2019, MNHMH/MNEME: Past and Memory in the Aegean Bonze Age. Proceedings of the 17th International Aegean Conference, University of Udine, Department of Humanities and Cultural Heritage, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Department of Humanities (17-21 April 2018), Aegeum 43, 2019
The Mesara, ever since the latest phases of the Neolithic period, was occupied by small groups wh... more The Mesara, ever since the latest phases of the Neolithic period, was occupied by small groups who moved about in the landscape, as witnessed by numerous single-phase sites identified through surveys and/or excavations. This continuous shifting of the locus of habitation occurred not only at regional level but also at intra-site level, as clarified by the few excavated sites such as Ayia Triada, Phaistos, Kamilari. In these sites, structures attributable to the same ceramic phase more often than not turned out to have been constructed in different architectural phases. This situation of instability and mobility was counterbalanced by an extraordinary persistence of the locations used for ritual activity, within or outside the funerary sphere, to such an extent that these locations were considered to be social arenas, i.e. places deputed to the creation of social cohesion and ultimately to the production of community. In such a fluid social landscape, phenomena of revival of the past through the re-use of tombs or through the reintroduction of ceramic shapes and decorative motifs long after their first appearance in the region, were expected and are interpretable as part of precise strategies through which these mobile groups tried to legitimate their presence in certain locations
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Papers by Simona Todaro
Most scholars would agree that urban communities may be recognised by assessing parameters of scale, concentration and differentiation.
Indeed, urban centres are not only significantly larger than the norm in their culture; they have also greater residential densities, with abnormally large populations often concentrated in relatively small areas that exhibit clear
signs of occupational specializations. In the Aegean, based on survey data, the settlement record seems to be dominated by farms and hamlets of very small size throughout most phases of prehistory. In Crete, instead, during
the second millennium BC some sites seemed to have reached very large size (between 40 and 100 ha), and were supposed to have hosted incredibly large populations, distributed at rates of 400 or 300 individuals per hectares.
However, while it is undeniable that Minoan palatial society was urban and complex, based on available data it seems unlikely that palatial sites were also mega-sites extending for tens of hectares, and hosting 20-25 thousand
individuals. In this paper, evidence from south central Crete is used to question the approaches that underpinned these reconstructions. More specifically, data from Phaistos will be used to demonstrate that the size of the site was massively inflated because all deposits were considered domestic in function and were bracketed into macro-phases. This prevented an appreciation of function, temporality and mobility and ended up in inflating massively the size of the site and mainly the size of population that might have lived there permanently.
Age and in the past twenty-five years it has been the focus of many studies that have tried to assess its development and character. In fact, most of this work has addressed specific aspects of this very complex phenomenon, making any synthesis a very challenging task. However, thanks to T. Whitelaw’s long-term focus on
this issue, and thanks to the comprehensive approach followed by C. Knappett, Q. Letesson and M. Smith in their landmark 2016 article, it is now possible to approach the topic with a list of six recurrent traits that could be treated as archaeological indicators of Minoan urbanism.
This paper focuses on south-central Crete and intends to present archeological evidence that do not
fit the criteria list in order to start reflecting upon the necessity of elaborate a new theoretical model not only regarding complex issues such as state formation, which can be easily detangled from urbanization, but also in terms of settlement type classification and definition.
This paper, after having considered some of the most innovative forms of co-creative tourism, i.e. intended not only as a visit or educational or informative experience, but as a real form of “cultural production”, draws attention to the lack of impact that these territorial policies have amongst the residents of the
historic centers of some Italian cities. It proposes that experiences of participatory archeology, such currently being undertaken in Catania on the Montevergine hill, could be used to raise awareness among residents about the value of their own cultural heritage.
While we wait for new boreholes to be drilled in the area, this contribution intends to focus on the material culture which, although no longer conceivable as an ‘extrasomatic mechanism of adaptation to the environment’, must in any case be understood as strongly linked to the environment in which and for which it was produced. On the basis of the understanding that multi-proxy analyses aimed at environmental reconstruction needs to also considered ‘material culture’ as an important variable, it is proposed that the Phaistos hill was located on the coast until at least the first half of the IV millennium BC because the activities carried out at the site during the earliest phases of frequentations are undistinguishable from those attested at a series of sites that were established in the Aegean islands on coastal hills, by maritime groups characterized by the very same eclectic culture variously imbued with Balkan elements.
Subsequent research into the Final Neolithic of Crete confirmed its importance as a period of major socio-economic reconfiguration, but opened up a debate regarding the trigger that initiated these changes, because some scholars interpret them as the result of the arrival of new groups from overseas late in the Final Neolithic (henceforth FN) (Nowicki 2002; 2014), and others as the outcome of an increase in long-distance connectivity originating from Crete (Papadatos &Tomkins 2013). In the first scenario, based on the appearance of new types of sites with new ceramic types, the Cretan population had a rather passive role in the process of reconfiguration; in the second, based on the results of analytical studies conducted on pottery from old and newly excavated sites, the change started from Crete thanks to sites like Kephala-Petras that established long-distance relationships with areas as remote as Attica to get products and raw materials that were not locally available (Papadatos 2008; Papadatos & Tomkins 2013).
The results of recent geological and archaeological research conducted at Phaistos, an elevated site located in south-central Crete, permits the reconsideration of some of these issues because it has been shown that the site, until the very end of the 4th millennium BC, was on the coast and, after sporadic frequentations that occurred during the 5th millennium BC, was settled by people who shared the same material culture as the extremely mobile groups that colonised most of the Aegean islands between the end of the 6th and the end of the 4th millennium BC. Phaistos therefore provides a good opportunity for ascertaining whether and to what extent substantial changes in material culture could have been triggered by human mobility, and also allows questions of where, and why people moved, to be addressed while also providing important insights for interpreting the uneven nature of the relationship between Crete and the southern Aegean between the 5th and 3rd millennia BC.
tombs that were used for communal burials over many generations and have been traditionally taken to indicate residential stability (Branigan 1971; 1991). A correct appreciation of their incomplete sequences of use, coupled with a deeper understanding of their surrounding territories has more recently allowed some scholars to argue that most tombs were used episodically by different kin-based groups, i.e. by groups who, changing their locus of habitation, needed some form of territorial foci to legitimate their control over productive resources in their vicinity (Whitelaw 2001). In terms of settlement strategies, the plethora of tombs of similar dimensions spread throughout the region has been taken to represent a dispersed settlement system of small and short-lived hamlets and farmsteads that, in the late phases of the EM period, were abandoned due to population nucleation at a few focal sites (Whitelaw 2001). Hagia Triada, founded in EM I on a relatively low hill near the course of the Geropotamos river, seems to fit very neatly into this trend as the various EM phases are attested in different parts of the site (Todaro 2003a; 2011; 2019b-c). Phaistos however, documents a very different pattern because the locus of activity did not shift across the site, but took place through in situ re-building, a strategy that led to
the formation of long sequences of floors, hearths, and walls that at first sight has seemed to suggest a degree of settlement stability, favoured by the agricultural potential of the plain.
Building on the results of a contextual and environmental study carried out on the Phaistos hills and their territory, in this paper it will be argued that the extraordinary continuity of the location of the residences allowed by in situ rebuilding, is not merely the outcome of ecological constraints, but can be viewed as part of an ideology that serves to localise the social group, to organize kin-like relationships and to secure group rights to a specific material property (Gillespie 2000: 16; Bailey 1990). More specifically, focusing on the settlement strategies practiced in the Mesara in the EBA, it will be argued that the buildings constructed on the hilltop at Phaistos in different phases of the EM period, differed from those attested in the region not only because they were served
by paved ramps and were characterised by paved areas, red floors and red plastered walls, but because they were the outcome of the common effort of residents and non-residents. They were not, in other words, houses, i.e. residences of individual households, but Houses, i.e. the physical representation of corporate bodies that could be inhabited only by the core group (i.e. by the highest-ranking members of the group), but were constructed and/or maintained by various groups that by doing so claimed an affiliation/membership.
In this contribution, based on some recently investigated sites in the Catania area, we aim to focus attention on the existence of objects, or groups of objects, of probable external provenance and the activities that took place in different sites, connected with both domestic (craft products) and symbolic spheres, highlighting the elements to be linked with maritime relations.
Most scholars would agree that urban communities may be recognised by assessing parameters of scale, concentration and differentiation.
Indeed, urban centres are not only significantly larger than the norm in their culture; they have also greater residential densities, with abnormally large populations often concentrated in relatively small areas that exhibit clear
signs of occupational specializations. In the Aegean, based on survey data, the settlement record seems to be dominated by farms and hamlets of very small size throughout most phases of prehistory. In Crete, instead, during
the second millennium BC some sites seemed to have reached very large size (between 40 and 100 ha), and were supposed to have hosted incredibly large populations, distributed at rates of 400 or 300 individuals per hectares.
However, while it is undeniable that Minoan palatial society was urban and complex, based on available data it seems unlikely that palatial sites were also mega-sites extending for tens of hectares, and hosting 20-25 thousand
individuals. In this paper, evidence from south central Crete is used to question the approaches that underpinned these reconstructions. More specifically, data from Phaistos will be used to demonstrate that the size of the site was massively inflated because all deposits were considered domestic in function and were bracketed into macro-phases. This prevented an appreciation of function, temporality and mobility and ended up in inflating massively the size of the site and mainly the size of population that might have lived there permanently.
Age and in the past twenty-five years it has been the focus of many studies that have tried to assess its development and character. In fact, most of this work has addressed specific aspects of this very complex phenomenon, making any synthesis a very challenging task. However, thanks to T. Whitelaw’s long-term focus on
this issue, and thanks to the comprehensive approach followed by C. Knappett, Q. Letesson and M. Smith in their landmark 2016 article, it is now possible to approach the topic with a list of six recurrent traits that could be treated as archaeological indicators of Minoan urbanism.
This paper focuses on south-central Crete and intends to present archeological evidence that do not
fit the criteria list in order to start reflecting upon the necessity of elaborate a new theoretical model not only regarding complex issues such as state formation, which can be easily detangled from urbanization, but also in terms of settlement type classification and definition.
This paper, after having considered some of the most innovative forms of co-creative tourism, i.e. intended not only as a visit or educational or informative experience, but as a real form of “cultural production”, draws attention to the lack of impact that these territorial policies have amongst the residents of the
historic centers of some Italian cities. It proposes that experiences of participatory archeology, such currently being undertaken in Catania on the Montevergine hill, could be used to raise awareness among residents about the value of their own cultural heritage.
While we wait for new boreholes to be drilled in the area, this contribution intends to focus on the material culture which, although no longer conceivable as an ‘extrasomatic mechanism of adaptation to the environment’, must in any case be understood as strongly linked to the environment in which and for which it was produced. On the basis of the understanding that multi-proxy analyses aimed at environmental reconstruction needs to also considered ‘material culture’ as an important variable, it is proposed that the Phaistos hill was located on the coast until at least the first half of the IV millennium BC because the activities carried out at the site during the earliest phases of frequentations are undistinguishable from those attested at a series of sites that were established in the Aegean islands on coastal hills, by maritime groups characterized by the very same eclectic culture variously imbued with Balkan elements.
Subsequent research into the Final Neolithic of Crete confirmed its importance as a period of major socio-economic reconfiguration, but opened up a debate regarding the trigger that initiated these changes, because some scholars interpret them as the result of the arrival of new groups from overseas late in the Final Neolithic (henceforth FN) (Nowicki 2002; 2014), and others as the outcome of an increase in long-distance connectivity originating from Crete (Papadatos &Tomkins 2013). In the first scenario, based on the appearance of new types of sites with new ceramic types, the Cretan population had a rather passive role in the process of reconfiguration; in the second, based on the results of analytical studies conducted on pottery from old and newly excavated sites, the change started from Crete thanks to sites like Kephala-Petras that established long-distance relationships with areas as remote as Attica to get products and raw materials that were not locally available (Papadatos 2008; Papadatos & Tomkins 2013).
The results of recent geological and archaeological research conducted at Phaistos, an elevated site located in south-central Crete, permits the reconsideration of some of these issues because it has been shown that the site, until the very end of the 4th millennium BC, was on the coast and, after sporadic frequentations that occurred during the 5th millennium BC, was settled by people who shared the same material culture as the extremely mobile groups that colonised most of the Aegean islands between the end of the 6th and the end of the 4th millennium BC. Phaistos therefore provides a good opportunity for ascertaining whether and to what extent substantial changes in material culture could have been triggered by human mobility, and also allows questions of where, and why people moved, to be addressed while also providing important insights for interpreting the uneven nature of the relationship between Crete and the southern Aegean between the 5th and 3rd millennia BC.
tombs that were used for communal burials over many generations and have been traditionally taken to indicate residential stability (Branigan 1971; 1991). A correct appreciation of their incomplete sequences of use, coupled with a deeper understanding of their surrounding territories has more recently allowed some scholars to argue that most tombs were used episodically by different kin-based groups, i.e. by groups who, changing their locus of habitation, needed some form of territorial foci to legitimate their control over productive resources in their vicinity (Whitelaw 2001). In terms of settlement strategies, the plethora of tombs of similar dimensions spread throughout the region has been taken to represent a dispersed settlement system of small and short-lived hamlets and farmsteads that, in the late phases of the EM period, were abandoned due to population nucleation at a few focal sites (Whitelaw 2001). Hagia Triada, founded in EM I on a relatively low hill near the course of the Geropotamos river, seems to fit very neatly into this trend as the various EM phases are attested in different parts of the site (Todaro 2003a; 2011; 2019b-c). Phaistos however, documents a very different pattern because the locus of activity did not shift across the site, but took place through in situ re-building, a strategy that led to
the formation of long sequences of floors, hearths, and walls that at first sight has seemed to suggest a degree of settlement stability, favoured by the agricultural potential of the plain.
Building on the results of a contextual and environmental study carried out on the Phaistos hills and their territory, in this paper it will be argued that the extraordinary continuity of the location of the residences allowed by in situ rebuilding, is not merely the outcome of ecological constraints, but can be viewed as part of an ideology that serves to localise the social group, to organize kin-like relationships and to secure group rights to a specific material property (Gillespie 2000: 16; Bailey 1990). More specifically, focusing on the settlement strategies practiced in the Mesara in the EBA, it will be argued that the buildings constructed on the hilltop at Phaistos in different phases of the EM period, differed from those attested in the region not only because they were served
by paved ramps and were characterised by paved areas, red floors and red plastered walls, but because they were the outcome of the common effort of residents and non-residents. They were not, in other words, houses, i.e. residences of individual households, but Houses, i.e. the physical representation of corporate bodies that could be inhabited only by the core group (i.e. by the highest-ranking members of the group), but were constructed and/or maintained by various groups that by doing so claimed an affiliation/membership.
In this contribution, based on some recently investigated sites in the Catania area, we aim to focus attention on the existence of objects, or groups of objects, of probable external provenance and the activities that took place in different sites, connected with both domestic (craft products) and symbolic spheres, highlighting the elements to be linked with maritime relations.
https://www.i6doc.com/fr/book/?gcoi=28001104706670
This book focuses on Phaistos, a site located in Crete, and aims to establish the stratigraphic sequence of the site in the period that preceded the construction of a palace of Minoan type (a court-centred building) by using the data collected during three major excavation campaigns conducted between 1900-1909; between 1951 and 1966; and between 2000 and 2005. It is not the publication of the relative chronology of the site, i.e. of the pottery groups that define the various phases of the Early Bronze Age, as this is in the process of being completed under the auspices of the Italian Archaeological School in Athens; nor is it the publication of the results of the contextual re-assessment of the site, which has already been presented and discussed in a monograph length study, which challenged the old orthodoxy that Prepalatial Phaistos operated as a straightforward settlement that grew through the various phases of the Early Bronze Age to become a proto-urban centre. This book has been written to clarify the methodology followed by the author in re-assessing the settlement history of Phaistos prior to the construction of the palace, a methodology that was based on the cross-correlation of more than 180 stratigraphies excavated during the past 100 years that had at its core V .La Rosa’s excavation strategy, known as “Riscavare lo scavato”. This excavation programme entailed the opening of new trenches near old ones, and thus linked past and present investigations providing the opportunity to see with new eyes stratifications that had been simply described and poorly illustrated by the previous excavators.
It is suggested that Phaistos stood out in the Prepalatial Mesara not only on account of its size, but above all for (1) its continuity of occupation, which contrasts with the settlement mobility revealed by the numerous single-phase sites uncovered in the region (2) the large-scale building projects that took place at the core of the site between EM II and EM III and (3) the specificity of some of the communal activities that took place in certain locations, which might have involved the periodic re-visiting of the hill by other Mesara groups.
The new path has inevitably forced practitioners to rethink how and why we do archaeology and has eventually led to a shift of focus from top-down, often enforced, box-ticking exercises, to projects aimed to empower local communities.
While the outcomes of archaeological research are regulated by specific legislation and publication responsibilities, the truly collaborative practice poses often unresolved location specific challenges.
True collaboration requires the permeability of boundaries between “professional” and “community member”, which can become extremely difficult to transcend when working with marginal groups, even in cases in which researchers are both community members and professionals.
Yet, marginal groups, i.e. communities that can be regarded as critical for socio-economic reasons (e.g. peripheries of urban centres, groups characterized by a lack of access to facilities, that have not been integrated, are illiterate or new), are those that could benefit more from collaborative research projects in which the cultural heritage can become a trigger for creating and/or reinforcing integration.
The aim of this session is to bring together researchers who have been working with such communities so as to address, through specific cases studies, challenges and attempts at overcoming them.