMIB specifically for decoration in this Style, a fact which gives rise to the idea that Marine Style vessels were for ritual use. Shapes are added to the known repertoire after an examination of the sherds from Sir Arthur Evan's old excavations at the Palace of Knossos. Several different painters of the Marine Style are identified and it is postulated that a central workshop existed at Knossos. It is suggested that Marine Style vases were produced particularly for use in shrines and that production was not continuous but only on demand. This lengthens the period of time in which the small corpus of Marine Style vases was produced but it is unlikely that production continued during the whole of the LMIB period. A discussion of the fabric and decoration of Marine Style vases on the Mainland shows that many were produced locally by Mycenaeans copying Minoan ideas or by itinerant Minoan potters. Most of the vases and sherds are located in the Peloponnese (although there are isolated examples from Athens, Thebes and Lefkandi) and have been found in tombs.<p

Girikihaciyan: A Halafian Site in Southeastern Turkey

This report presents the results of excavations undertaken at the site of Girikihaciyan in southeastern Turkey during 1968 and 1970 by the Joint Prehistoric Project, Istanbul-Chicago under the overal direction of Professor Halet Cambel, University of Istanbul, and Professor Robert J. Braidwood, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago.Series: Monographs 3

II Workshop on Late Neolithic Ceramics in Ancient Mesopotamia : pottery in context

Aquest volum és el resultat del workshop celebrat per investigadors i especialistes en ceràmiques del Pròxim Orient que va tenir lloc al MAC-Empúries l'octubre de 2015. Els articles compilats en el llibre han estat escrits per 31 investigadors de 13 nacionalitats diferents i abasten temàtiques diverses al voltant de la producció ceràmica: matèries primeres, tècniques, analítiques, etc. Pel que fa al context geogràfic, els estudis se centren a Turquia, Siria, Irak, Jordània, Israel i Palestina, els països en que va aparèixer la ceràmica per primera vegada en l'àrea mediterrània, i on va experimentar un ràpid procés de transformació morfotipològic i tecnològic

Medieval and late pottery. In: Engl, R, 'Where there's muck there's money: the excavation of Medieval and Post-Medieval Middens and associated tenement at Advocate's Close, Edinburgh'. Scottish Archaeology Internet Report 67

In 2012 excavation works undertaken along the western frontage of Advocate's Close, Edinburgh revealed the remains of a 16th-century tenement, owned in turn by the Cants, Hamiltons and Raes, all burgesses or merchants of the city. The tenement remains consisted of wall foundations, cellar floor surfaces and other substantial architectural features including a turnpike stair and corbelled roof. The tenement was demolished and back-filled with rubble during the late 19th century, after which it was replaced by a formal, terraced garden. The excavations within this area revealed a series of associated midden deposits, pits and structural features located to the immediate rear of the tenement. These deposits have provided a stratified sequence of occupation ranging from the initial settlement of Edinburgh's Old Town in the 12th/13th century to the clearing and landscaping of the tenement area in the late 19th century. A large artefactual assemblage was recovered from the midden deposits, including important animal and fish bone, glass, clay pipe, tile and ceramic evidence. The ceramic assemblage included substantial amounts of imported material from England and the Continent. The consumption patterns revealed by the artefactual and ecofactual evidence appear to directly reflect the changing fortunes of post-medieval Edinburgh. The high status of many of the Close's inhabitants is illustrated throughout the expansion of the 16th and 17th centuries, as is the decline undergone during the later 17th and early 18th centuries. The stratified midden deposits at Advocate's Close reveal the changing attitudes of the Old Town inhabitants towards the issue of midden management and general waste disposal, which in turn reflects the development and growth taking place in Edinburgh during the late 16th to 19th centuries. During this period the denizens of Edinburgh moved from pursuing a peri-urban system of agriculture, in which midden material was stored, to one in which a decreasing involvement with agriculture led to a shift in favour of rapid disposal

Medieval and late pottery. In: Engl, R, 'Where there's muck there's money: the excavation of Medieval and Post-Medieval Middens and associated tenement at Advocate's Close, Edinburgh'. Scottish Archaeology Internet Report 67

In 2012 excavation works undertaken along the western frontage of Advocate's Close, Edinburgh revealed the remains of a 16th-century tenement, owned in turn by the Cants, Hamiltons and Raes, all burgesses or merchants of the city. The tenement remains consisted of wall foundations, cellar floor surfaces and other substantial architectural features including a turnpike stair and corbelled roof. The tenement was demolished and back-filled with rubble during the late 19th century, after which it was replaced by a formal, terraced garden. The excavations within this area revealed a series of associated midden deposits, pits and structural features located to the immediate rear of the tenement. These deposits have provided a stratified sequence of occupation ranging from the initial settlement of Edinburgh's Old Town in the 12th/13th century to the clearing and landscaping of the tenement area in the late 19th century. A large artefactual assemblage was recovered from the midden deposits, including important animal and fish bone, glass, clay pipe, tile and ceramic evidence. The ceramic assemblage included substantial amounts of imported material from England and the Continent. The consumption patterns revealed by the artefactual and ecofactual evidence appear to directly reflect the changing fortunes of post-medieval Edinburgh. The high status of many of the Close's inhabitants is illustrated throughout the expansion of the 16th and 17th centuries, as is the decline undergone during the later 17th and early 18th centuries. The stratified midden deposits at Advocate's Close reveal the changing attitudes of the Old Town inhabitants towards the issue of midden management and general waste disposal, which in turn reflects the development and growth taking place in Edinburgh during the late 16th to 19th centuries. During this period the denizens of Edinburgh moved from pursuing a peri-urban system of agriculture, in which midden material was stored, to one in which a decreasing involvement with agriculture led to a shift in favour of rapid disposal

The Thundercloud site (FbNp-25) : an analysis of a multi-component northern plains site and the role of geoarchaeology in site interpretation

The Thundercloud site is situated on the Northern Plains near the city of Saskatoon in Wanuskewin Heritage Park. The site is a multi-component processing / habitation site containing at least eleven components. These components range in age from the period of European contact to approximately 4,000 years before present. The site was chosen for the location of the University of Saskatchewan's archaeological field school for a period of six years between 1993 to 1998. The major focus of this thesis project was to determine the cultural affiliation and cultural chronology for the occupations present at the site with an emphasis on the McKean Complex occupations. However, it was discovered during excavation that the natural stratigraphy of the site was extremely complex because of the natural and cultural site formation processes that affected the site during occupation prior to burial, and post-depositional. Soil horizons were compressed as well as degraded and determining where one occupation ended and another began often could not be easily discerned. Therefore, it was necessary to determine the types of site formation processes that affected the site and to recognize physical evidence of these processes. With this knowledge it was possible to identify previously unnoticed individual occupations within the larger natural soil horizons. The importance of detailed geoarchaeological studies at these types of sites is emphasized through this research

Community Formation in the Spanish Colonial Borderlands: San José de las Huertas, New Mexico

This work is centered on the archaeological site of San José de las Huertas, occupied from 1765-1826 and excavated in 2002-2004. In my historical study of this 18th-century village, I draw upon archaeological evidence, archived documents, and oral historical accounts in order to explore processes of community formation and maintenance as they are revealed through the reciprocal relationship of structure and agency, otherwise known as structuration. Since the performance of social identity is a consequence of community creation, its investigation provides one means through which structuration may be accessed. Through the analysis and integration of the various lines of information, my research contributes to our understanding of the complex relationships that connect objects and places to people and community. Located in the northern Borderlands of New Spain, Las Huertas was one of several outpost communities established in the mid-1700s to deter American Indian raids on the capital and principal settlements of New Mexico. As a buffer settlement, the village was founded by people with diverse and complex personal histories. The landless colonists who established the community were comprised of families who considered themselves to be culturally Spanish as well as those who were labeled as genizaros (war captives taken from various native groups who were then placed as servants in the homes of Spanish settlers and missionaries). As such, the crafting of a local community and its accompanying identity amidst a diverse mix of ethnic, class, gender, and kinship relations was an important part of negotiating daily life on this frontier, where remote communities faced many challenges and hardships that were particular to their locations. The range of data sources utilized by this project illustrate that the community of Las Huertas was constructed through social discourses of difference and similarity among informed and strategic social actors as they navigated different contexts: that of the community itself, in their dealings with colonial administrators, in their contacts with the Pueblo and Spanish-American settlements that neighbored the village, and when nomadic peoples attacked their homes and property. Kinship, age, gender, and religion comprised the principal vectors of social identity crucial in community formation, while status and ethnic affiliation (as defined by casta categories) seemed to be of greater concern to colonial officials and clerics. Las Huertasanas' associations with their neighbors also tended to be shaped through kin networks, in addition to economic transactions. But it was membership within the community of Las Huertas that served to contextualize social identities as they were enacted in all situations