John Robb | University of Cambridge (original) (raw)
General theory by John Robb
Before, during and after gender
What would a non-essentialist history of gender look like? In this paper we suggest that mainstre... more What would a non-essentialist history of gender look like? In this paper we suggest that mainstream gender history, archaeology and related disciplines have inadvertently black-boxed some of the most interesting questions about what past gender may have been like. Traditional, Eurocentric, approaches treat gender as variable, but only within certain predefined limits, they do not radically question what happens if we shift the term definitionally. This constrains both the stories we can tell about gender, and the questions we can ask. In contrast, we draw upon feminist conceptions of difference to offer alternative histories ranging from where and how gender may have first emerged to its transitions in Europe over the last 7000 years. Assumptions about gender in Europe have played an outsized role in mainstream and hegemonic accounts. By problematising how gender emerged and changed in Europe, we can help decenter this narrative. Drawing on notions of protean difference, this reconceptualises gender as a form of identity which is not automatically applicable to all human societies, has a specific history, and, potentially, a shelf life.
The Oxford Handbook of History and Material Culture , 2020
Material culture theorists have had limited success in integrating the material qualities of obje... more Material culture theorists have had limited success in integrating the material qualities of objects into social and historical interpretations. Following Ingold, this chapter argues that material qualities have to be understood as experientially mediated affordances for human action. One of the most salient material qualities of an object is its inherent tem porality-how the processes it forms unfold in time. The temporal qualities of materials demonstrably structure how people understand and use them in both obvious and subtle ways. Building upon this, I argue that much of what people do when they work with mate rials is to cope with their temporality to align them with human needs and the rhythms of social life. The chapter finishes by pointing out some important implications of the materi ality of time for historical analysis.
It is notable how little gender archaeology has been written for the European Neolithic, in contr... more It is notable how little gender archaeology has been written for the European Neolithic, in contrast to the following Bronze Age. We cannot blame this absence on a lack of empirical data or on archaeologists' theoretical naïveté. Instead, we argue that this absence reflects the fact that gender in this period was qualitatively different in form from the types of gender that emerged in Europe from about 3000 cal BC onwards; the latter still form the norm in European and American contexts today, and our standard theories and methodologies are designed to uncover this specific form of gender. In Bronze Age gender systems, gender was mostly binary, associated with stable, lifelong identities expressed in recurrent complexes of gendered symbolism. In contrast, Neolithic gender appears to have been less firmly associated with personal identity and more contextually relevant; it slips easily through our methodological nets. In proposing this " contextual gender " model for Neolithic gender, we both open up new understandings of gender in the past and present and pose significant questions for our models of gender more widely. Es llamativo lo poco que se ha escrito sobre arqueología de género en el Neolítico europeo en comparación con el período posterior, la Edad del Bronce. Esta escasez no puede atribuirse a la falta de datos empíricos o a la ingenuidad de los arqueólogos. Más bien, como proponemos aquí, esta ausencia refleja el hecho de que hay una diferencia cualitativa entre las manifestaciones de género en este período y los tipos de género que emergieron en Europa a partir de 3000 aC. Estos últimos siguen constituyendo la norma en contextos europeos y americanos actuales, y nuestras teorías y métodos están diseñados para analizar estas formas específicas de género. En los sistemas de género de la Edad del Bronce, el género consistió mayoritariamente en una identidad binaria asociada a identidades estables que persistían durante toda una vida y que fueron expresadas en complejos recurrentes de símbolos de género. En contraste, el género en el Neolítico parece haber tenido una asociación más tenue con la identidad personal; en cambio, parece haber sido más relevante a nivel contextual. Por lo tanto, las manifestaciones de género del Neolítico se nos escapan a través de nuestras redes metodológicas. Al proponer un modelo de 'género contextual' para el Neolítico mediante la identificación del cómo y del porqué de esta diferencia, ofrecemos nuevas formas de comprender el género en el pasado y presente del Neolítico, planteando al mismo tiempo cuestiones de relevancia más general para nuestros modelos de género.
Material culture theorists in archaeology often argue directly from abstract philosophical models... more Material culture theorists in archaeology often argue directly from abstract philosophical models to the interpretation of specific examples which exemplify a particular paradigm well; there has been little attempt to develop methods which work across the entire range of material things we make and which relate the social projects they form part of to the actual material characteristics of things. This paper attempts to refocus attention upon objects by asking the design question: what social task are they intended to accomplish, and what characteristics (material and otherwise) enable them to do it? It develops a general model in which objects incorporate knowledge of the responses they are intended to provoke; this incorporated knowledge gives archaeologists analytical purchase for understanding ancient things. This thesis is illustrated both by a survey of some common strategies of material efficacy and by two capsule examples of how aesthetic style as a design feature provokes specific reactions on the part of people using objects, linking them into particular kinds of social relationships. [Material culture, design, technology of enchantment, middle range theory] Material Culture Theory: Deep Theory vs. Applicable Theory
This article summarises the main themes of: J. Robb and O. Harris (2013), The Body in History: Eu... more This article summarises the main themes of: J. Robb and O. Harris (2013), The Body in History: Europe from the Paleolithic to the Future. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
‘European archaeology’ is an ambiguous and contested rubric. Rooted in the political histories of... more ‘European archaeology’ is an ambiguous and contested rubric. Rooted in the political histories of European archaeology, it potentially unites an academic field and provides a basis for international collaboration and inclusion, but also creates essentialized identities and exclusionary discourses. This discussion article presents a range of views on what European archaeology is, where it comes from, and what it could be.
Citation: John Robb, 2013. Creating Death: An Archaeology of Dying. In "The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Death and Burial", edited by S. Tarlow and L. Nilsson Stutz, pp. 441-458. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
This paper argues that deathways are not first and foremost about social status, identitiy, cosmo... more This paper argues that deathways are not first and foremost about social status, identitiy, cosmology, or other single master meanings. Drawing upon the anthropology of death, it argues that deathways are are above all about managing the social process of dying, in other words negotiating a multi-participant, protracted transition which satisfies multiple social needs. We therefore need to move from an "archaeology of death" to an "archaeology of dying".
Prehistoric art by John Robb
Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 2020
Can we reconstruct how prehistoric people perceived things (their "ways of seeing" or visual cult... more Can we reconstruct how prehistoric people perceived things (their "ways of seeing" or visual culture)? This challenge is made more difficult by the traditional disciplinary assumptions built into prehistoric art studies, for instance focusing narrowly upon a single body of art in isolation. This paper proposes an alternative approach, using comparative study to reveal broad regional changes in visual culture. Although prehistoric art specialists rarely work comparatively , art historians are familiar with describing continent-wide general developments in visual culture and placing them in social context (for instance, the traditional broad-brush history from Classical to medieval to Renaissance systems of representation). This paper does the same for Neolithic (6000-2500 BC) vs. Bronze Age (2500-800 BC) and Iron Age (800 BC-Classical) rock and cave art from sites across Europe, uncovering broad patterns of change. The principal pattern is a shift from a Neolithic iconic art which uses heavily encoded imagery, often schematic geometric motifs, to a Bronze/Iron Age narrative art, which increasingly involves imagery of identifiable people, animals and objects. Moreover , there is also an increasing tendency for motifs to be associated in scenes rather than purely accumulative, and with contextual changes in how art is used-a movement from hidden places to more open or accessible places. Underlying all these changes is a shift in how rock and cave art was used, from citations reproducing ritual knowledge to composed arrays telling narratives of personhood.
Although many researchers have studied prehistoric European art, there has been virtually no atte... more Although many researchers have studied prehistoric European art, there has been virtually no attention paid to the broad
prehistory of art as a specialized form of material culture; virtually all studies focus narrowly on single bodies of art. This
paper presents a new approach to analyzing prehistoric art: quantitative deep time study. It analyzes a database of 211 art
traditions from across Europe and from 40,000 B.C. to 0 A.D. to identify changes in the amount, nature, and use of prehistoric
art. The results reveal clear long-term trends. The amount of art made increased sharply with the origins of sedentary
farming and continued to rise throughout prehistory. New forms of art arise in conjunction with new ways of life; “period
genres” are closely tied into patterns of social change. There are also long-term shifts in aesthetics and the uses of art (such
as a gradual shift from arts of ritual and concealment to arts of surface and display). These results, though preliminary,
show that a deep-time approach familiar from topics such as climate change is applicable to art; the resulting social history
can illuminate both art and its social context.
Before, during and after gender
What would a non-essentialist history of gender look like? In this paper we suggest that mainstre... more What would a non-essentialist history of gender look like? In this paper we suggest that mainstream gender history, archaeology and related disciplines have inadvertently black-boxed some of the most interesting questions about what past gender may have been like. Traditional, Eurocentric, approaches treat gender as variable, but only within certain predefined limits, they do not radically question what happens if we shift the term definitionally. This constrains both the stories we can tell about gender, and the questions we can ask. In contrast, we draw upon feminist conceptions of difference to offer alternative histories ranging from where and how gender may have first emerged to its transitions in Europe over the last 7000 years. Assumptions about gender in Europe have played an outsized role in mainstream and hegemonic accounts. By problematising how gender emerged and changed in Europe, we can help decenter this narrative. Drawing on notions of protean difference, this reconceptualises gender as a form of identity which is not automatically applicable to all human societies, has a specific history, and, potentially, a shelf life.
The Oxford Handbook of History and Material Culture , 2020
Material culture theorists have had limited success in integrating the material qualities of obje... more Material culture theorists have had limited success in integrating the material qualities of objects into social and historical interpretations. Following Ingold, this chapter argues that material qualities have to be understood as experientially mediated affordances for human action. One of the most salient material qualities of an object is its inherent tem porality-how the processes it forms unfold in time. The temporal qualities of materials demonstrably structure how people understand and use them in both obvious and subtle ways. Building upon this, I argue that much of what people do when they work with mate rials is to cope with their temporality to align them with human needs and the rhythms of social life. The chapter finishes by pointing out some important implications of the materi ality of time for historical analysis.
It is notable how little gender archaeology has been written for the European Neolithic, in contr... more It is notable how little gender archaeology has been written for the European Neolithic, in contrast to the following Bronze Age. We cannot blame this absence on a lack of empirical data or on archaeologists' theoretical naïveté. Instead, we argue that this absence reflects the fact that gender in this period was qualitatively different in form from the types of gender that emerged in Europe from about 3000 cal BC onwards; the latter still form the norm in European and American contexts today, and our standard theories and methodologies are designed to uncover this specific form of gender. In Bronze Age gender systems, gender was mostly binary, associated with stable, lifelong identities expressed in recurrent complexes of gendered symbolism. In contrast, Neolithic gender appears to have been less firmly associated with personal identity and more contextually relevant; it slips easily through our methodological nets. In proposing this " contextual gender " model for Neolithic gender, we both open up new understandings of gender in the past and present and pose significant questions for our models of gender more widely. Es llamativo lo poco que se ha escrito sobre arqueología de género en el Neolítico europeo en comparación con el período posterior, la Edad del Bronce. Esta escasez no puede atribuirse a la falta de datos empíricos o a la ingenuidad de los arqueólogos. Más bien, como proponemos aquí, esta ausencia refleja el hecho de que hay una diferencia cualitativa entre las manifestaciones de género en este período y los tipos de género que emergieron en Europa a partir de 3000 aC. Estos últimos siguen constituyendo la norma en contextos europeos y americanos actuales, y nuestras teorías y métodos están diseñados para analizar estas formas específicas de género. En los sistemas de género de la Edad del Bronce, el género consistió mayoritariamente en una identidad binaria asociada a identidades estables que persistían durante toda una vida y que fueron expresadas en complejos recurrentes de símbolos de género. En contraste, el género en el Neolítico parece haber tenido una asociación más tenue con la identidad personal; en cambio, parece haber sido más relevante a nivel contextual. Por lo tanto, las manifestaciones de género del Neolítico se nos escapan a través de nuestras redes metodológicas. Al proponer un modelo de 'género contextual' para el Neolítico mediante la identificación del cómo y del porqué de esta diferencia, ofrecemos nuevas formas de comprender el género en el pasado y presente del Neolítico, planteando al mismo tiempo cuestiones de relevancia más general para nuestros modelos de género.
Material culture theorists in archaeology often argue directly from abstract philosophical models... more Material culture theorists in archaeology often argue directly from abstract philosophical models to the interpretation of specific examples which exemplify a particular paradigm well; there has been little attempt to develop methods which work across the entire range of material things we make and which relate the social projects they form part of to the actual material characteristics of things. This paper attempts to refocus attention upon objects by asking the design question: what social task are they intended to accomplish, and what characteristics (material and otherwise) enable them to do it? It develops a general model in which objects incorporate knowledge of the responses they are intended to provoke; this incorporated knowledge gives archaeologists analytical purchase for understanding ancient things. This thesis is illustrated both by a survey of some common strategies of material efficacy and by two capsule examples of how aesthetic style as a design feature provokes specific reactions on the part of people using objects, linking them into particular kinds of social relationships. [Material culture, design, technology of enchantment, middle range theory] Material Culture Theory: Deep Theory vs. Applicable Theory
This article summarises the main themes of: J. Robb and O. Harris (2013), The Body in History: Eu... more This article summarises the main themes of: J. Robb and O. Harris (2013), The Body in History: Europe from the Paleolithic to the Future. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
‘European archaeology’ is an ambiguous and contested rubric. Rooted in the political histories of... more ‘European archaeology’ is an ambiguous and contested rubric. Rooted in the political histories of European archaeology, it potentially unites an academic field and provides a basis for international collaboration and inclusion, but also creates essentialized identities and exclusionary discourses. This discussion article presents a range of views on what European archaeology is, where it comes from, and what it could be.
Citation: John Robb, 2013. Creating Death: An Archaeology of Dying. In "The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Death and Burial", edited by S. Tarlow and L. Nilsson Stutz, pp. 441-458. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
This paper argues that deathways are not first and foremost about social status, identitiy, cosmo... more This paper argues that deathways are not first and foremost about social status, identitiy, cosmology, or other single master meanings. Drawing upon the anthropology of death, it argues that deathways are are above all about managing the social process of dying, in other words negotiating a multi-participant, protracted transition which satisfies multiple social needs. We therefore need to move from an "archaeology of death" to an "archaeology of dying".
Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 2020
Can we reconstruct how prehistoric people perceived things (their "ways of seeing" or visual cult... more Can we reconstruct how prehistoric people perceived things (their "ways of seeing" or visual culture)? This challenge is made more difficult by the traditional disciplinary assumptions built into prehistoric art studies, for instance focusing narrowly upon a single body of art in isolation. This paper proposes an alternative approach, using comparative study to reveal broad regional changes in visual culture. Although prehistoric art specialists rarely work comparatively , art historians are familiar with describing continent-wide general developments in visual culture and placing them in social context (for instance, the traditional broad-brush history from Classical to medieval to Renaissance systems of representation). This paper does the same for Neolithic (6000-2500 BC) vs. Bronze Age (2500-800 BC) and Iron Age (800 BC-Classical) rock and cave art from sites across Europe, uncovering broad patterns of change. The principal pattern is a shift from a Neolithic iconic art which uses heavily encoded imagery, often schematic geometric motifs, to a Bronze/Iron Age narrative art, which increasingly involves imagery of identifiable people, animals and objects. Moreover , there is also an increasing tendency for motifs to be associated in scenes rather than purely accumulative, and with contextual changes in how art is used-a movement from hidden places to more open or accessible places. Underlying all these changes is a shift in how rock and cave art was used, from citations reproducing ritual knowledge to composed arrays telling narratives of personhood.
Although many researchers have studied prehistoric European art, there has been virtually no atte... more Although many researchers have studied prehistoric European art, there has been virtually no attention paid to the broad
prehistory of art as a specialized form of material culture; virtually all studies focus narrowly on single bodies of art. This
paper presents a new approach to analyzing prehistoric art: quantitative deep time study. It analyzes a database of 211 art
traditions from across Europe and from 40,000 B.C. to 0 A.D. to identify changes in the amount, nature, and use of prehistoric
art. The results reveal clear long-term trends. The amount of art made increased sharply with the origins of sedentary
farming and continued to rise throughout prehistory. New forms of art arise in conjunction with new ways of life; “period
genres” are closely tied into patterns of social change. There are also long-term shifts in aesthetics and the uses of art (such
as a gradual shift from arts of ritual and concealment to arts of surface and display). These results, though preliminary,
show that a deep-time approach familiar from topics such as climate change is applicable to art; the resulting social history
can illuminate both art and its social context.
World Art 3(1):3-22, 2013
In this visual essay that serves as an introduction to the set of articles presented in this issu... more In this visual essay that serves as an introduction to the set of articles presented in this issue, we illustrate four ways that art makes society. We adopt a stance informed by recent perspectives on material culture, moving away from thinking about art purely in aesthetic terms, instead asking how art objects have significance in particular cultural and social contexts. Arguing that art is participatory as well as visually affecting, we first suggest that art creates sites of activity for shared interaction. Second, we discuss the varied ways that people use art to create and assert representational models for social relations. Third, we consider the varied roles of art as cultural capital, marking out members of society through shared forms of knowledge or access to art. Finally, we document the ways that art serves as a medium of exclusion and as a means for resisting authority or challenging power relations. We highlight the layered meanings inherent in many artworks.
Citation: J. Robb, 2014. The future Neolithic: a new research agenda. In "Early Farmers: the vew from Archaeology and Science", edited by A. Whittle and P. Bickle, pp. 21-28. Proceedings of the British Academy, 198; Oxford University Press.
Every generation rewrites the Neolithic in a new way. What will the European Neolithic of the nex... more Every generation rewrites the Neolithic in a new way. What will the European Neolithic of the next generation look like? This discussion argues that the major change in the research agenda is overcoming the dichotomy between scientific and humanistic views which has beset Neolithic studies (e.g. "diet" vs. "foodways"; "environment" vs. "landscape"; "demography" vs. "social relations". This theme is traced out with regard to classic Neolithic problems such as the beginning of farming, Neolithic social proceses, and the transition to the Bronze Age.
War and Sacrifice, 2006
Academia, like everything else, has its fashions. At the moment, one trend in both North American... more Academia, like everything else, has its fashions. At the moment, one trend in both North American and European archaeology has been to un-pacify the past. Over the past decade, archaeologists have turned away from a view of the past, dominant through much of the ...
Bioarchaeology International, 2019
Osteobiography provides a rich basis for understanding the past, but its conceptual framework has... more Osteobiography provides a rich basis for understanding the past, but its conceptual framework has not been outlined systematically. It stands in conceptual opposition to a traditional statistical approach to bioarchaeol-ogy modeled upon clinical studies in biomedicine, but is interdependent with it. As such, its position mirrors those of clinical case histories as opposed to statistical studies, participant-observation ethnography as opposed to quantitative sociology, and microhistory and biography as opposed to quantitative history. Such disciplinary comparisons provide a framework for exploring the strengths and weaknesses of osteobiography. It is not merely a tool for engagingly illustrating the "typical" life history as established statistically. Rather, it allows us to understand issues that population studies cannot explore. These include both analytical directions (exploring the complexity of deeply layered data, understanding the role of contingency in human lives, integrating osteolog-ical and cultural evidence) and philosophical directions (the interaction of material and conceptual factors in the creation of human bodies, embodiment, the experience of time). La osteobiografía ofrece una base rica para comprender el pasado, pero su marco conceptual no se ha delineado de manera sistemática. Se encuentra en oposición conceptual a un enfoque estadístico tradicional de la bioarqueología formado sobre estudios clínicos en biomedicina, pero es interdependiente de él. Su posición, como tal, refleja aquellos casos de historias clínicas opuestos a los estudios estadísticos, la etnografía de observación participa-tiva opuesta a la sociología cuantitativa, y la microhistoria y la biografía opuestas a la historia cuantitativa. Semejantes comparaciones disciplinarias ofrecen un marco para explorar las fortalezas y debilidades de la oste-obiografía. No es simplemente una herramienta para ilustrar de manera atractiva la historia "típica" de la vida según lo establecido estadísticamente. Más bien, nos permite entender las cuestiones que los estudios de población no pueden explorar. Estas incluyen direcciones analíticas (explorando la complejidad de datos en capas profun-das, comprendiendo el papel de la contingencia en las vidas humanas, integrando la evidencia osteológica y cultural) y direcciones filosóficas (la interacción de factores materiales y conceptuales en la creación de cuerpos humanos, encarnación, la experiencia del tiempo). la historia de la vida; la biographía; los enfoques teóricos
Bioarchaeology International, 2019
What is osteobiography good for? The last generation of archaeologists fought to overcome the tra... more What is osteobiography good for? The last generation of archaeologists fought to overcome the traditional assumption that archaeology is merely ancillary to history, a substitute to be used when written sources are defective ; it is now widely acknowledged that material histories and textual histories tell equally valid and complementary stories about the past. Yet the traditional assumption hangs on implicitly in biography: osteobiography is used to fill the gaps in the textual record rather than as a primary source in its own right. In this article we compare the textual biographies and material biographies of two thirteenth-century townsfolk from medieval England-Robert Curteis, attested in legal records, and "Feature 958," excavated archaeologically and studied osteobi-ographically. As the former shows, textual biographies of ordinary people mostly reveal a few traces of financial or legal transactions. Interpreting these traces, in fact, implicitly presumes a history of the body. Osteobiogra-phy reveals a different kind of history, the history of the body as a locus of appearance and social identity, work, health and experience. For all but a few textually rich individuals, osteobiography provides a fuller and more human biography. Moreover, textual visibility is deeply biased by class and gender; osteobiography offers particular promise for Marxist and feminist understandings of the past. ¿Para qué sirve la osteobiografía? La última generación de arqueólogos luchó para superar la suposición tradi-cional de que la arqueología es meramente (accesoria) a la historia, una sustituta que se puede utilizar cuando las fuentes escritas son deficientes. Ahora es ampliamente reconocido que las historias materiales y las historias textuales igualmente válido y complementario del pasado. Sin embargo, la suposición tradicional continúa im-plícitamente en la biografía: se utiliza la osteobiografía para llenar los vacíos en el historial textual en vez de utilizarla como fuente primaria por derecho propio. En esta investigación comparamos las biografías textuales y biografías materiales de dos ciudadanos de la Inglaterra medieval del siglo XIII-Robert Cuteis, documentado en registros legales, y "Feature 958", excavada arqueologicamente y examinada osteobiograficamente. Como demuestra la primera, biografías textuales de la gente común sobre todo revelan algunos rastros de transac-ciones financieras o legales. La interpretación de estos rastros de hecho presume implícitamente una historia del cuerpo. La osteobiografía revela una clase de historia distinta, la historia del cuerpo como un sitio que contiene información sobre apariencia e identidad social, trabajo, salud y experiencia. Para todos aparte de algunos
Bioarchaeology International, 2019
Osteobiographical studies have usually focused upon investigating an individual's life experience... more Osteobiographical studies have usually focused upon investigating an individual's life experience. However, we can also understand variation in the shape of the life course itself as an object of study: Are there common patterns for how lives unfold within a society? Are there events or experiences that channel life courses? This approach to the life course can be adopted for ancient as well as for modern lives. A key element here is developing new methodologies for characterizing and comparing how lives develop through time, for instance, by ordering biological data in sequence, looking for time-structured patterns in them both by eye and through multivariate statistics. This article presents an initial exploration of this problem, using skeletal and archaeological data on 47 adults from the fifth to third centuries B.C. at Pontecagnano, an urban site in Campania, Italy. The results show both the importance of gender in the life course and the effects of different kinds of physical stress, probably due to specialization in labor. The result is not discrete categories of people but fuzzy envelopes of life possibilities. Los estudios osteobiográficos se han enfocado generalmente en la investigación de la experiencia vital del indi-viduo. Sin embargo, también podemos comprender la variación en la forma del curso mismo de la vida como objeto de estudio: ¿existen patrones comunes (que demuestran) cómo se desarrollan las vidas (individuales) den-tro de una sociedad? ¿Existen eventos o experiencias que canalizan los cursos de vida? Esta aproximación al curso de la vida puede ser adoptada tanto para las vidas ancianas como las modernas. Un elemento clave (en esto) es el desarrollo de nuevas metodologías para caracterizar y comparar cómo se desarrollan las vidas a través del tiempo, por ejemplo al ordenar datos biológicos en secuencia y buscar en ellos patrones estructurados en el tiempo tanto (visualmente/por vista) como a través de estadísticas multivariadas. Esta investigación presenta una exploración inicial de este problema utilizando los datos esqueléticos y arqueológicos de 47 (cuarenta y si-ete) adultos del 5o al 3er siglo a.C. en Pontecagnano, un sitio urbano en Campania, Italia. Los resultados dem-uestran tanto la importancia del género en el curso de la vida como los efectos de diferentes tipos de estrés físico, debido con toda probabilidad a la especialización laboral. (Esto no resulta) en categorías discretas de personas sino en sobres difusos de posibilidades de la vida.
Troubled times: violence and warfare in the past (edited by D. Martin and D. Frayer, pp. 111-144. London: Gordon and Breach), 1997
Journal of Archaeological Science - Reports, 2016
Two cornerstones of conventional wisdom in interpreting commingled assemblages are (a) the MNI pr... more Two cornerstones of conventional wisdom in interpreting commingled assemblages are (a) the MNI provides reliable information about how many individuals were deposited there, and (b) the distribution of skeletal parts provides information about ritual processes such as primary vs. secondary deposition. Both of these involve assumptions about the taphonomic processes linking the original depositions and the assemblage which archaeologists recover. Yet, it is almost impossible to investigate these processes directly in ethnoarchaeological, forensic or experimental settings, particularly observing the effects of the passage of long time spans and repeated disturbance events. This paper reports an attempt to understand these relationships and processes through simulation of a hypothetical prehistoric collective tomb. The key results are (a) there is no linear or proportionate relationship between the number of bodies originally deposited in a tomb and the MNI excavated there; indeed, in many situations, for taphonomic reasons, the MNI quickly reaches a low ceiling and levels off regardless of how many individuals were actually placed in the tomb, and (b) lack of small and fragile bones provides a very poor criterion for differentiating between burial within a tomb and secondary deposition there following primary burial elsewhere. However, skeletal part representation can prove informative about other processes such as selective curation of crania and removal of bones from tombs for funerary use elsewhere.
Funerary taphonomy has come of age as an important field in osteoarchaeology. Its goal is to reco... more Funerary taphonomy has come of age as an important field in osteoarchaeology. Its goal is to reconstruct funerary practices by using taphonomic evidence, including both evidence recorded during excavation (particularly the context and state of articulation of human remains) and evidence observable in subsequent laboratory analysis (such as element representation and traces of burning, animal modification, cut-marks, and fragmentation). This article – intended as a systematic introduction to the field – gives an overview of funerary taphonomy. It first discusses the goals and theoretical questions, and then reviews the wide range of methods available to archaeologists using human remains to investigate funerary behaviour. It finishes with a review of how taphono-mists have approached particular issues, such as single burials, commingled multiple depositions, cannibalism, and the cultural reuse of human skeletal parts.
International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 2020
The high mountains of the Mediterranean are often considered as refuges of ancient traditions, pa... more The high mountains of the Mediterranean are often considered as refuges of ancient traditions, particularly of pastoralism and brigandage. Is this image true? This paper reports the first systematic archaeological research on Aspromonte, Southern Calabria. Archaeological, cartographic and air photo evidence suggests that people used the high mountains in all periods from the Neolithic onwards. However, early usage was low-intensity and probably for special purposes such as iron-smelting, charcoal-burning and logging; only in the Classical Greek period was there sustained effort at inhabiting higher areas. The real development of the mountains came in the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries. From the 1920s onwards, there were large-scale, state-fostered projects for economic exploitation of forests, political control of territory, and creation of a recreational landscape. These endeavors tied into modernist ideas of the state, as well as period concepts such as Alpinism and healthy outdoor recreation for city dwellers. Ironically, as soon as these modern efforts made the high mountains accessible, they were assigned a chronotope, and were reimagined as the exemplification of an ancient way of life.
Antiquity, 2003
The authors explore the use of land in Neolithic south Italy, showing how the new territories com... more The authors explore the use of land in Neolithic south Italy, showing how the new territories combined arable farming with hunting and foraging wild resources from the hinterland.
Le pratiche di sussistenza nel corso del neolitico in area mediterranea sono al centro del dibatt... more Le pratiche di sussistenza nel corso del neolitico in area mediterranea sono al centro del dibattito archeo-logico da lungo tempo e spesso alla base delle cate-gorie concettuali di cui la ricerca archeologica si serve per comprendere le dinamiche sociali e culturali del passato. Tuttavia, sono ancora scarse le evidenze di-rette della dieta praticata dai gruppi umani di area me-diterranea nel corso del neolitico e le nostre conoscenze si affidano prevalentemente a limitati set-tori del record archeologico. in questa direzione, oggi sono ben affermati specifici metodi di indagine, come l'analisi degli isotopi stabili di carbonio (δ 13 C) e azoto (δ 15 n) su collagene umano e animale, che consentono di esplorare la componente proteica della dieta prati-cata dai gruppi umani del passato, in modo da argi-nare le limitazioni insite nell'analisi del record paleobotanico e/o archeozoologico. in particolare, l'indagine isotopica è in grado di evi-denziare la dieta a lungo termine in relazione al con-sumo medio di alimenti negli ultimi anni di vita. l'analisi degli isotopi stabili effettuata su campioni umani e animali da numerosi siti neolitici su un'ampia zona del territorio pugliese ha permesso di evidenziare una sostanziale omogeneità nella composizione della dieta di queste popolazioni, caratterizzata tuttavia da alcune interessanti eccezioni. l'ambito cronologico indagato comprende tutte le fasi del neolitico e l'area * i dati relativi agli autori sono stati inseriti in calce al presente articolo. riassunTO-evidenze isOTOPiChe e PaleOdieTa nel neOliTiCO PuGliese. versO la GlOBalizzaziOne?-le evidenze dirette della dieta in area Mediterranea nel corso del neolitico sono piuttosto limitate. in Puglia, la maggior parte dei dati paleonutrizionali proviene tuttora dal record archeologico, che per sua natura è soggetto a molteplici limitazioni. in questo senso si inseriscono le indagini degli isotopi stabili di carbonio e azoto misurabili nel collagene umano e animale. Questo genere di analisi permette di ricostruire la componente proteica della dieta. in particolare, il rapporto isotopico del carbonio permette di distinguere tra tipi di piante consumate in ragione del processo fotosintetico utilizzato (i.e., piante C 3 o C 4), nonché tra dieta di tipo terrestre piuttosto che marina. il rapporto isotopico dell'azoto è invece utile nella collocazione degli organismi esaminati all'interno della catena trofica, misurando l'apporto relativo di proteine animali e/o vegetali. l'indagine isotopica effettuata su una serie di siti pugliesi riferibili a tutte le fasi del neolitico, ci ha permesso di individuare una sostanziale indifferenziazione nelle pratiche di sussistenza, che prevede, verosimilmente, l'impiego di un range ricor-rente di specie animali e vegetali. Questa koiné alimentare, si materializza nel consumo di specie prevalentemente terrestri, con un limitato impiego di risorse marine. i dati emersi da questa indagine ci costringono a riconsiderare alcuni assunti, rivelando al tempo stesso una complessità inattesa. suMMary-isOTOPiC evidenCe and PaleOdieT in The aPulian neOliThiC. TOwards GlOBalizaTiOn?-The neolithic Mediterranean diet has been the focus of a long-standing debate in archaeology. it is upon diet that most theories on cultural practices have found its conceptual bases. There is however little direct evidence of food practices in the apulian neolithic, for which most of our understanding derives from the archaeological record. direct sources can today be provided by stable carbon and nitrogen analysis on human and animal bone collagen. These analyses have the ability to determine the protein composition of past diet, so as to overcome any limitation linked to the botanic or zooarchaeological record. The ratio between stable isotopes of carbon can help distinguish between groups of plants with different photosynthetic processes (i.e., C 3 vs. C 4), or rather between terrestrial and marine environments. nitrogen isotope ratio is helpful to reconstruct the trophic level of an organism. The isotopic investigation carried out on a number of sites from apulia, dated to the neolithic, has allowed us to assess a substantial homogeneity in the isotopic record, so as to reveal a dietary pattern composed of recurrent foods throughout the various phases of the neolithic. a number of exceptions could be envisaged, however the most striking results derives from the apparent consistency of human diet. food practices seem to be directed towards the consumption of mainly terrestrial resources, with little if any contribution of marine species and animal proteins scarcely consumed. The isotopic investigation presented here forces us to reconsider hitherto believes, disclosing a level of complexity that was long neglected.
In the discussion of Bronze Age society in Italy, the issue of mobility has specific relevance. F... more In the discussion of Bronze Age society in Italy, the issue of mobility has specific relevance. Following a traditional approach (Puglisi 1959), Bronze Age Apennine society was founded on nomadic male-dominated patrilineal and virilocal groups, mainly based on transhumant pastoralism of caprovids, where men were responsible for the larger part of the economy while women took care of all alternative
bioRxiv, 2018
The first historically documented pandemic caused by Yersinia pestis started as the Justinianic P... more The first historically documented pandemic caused by Yersinia pestis started as the Justinianic Plague in 541 within the Roman Empire and continued as the so-called First Pandemic until 750. Although palaeogenomic studies have previously identified the causative agent as Y. pestis, little is known about the bacterium's spread, diversity and genetic history over the course of the pandemic. To elucidate the microevolution of the bacterium during this time period, we screened human remains from 20 sites in Austria, Britain, Germany, France and Spain for Y. pestis DNA and reconstructed six new genomes. We present a novel methodological approach assessing SNPs in ancient bacterial genomes, facilitating qualitative analyses of low coverage genomes from a metagenomic background. Phylogenetic analysis reveals the existence of previously undocumented Y. pestis diversity during the 6th-7th centuries, and provides evidence for the presence of multiple distinct Y. pestis strains in Europe. We offer genetic evidence for the presence of the Justinianic Plague in the British Isles, previously only hypothesized from ambiguous documentary accounts, as well as southern France and Spain, and that southern Germany seems to have been affected by at least two distinct Y. pestis strains. Four of the reported strains form a polytomy similar to others seen across the Y. pestis phylogeny, associated with the Second and Third Pandemics. We identified a deletion of a 45 kb genomic region in the most recent First Pandemic strain affecting two virulence factors, intriguingly overlapping with a deletion found in 17th-18th-century genomes of the Second Pandemic.
Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, 2019
Archaeological research on sustainability enjoys an increasingly high profile in the discipline... more Archaeological research on sustainability enjoys an increasingly high profile in the discipline, with scholars employing a range of methodological and theoretical platforms. We argue that the most successful forays of applied archaeological research into sustainability encompass three major realms: the social foundations and local histories of any human community, the economic resources and practices to support that community, and the environmental and geological couplings existing therein. This study explores dynamic relationships between these three spheres by discussing how nineteenth- and twentieth-century farmers, land managers, and landowners, along with their families, created and maintained a vibrant community, founded for the commercial production of bergamot, mulberries, olives, grapes, and a wide variety of fruits, nuts, vegetables, and cereal crops in the San Pasquale Valley (SPQV), Calabria, Italy. Our theoretical approach combines Lave and Wenger's (1991) community of practice approach with Scarborough's (2009) model of labor- and techno-tasking strategies to document laborscapes through time, using architectural documentation, oral histories, documentary evidence, oral histories, ethnographic interviews, and climate modeling. We demonstrate the interpretive power of incorporating cultural foundations into environmental and economic models to produce more comprehensive understandings of how people succeed and fail to sustain livelihoods and communities. We argue that rhythms and nuances of linkages between the SPQV environment, economy, and social worlds require a more flexible conceptualization of sustainability to encompass the variety of solutions developed by current SPQV community members to craft sustainable economic and social futures for themselves.