Mobility (Archaeology)

Filet, Clara. 2021. « Dynamiques d’urbanisation et réseaux d’interactions dans le monde celtique transalpin (IVe – Ier s. BCE) ». Thèse de doctorat, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris, 747 p.


Urbanisation dynamics and interaction networks in the Celtic transalpine world (4th - 1st century BCE)

Abstract: In the last four centuries before the turn of era, the emergence of large agglomerations north of the Alps initiated a profound and irreversible change in the way of life of the continental Europe populations. This thesis aims to offer a new perspective on the development of these places in the La Tène world by analysing the evolution of the mobility of people and goods that accompanied their rise.

The inventory of 812 grouped settlements (open or fortified agglomerations) in ten countries from France to Slovakia offers a new picture of the wave of agglomeration foundations between the 4th and 1st centuries BC. The chronological and functional study of their formation offers a global perspective on the processes of settlement agglomeration on the scale of La Tène Europe, highlighting the crucial periods, rhythms and regional specificities. The development of Second Iron Age settlements can thus be seen as the result of multiple and combined processes at the interface between European, regional and local dynamics.

By concentrating people and activities, some of these agglomerations have polarised the circulation of people, products and ideas from the local to the intercultural level since the 3rd century. Through a multiscale study of the interactions and mobility of people and goods during the Second Iron Age, this thesis characterises the role of these sites within their economic, political, and social networks and examines how some of them established themselves as 'central places'. From data analysis to theoretical models, it attempts to propose methodological and conceptual tools to approach ancient urban networks and past interactions by combining concepts and methods from archaeology, geography, physics and complex systems science.

This work thus outlines a broader concept of urbanisation, for which the development of urban features is not limited to the intrinsic characteristics of agglomerations: it is to be placed at the heart of territorial dynamics, as the emergence not of a new type of settlement, but of ‘urbanised territories’. At the end of this work, the circulation of goods and people thus appears as an essential component of the urban development process in continental Europe.

Background: Social isolation during COVID-19 may negatively impact older adults’ wellbeing. To assess its impact, we measured changes in physical activity and sleep among communitydwelling older adults, from pre-to post-pandemic declaration. Method: Physical activity and sleep in
older adults (n = 10, age = 77.3  1.9 years, female = 40%) were remotely assessed within 3-month pre-to 6-month post-pandemic declaration using a pendant-wearable system. Depression was assessed pre-and post-pandemic declaration using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scale and was compared with 48 h continuous physical activity monitoring data before and during pandemic. Results: Compared to pre-pandemic, post-pandemic time spent in standing declined
by 32.7% (Cohen’s d = 0.78, p < 0.01), walking by 52.2% (d = 1.1, p < 0.01), step-counts by 55.1% (d = 1.0, p = 0.016), and postural transitions by 44.6% (d = 0.82, p = 0.017) with increase in sitting duration by 20.5% (d = 0.5, p = 0.049). Depression symptoms increased by 150% (d = 0.8, p = 0.046). Interestingly, increase in depression was significantly correlated with unbroken-prolong sitting bout ( = 0.677, p = 0.032), cadence ( = 􀀀0.70, p = 0.024), and sleep duration ( = 􀀀0.72, p = 0.019). Conclusion: This is one of the early longitudinal studies highlighting adverse effect of the pandemic on objectively assessed physical activity and sleep in older adults. Our observations showed need for timely intervention to mitigate hard to reverse consequences of decreased physical activity such
as depression.

Sourcing artifacts is a key method for addressing anthropological issues of mobility and interaction. Although chert was one the most common toolstones used in prehistory, sourcing chert artifacts remains problematic. In this study an approach for sourcing chert is introduced that links a specific sampling protocol, Laser Ablation-Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS), and multivariate statistical analysis. The effectiveness of this approach is demonstrated through a controlled experiment examining intersource and intrasource variability at four different scales of analysis. The statistical analysis at four spatial scales allows determination of the spatial resolution of the chemical matching procedure outlined here. In this experiment geologic chert samples from the Edwards Plateau of Texas of known provenience are chemically evaluated allowing comparison of their expected origin against their known origin. This experiment used Edwards Plateau chert as it is a high quality material and was a major lithic source across the Southern High Plains and was often transported great distances. Macroscopic identification of Edwards Plateau chert can be problematic and at its best is unable to effectively discern from where within the 120,000 km2 of the region cherts originated. An understanding of the geological formation processes of chert provides a useful framework for addressing this issue. This study shows that through an effective methodology Edwards Plateau chert can be sourced to a finer spatial scale than previous studies.

En el presente trabajo planteamos una revisión crítica, más de treinta años después de la formulación del modelo dual “forager-collector”, del estado actual de la investigación arqueológica en lo relativo a la movilidad de los grupos CPR del pasado y los modelos utilizados, así como en base a qué técnicas de análisis y evidencias arqueológicas se han construido y se construyen dichas interpretaciones. Por otro lado, consideramos que, pese a la insistente constatación en la literatura arqueológica y etnográfica de la enorme variabilidad en las formas de moverse, el trabajo arqueológico ha sido llevado a cabo con muy pocos modelos en mente y con una concepción de las sociedades CPR desprovista de todo aquello que no entra en la definición reduccionista de “material”, principalmente valorando sólo algunos aspectos del sistema de subsistencia o de las estrategias de subsistencia. Es en este sentido que vemos necesario adoptar una aproximación etnoarqueológica, en el sentido amplio del término, y llevar a cabo una revisión crítica de otras informaciones etnográficas disponibles.

This article discusses a figuratively ornamented vessel from a Hallstatt C period cremation grave in tumulus 1883/6/120 of Frög and its cultural context as an example for the wide-ranging contact networks of the Frög community. The production technique with a dark outer and reddish inner surface of the Frög vessel finds parallels among pottery assemblage of late Bronze Age and early Iron Age cultural groups located east of the bend of the Danube and at the lower Danube region. Furthermore, the ornamentation technique imitates those used for stamped pottery at the lower Danube in the early Iron Age. Finally, the figurative ornamentation of the vessel combines local narratives with Basarabi-style ornaments like the S-spiral. Thus, the vessel is an outstanding example for the incorporation processes of eastern elements of craft production into local
aesthetic concepts of the eastern Hallstatt communities during the late Ha C period. So far, mainly men were associated with a sphere of interregional contacts. Armed conflicts resulting in the adaptation of superior military equipment or an ostentatious lifestyle as expression of high status with gift exchange of the paraphernalia of feasting and other ritualized festive forms of interaction were the medium in which those contacts were embodied. The role of women within this scenario should however be emphasized. Marriage practices including exogamy, in the discussed case in an east-western direction, obviously played a
vital part in the social organization of the Frög community. A person who still possessed a vague idea of how Basarabi-motives or an eastern-style-vessel should look like probably produced the ornamented vessel in tumulus 1883/6/120 and combined the eastern style with local east-alpine narratives of figurative art. This person was most likely a woman as it can be assumed for hand-made pottery in general. We may assume mobility of women through marriage practices as the trigger for such east-western interaction processes in the field of craft production. Mobile women brought eastern ornamentation styles and fabrication techniques to Frög and very likely transmitted them through family traditions. By the incorporation of these foreign elements into local style concepts, that is the appropriation of different cultural practices, those women created something new and thus contributed significantly to shaping the cultural identity of the Frög community.

Mobility in Roman Times can be modelled using GIS tools. These resources allow us to understand how communications could be done. In this paper, we debate about a better way to use these models in cases where we have a navigable river in our studied territory. Normally these water spaces are considered as limiters of land movement, because of the real nature of Least Cost Path tools, that will always consider them as natural paths. We argue that in roman mentality the rivers are the best areas for movement and in our current development we could not integrate them with land ones. The main problem is the principal factor in river mobility, the current upstream and downstream. We present a tool in ArcGIS to calculate the Horizontal Factor of the river's current. This allows us to test the integration and results of a combined land and river analysis in different scenarios, like the connexion between centre and node, like a city to the villa. Finally, we argue about the need of this kind of integration to better understand mobility with the ancient mentality, allowing us to consider other ways of cost, not only in terms of time but also in the increased cost value of product transportation.

Actualistic studies have contributed greatly to our understanding of the past. In this paper, we analyze six stone bifaces used to butcher a 23 year-old African Elephant. Detailed records from this study allow us to illustrate how stone tool reduction is not necessarily a linear process, especially when attempting to use metrics to quantify the amount of reduction over time. Through long-term use of stone tools in butchery, we show that overall reduction was minimal even with successive resharpening events. The utility of these tools raise questions about the role of large bifaces in both Paleoindian and other hunter-gatherer contexts where bifaces may have been used as butchery or long-life tools. Our results suggest that bifaces are superior tools for maintaining an effective cutting edge during prolonged use. These findings may further explain the use of large bifaces among Paleoindian and other foraging populations.

This book presents a new model for understanding the collection of ancient kingdoms that surrounded the northeast corner of the Mediterranean Sea from the Cilician Plain in the west to the upper Tigris River in the east, and from Cappadocia in the north to western Syria in the south, during the Iron Age of the ancient Near East (ca. 1200 to 600 BCE). Rather than presenting them as homogenous ethnolinguistic communities like "the Aramaeans" or "the Luwians" living in neatly bounded territories, this book sees these polities as being fundamentally diverse and variable, distinguished by demographic fluidity and cultural mobility. The Syro-Anatolian City-States sheds new light via an examination of a host of evidentiary sources, including archaeological site plans, settlement patterns, visual arts, and historical sources. Together, these lines of evidence reveal a complex fusion of cultural traditions that is nevertheless distinctly recognizable unto itself. This book is the first to specifically characterize the Iron Age city-states of southeastern Turkey and northern Syria, arguing for a unified cultural formation characterized above all by diversity and mobility and that can be referred to as the "Syro-Anatolian Culture Complex."

In ancient Egypt a very high mobility is attested since earliest times. Workers, officials and even Pharaoh
himself were on the move. The means of locomotion they used on their journeys were the same, no matter if
the travels led through the Nile Valley or through the desert. The oldest mode of travel was simply to walk,
carrying one’s personal belongings and supplies. Chariots and carrying chairs were used as well as donkeys
and horses for riding. Freight was transported by donkeys or with sledges, carts and wagons drawn by oxen.
The motivation to start a journey was not to search for food, but for professional reasons. Food and water for
the travelers and the pack or riding animals had to be taken along. If the journey was of any great length, however,
the traveler would have to rely on wells, cisterns or water deposits along the desert routes. Therefore,
much organization and calculation referring to the carrying capacity of the pack animals and the weight of
freight and supplies was needed. To calculate a day’s journey, the traveling speed was of great importance.

Keywords: donkey, camel, horse, traveling speed, chariot, sledge, cart, wagon

This book offers new and innovative perspectives on long-distance trade between Europe, the Mediterranean area, the Middle East, Africa, India and China during the Early Medieval period. The archaeological data and historical insights presented in this volume are always of great interest, often exciting, and more than once outright astonishing. The goods which travelled between the continents in the timespan under discussion (ca. 6th to 12th centuries) include pottery in all shapes and forms, textiles, coins, metal, lava millstones, glass, marble columns, rock-crystal beads, and also plants used for incense.  The scope of the contributions includes the wide-ranging  economic contacts of a Viking community, the changing patterns of long-distance trade in the Byzantine Empire over the centuries, the spread of Chinese pottery to Africa, the Near East and Europe, the invaluable information on trade and maritime routes provided by shipwrecks in the Java Sea, the reconstruction on the basis of botanical data of a incense trade network, and the production and distribution of textiles as well as stone objects in the Middle East and beyond. The varied approaches in this volume underline that the movement of objects in Early Medieval times over vast distances not only reflect mechanisms of exchange, but also imply social networks and the transfer of ideas. Thus, Riches Beyond the Horizon sheds compelling light on a world which was much more complex and much more interconnected than has often been assumed, which makes it essential reading for scholars and a larger audience alike.
See more at: http://www.brepols.net/pages/ShowProduct.aspx?prod_id=IS-9782503599816-1

This paper aims to present an overview of recent research on the Mesolithic lithic scatters in the Central Pennine area. In particular, it aims to exemplify a new analytical and interpretive approach to these lithic scatters by outlining—on a broad level—the new methodology, themes and conceptual links between the artefactual evidence (including the chaînes opératoire model), and hunter-gatherer behaviour. The main conclusions are summarised including—a radically new narrative that intimately links prehistoric lithic consumption and tool use with Mesolithic mobility strategies, and settlement patterns in Northern England. In doing so, the author also hopes to highlight the need for a radically different methodological and paradigmatic approach to the recovery, study and recording of the lithic heritage of the Pennines and beyond.

From 2200-1900 BC, Northern Mesopotamia experienced depopulation and a loss of political complexity. Understanding the resettlement of this region—the recovery of complex societies following collapse—has emerged as a major research question in Near Eastern archaeology. Recent studies have employed two models of political regeneration: 1) “template regeneration,” whereby the renewed society follows the same pattern that a society in the same area had before the collapse and 2) “rural resiliency,” whereby the collapse of urban settlements was epiphenomenal and a resilient rural and tribal base allowed for settlement continuity and the regeneration of urban society. This article proposes a different model and argues that this resettlement involved the creation of a new type of polity, the tribal kingdom, which employed novel political, economic and cultural strategies. Tribal kingdoms were characterized by the rise of tribal confederacies, changing mobility patterns, changes in social structure, and new economic systems that used the steppe in different ways, all of which transformed settlements of all sizes as well as the relationships between them. Although these tribal kingdoms sought to establish their hegemony (in a Gramscian sense) partly by appealing to historical precedents, particularly the Akkadian Empire, they did not simply revive third millennium political practices. Similarly, although continuity is evident in some centers, survey and excavation data reveal that the overall settlement systems in Northern Mesopotamia were transformed between the third and second millennia. As a result, this article emphasizes the importance of discontinuity in the archaeological and historical record, in contrast to the usual emphasis on continuity, maintenance and the longue durée in complex societies following their emergence.

Biomolecular evidence has great potential to address unanswered questions about the nature and scale of migration into early medieval England. Previous isotopic studies of early medieval mobility and migration have mostly been site specific, focussing on the identification of outliers, occasionally comparing to a baseline or other sites for context. Here we present the results of a large-scale synthetic analysis of isotopic data for mobility in early medieval England, utilising both published and new data. We show gendered and regionally specific mobility histories in early medieval England for the first time at scale, and demonstrate chronological fluctuations linked to events such as the Adventus Saxonum and Scandinavian settlements of the 9th century AD onwards. First generation migrants and their possible regions of origin are identified, and narratives of migration from the end of the Roman period to the 11th century AD are re-framed considering the new evidence presented.

Lucretius was the first philosopher of immanence. It is he and not Democritus or Epicurus who holds this title. If we want to understand the historical emergence of the concept of immanence, we should start by distinguishing its precursors in Greek atomism from its first complete incarnation in Lucretius. This way, we can see exactly what first defined and distinguished immanence from its past. Therefore in what follows I would like to make three, perhaps controversial, claims about the emergence of philosophical immanence. 1) Lucretius was not an atomist, 2) Greek atomism reintroduced transcendence, and 3) It is the primacy of motion in Lucretius that defines his philosophical immanence. Lucretius was not an atomist This thesis is as counterintuitive as it is straightforward. The first major difference between Lucretius and the earlier Greek atomists is precisely that—the atom. For Leucippus, Democritus, and Epicurus atoms are always in motion, but the atom itself remained fundamentally unchanged, indivisible, and thus internally static—even as it moved. Thus instead of positing discrete atoms as ontologically primary as both ancient Greek and later modern theories do, one of Lucretius's greatest novelties was to posit the movement or flow of matter as primary. Lucretius did not simply " translate Epicurus, " as the Greco-centric story goes; rather, he introduced the first immanent kinetic materialism in the West. For example, although the Latin word atomus (smallest particle) was available to Lucretius to use in his poem, he intentionally did not use it, nor did he use the Latin word particula or particle to describe matter. The English translations of " atom, " " particle, " and others have all been added to the text in translation based on a certain historical interpretation of it. The idea that Lucretius subscribed to a world of discrete particles called atoms is therefore both a projection of Epicureanism, who used the Greek word atomos, and a retroaction of modern scientific mechanism of the fifteenth century onto De Rerum Natura. Lucretius rejected entirely the notion that things emerged from discrete particles. To believe otherwise is to distort the original meanings of the Latin text as well as the absolutely enormous poetic apparatus he summoned to describe the flowing, swirling, folding, and weaving of the flux of matter. Although Lucretius rejected the term atomus, he remained absolutely true to one aspect of the original Greek meaning of the word, τομος (átomos, " indivisible "), from-(a-, " not ") + τέμνω (témnō, " I cut "). Being is not cut up into discrete particles, but is composed of continuous flows, folds, and weaves. Discrete " things " (rerum) are composed of corporeal flows (corpora) that move together (conflux) and fold over themselves (nexus) in a woven knot work (contextum). For Lucretius, things only emerge and have their being within and immanent to the flow and flux of matter in motion. Discreteness is an apparent product of continuous folded matter, uncut, undivided, and in motion and not the other way around.

This edited volume contains a collection of papers that interrogate the past, present, and future of migration and mobility studies in archaeology. The chapters answer to the advances in genetics, isotope studies, and data manipulation over the past decade that have revolutionized our understanding of human movement, and offer integrated approaches to understanding migration and mobility, incorporating genomic studies, computational science, social theory, cognitive and evolutionary studies, environmental history, and network analysis.

The recent EAA meeting in Maastricht selected as a general theme the “Third Scientific Revolution” in archaeology. As stated by Kristian Kristiansen in 2014, this revolution embraces new developments in archaeological sciences (genetic and stable isotopes analysis) and new methodological trends in relation to statistical quantification and modelling. Past mobility studies have been among the domains of archaeological scientific enquiry that have benefitted the most from relevant advances in ancient DNA, isotopes and agent-based modelling approaches. These scientific advances accompany a theoretical acknowledgement of the complexity of past human movement; an acknowledgement that reflects the culmination of decades of archaeological thought around the subject of human mobility. Early in the advent of western science, archaeologists employed ‘migration’ as an axiomatic explanatory approach to cultural change rather than a dynamic social process. This trend was followed by an appreciation that empirical results coming from the natural sciences would be employed as self-evident proof for the interpretation of social phenomena, such as human mobility, drawing upon positivist approaches, which were subsequently criticized as oversimplifying complex social dynamics. The aim of this contribution is to map the diverse approaches implemented by archaeological theory and archaeological sciences and explore how these get entangled in order to explore the complex and dynamic nature of past human mobility. Emphasis will be placed on identifying where relevant interdisciplinary research currently stands and what its future directions may be.

In this paper, we present a history of pastoralism in the ancient Near East from the Neolithic through the Bronze Age. We describe the accretional development of pastoral technologies over eight millennia, including the productive breeding of domestic sheep, goats, and cattle in the early Neolithic and the subsequent domestication of animals used primarily for labor—donkeys, horses, and finally camels—as well as the first appearance of husbandry strategies such as penning, foddering, pastur-ing, young male culling, and dairy production. Despite frequent references in the literature to prehistoric pastoral nomads, pastoralism in Southwest Asia was strongly associated with sedentary communities that practiced intensive plant cultivation and was largely local in nature. There is very little evidence in prehistoric and early historic Southwest Asia to support the notion of a " dimorphic society " characterized by separate and specialized agriculturists and mobile pastoralists. Although mobile herders were present in the steppe regions of Syria by the early second millennium BC, mobile pastoralism was the exception rather than the rule at that time; its " identification " in the archaeological record frequently derives from the application of anachronistic ethnographic analogy. We conclude that pastoralism was a diverse, flexible, and dynamic adaptation in the ancient Near East and call for a reinvigorated and empirically based archaeology of pastoralism in Southwest Asia.

Human use of watercraft dates back at least thirty thousand years and some researchers propose that this technology enabled the peopling  of Australia closer to fifty thousand years ago.  Due to the vagaries of preservation across millennia, direct evidence of Paleolithic rafts or boats is lacking despite other data substantiating their use.  Archeologists iner the existence of Paleolithic watercraft from indirect evidence such as the transport of stone across bodies of water that separate locations where raw stone was acquired from places where it was used and  discarded (i.e. obsidian gathered from islands inaccessible from the mainland without the use of boats).  This article takes as its starting position the likelihood that watercraft technologies were among transportation and mobility options employed during early explorations and settlements of the Americas.  While early colonization models increasingly envision possible maritime travel, they are relatively mute on possible uses for watercraft as aids in inland exploration, mobility, and settlement.  This paper draws ideas from examinations of ethnographic and archaeological records to provide a springboard for expanding mobility models beyond their present tendency to view pedestrian travel as the dominant, if not nearly exclusive, mode of inland movement in late Pleistocene America.

Clovis is the best known early development in North America but its lithic technology is poorly documented and often from animal kill sites. This evidence has been used to picture Clovis peoples as mobile, colonizing, big-game hunters and explanations of lithic technological practices have been framed largely in materialist terms. Increasing documentation suggests views about how the complex Clovis biface and blade production strategies relate to subsistence, land use, and specific kinds of mobility patterns are questionable and often difficult to test with archaeological data. We need to seriously consider the role of Clovis people's worldview in structuring their thought and technical actions.

Archaeological studies on migrants usually focus on their role in
production activities, either as part of the labour force, or as specialized
craftsmen dependent on local entrepreneurs, families or
public institutions. This book aims to overcome this unidirectional
discourse on dependency and to propose an alternative approach,
examining migrants as actors in the economic life of ancient societies.
The economic dimension of migration is thus analysed as
part of the complex dynamics of integration and segregation in
local communities. Migrants are considered as consumers, cultural
mediators, social climbers, promoters of different lifestyles,
and as ‘triggers’ for innovation. The papers in this volume suggest
new methodologies and interpretative paths, dealing with a wide
spectrum of case studies from the Middle Kingdom Egypt to the
Bronze and Iron Age of the western Mediterranean, from Classical
Greece to Hellenistic Etruria, concluding with the Przeworsk Culture
of Pannonia. Overcoming the binary oppositions usually set
up between colonists and indigenous peoples, locals and incomers,
this book points out how economic mentalities are part of a
greater entanglement of personal, social and economic identities.

Paleoindian and Early Archaic archaeological sites are of particular importance in the Northeast because they reflect a period of change from an earlier adaptation to a boreal environment to one focused on the resources of the temperate forest. Even slight changes in the subsistence base can have profound implications for hunter-gatherer social organization, group composition, and patterns of seasonal mobility. An early Holocene archaeological site (the Hidden Creek site) has recently been excavated in Ledyard, Connecticut. This site provides valuable information concerning human lifeways during this poorly understood period of time.
The focus of this dissertation is the effect of environmental change on hunter-gatherer populations in the Northeast between 11,000 and 8,000 years ago. Changes in the Northeast's environment between the late Pleistocene and the early Holocene periods would have had profound effects on the subsistence economy, hunter-gatherer social organization, and ultimately on the archaeological record of northeastern North America. Studies of human ecology and the paleoclimatic record are used to anticipate patterns in settlement, subsistence, group organization, and mobility. These expectations are then compared and contrasted to the archaeological record. Special emphasis is given to the Late Paleoindian Period through a detailed analysis of the Hidden Creek site. This site was occupied during the transition from a Paleoindian to Archaic pattern of life in the Northeast, and its better understanding may shed light on both of these periods.
While the recovered artifacts provide a rare opportunity to view the material culture of these people, the significance of the finds lies in their potential to inform us about past human lifeways and about the human species in general. The northeastern Native Americans of 11,000 to 8,000 years ago proved flexible and adaptive in the face of a rapidly shifting resource base. A detailed analysis of the archaeological material of this time period, investigation of the record of climate and vegetation change, and a careful assessment of models of human ecology illuminates the human capacity to respond to such significant environmental change.

Gregoricka, L.A., Ullinger, J. M., and Schrenk, A. (2021). Set apart from within:
Articulated women in commingled tombs from Early Bronze Age Arabia.
Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy, 32(S1), 243-255..

The vast majority of individuals who died during the Umm an-Nar period (2700– 2000 BCE) of the Early Bronze Age (3200–2000 BCE) in south-eastern Arabia were interred within large communal tombs, and following decomposition, their skeletons became commingled with others. Here, two women are discussed whose skeletons remained articulated – one from Unar 2 at Shimal, and one from Tell Abraq. The Unar 2 female was left unburned, exhibited a pathological lesion on her talus, and was directly associated with an articulated dog, indicating that she may have en- gaged in hunting or herding activities despite her reduced mobility. The Tell Abraq woman suffered from paralytic poliomyelitis, suggesting that she received care as a member of her community despite her disability and non-local status. Whatever the role these women played in Umm an-Nar society, both were set apart in meaningful ways, speaking to an identity that granted them special status in death.

TOMASSO A. (2014) – Territoires, systèmes de mobilités et systèmes de production. La fin du Paléolithique supérieur dans l’arc Liguro-provençal, Université de Nice - Sophia Antipolis ; Università di Pisa, Doctorat, Nice.

TERRITORIES, SETTLEMENT DYNAMICS AND PRODUCTION SYSTEMS.
The end of the upper Palaeolithic in the liguro-provencal arc.
Southeastern France is a particular area as regards the late upper Palaeolithic as it lies between the northwestern prehistoric domain on one side, and the Mediterranean and eastern one on the other side; between the Solutrean-Badegoulian-Magdalenian-Azilian sequence and the Epigravettian one.
This PhD work focuses on the techno-economic study of lithic industries originating from the Liguro-Provencal corridor, an area weakly-known for its upper Paleolithic industries. The aim is to re-assess in detail the evolution of technical traditions from the end of the Gravettian (circa 23 000 cal. BCE) to the beginning of the Mesolithic (circa 9 500 cal. BCE).
This work addresses two primary objectives
(1) The Chronological framework. The industries studied are replaced in a newly defined chronocultural model. To do so, the results of the techno-economic studies and radiocarbon dates are combined and discussed in parallel with a synthesis of existing knowledge concerning the Epigravettian.
(2) Mobility patterns and raw material provisioning strategies. The regional background is a particularly favorable research context due to intrinsic factors (a compartmentalized geological domain and a constraining geographical area) and extrinsic ones (intensive research conducted since the 1980’s on lithic raw material availabilities). The results obtained are then mobilized to infer on territorial organization and its evolution through time.
Seeking to foster a dynamic renewal of knowledge on the Epigravettian as a whole, potential comparisons with the western sequence are proposed and discussed as a conclusion.

Abstract: „Something happened in the East but more in the West and South.“ Some critical remarks on the  eastern  influences  in  Vekerzug  culture.  In  the  study  presented,  we  discuss  the  eastern  influences  in  the  Vekerzug culture based on a detailed analysis of  its material sources and some selected aspects, such as funerary customs and costumes. In the research of  the Early Iron Age the eastern influences in the Vekerzug culture tradi-tionally are not only overestimated in comparation to the influences of  the Eastern Hallstatt culture and the Cen-tral and Eastern Balkans but also incorect as scythian interpreted. The participation of  the eastern influences from the East European forest-steppe zone as well as from the North Caucasus in the formation of  the material sources of  the Vekerzug culture is indeed not negligible, but it is not so significant and strong that it is possible to indicate the Vekerzug culture as Eastern, Skythoid or even Scythian culture.Vekerzug culture as a culture of the Hallstatt Period was not part of the sphere of influence of the eastern elites, but it was itself  a driving force in the cultural and historical development of  the Iron Age in the eastern part of  Central Europe and she had been in the strong integration process with the Eastern Hallstatt culture. The foreign influences were selectively absorbed by the Vekerzug culture, selectively modified into local and selectively passed on into the neighboring cultural regions.

Keywords: Vekerzug culture, Eastern influences, Hallstatt and Early La Tène Periods, analysis of finds, funerary cu-stoms, costumes, innovations, interregional contacts

Η παρούσα διπλωματική εργασία χωρίζεται σε δύο αλληλένδετα μέρη: Το πρώτο μέρος είναι μια βιβλιογραφική προσέγγιση και αφορά επιφανειακές έρευνες που έχουν διεξαχθεί διαχρονικά στην περιοχή της Ηπείρου και σχετίζονται με την Παλαιολιθική Εποχή. Ασχολήθηκα με τις πρώτες εξορμήσεις-περιηγήσεις στην περιοχή της Ηπείρου μέχρι και τις τελευταίες σύγχρονες συστηματικές επιφανειακές έρευνες. Το δεύτερο μέρος είναι συμπληρωματικό του πρώτου και αποτελεί μια μελέτη λίθινων τεχνέργων που προέρχονται από επιφανειακές έρευνες. Συγκεκριμένα, το υλικό προέρχεται από μια επιφανειακή έρευνα του Πανεπιστημίου του Cambridge υπό τη διεύθυνση του καθηγητή Geoff Bailey, στα πλαίσια του Klithi Project. Η έρευνα έγινε το 1987 στο βόρειο τμήμα της Ηπείρου, και συγκεκριμένα δυτικά της βραχοσκεπής Κλειδί, στην πεδιάδα της Κόνιτσας και στις λεκάνες του Καλαμά και του Γορμού, καθώς και στις παράκτιες περιοχές προς την Ηγουμενίτσα. Το υλικό αυτό βρίσκεται στις αποθήκες του Αρχαιολογικού Μουσείου Ιωαννίνων και το κατέταξα σύμφωνα με μορφολογικά και τεχνολογικά κριτήρια/χαρακτηριστικά.
Η μελέτη του παραπάνω υλικού είναι μια παρουσίαση ενδεικτικών ευρημάτων από διαφορετικές περιοχές της Ηπείρου. Στόχοι της εργασίας μου είναι να παρουσιάσω συνοπτικά, όπου είναι δυνατόν, την εκάστοτε μεθοδολογία αλλά και τα κριτήρια επιλογής των θέσεων προς διερεύνηση μαζί με τα αποτελέσματα αυτών των ερευνών (ευρήματα, συμπεράσματα, ερωτήματα) και τους περιορισμούς που προέκυψαν. Επιπλέον, ο σχολιασμός της πυκνότητας των λίθινων τεχνέργων, όπως αυτά έχουν προκύψει από τις επιφανειακές έρευνες στην Ήπειρο, από τα μέσα περίπου του 20ου αιώνα μέχρι και σήμερα. Ακόμη, ζητούμενο είναι η κατηγοριοποίηση των θέσεων με λίθινα τέχνεργα, ανάλογα με τον τόπο εντοπισμού τους (υψόμετρο, απόσταση από τη θάλασσα και γεωμορφολογικός χαρακτήρας). Τέλος επιχείρησα μια συνολική αξιολόγηση αυτών των επιφανειακών ερευνών, με σκοπό να παρουσιάσω τον τρόπο με τον οποίο αυτές έχουν συνεισφέρει στα Παλαιολιθικά δεδομένα της Ηπείρου και του ευρύτερου Ελλαδικού χώρου.

English Abstract

This study examines the Palaeolithic surveys that have been carried out in Epirus from 1962 up to 2015. One of the reasons I chose Epirus as the area of my research is because it is probably the most examined area in Paleolithic excavations and surveys in Greece. More specifically, the majority of the Palaeolithic surface material of Epirus comes from five surveys/projects each one with its own strategies, aims and results. The first part of this study is literature-based and the second part consists of a material study. The literature-based part has four main aims:
a) An overview (where it’s possible) of each project strategies and the criteria of the regions to be surveyed along with the results of those projects (finds, conclusions, questions) and the limitations that have appeared
b) A comment on the density of the surface lithic artifacts as they have emerged from the surveys in Epirus from the 1960s until 2019
c) To categorize the sites with the lithic artifacts in relation to the location of their discovery (altitude, distance from the coast and the geomorphological character of each site)
d) An evaluation/synopsis of those surveys in order to reveal in what extend they have contributed in the Palaeolithic data of Epirus and Greece.
This study is divided in two main pillars.
The first pillar refers to the bibliographical approach and concerns the surveys that have taken place in Epirus and are associated with the Palaeolithic period. In particular, it examines the first expeditions/excursion in Epirus up until the recent modern systematic surveys it doesn’t conclude however the individual and the lower scale surveys. The second pillar is supplementary to the first and comprises a lithic material study of artifacts that come from a survey. Therefore it is aimed through the material study and publishing of as yet unpublished material to fill up the remaining gaps in the Palaeolithic data of Epirus. Particularly, the material comes from surveys and investigations of the Cambridge University under the supervision of Geoff Bailey during the Klithi Project. In 1987 a survey has been undertaken in the northern region of Epirus, west of Klithi area, in the basins of Konitsa, Kalamas and Gormos and the coastal region extending towards Igoumenitsa. This survey was in a great percentage complementary to the first expedition during the 1960s. The main goals of this survey were to re-examine the trenches along with the collection of new samples for chronological analysis, to improve the palaeogeographical approaches that Eric Higgs originate and to study the off-site data through interdisciplinary methods.