Edited by Reinhard Bernbeck, Gisela Eberhardt & Susan Pollock
The collection of essays in this b... more Edited by Reinhard Bernbeck, Gisela Eberhardt & Susan Pollock
The collection of essays in this book focuses on the highlands of Iran in pre-modern times, reaching from the Paleolithic to the medieval period. What holds the diverse contributions together is an issue that is closely related to debates in our own times: crises and how societies in the past dealt with them. We start from the premise that general circumstances in the fractured topographic structure of the Iranian highlands led to unique relations between ecological, social, economic and political conditions.
In three sections entitled “Climate and palaeoenvironment”, “Settlement, subsistence and mobility” und “Political and economic institutions”, the authors ask what sorts of crises afflicted past societies in the Iranian highlands, to what extent they proved resilient, and especially what strategies they developed for enhancing the resilience of their ways of life. Looking for answers in paleoenvironmental proxy data, archaeological findings and written sources, the authors examine subsistence economies, political institutions, religious beliefs, everyday routines and economic specialization in different temporal, spatial and organizational scales.
This book is the first volume of a series published by the German-Iranian research cooperation “The Iranian Highlands: Resiliences and Integration in Premodern Societies”. The goal of the research project is to shine a new light on communities and societies that populated the Iranian highlands and their more or less successful strategies to cope with the many vagaries, the constant changes and risks of their natural and humanly shaped environments.
This introduction to a set of papers on innovations in ancient societies discusses an overview of... more This introduction to a set of papers on innovations in ancient societies discusses an overview of crucial issues raised in the collected contributions. It is evident that the esteem for innovations in different societies was highly uneven. Most of the contributions collected here argue that in non-modern circumstances, innovations had to be inserted into existing cultural traditions with utmost care to be successful.
Archaeologists evince a strong tendency to impute significance to the material traces they study,... more Archaeologists evince a strong tendency to impute significance to the material traces they study, a propensity that has been especially marked since the post-processual emphasis on meaning and that has taken on renewed vigour with the turn to materiality. But are there not situations in which things are rather incidental or insignificant? This set of essays emerged from a workshop held in Berlin in April 2018, in which a group of scholars was invited to discuss the place of the incidental in social life in general and in archaeology in particular. Rather than lengthy formal papers, we offer an introduction that presents a general set of reflections on the issue of the incidentalness of things, followed by essays that pursue particular directions raised by that introduction as well as our discussions in Berlin. It is our hope that these brief forays into a complex topic will stimulate further work on this subject.
The essays in this theme section demonstrate clearly the diversity and complexity of a topic that... more The essays in this theme section demonstrate clearly the diversity and complexity of a topic that seems negligible in practice but emerges as important upon further reflection—the incidentalness of things. In this brief afterword, we highlight three of the themes addressed by all or most of the contributions, which we suggest are of particular relevance when considering the place of the incidental in our archaeological engagements.
How do societies remember their past? And how did they do so before the age of computers, printin... more How do societies remember their past? And how did they do so before the age of computers, printing, writing? This book takes stock of earlier work on memory in the fields of history and the social sciences. Our collection also takes a new look at how past and present social groups have memorialized events and rendered them durable through materializations: contributors ask how processes and incidents perceived as negative and disruptive are nonetheless constitutive of group identities. Papers also contrast the monumentalizing treatment given to singular events imbued with a hegemonic meaning to more localized, diverse memory places and networks. As case studies show, such memory scapes invite divergent, multivocal and subversive narratives. Various kinds of these imagined geographies lend themselves to practices of manipulation, preservation and control. The temporal scope of the volume reaches from the late Neolithic to the recent past, resulting in a long-term and multi-focal pers...
In der Einfuhrung des vorliegenden Sammelbands werden die Diskussionen uber Erinnerung in der Arc... more In der Einfuhrung des vorliegenden Sammelbands werden die Diskussionen uber Erinnerung in der Archaologie in gegenwartige Kontexte eingeordnet, unsere Beweggrunde fur die Herausgabe dieses Buches dargelegt und einige zentrale Aspekte von Erinnerung, Raum und Identitat diskutiert. Neben einem kurzen Uberblick zur Geschichte der Gedachtnisforschung mit einem Schwerpunkt auf den archaologischen Studien werden eine Reihe von Themen angesprochen, die in den Aufsatzen des vorliegenden Bandes eine wichtige Rolle spielen. Dies betrifft unter anderem das Verhaltnis von Vergessen und Erinnern sowie Beziehungen zwischen Raum, Ort und Erinnerung. In Einklang mit unseren AutorInnen betonen wir, dass Erinnerung eine Frage der Praktiken ist, nicht nur der Denkweise. Ein weiteres Element in unseren Diskussionen ist die Verbindung von Erinnerung, Fortbestehen und Geschichte. All diese Aspekte wirken zusammen bei einem diesen zugrundeliegenden wichtigen Thema der politischen Natur verschiedener Arten...
The research group Political Ecology of Non-Sedentary Communities encompasses three research proj... more The research group Political Ecology of Non-Sedentary Communities encompasses three research projects examining archaeological remains from various time periods in the Nile Delta, the foothills of the Kopet Dag and in the steppe region of western Eurasia; a fourth project in the group consists of climate and ecological modeling for Europe over the past 6000 years. The researchers in this group are investigating processes and dynamics which played out in different geographic spaces and different chronological periods between 9000 and 300 BCE. We propose a triad of three terms, Umgebung , Umwelt , and Mitwelt to serve as a conceptual basis for all of these projects, which vary greatly in terms of the chronological period, location and the way of life of the populations under study, as well as with respect to the archaeological database. The projects can be described on the basis of evidence of multifaceted practical actions. These actions on the part of the populations under study, re...
Als seriöses historisches Fach hat die Archäologie bis in neuere Zeit die Handlungen von Kindern ... more Als seriöses historisches Fach hat die Archäologie bis in neuere Zeit die Handlungen von Kindern fast komplett ignoriert. Wenn Kinder und Jugendliche in archäologischen Schriften vorkamen, dann biopolitisch: als demographischer Anteil von Gräbern in Friedhöfen, wobei das Sterbealter und die Krankheiten, die sie sterben ließen, mehr interessierten als ihr Leben und die Aktivitäten, die sie einstmals ausgeführt hatten. Kinder erscheinen in archäologischen Texten zudem dann, wenn vermutet wird, dass bestimmte Gegenstände, wie Figurinen, kleine Wagen und Ähnliches, für sie von Er
In the summer of 2017, renewed fieldwork was undertaken at Tappeh Sofalin in the Varamin Plain. A... more In the summer of 2017, renewed fieldwork was undertaken at Tappeh Sofalin in the Varamin Plain. A total of 20 samples for absolute dating were collected during this season, several of which have been analyzed. We present this new evidence for the dating of the site and compare it briefly with published dates and analyses from other sites. Finally, we discuss implications for the chronology of the Proto-Elamite spread to the Central Plateau and other areas of Iran.
Arqueolog a de la dictadura en Latinoam rica y Europa, 2020
This paper discusses the notion of state terror and different kinds of evidence for it, among the... more This paper discusses the notion of state terror and different kinds of evidence for it, among them documentary sources, photographs and oral history. These sources are able to provide testimony for political regimes of terror. They also each include pitfalls of which some important ones are mentioned. Archaeology has often been adduced as an unquestionable background witness but has been at the same time relegated to the realm of conditions of possibility for the proof of state terror. However, archaeology can also produce evidence that adds new and otherwise unrecognized dimensions of terror regimes. The example of the excavations of a large Nazi period forced labor camp at the Tempelhof Airfield in Berlin is used to demonstrate this potential.
Arch ologie der Moderne Standpunkte und Perspektiven, 2020
This paper discusses the role of things in the framework of the materiality of Nazi camps. It ana... more This paper discusses the role of things in the framework of the materiality of Nazi camps. It analyzes different dimensions of thing affordances and argues that the assumption of objects being used in ways of a "canonical affordance" risks to dangerously distort the cruel reality of the camps. Re-interpreting these assemblages also encounters a different problem, the "componentiality" of modern materiality. A consideration of different dimensions of thing affordances and their complex relation to componentiality ends in a style of interpretation that is close to Paul Ricoeur's "hermeneutics of suspicion".
The present study investigates for the first time a largely forgotten pyrotechnology for manufact... more The present study investigates for the first time a largely forgotten pyrotechnology for manufacturing artificial millstones for Persian windmills and querns from Islamic period Sistan, a region in southeastern Iran. The unusual characteristics of these materials result from melting a sand-clay mixture at high temperatures. A unique experimental and multianalytical method was developed to understand the heating-cooling regime for manufacturing artificial millstones and other technical details of their production. According to chemical and microstructural analyses, these materials were melted between 1150 ◦C and 1250 ◦C and kept there for a period of 14–20 h, to be subsequently cooled down by 10–50 ◦C/h. Our experimental results for reproducing the microstructure of these objects show that any other temperature regime would be unsuccessful for manufacturing a functional millstone for these huge windmills which are usually referred to as the first wind turbines in the history of technology.
Archaeologists evince a strong tendency to impute significance to the material traces they study... more Archaeologists evince a strong tendency to impute significance to the material traces they study, a propensity that has been especially marked since the post-processual emphasis on meaning and that has taken on renewed vigour with the turn to materiality. But are there not situations in which things are rather incidental or insignificant? This set of essays emerged from a workshop held in Berlin in April 2018, in which a group of scholars was invited to discuss the place of the incidental in social life in general and in archaeology in particular. Rather than lengthy formal papers, we offer an introduction that presents a general set of reflections on the issue of the incidentalness of things, followed by essays that pursue particular directions raised by that introduction as well as our discussions in Berlin. It is our hope that these brief forays into a complex topic will stimulate further work on this subject.
Edited by Reinhard Bernbeck, Gisela Eberhardt & Susan Pollock
The collection of essays in this b... more Edited by Reinhard Bernbeck, Gisela Eberhardt & Susan Pollock
The collection of essays in this book focuses on the highlands of Iran in pre-modern times, reaching from the Paleolithic to the medieval period. What holds the diverse contributions together is an issue that is closely related to debates in our own times: crises and how societies in the past dealt with them. We start from the premise that general circumstances in the fractured topographic structure of the Iranian highlands led to unique relations between ecological, social, economic and political conditions.
In three sections entitled “Climate and palaeoenvironment”, “Settlement, subsistence and mobility” und “Political and economic institutions”, the authors ask what sorts of crises afflicted past societies in the Iranian highlands, to what extent they proved resilient, and especially what strategies they developed for enhancing the resilience of their ways of life. Looking for answers in paleoenvironmental proxy data, archaeological findings and written sources, the authors examine subsistence economies, political institutions, religious beliefs, everyday routines and economic specialization in different temporal, spatial and organizational scales.
This book is the first volume of a series published by the German-Iranian research cooperation “The Iranian Highlands: Resiliences and Integration in Premodern Societies”. The goal of the research project is to shine a new light on communities and societies that populated the Iranian highlands and their more or less successful strategies to cope with the many vagaries, the constant changes and risks of their natural and humanly shaped environments.
This introduction to a set of papers on innovations in ancient societies discusses an overview of... more This introduction to a set of papers on innovations in ancient societies discusses an overview of crucial issues raised in the collected contributions. It is evident that the esteem for innovations in different societies was highly uneven. Most of the contributions collected here argue that in non-modern circumstances, innovations had to be inserted into existing cultural traditions with utmost care to be successful.
Archaeologists evince a strong tendency to impute significance to the material traces they study,... more Archaeologists evince a strong tendency to impute significance to the material traces they study, a propensity that has been especially marked since the post-processual emphasis on meaning and that has taken on renewed vigour with the turn to materiality. But are there not situations in which things are rather incidental or insignificant? This set of essays emerged from a workshop held in Berlin in April 2018, in which a group of scholars was invited to discuss the place of the incidental in social life in general and in archaeology in particular. Rather than lengthy formal papers, we offer an introduction that presents a general set of reflections on the issue of the incidentalness of things, followed by essays that pursue particular directions raised by that introduction as well as our discussions in Berlin. It is our hope that these brief forays into a complex topic will stimulate further work on this subject.
The essays in this theme section demonstrate clearly the diversity and complexity of a topic that... more The essays in this theme section demonstrate clearly the diversity and complexity of a topic that seems negligible in practice but emerges as important upon further reflection—the incidentalness of things. In this brief afterword, we highlight three of the themes addressed by all or most of the contributions, which we suggest are of particular relevance when considering the place of the incidental in our archaeological engagements.
How do societies remember their past? And how did they do so before the age of computers, printin... more How do societies remember their past? And how did they do so before the age of computers, printing, writing? This book takes stock of earlier work on memory in the fields of history and the social sciences. Our collection also takes a new look at how past and present social groups have memorialized events and rendered them durable through materializations: contributors ask how processes and incidents perceived as negative and disruptive are nonetheless constitutive of group identities. Papers also contrast the monumentalizing treatment given to singular events imbued with a hegemonic meaning to more localized, diverse memory places and networks. As case studies show, such memory scapes invite divergent, multivocal and subversive narratives. Various kinds of these imagined geographies lend themselves to practices of manipulation, preservation and control. The temporal scope of the volume reaches from the late Neolithic to the recent past, resulting in a long-term and multi-focal pers...
In der Einfuhrung des vorliegenden Sammelbands werden die Diskussionen uber Erinnerung in der Arc... more In der Einfuhrung des vorliegenden Sammelbands werden die Diskussionen uber Erinnerung in der Archaologie in gegenwartige Kontexte eingeordnet, unsere Beweggrunde fur die Herausgabe dieses Buches dargelegt und einige zentrale Aspekte von Erinnerung, Raum und Identitat diskutiert. Neben einem kurzen Uberblick zur Geschichte der Gedachtnisforschung mit einem Schwerpunkt auf den archaologischen Studien werden eine Reihe von Themen angesprochen, die in den Aufsatzen des vorliegenden Bandes eine wichtige Rolle spielen. Dies betrifft unter anderem das Verhaltnis von Vergessen und Erinnern sowie Beziehungen zwischen Raum, Ort und Erinnerung. In Einklang mit unseren AutorInnen betonen wir, dass Erinnerung eine Frage der Praktiken ist, nicht nur der Denkweise. Ein weiteres Element in unseren Diskussionen ist die Verbindung von Erinnerung, Fortbestehen und Geschichte. All diese Aspekte wirken zusammen bei einem diesen zugrundeliegenden wichtigen Thema der politischen Natur verschiedener Arten...
The research group Political Ecology of Non-Sedentary Communities encompasses three research proj... more The research group Political Ecology of Non-Sedentary Communities encompasses three research projects examining archaeological remains from various time periods in the Nile Delta, the foothills of the Kopet Dag and in the steppe region of western Eurasia; a fourth project in the group consists of climate and ecological modeling for Europe over the past 6000 years. The researchers in this group are investigating processes and dynamics which played out in different geographic spaces and different chronological periods between 9000 and 300 BCE. We propose a triad of three terms, Umgebung , Umwelt , and Mitwelt to serve as a conceptual basis for all of these projects, which vary greatly in terms of the chronological period, location and the way of life of the populations under study, as well as with respect to the archaeological database. The projects can be described on the basis of evidence of multifaceted practical actions. These actions on the part of the populations under study, re...
Als seriöses historisches Fach hat die Archäologie bis in neuere Zeit die Handlungen von Kindern ... more Als seriöses historisches Fach hat die Archäologie bis in neuere Zeit die Handlungen von Kindern fast komplett ignoriert. Wenn Kinder und Jugendliche in archäologischen Schriften vorkamen, dann biopolitisch: als demographischer Anteil von Gräbern in Friedhöfen, wobei das Sterbealter und die Krankheiten, die sie sterben ließen, mehr interessierten als ihr Leben und die Aktivitäten, die sie einstmals ausgeführt hatten. Kinder erscheinen in archäologischen Texten zudem dann, wenn vermutet wird, dass bestimmte Gegenstände, wie Figurinen, kleine Wagen und Ähnliches, für sie von Er
In the summer of 2017, renewed fieldwork was undertaken at Tappeh Sofalin in the Varamin Plain. A... more In the summer of 2017, renewed fieldwork was undertaken at Tappeh Sofalin in the Varamin Plain. A total of 20 samples for absolute dating were collected during this season, several of which have been analyzed. We present this new evidence for the dating of the site and compare it briefly with published dates and analyses from other sites. Finally, we discuss implications for the chronology of the Proto-Elamite spread to the Central Plateau and other areas of Iran.
Arqueolog a de la dictadura en Latinoam rica y Europa, 2020
This paper discusses the notion of state terror and different kinds of evidence for it, among the... more This paper discusses the notion of state terror and different kinds of evidence for it, among them documentary sources, photographs and oral history. These sources are able to provide testimony for political regimes of terror. They also each include pitfalls of which some important ones are mentioned. Archaeology has often been adduced as an unquestionable background witness but has been at the same time relegated to the realm of conditions of possibility for the proof of state terror. However, archaeology can also produce evidence that adds new and otherwise unrecognized dimensions of terror regimes. The example of the excavations of a large Nazi period forced labor camp at the Tempelhof Airfield in Berlin is used to demonstrate this potential.
Arch ologie der Moderne Standpunkte und Perspektiven, 2020
This paper discusses the role of things in the framework of the materiality of Nazi camps. It ana... more This paper discusses the role of things in the framework of the materiality of Nazi camps. It analyzes different dimensions of thing affordances and argues that the assumption of objects being used in ways of a "canonical affordance" risks to dangerously distort the cruel reality of the camps. Re-interpreting these assemblages also encounters a different problem, the "componentiality" of modern materiality. A consideration of different dimensions of thing affordances and their complex relation to componentiality ends in a style of interpretation that is close to Paul Ricoeur's "hermeneutics of suspicion".
The present study investigates for the first time a largely forgotten pyrotechnology for manufact... more The present study investigates for the first time a largely forgotten pyrotechnology for manufacturing artificial millstones for Persian windmills and querns from Islamic period Sistan, a region in southeastern Iran. The unusual characteristics of these materials result from melting a sand-clay mixture at high temperatures. A unique experimental and multianalytical method was developed to understand the heating-cooling regime for manufacturing artificial millstones and other technical details of their production. According to chemical and microstructural analyses, these materials were melted between 1150 ◦C and 1250 ◦C and kept there for a period of 14–20 h, to be subsequently cooled down by 10–50 ◦C/h. Our experimental results for reproducing the microstructure of these objects show that any other temperature regime would be unsuccessful for manufacturing a functional millstone for these huge windmills which are usually referred to as the first wind turbines in the history of technology.
Archaeologists evince a strong tendency to impute significance to the material traces they study... more Archaeologists evince a strong tendency to impute significance to the material traces they study, a propensity that has been especially marked since the post-processual emphasis on meaning and that has taken on renewed vigour with the turn to materiality. But are there not situations in which things are rather incidental or insignificant? This set of essays emerged from a workshop held in Berlin in April 2018, in which a group of scholars was invited to discuss the place of the incidental in social life in general and in archaeology in particular. Rather than lengthy formal papers, we offer an introduction that presents a general set of reflections on the issue of the incidentalness of things, followed by essays that pursue particular directions raised by that introduction as well as our discussions in Berlin. It is our hope that these brief forays into a complex topic will stimulate further work on this subject.
How do societies remember their past? And how did they do so before the age of computers, printin... more How do societies remember their past? And how did they do so before the age of computers, printing, writing? This book takes stock of earlier work on memory in the fields of history and the social sciences. Our collection also takes a new look at how past and present social groups have memorialized events and rendered them durable through materializations: contributors ask how processes and incidents perceived as negative and disruptive are nonetheless constitutive of group identities. The temporal scope of the volume reaches from the late Neolithic to the recent past, resulting in a long-term and multi-focal perspective that demonstrates how the perception of past events changes, acquires new layers and is molded by different groups at different points in time. As several contributions show, these manipulations of the past do not always produce the anticipated results, however. Attempts at “post-factual history” are countered by the socially distributed, but spatially and materially anchored nature of the very process of memorialization.
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The collection of essays in this book focuses on the highlands of Iran in pre-modern times, reaching from the Paleolithic to the medieval period. What holds the diverse contributions together is an issue that is closely related to debates in our own times: crises and how societies in the past dealt with them. We start from the premise that general circumstances in the fractured topographic structure of the Iranian highlands led to unique relations between ecological, social, economic and political conditions.
In three sections entitled “Climate and palaeoenvironment”, “Settlement, subsistence and mobility” und “Political and economic institutions”, the authors ask what sorts of crises afflicted past societies in the Iranian highlands, to what extent they proved resilient, and especially what strategies they developed for enhancing the resilience of their ways of life. Looking for answers in paleoenvironmental proxy data, archaeological findings and written sources, the authors examine subsistence economies, political institutions, religious beliefs, everyday routines and economic specialization in different temporal, spatial and organizational scales.
This book is the first volume of a series published by the German-Iranian research cooperation “The Iranian Highlands: Resiliences and Integration in Premodern Societies”. The goal of the research project is to shine a new light on communities and societies that populated the Iranian highlands and their more or less successful strategies to cope with the many vagaries, the constant changes and risks of their natural and humanly shaped environments.
witness but has been at the same time relegated to the realm of conditions of possibility for the proof of state terror. However, archaeology can also produce evidence that adds new and otherwise unrecognized dimensions of terror regimes. The example of the excavations of a large Nazi period forced labor camp at the Tempelhof Airfield in Berlin is used to demonstrate this potential.
millstones for Persian windmills and querns from Islamic period Sistan, a region in southeastern Iran. The unusual
characteristics of these materials result from melting a sand-clay mixture at high temperatures. A unique
experimental and multianalytical method was developed to understand the heating-cooling regime for
manufacturing artificial millstones and other technical details of their production. According to chemical and
microstructural analyses, these materials were melted between 1150 ◦C and 1250 ◦C and kept there for a period
of 14–20 h, to be subsequently cooled down by 10–50 ◦C/h. Our experimental results for reproducing the
microstructure of these objects show that any other temperature regime would be unsuccessful for manufacturing a functional millstone for these huge windmills which are usually referred to as the first wind turbines in the history of technology.
The collection of essays in this book focuses on the highlands of Iran in pre-modern times, reaching from the Paleolithic to the medieval period. What holds the diverse contributions together is an issue that is closely related to debates in our own times: crises and how societies in the past dealt with them. We start from the premise that general circumstances in the fractured topographic structure of the Iranian highlands led to unique relations between ecological, social, economic and political conditions.
In three sections entitled “Climate and palaeoenvironment”, “Settlement, subsistence and mobility” und “Political and economic institutions”, the authors ask what sorts of crises afflicted past societies in the Iranian highlands, to what extent they proved resilient, and especially what strategies they developed for enhancing the resilience of their ways of life. Looking for answers in paleoenvironmental proxy data, archaeological findings and written sources, the authors examine subsistence economies, political institutions, religious beliefs, everyday routines and economic specialization in different temporal, spatial and organizational scales.
This book is the first volume of a series published by the German-Iranian research cooperation “The Iranian Highlands: Resiliences and Integration in Premodern Societies”. The goal of the research project is to shine a new light on communities and societies that populated the Iranian highlands and their more or less successful strategies to cope with the many vagaries, the constant changes and risks of their natural and humanly shaped environments.
witness but has been at the same time relegated to the realm of conditions of possibility for the proof of state terror. However, archaeology can also produce evidence that adds new and otherwise unrecognized dimensions of terror regimes. The example of the excavations of a large Nazi period forced labor camp at the Tempelhof Airfield in Berlin is used to demonstrate this potential.
millstones for Persian windmills and querns from Islamic period Sistan, a region in southeastern Iran. The unusual
characteristics of these materials result from melting a sand-clay mixture at high temperatures. A unique
experimental and multianalytical method was developed to understand the heating-cooling regime for
manufacturing artificial millstones and other technical details of their production. According to chemical and
microstructural analyses, these materials were melted between 1150 ◦C and 1250 ◦C and kept there for a period
of 14–20 h, to be subsequently cooled down by 10–50 ◦C/h. Our experimental results for reproducing the
microstructure of these objects show that any other temperature regime would be unsuccessful for manufacturing a functional millstone for these huge windmills which are usually referred to as the first wind turbines in the history of technology.