143 research outputs found
What's Wrong with Early Medieval Medicine?
The medical writings of early medieval western Europe c. 700 â c. 1000 have often been derided for their disorganised appearance, poor Latin, nebulous conceptual framework, admixtures of magic and folklore, and general lack of those positive features that historians attribute to ancient or later medieval medicine. This paper attempts to rescue the period from its negative image. It examines a number of superficially bizarre writings so as to place them in an intellectual and sociological context, and to suggest that the presumed contrast between them and their ancient and later medieval counterparts has been wrongly drawn
From PreâRoman Bailo To Roman Baelo: LongâTerm Landscape Dynamics In The Straits Of Gibraltar
The Straits of Gibraltar have been historically an important maritime axis of connection between the Mediterranean and Atlantic areas of the Iberian Peninsula. For this reason, most of the archaeological research has focused on the coastal settlements, but its broader archaeological landscape remains mostly unknown. In this paper, we present recent intensive surveys in which a wide range of sites was detected, dating from the eighth century BC to the fourteenth AD. The ancient landscape is thus reconstructed over a longâterm perspective. Prior to the Roman expansion, the earlier BailoâLa Silla del Papa was an urban central place that supported a dense network of subordinate settlements. Later on, the central settlement was transported from inland to the coastal town of Baelo Claudia, but the territorial structure remained based on a similar pattern.This study has been carried out as part of the Franco-German (Agence Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) project â ARCHEOSTRAITS. Espaces protohistoriques du dĂŠtroit de Gibraltar: les territoires de la Silla del Papa et de Los Castillejos de AlcorrĂn (IXe â Ier siècle av. J.-C.) â led by D.Marzoli and P.Moret. In this article we have presented the analysis of the Atlantic sector, drawing on a study included in a Junta de AndalucĂa General Research Project led by P. Moret â La Silla del Papa (Tarifa, CĂĄdiz): oppidum, necropolis and territory (2014-2019)
Mediterranean conundrums : pluridisciplinary perspectives for research in the social sciences
This paper has two purposes. First, it summarises the various papers presented at a
Pluridisciplinary Conference on the Mediterranean treating the region from a variety of
perspectives, a selection of which are published in this issue of History and Anthropology.
Second, it attempts to explore some of the tensions between historians and anthropologists,
and political scientists and geographers, in the treatment of the region.peer-reviewe
The Equifinality of Archaeological Networks: an Agent-Based Exploratory Lab Approach
When we find an archaeological network, how can we explore the necessary versus contingent processes at play in the formation of that archaeological network? Given a set of circumstances or processes, what other possible network shapes could have emerged? This is the problem of equifinality, where many different means could potentially arrive at the same end result: the networks that we observe. This paper outlines how agent-based modelling can be used as a laboratory for exploring different processes of archaeological network formation. We begin by describing our best guess about how the (ancient) world worked, given our target materials (here, the networks of production and patronage surrounding the Roman brick industry in the hinterland of Rome). We then develop an agent-based model of the Roman extractive economy which generates different kinds of networks under various assumptions about how that economy works. The rules of the simulation are built upon the work of Bang (2006; 2008) who describes a model of the Roman economy which he calls the âimperial Bazaarâ. The agents are allowed to interact, and the investigators compare the kinds of networks this description generates over an entire landscape of economic possibilities. By rigorously exploring this landscape, and comparing the resultant networks with those observed in the archaeological materials, the investigators will be able to employ the principle of equifinality to work out the representativeness of the archaeological network and thus the underlying processes
Not the End of the World? Post-Classical Decline and Recovery in Rural Anatolia
Between the foundation of Constantinople as capital of the eastern half of the Roman Empire in 330 CE and its sack by the Fourth Crusade in 1204 CE, the Byzantine Empire underwent a full cycle from political-economic stability, through rural insecurity and agrarian decline, and back to renewed prosperity. These stages plausibly correspond to the phases of over-extension (K), subsequent release (Ί) and recovery (ι) of the Adaptive Cycle in Socio-Ecological Systems. Here we track and partly quantify the consequences of those changes in different regions of Anatolia, firstly for rural settlement (via regional archaeological surveys) and secondly for land cover (via pollen analysis). We also examine the impact of climate changes on the agrarian system. While individual histories vary, the archaeological record shows a major demographic decline between ca .650 and ca. 900 CE in central and southwestern Anatolia, which was then a frontier zone between Byzantine and Arab armies. In these regions, and also in northwest Anatolia, century-scale trends in pollen indicate a substantial decline in the production of cereal and tree crops, and a smaller decline in pastoral activity. During the subsequent recovery (ι) phase after 900 CE there was strong regional differentiation, with central Anatolia moving to a new economic system based on agro-pastoralism, while lowland areas of northern and western Anatolia returned to the cultivation of commercial crops such as olive trees. The extent of recovery in the agrarian economy was broadly predictable by the magnitude of its preceding decline, but the trajectories of recovery varied between different regions
The changing face of the Mediterranean: land cover, demography, and environmental change
This paper introduces a special issue on The Changing Face of the Mediterranean: Land Cover, Demography, and Environmental Change, which brings together up-to-date regional or thematic perspectives on major long-term trends in Mediterranean humanâenvironment relations. Particularly, important insights are provided by palynology to reconstruct past vegetation and land cover, and archaeology to establish long-term demographic trends, but with further significant input from palaeoclimatology, palaeofire research and geomorphology. Here, we introduce the rationale behind this pan-Mediterranean research initiative, outline its major sources of evidence and method, and describe how individual submissions work to complement one another
Mediterranean landscape change during the Holocene: synthesis, comparison and regional trends in population, land cover and climate
This synthesis paper offers a comparative perspective on how seven different
Mediterranean regions, from Iberia and Morocco to the Levant, have been transformed by
human and natural agencies during the last ten millennia. It draws on a range of sources of
data notably, 1) archaeological site surveys (n=32k) and 14C dates (n=12k) as proxies for
long-term population change, 2) pollen records as a proxy for past vegetation and land
cover (n=157), and 3) proxies, such as stable isotopes, from lake, cave and marine records
as indicators of hydro-climate (n=47). Where possible, these data sets have been made
spatially and temporally congruent in order to examine relationships between them
statistically and graphically. Data have been aggregated or averaged for each region/subregion and put into 200-year time windows. Archaeo-demographic data show a clear
increase at the start of Neolithic farming, followed by a series of regionally-asynchronous
fluctuations in population, prior to a pan-Mediterranean Roman settlement maximum. Pollen
data indicate a Late Holocene decline in %Arboreal Pollen in those regions that were initially
well-wooded, but not in drier regions of the southern/eastern Mediterranean. Overall, the
clearest palynological proxy for human land cover change is provided by the OJCV (tree
crop) index. The cultivation of these trees in the eastern Mediterranean after 6500 Cal yr BP
may have been an adaptive response to mid-Holocene climatic desiccation. These
anthropogenic pollen indicators correlate more closely with trends in population than with
regional hydro-climatic z-scores, implying that they reflect primarily human activities. During
the mid-Holocene, most Mediterranean landscapes were transformed by a combination of
climate and rural land use, but after ~3500 Cal yr BP, human actions became increasingly
dominant in determining land cover. During the last 1500 years the dominant landscape
trajectory in the eastern Mediterranean was markedly different to that in the central/western
Mediterranean
âMediterranean Conundrumsâ: Pluridisciplinary perspectives for research in the social sciences
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