Archaeology of Buildings Research Papers (original) (raw)

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- Early Christianity, Early Medieval Archaeology, Medieval Archaeology, Late Antiquity

The tradition of placing objects and symbols within, under, on, and around buildings for supernatural protection and good luck, as an act of formal or informal consecration, or as an element of other magico-religious or mundane ritual, has been documented throughout the world. This thesis examines the material culture of magic and folk ritual in the eastern United States, focusing on objects deliberately concealed within and around standing structures. While a wide range of objects and symbols are considered, in-depth analysis focuses on three artifact types: witch bottles, concealed footwear, and concealed cats. This thesis examines the European origins of ritual concealments, their transmission to North America, and their continuation into the modern era. It also explores how culturally derived cognitive frameworks, including cosmology, religion, ideology, and worldview, as well as the concepts of family and household, may have influenced or encouraged the use of ritual concealments among certain groups.

- by M. Chris Manning
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- Folklore, Historical Archaeology, Medieval History, Early Modern History
- by Kirsten Leach
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- Religion, Archaeology, Prehistoric Archaeology, Roman History

Questo volume rappresenta la terza edizione di un ciclo di lavoro iniziato nel 2006 per la tesi di dottorato. Questa, discussa nel 2010 (prima edizione, GATTIGLIA 2010), è stata parzialmente pubblicata, come monografia sintetica nel 2011 (seconda edizione, GATTIGLIA 2011) o in articoli (GATTIGLIA 2012, GATTIGLIA 2012a, GATTIGLIA G. 2011a) e trova ora (terza edizione) una pubblicazione più ampia alla luce di molti dati nuovi. Negli ultimi 2 anni, infatti, il lavoro di studio su Pisa, non solo medievale, è proseguito all’interno del progetto MAPPA (Metodologie Applicate alla Predittività del Potenziale) , che ha reso possibile una capillare raccolta dati attraverso i quali si è potuto ricomporre più compiutamente il quadro idrogeologico, geomorfologico e topografico e sottoporre a verifica, in molti casi modificando, parte delle ipotesi fatte in quelle sedi. I dati qui analizzati sono open data sul MOD (ANICHINI et alii 2013) (l’archivio open data dell’archeologia italiana www.mappaproject.org/mod) o interrogabili su webGIS (MAPPAgis www.mappaproject.org/webgis).
Nel primo capitolo viene sinteticamente raccontata la storia dell’archeologia urbana a Pisa. Nel secondo capitolo lo sguardo si allarga sul contesto territoriale e sul paesaggio. I percorsi fluviali e le aree palustri vengono analizzati per capire come l’ambiente abbia condizionato nel bene e nel male lo sviluppo della città medievale. Ma siccome l’uomo non è stato passivo di fronte ad esso, lo studio del sistema portuale e della viabilità terrestre permette di comprendere quali soluzioni siano state adottate per sfruttare i vantaggi geografici e generare profitti economici e commerciali.Il terzo ed ultimo capitolo è diviso in due parti. La prima vuole illustrare le grandi trasformazioni urbanistiche nel lungo periodo che va dalla fine della romanità (VI secolo) alla conquista fiorentina (inizio XV secolo). La seconda parte fa parlare le tracce materiali, le fonti archeologiche, quei tasselli della storia che hanno permesso di ricostruire il quadro generale. Saranno soprattutto i dati provenienti dagli scavi a raccontare com’erano gli edifici, le strade, gli opifici e le botteghe artigianali, il sistema di smaltimento dei rifiuti e di approvvigionamento dell’acqua, infine la ricchezza e lo status sociale dei suoi abitanti.

- by Gabriele Gattiglia
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- Archaeology, Maritime Archaeology, Spatial Analysis, Late Middle Ages
- by Gabriele Cifani
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- Ancient History, Economic History, Archaeology, Classical Archaeology
- by Dan Hicks
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- Historical Anthropology, Historical Archaeology, Architecture, Cultural Heritage
- by Ignacio Arce
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- Archaeology of Buildings, History of Construction, Building Technology

Mudbrick technology and permanent architecture are Neolithic hallmarks but their origins are not well understood. By adopting a symmetrical approach to the examination of building materials,
and contextualizing these materials within a cultural knowledge of resources and other concurrent social practices, this paper challenges environmentally determined approaches to explain the adoption of mudbrick technology during the PPNA in Anatolia, Upper Euphrates and the Levant. This research illustrates the weak correlation between architectural form and building material, suggesting that although nature provides resources, it is culture that dictates architectural form and material use. It is
argued that the human-constructed environment became normalized throughout the PPNA and the social complexities of village life created a conceptual shift towards an artificial environment, supported by other changes in symbolic behavior. If building materials, such as mudbricks, were considered objects reflexive of human behavior, then we can access the complex and entangled relationship between people and things. Furthermore, the choice of building materials and their use in architecture can be considered codes of social practice and even ideology. As material culture, architecture becomes a metaphor for human engagement and symbolic communication.

- by Serena Love
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- Prehistoric Archaeology, Anthropology, Ethnoarchaeology, Anatolian Archaeology

A growing recognition of the vital role that built space plays in social reproduction has created a need for analytical methods and interpretive frameworks with which to investigate this relationship in archaeological datasets. I address this by developing an integrative approach that emphasizes the role of the built environment as the context for interactions through which social structures are created, transformed and reproduced. This approach uses access analysis to examine how buildings structure patterns of movement and encounter that allow social actors to engage in or avoid particular forms of interaction. With its focus on the topological properties of built space, however, access analysis does not take adequate account of a building’s symbolic aspects, especially architectural characteristics and furnishings that social actors mobilize in the creation of meaningful contexts for interaction. I therefore integrate access analysis with an examination of how built environments encode meanings and nonverbally communicate them to inhabitants and visitors, potentially influencing their actions and interactions. The integrative approach allows determination of probable contexts for various types of social interactions during which social identities could be displayed, negotiated and reified. I conclude by demonstrating the potential of this approach with an analysis of the monumental Ashlar Building from the Late Bronze Age (c. 1650-1100 BC) site of Enkomi, Cyprus.

- by Kevin D Fisher
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- Near Eastern Archaeology, Space Syntax, Environmental Psychology, Space and Place
- by Antonio Saez Romero and +1
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- Archaeology, Archaeology of Buildings, Roman Water Supply (Archaeology), Roman water management

Research on concealed deposits with ritual significance has been conducted by scholars in continental Europe, the British Isles, and Australia. Similar evidence of the material culture of magic and folk belief in the United States is presented, focusing on ritual deposits hidden within and around domestic structures associated with European American populations. Comparative analysis of three artifact types—witch bottles, concealed footwear, and cats—highlights discrepancies between ethnohistorical and archaeological evidence, and demonstrates temporal, geographical, and spatial patterns in ritual concealments. An overview of other important artifact types illustrates the wide variety of material culture employed in folk rituals in European America. The article concludes with a discussion of regional variation in ritual concealments and the importance of family and household structure, geographic and cultural origin, and cosmology and worldview in private domestic ritual.

- by M. Chris Manning
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- Folklore, Historical Archaeology, Anglo-Saxon Studies, Salem Witchcraft Trials

In the seventeenth- and early eighteenth centuries, fluits were the most common type of merchant ship used in Baltic trade. Originally a Dutch design, the majority of all goods transported between Sweden and the Republic was carried on board such vessels. Far from all voyages reached their destination. Down in the cold brackish water of the Baltic, the preservation conditions are optimal, and several of these unfortunate vessels remain nearly intact today. Although thousands of more or less identical fluits were built, surprisingly little is known about the arrangement of space on board, their sculptural embellishment and other aspects that formed the physical component of everyday life on and alongside these ships. Fluits were a fixture in early modern society, so numerous that they became almost invisible. The study of wrecks thus holds great potential for revealing vital components of early modern life. Inspired by phenomenological approaches in archaeology, this thesis aims to focus on the lived experience of fluits. It sets out to grasp for seemingly mundane everyday activities relating to these ships, from the physical arrangements for eating, sleeping and answering nature’s call, to their rearrangement for naval use, and ends with a consideration of the architectonical contribution of the fluit to the urban landscape.

- by Hajnalka Herold
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- Economic History, Archaeology, Landscape Archaeology, Medieval Studies

The concept of a visualscape was introduced less than a decade ago as a generic term with the aim of unifying and extending within a GIS the ideas and scope of current analyses of ‘human’ visual space, independently of their scale or context (Llobera 2003, 30). This chapter firstly starts with acknowledging that generic notions which make explicit the conceptual affinities of current visual analyses have the potential to encourage methodological innovation, and precipitate a fuller understanding of the interplay between humans and their surroundings. It then reviews recent works on three-dimensional visibility analysis found in the fields of geography, urban studies and archaeology, and discusses their conceptual contribution to the study of visual space. Focusing on these new developments it is argued that the visualscape could prove a more powerful and useful operational concept, if it is associated more broadly with the full range of technological possibilities used currently to describe the visual structure of landscapes and built spaces, rather than tied specifically to GIS applications.

- by Eleftheria Paliou
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- Archaeology, Prehistoric Archaeology, Digital Humanities, 3D GIS
- by Sonia Gutiérrez Lloret and +1
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- Archaeology of Buildings, Archaeology of Architecture, Semiotic Social Space, Household Archaeology

The “aegeanization” (or, alternatively, “mycenaeanization” or “hellenization”) of Cyprus is one of the more contentious debates for those engaged in the study of the island’s Late Bronze and early Iron Age periods. My own contribution to this debate arises from my ongoing study of the relationship between architecture and power on Cyprus during the Late Bronze Age. In reviewing previous studies of this architecture, it became clear that claims of foreign influence are often an important aspect of how Late Cypriot buildings are interpreted and that the origins and nature of such influences have important implications for our understanding of Late Bronze Age (LBA) sociopolitical dynamics. This study therefore represents an initial foray into addressing the issue of Aegean elements in LBA Cypriot architecture based on an approach that views built space as the context for social interaction. I begin by outlining the differing viewpoints in the ongoing debate regarding the aegeanization of Cyprus and then discuss the supposed architectural manifestations of this process. I then introduce a method for analyzing built space that might shed light on the sociopolitical dynamics surrounding one particular innovation—large halls with central hearths. I demonstrate that any aegeanization represented by this innovation should be viewed in the context of selective borrowing and adapting of Mycenaean cultural traits by Cypriot elites, rather than as the product of Mycenaean colonization.

- by Norma Franklin
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- Archaeology, Architecture, Archaeology of Ancient Israel, Levantine Archaeology

This paper deals with the study of the domestic spaces from a linguistic perspective (a grammar of the house), distinguishing the elements into themselves and their combinations. Three different levels of analysis of the domestic fact are defined: the morphological, which tackles the form of the domestic units and the transformations they suffer; the syntactic, which emphasizes the relations between the elemental structures in the framework of an organized spatial structure; and the semiotic, which analyzes them as social expressions, materialization and instrument of cultural meanings.

The aim is to study ancient fountains in their architectural context, in the belief that the context will reveal their function in the dwelling. This article first analyzes the fountain structures and examines the relationship between each structure and the architecture. Through this approach, it is possible to reach some conclusions of more general value, concerning the function of central parts of Roman houses.

- by E B Andersson
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- Archaeology, Classical Archaeology, Mythology, Roman History

Monumental buildings constructed with ashlar masonry have long been recognized as a hallmark of the Late Cypriot (LC) period (c. 1650-1100 BC). Yet, little attention has been paid to the vital role they played in the (trans)formation of social structures and maintenance of elite power. I examine how these buildings were designed to facilitate social interactions, including ritual activities centred on feasting, through which social statuses, roles and identities were negotiated and reproduced. This was achieved through the purposeful arrangement of rooms to control access and encourage or discourage particular types of interaction, as well as the strategic placement of symbolically-charged architectural elements such as ashlar masonry as a means of reifying social boundaries. As such, these monumental buildings were socially-constructed and meaningful places of action and interaction and therefore a central component of LC elite identities and the strategy of placemaking by which they derived and maintained their power.

- by Kevin D Fisher
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- Near Eastern Archaeology, Space Syntax, Place and Identity, Space and Place

The First World War is still widely regarded as a recent event. However, with the passing of the last survivors, History is becoming the domain of Archaeology. These archaeological finds give a clear insight into global politics and aspects of social life, including alterations to suffrage and class boundaries. Archaeologists’ discoveries, interpreted anthropologically, help uncover how and why such a brutal war took place, as human relations often parallel their geo-political counterpart. The distinctive approach of newly-developed battlefield archaeology provides different and complementary information about the conflict. Material remains allow researchers to discover a broad range of original perspectives about everyday lives of soldiers. Throughout this article, a multidisciplinary approach will be followed to discuss remains left after battle, landscapes in a broad sense, the archaeology of First World War battlefields, and finishing with concerns about the role of archaeology in historical periods.

- by Nicholas Telfer and +2
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- History, American History, European History, History of Science and Technology

Il workshop internazionale su "Il laterizio nei cantieri imperiali. Roma ed il Mediterraneo" vuole promuovere un nuovo dibattito, su scala mediterranea e alla luce di nuovi studi e nuovi approcci metodologici, intorno al materiale da costruzione emblematico dell’architettura romana.
Il convegno, svoltosi a Roma il 27 e 28 novembre 2014, ha visto coinvolti gli specialisti della costruzione romana in laterizio in un ampio dibattito che si proponeva di capire in particolare se e come il laterizio ha servito il potere imperiale; se e come ha influenzato i processi di romanizzazione; come è stato prodotto e diffuso attraverso l’Impero; come ha condizionato l’organizzazione dei cantieri imperiali ed infine come ha partecipato all’innovazione e alla trasmissione del sapere tecnico romano.
Questo volume raccoglie i contributi proposti al workshop, rivisti e integrati sulla base delle discussioni. I primi venticinque contributi sono presentati per aree geografiche (Roma, penisola Italica, Mediterraneo occidentale e Mediterraneo orientale), mentre i cinque finali riprendono i temi e l’essenza delle discussioni

- by Rita Volpe and +1
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- Archaeology of Buildings, Brick and tile (Archaeology), Roman Architecture, Bricks

Los asentamientos formativos del sur de los valles Calchaquíes (500 a. C. a 1000 d. C.) permiten diferenciar entre algunas zonas de uso cotidiano y sectores funerarios o ceremoniales, entre conjuntos de vivienda-patio y conjuntos de montículo-plazuela. En el transcurso del primer milenio d. C. se reconocen varios modos alternativos de diferenciación del espacio y de inversión en el paisaje arquitectónico, que confieren la primacía a medios materiales y simbólicos distintos. Al final del primer milenio se pueden distinguir más claramente dos modos de diferenciación: uno fundado en el control y manipulación de recursos sagrados y otro fundado en el control y concentración de recursos de orden socio-político, secular. Ambos principios de distinción operaron como medios y recursos de transformaciones sociales. Estos modos produjeron formas diversas de jerarquización del espacio social y de la arquitectura comunitaria. Las variaciones se ilustran con la descripción de sitios y materiales arqueológicos del valle de Santa María y alrededores.

- by Cristina Scattolin
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- Cultural History, Prehistoric Archaeology, Architecture, Andean Archaeology

A pesar de tratarse de los edificios de la antigüedad postclasica que mejor se conservan en el Mediterráneo, se conoce todavía poco sobre el funcionamiento y significado de las iglesias tardoantiguas. La bibliografía científica está plagada de imprecisiones en relación al nombre de los distintos ambientes que constituían las iglesias, a las funciones que podía o no desempeñar un determinado edificio, a cómo se desarrollaba la misa en su interior, a aspectos vinculados a su condición jurídica, por ejemplo. Esta carencia se debe al hecho que, a diferencia de otros temas clave de este periodo, como los intercambios comerciales, el sistema de explotación del territorio o la llegada de los bárbaros, las iglesias han sido generalmente estudiadas como monumentos aislados sin tener en cuenta el contexto político, económico y social en el que fueron construidas y con el que estaban íntimamente conectadas. Además, los estudios sobre la arquitectura eclesiástica suelen llevarse a cabo desde una perspectiva geográfica circunscrita cuando, en realidad, la cristianización fue uno de los últimos fenómenos globales que tuvo lugar en el Mediterráneo antiguo, por lo que muchos procesos y elementos característicos son comunes a iglesias de territorios muy diversos. Es útil, si no fundamental, comparar situaciones para comprender su significado en relación a las transformaciones ideológicas y sociales pero también económicas que se produjeron en el paso del Imperio romano de Occidente a los nuevos reinos bárbaros.
El objetivo de este trabajo es proponer una visión del proceso de cristianización en la que se integrasen las numerosas fuentes escritas - excepcionales cuando se comparan con los testimonios de otras áreas del Mediterráneo- con aquellas materiales y arqueológicas, más problemáticas desde el punto de vista cronológico y de su interpretación.
El resultado no es sólo una historia de la cristianización de la península ibérica entre los siglos V y VII, sino que afronta algunos de los temas cruciales para comprender este periodo histórico, entre ellos el proceso de asentamiento de las poblaciones bárbaras, en particular los visigodos, y las complejas relaciones que se establecieron entre ellos y la población local encabezada por los obispos en una contraposición, a veces dura, fundada también en las diferencias doctrinales entre visigodos y romanos. A través de estas tensiones se fue constituyendo la red eclesiástica centrada en el episcopio urbano y en las iglesias rurales, pero en la que tuvieron un papel fundamental también los complejos martiriales suburbanos, las iglesias privadas y las instituciones monásticas.

The experience of architecture and imagery is a critical area of inquiry for pilgrimage studies. For example, how was the building perceived and interpreted? Who were the spectators, and what might the decoration have meant to them? In many cases devotional campaigns – material, architectural or decorative – worked as a visual link between building and spectator, communicating to them the function of the building. Pilgrimage art and architecture was, predominantly, designed to be seen and understood and, as such, played an integral role in the visitor’s experience of a space, accommodating and expecting multiple responses whilst inspiring a reaction of the senses. Thus, these aesthetic schemes communicated; they were intended to be read and cannot be divorced from the spaces they inhabited or the people they affected

- by Emma J . Wells
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- Medieval History, Medieval Studies, Monastic Studies, Archaeology of Buildings

The study of the building techniques, the stratigraphic
sequences and the typological transformations of these three
quadriburgia within the broad context of the socio-political
changes operated in the region in Late Antiquity, has helped
not only to clarify the changes of use they underwent and the
technology involved, but also has shed light on their historical
context during the transitional period from Late Antiquity
to Early Islam. These structures bear witness of these historical
periods, offering an ideal and diversified catalogue of
building techniques, architectural typologies, and what is more
important, a recurrent pattern of physical transformations and
changes of use from the 3rd throughout the 8th C. AD. This
precise pattern involves the transformation and re-use of these
military structures in the 6th C. AD into religious (monasteries),
civil and palatine ones. These changes were apparently
carried out in most cases by the Ghassanids, the Christian Arab
foederati tribes entrusted with the task of the defence of the
Limes Arabicus as a result of the change of the defensive strategy
operated by Justinian. The information retrieved (technical
and historical) offers a new insight to some key issues of
the historical periods involved: These two sources of information
clarify the technical improvements and transformations
operated in the buildings, as well as the historical significance
that can be elicited from these changes.

Gary M. Feinman and Linda M. Nicholas, 2016. In Beyond Collapse: Archaeological Perspectives on Resilience, Revitalization, and Transformation in Complex Societies, edited by Ronald K. Faulseit, pp.43-69. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Southern Illinois University, Occasional Paper No. 42. Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale.

- by Gary Feinman and +1
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- History, Ancient History, Economic History, Political Sociology
- by Basil Chulev
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- History, Ancient History, European History, Cultural History
- by Hajnalka Herold
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- Archaeology, Historical Archaeology, Landscape Archaeology, Medieval Studies