Search

Highlights • Locational characteristics and spatial trends of Bronze Age settlement in a region of east Crete. • A point process modelling approach for analysing archaeological survey data is presented. • A preference for agriculturally favourable areas is noted across different periods. • Results from sensitivity analysis show strong robustness in regional trends. Abstract This paper builds spatial models of Bronze Age settlement using published survey datasets from the Mirabello region in east Crete. Methodologically, we examine how point process modelling can account for uncertainties in legacy survey datasets, and thereafter can highlight patterns of both cultural change and continuity in Mirabello settlement. Comparison of fitted models over different chronological periods gives an insight, we argue, into the kinds of settlement and subsistence choices that lay behind settlement patterns, holding constant the broadly similar environmental constraints faced by inhabitants throughout the Bronze Age. Overall, the results suggest prehistoric preference for, and exploitation of, agriculturally favourable parts of the landscape, although contrasting emphases in different periods do emerge despite this unsurprising overall preference. Many of the analytical results prove robust to a sensitivity analysis which addresses commonplace uncertainties associated with settlement survey data. The results also dovetail well with previous archaeological interpretations of changing settlement and Bronze Age life in the Mirabello region. Survey datasets are also relatively common in other archaeological settings worldwide and we advocate for more widespread application of similarly formalised methods to them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simulations of spatial interaction in archaeology have been successful in predicting the emergence of central sites, and political and economic hierarchies that match observed long-term settlement patterns. It still remains unclear, however, to what degree such models can effectively allow for uncertainty in the archaeological record, especially when it comes to incomplete and unevenly distributed settlement data, and how best they might incorporate artefact-scale evidence. This paper aims to address these issues, while attempting to tackle widely debated aspects of socio-political organisation and cultural interaction in the prehistoric Cretan landscape at the period immediately before and after the foundation of the first palace of Phaistos, one of the less well documented Bronze Age phases. We employ a simulation of spatial interaction inspired by approaches first developed in urban geography and combine this with regression-based predictive modelling to address the uncertainty introduced by missing settlements. We use evidence from artefact analysis partly to calibrate and partly to validate our model. We conclude that such an approach can contribute to more convincing archaeological theories about socio-political organisation, cultural affinity and regional identity by providing new evidence even in the presence of very fragmented data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The modelling of past settlement and landscape structure from incomplete evidence is a well-established archaeological agenda. This paper highlights a model of spatial interaction and settlement evolution that has long been popular in urban geography and which was first applied to model historical settlement hierarchies some twenty-five years ago, but whose use since then for archaeological purposes has been very limited. Via a case study from Bronze Age Crete, we extend the analytical range of this model by suggesting ways in which it can (a) remain effective in the presence of missing data, (b) be given a stronger grounding in the physical landscape, and/or (c) be used to consider the evolutionary trajectory of settlements and physical routes over time. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• The concept of liminality has become ubiquitous in archaeology, with considerable interpretative consequences. • Applications of the concept are frequently inconsistent with theoretical definitions and archaeological evidence. • Liminality has encouraged the interpretation of the decomposing dead in Prepalatial Crete as dangerous and pollutant. • 'Losing liminality' affords the interpretative space for the consideration of new perspectives and osteological data. Over fifty years after the publication of Arnold van Gennep's (1909) Les Rites de passage , anthropologist Victor Turner (1967) adapted and expanded upon van Gennep's theory of transition, formulating the now ubiquitous concept of 'liminality'. From education to performance studies, geography to psychology, there are few disciplines which have yet to embrace the 'liminal' in interpretative discussion, defined by Turner as a precarious, interstructural position in social dynamics, frequently associated with pollution and taboo. Another fifty years since Turner's development of the concept, this paper argues that the popularity of liminality in archaeology has led to its interpretative depreciation, now so far removed from its theoretical origins that it has become an unhelpful synonym for all that is unfamiliar or anomalous, rather than the transitory process of becoming Turner proposed. Through the discussion of the Prepalatial tombs of Crete, it is illustrated that the uncritical invocation of the 'liminal' hinders the investigation of other interpretative lines of inquiry: questions of marginality, exceptionality, and the impact of our own unfamiliarity with bodily decomposition on our perception of the past. By highlighting the continued influence of the liminal – despite contradictory archaeological data – on our understanding of prehistoric practices and beliefs, it is argued that liminality cannot continue to be accepted either as a universally applicable concept or convenient metaphor, but must instead be recognised and critically evaluated as a fundamentally theoretical model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Quantitative methods under-valued for study of Early Iron Age cemeteries of Knossos. • Certain older tombs see late increase in rates of burial, while newer tombs do not. • Tombs with most burials divisible into two groups, with distinct histories. • Trends in burial linked to socio-political changes during emergence of city-states. • Data and methods made freely available for others to study burial in this period. The Early Iron Age cemeteries of Knossos, Crete, represent the richest source of archaeological material at the site for the period between the end of the Bronze Age and the emergence of the Archaic polis , or city-state. However, despite well-published excavation reports on the two largest burial grounds and studies dealing with various artefacts and individual tombs therein, no substantial comparative, quantitative analysis has yet been published. Such an analysis is provided here, examining both the synchronic and diachronic variation among the tombs of these two cemeteries. Through a range of quantitative techniques, this study isolates two significant patterns of burial among the largest tombs at both cemeteries and considers the broader social contexts within which these were constructed and used. The relationship between the patrons of these tombs and the development of the city-state of Knossos is also discussed. This paper demonstrates the potential for quantitative analyses to contribute to nuanced, context-specific theories of social practice, and advocates their wider application to the archaeological record of the Cretan Early Iron Age. It also serves as a demonstration of maximal research reproducibility, with the full datasets and code underpinning the analysis made freely available to download and use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Integration of bioarchaeological, palaeoenvironmental and landscape data. • BA agriculture, orchard produce, fishing, shell gathering culturally dictated. • Long history of viticulture in east Crete; wide usage of its products beyond the elite. • Olive expansion in east Crete related to ovicaprine management. • Large-scale olive management in east Crete a Neolithic phenomenon. This paper examines agriculture, farming and dietary resources in east Crete, and re-evaluates the role of grape and olive in its prehistoric economy, these being key in debates on the emergence of social complexity. To do so bioarchaeological, paleoenvironmental and landscape survey data from the Bronze Age town at Palaikastro and its territory are combined. The results indicate a highly compartmentalised landscape, including intensive crop cultivation and extensive animal herding with careful monitoring to maintain productivity. A heightened specialisation in ovicaprine management at Palaikastro and east Crete seems to be delineated. Marine resources were regularly exploited from easily accessible coastal areas. Other activities included viticulture since the Early Minoan period, with the possible involvement of several houses in wine-making. A final important activity in the area was large-scale olive tree management since the Final Neolithic period and through to the Late Bronze Age, that seems to be entangled with ovicaprine herding and grazing. Thus, the demand for olive oil production does not seem to have been the driving force behind the intensification of the tree management, at least initially, but a corollary of its use in other aspects of the local economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Aegean-type wall paintings of Tell el-Dabca, Egypt, steatite was used as a constituent of the white colour. Previous research has revealed that the use of talc as a pigment can be considered as an important marker of Aegean craft traditions. In this case study it is therefore of primary importance to trace back the origin of this particular mineral and rock, especially since it can be found in several locations in the Mediterranean including Egypt, Crete and Cyprus. While there is still no generally valid strategy to assign archaeological objects made from this particular material to a specific steatite deposit, the physio-chemical characterisation of the latter mostly relies on the measurement of Rare Earth Elements (REE's) or other methods focusing on the chemical composition of the whole rock. In this paper, a new way to determine steatite origin is presented using electron microprobe characterisation of spinels inside the steatite matrix. Those tracer minerals can not only be the source of information concerning the formation of steatite but their core composition can in some cases also reflect the primary composition of the precursor ultramafic rock. This method focuses on the geotectonical history and genesis of the protolith rather than on steatite's chemical composition. The results reveal the spinels to have similar characteristics to those of supra-subduction ophiolites in the Egyptian Central Eastern Desert. We suggest a correlation between gold and steatite exploitation and thus the use of local raw materials for the creation of the Aegean-type paintings. • Spinel chemistry can be used for sourcing archaeological steatite. • Steatite in Tell el-Dab'a Aegean-type wall paintings is from the Eastern Desert. • There is no generally valid strategy to provenance steatite. • New approach to the provenance of steatite. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]