Artefact Assemblage Studies (archaeology)

The concepts in this chapter were originally presented in the Journal of Architecture in 2013, addressing a design oriented audience. The research findings are included in this book to ensure an educational audience has the opportunity to see the links between pedagogy and space which were encountered in this study. The design of learning environments at every level from primary to tertiary is undergoing major transformations involving the proliferation of new learning spaces that are variously termed learning ‘streets’ or ‘commons’, ‘meeting’ spaces and ‘outdoor learning’ areas together with complex new interrelations and overlaps between them.1 Such changes are largely driven by long standing changes in pedagogical theory and practice that may be broadly described as a recognition of both formal and informal learning and a move from teacher-centred to student-centred learning. The traditional classroom is a product of a teacher-centred pedagogy, framing a hierarchic relation betwe...

In line with the time and space allowed us, this paper will examine several pieces of research undertaken in Italy in the last two decades. Both those that have been completed and those still ongoing, although different, are held to be exemplary in the research topics and methodological approach applied to specific objectives. In particular: 1 – localisation of the workshops producing black glaze pottery, production contexts, organisation of the production, stamping with makers’ names; 2 – problems, instruments and methods of technological characterisation and typological-chronological classification of the productions, especially of those – the most numerous in the peninsula – destined for local and regional consumption. As a result, their reference models, the reciprocal exchanges and their distribution range can be identified. In relation to the latter, which today appears among the most common pursued with a historical-philological method supported by chemical-physical analyses, this paper focuses on two areas of the peninsula whose geographical position, history and culture, in the 4th-3rd centuries B.C. show complex and diverse connotations. These are the coastal area of the Tyrrhenian between Lazio and Campania and the Padovan area between the Po delta and the Apennines in the area around Bologna.

In short, this essay does for the concept of the assemblage what Deleuze and Giorgio Agamben did for Foucault in their essays on the dispositif: it extracts from a large body of work the core formal features of its operative methodology or logic.

In this paper we explore how positioning microwear analysis within new materialism and assemblage theory allows us to develop new ways of thinking about meaning in the past. By mapping the detailed histories of an object's making and use, we suggest that we can open up an understanding of marks as forms of material meanings. These material meanings operate as intensive events that fold together present and absent materials, as well as a range of ongoing processes. By studying marks on an archaeological object made of stone from one of the most famous Bronze Age barrows in Britain, within what we term a microwear assemblage, we will explore how a relational, more-thanrepresentational, version of material meanings emerges.

The aim of this paper is three-fold: 1) to present results of the archaeological excavations conducted in the area surrounding the Black Church in Braşov (Transylvania, Romania); 2) to show the outcome of the analysis of a small human skeletal sample, and 3) to stress the importance of biocultural interpretations of burial sites for a better understanding of the process of urbanization in southern Transylvania.During the Middle Ages Braşov, founded in the 12th century by Central European colonists, was a flourishing multi-cultural and multi-ethnic urban community located in the heart of the Carpathian Mountains (Transylvania, Romania), and a busy crossroad for travellers, merchants and diplomats from Romania, other European countries and the Middle East. Between 2012 and 2013 a team of archaeologists conducted rescue excavations in the area surrounding the Black Church, unearthing a stratigraphically challenging complex of structures formed by centuries of uninterrupted human habita...

SUMMARY: The passing of the Metropolis Local Management Act in 1855 and the creation of an empowered body, the Metropolitan Board of Works, can be seen as the first statutory attempt to reform London at a municipal level during the Victorian period. This paper explores whether the subsequent programme of sanitary improvement conducted by the Board of Works and London’s vestries over the next 30 years, together with managed rubbish collection, can be detected in the archaeological record by using the extensive excavations in north Lambeth as an example of practices that occurred across London. It also demonstrates the strength and distinctiveness of (historical) archaeology in being able to examine disposal processes that otherwise remain largely mute in the written sources.

Cet article a pour objectif de présenter les potentialités d'une nouvelle méthode d'approche des ensembles de mobiliers métalliques, fondée sur le décompte du nombre minimum d'individus (NMI). Après sa description, la méthode est appliquée au mobilier du sanctuaire de la Villeneuve-au-Châtelot (Aube). mots-clés sanctuaire laténien, mobilier métallique, nombre minimum d'individus AbstRAct This article aims at showing the potentialities of a new method to study sets of metallic artefacts, based on the couting of a minimum number of individuals. After describing the method, it is applied to the artefacts of the sanctuary in La Villeneuve-au-Chatelot (Aube).

Rescue excavations undertaken in hermitage EE.50 in Naqlun in 2016 brought to light an extensive pottery assemblage composed of red-slipped goblets, bowls and plates of Egyptian origin, made of alluvial fabrics, and a few specimens imported from North African workshops. The repertoire of tableware was complemented with qullae made of marl and alluvial clays. Numerous cooking pots, pans and a single lid represent kitchen equipment. Goods were kept in large vessels of different types. Commodities such as wine, olive oil or fish sauce were delivered in amphorae: Egyptian LRA 7 and imported vessels, originating from North Africa (Tunisia), Cilicia, Cyprus and Rhodes(?). This assemblage has revealed some aspects of everyday life in the hermitage and confirmed the independent self-sufficient lifestyle of its inhabitants. The pottery assemblage is from the middle to the end of the 5th century AD.

Cet ouvrage explore certains aspects de la religion celtique par l'analyse des pratiques rituelles liées aux mobiliers métalliques retrouvés sur quelques sanctuaires laténiens. Pour ce faire, l'auteur développe une nouvelle méthode d'approche des ensembles métalliques à la fois qualitative et quantitative. Par ce travail, ce sont des réflexions sur l'organisation des rituels et de la religion ellemême auxquelles aboutit l'auteur.

The abundance of goods in the modern world has a tendency to prejudice interpretation of their value, but the way people value their goods is complex, relative and changeable — scarcity is just one factor. There is a long history of value theorization across the social sciences, but archaeological considerations of value remain uncommon and focused on prestige goods. In this paper, I review alternative conceptions of value through the lens of the modern world, with an example of Spode creamware used by a governor in the early decades of colonial Sydney. I argue that the process of devaluation, through discard and waste, offers a unique archaeological understanding of the shifting values people of the modern world placed on commodities.

This paper is a presentation of three sources of artifact-quality chert in Central Anatolia. A previous dearth of research focused on locating and characterizing such raw material sources has incorrectly colored our view of prehistoric economic practices. To remedy this situation, we have conducted a survey of various locales within Central Anatolia to test for the presence of artifact-quality materials. We make use of Individual Attribute Analysis (IAA) and Energy Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence (EDXRF) analysis to discriminate among these materials, and suggest their use by the Neolithic occupants of Ç atalhöyük through similar analyses of artifactual materials. We argue that the presence and characterization of these new sources allows us to better understand the intricacies of Neolithic practices by illustrating the ways in which the consumption of these materials was variably entwined with the exploitation of other resources, as well as embedded within social relations outside of Central Anatolia.

Performance and performativity have been the watchwords of gender studies for many years now. What new vocabularies might invigorate the study of Renaissance masculinities? This essay suggests that notions of distribution, assemblage and capacity might help break recent logjams in gender studies and allow greater attention to the social complexities of masculinity as it is constituted in association with a wide range of bodies, life forms and objects.

This paper will discuss the importance of British material culture in the development of archaeological consumption studies in the 19th-century British Empire using a comparison between seven mid-19th century domestic assemblages from London and Sydney, Australia. Particular attention will be paid to the issue of quality in the analysis of ceramic and glass sherds. An integral component of the development of this quality-recording system is an assemblage of 1830s ceramic factory waste from Staffordshire, allowing a direct comparison of goods deemed unfit for market, and those which found their way into British and colonial homes. Britain was the center of global production for so many household goods in the British Empire and the United States during this period, and British assemblages offer a unique archaeological resource for exploring archaeologies of consumption and developing the methodologies of assemblage analysis.

In two recent articles in JMA, Robin Osborne (2015) and, in a response, James Whitley (2016) present compelling, if provocative, thoughts on the methodological and intellectual divergence between the study of artifacts derived from contexts produced by archaeological excavation, and those from museum collections often lacking well-documented provenience. While both authors acknowledge the importance of excavation and museum collections, the polarization of perspectives is a thought-provoking reflection on research process and practice in classical archaeology. The thread of discussion, however, focuses on objects as sources, leaving the actual archaeological context in the background, effectively limiting its function to the definition of a spatiotemporal framework or provenience of source material for answering historical questions. Drawing on examples from excavations at classical Vergina and Athens, and recent discussion of archaeological practice and the meaning of archaeological context, this contribution re-explores the intellectual divisions that constitute the field of classical archaeology. It does not take issue with Osborne’s or Whitley’s case studies in particular—indeed both are interesting and valuable—but seeks rather to recenter the discussion on the implications of archaeological context itself for developing new questions in classical archaeology.

Recently social constructionist and poststructuralist theories, and the methodologies they have informed, have been criticised for focusing excessively on human discourse and human action whilst overlooking the importance of the material and non-human world. Alongside these critiques we have witnessed the emergence of new-materialist theories and methodologies that attempt to address the perceived shortcomings of social constructionism and poststructuralism. This article aims to make a small contribution to these developments by introducing an experimental new-materialist method for analysing narrative data. The method, which was developed during a qualitative research project exploring the treatment of sexuality within a disability service, borrows from established methods of poststructuralist discourse analysis whilst also seeking to remain attentive to the material, affective and non-human forces that shape and affect the stories people tell.

The article presents the pottery from the early phase of the Neolithic settlement near the town of Varbitsa, which has the characteristics of the Koprivets cultural group. The pottery assemblage originates from sondage 1, stratigraphic layers XI–XV. The information of 1,113 fragments has been statistically analyzed. There are three technological groups: brown (68.4%); beige (21.4%) and grey-black (10.2%). A distinctive feature of the assemblage are the vessels with red engobe (9.8%). Among the indicative features of the pottery from Varbitsa are 14 red-engobe fragments with traces of white painted decoration. Decoration was found on 9.34% of the fragments. The pottery shapes are classified into six functional types: dishes (I), pots (II), bowls (III), cups (IV), tulip-like vessels (V) and storage vessels (VI). The assemblage was analysed by stratigraphic layers. In terms of formative and technological features, the pottery from the early phase of the Neolithic settlement near the to...

In the archaeological record, Ground Stone Tools (hereafter GST) represent an important tool group that provides invaluable data for exploring technological development and changes in resource exploitation over time. Despite its importance, Lower and Middle Paleolithic (MP) GST technology remains poorly known and understudied. The MP record of the Levant constitutes a compelling case study for exploring the nature and character of GST technology. Especially the site of Nesher Ramla (Israel, end of Marine Isotope Stage 6/beginning of 5) has provided one of the world's largest GST assemblages from MP contexts. Aiming at evaluating the variability of tool types at the site from a technological and functional perspective, this study follows an analytical approach which integrates different scales of analysis. Our workflow seeks to generate and combine qualitative and quantitative data allowing: 1) the identification of damage areas, and 2) functional analysis, based on the location, distribution, and characterization of use-wear traces. This study shows a substantial level of diversification in resource exploitation (e.g., mineral, hard animal material and likely perishable components). Results show the presence of several tool types on which diagnostic use-wear can be associated with different activities. Importantly, our analysis indicates the presence of various hammerstone types showing distinct wear characteristics. The variability observed within the hammerstones likely reflects different functions, including in some cases the processing of distinct worked materials. Ultimately, this study contributes to our understanding of the significance of GST technology for the ecological dynamics of MP populations.

One of the cities that has been studied during the long tradition of survey archaeology in Boeotia is the city of Tanagra, which is positioned strategically in a relatively fertile area along the Asopos-river, famous in myth, in southeast Boeotia (Farinetti 2011, 214). Tanagra was studied from a topographical and historiographical perspective by Roller in the 1970s and 1980s, who concluded that ‘in the late second century the city began to fade […], although there was a Church of the Trinity, the city was on the decline well before that, and is little noted after the Severan period’ (Roller 1989, 140). During the subsequent intensive field survey by the Boeotia Project, however, large numbers of sherds with a Late Roman chronology (AD 400-650/700) were collected on the surface of Tanagra and its hinterland (Bintliff et al. 2008, 563). Compared to the Early Roman Imperial and Mid Roman periods, the number of sherds collected on the city’s surface which can be ascribed a Late Roman chronology seems to be remarkably high. While one should be careful in equaling this relatively large number of Late Roman ceramics with, for example, population figures, it seems reasonable to state that there was a substantial phase of occupation at Tanagra in this span of time. Geophysical and architectural examinations that were carried out at this site by the Boeotia Project under the direction of B. Slapšak provide ample evidence for a re-walling of the city during the Late Roman period and provide interesting insights into the ancient infrastructure of this city, as several features such as an ‘upper Agora’ and a ‘lower Agora’, as well as Roman baths and Early Christian churches could be identified on the basis of this research (Bintliff and Slapšak 2007, 15-17; Bintliff et al. 2014, 25-26). As it is hard to relate the assemblages of ceramics on the surface of Tanagra to individual domestic units that play a central role in discussions on ancient housing, this paper will turn to functional zoning, which is a commonly applied approach in survey archaeology to break down a city into smaller units for the comparative evaluation of bodies of ceramics. In this way several presumed functional zones will be approached with reference to so-called ‘domestic assemblages’ and evaluate if and how we should apply this terminology on the assemblages of ceramics that were collected on the surface of Tanagra.

"Assemblage" is a fundamental archaeological construct. By their composition, we interpret assemblages as expressions of activity or cultural identity. Yet they are not simple products of these factors alone but also of formation processes. Assemblages accumulated over varying spans, with varying combinations of tool types and discard rates. They are contexts for the playing out of complex relationships, not static types. This is a materialist view, against the essentialist view that assemblages are exemplars of ideal types (e.g., "base camps," "Quina Mousterian"). Materialism implies that their size and composition, fundamental assemblage characteristics, are correlated variables, not fixed properties, and that composition varies as size increases. I document size dependence consistent with materialism in Paleoindian and Paleolithic assemblages. Among ways to analyze size-dependent assemblage data, I apply "SHE analysis"—the joint study of assemblage richness, heterogeneity, and evenness—to gauge data’s fit to theoretical models. Archaeologists acknowledge size dependence, but we misapprehend it as a methodological bias of assemblage measures that must be suppressed when, in materialist perspective, it reveals meaningful relationships that an essentialist view cannot.

Homo erectus leaving Africa a million years ago ought to have passed through the area that is now Turkey, and the authors report a first certain sighting of human activity of this date in a lignite quarry near Konya. The remains of rhino, hippo and horse were found with 135 modified quartz implements in layers dated by palaeomagnetic reversal to between 0.78 and 0.99 million years ago.

Excavators working in a ceremonial plaza group in the Classic period Lowland Maya city of Caracol, Belize, encountered thousands of pieces of chert and obsidian scattered above a royal tomb. A recent analysis of the chert from this context confirms that the assemblage included pieces from each stage of reduction in the production of blades. Taken together, the quantity of both chert and obsidian makes it the largest reported collection of lithic debitage found at the site and provides insight into the techniques of lithic crafters at Caracol. In this article, we consider the sequence of actions involved in the burial of a high-ranking individual and suggest that the layering of flaked stone above the tomb is reminiscent of other reported above-tomb contexts in the Maya Lowlands. Further, a technological analysis of this collection produced results similar to analyses of assemblages typically found in crafting-intensive residential groups. This finding suggests that lithic crafters t...

"In communities with multi-layered identities, it may be possible to identify the various cultural strands but it can be much more difficult to work out how these strands relate to each other, and in particular, how they were perceived by the inhabitants of the communities in question and what they signified in terms of cultural identity.  A recent study of Roman culture (Wallace-Hadrill 2009) has suggested the linguistic model of code-switching as a possible model for interpreting cultural identities, arguing that the ability to switch between different cultural idioms can be used to display and reinforce different aspects of multiple cultural identities, depending on context. 
This paper examines this issue by analysing the inscriptions and iconography of funerary monuments from two contrasting areas of Italy where multiple cultural groups came into contact: North-east Italy (where Venetic, Celtic, Etruscan, Greek and Roman cultures came into contact) and Campania (a key area of Greek, Oscan and Roman contact).  These monuments allow us to examine both visual and linguistic identities, and by considering this evidence in the wider context of other changes to local culture, we may be able to reach some conclusions about the level of intent behind the cultural symbols used. It may also give some insight into how different cultural elements were perceived, and how they were manipulated to create cultural dialogues as well as establishing cultural identities.  In particular, it may also allow us to examine the group identities of particular sub-groups within these societies.

During the Natufian period, more than 12,000 years ago, Eynan (Ain Mallaha) was an important human settlement in the Hula Valley, Israel. This study concentrates on the anuran and squamate assemblage from the ultimate stage of the Natufian period at the site, the Final Natufian. Over five thousand bones assigned to at least sixteen taxa were studied from a sampled segment of the excavated open-air site. Relative species abundance, spatial distribution, taphonomic observations and ecological considerations all pointed to the conclusion that the inhabitants of Eynan intensively exploited three large “colubrine” snakes species: the Large Whip Snake (Dolichophis jugularis), the Eastern Montpellier Snake (Malpolon insignitus) and an Eastern Four-lined Ratsnake (Elaphe cf. sauromates). These snakes were the most desired and were intensively gathered, while other snakes and lizards could have been opportunistically collected when encountered. We raise questions about whether the large “col...

The archaeological excavations conducted at the site Tell Abu Suwwan indicated that it was continuously occupied during two main periods from the Middle Pre-Pottery Neolithic B through the Pottery Neolithic (Yarmoukian). The main focus of this paper is to study the pottery assemblage encountered in the Yarmoukian strata at Abu Tell Suwwan. Excavations at Tell Abu Suwwan in 2005 - 2008 yielded a total of 488 pieces of Yarmoukian pottery. The sample under study includes 86 Yarmoukian pottery sherds that came from in situ contexts ascribable to the Yarmoukian period/culture. This research studied the Tell Abu Suwwan pottery assemblage in detail and presents a parallel study with contemporaneous pottery developments in the southern Levant. The comparative study of indicates that the Wadi az-Zarqa basin was settled during the second half of the seventh millennium BCE (calibrated) with farming communities. The inhabitants of the Yarmoukian sites around Tell Abu Suwwan manufactured similar...

The article presents the publication and a comprehensive analysis
of pottery finds from the burial M26 and a ritual fireplace, connected to it. The burial was investigated in the Hellenistic necropolis of Tauric Chersonese during the excavations, conducted of А.N. Ščeglov in 1963 (fig. 1). The site located on the Eastern slope of Pesochnaya Bay, along the ancient road leading to the Western city gate (Fig. 2).
Most of the ceramic debris was collected from the ritual fireplace and the burial M26. There were 3015 ceramic fragments in total (tabls. I–III). The largest part of the pottery fragments in the assemblage presented by Black-glazed tableware: fish plates, saltcellars, bowls (figs. 3–5). Plane wares: lopadions, jugs and plates (fig. 6). The total amount of 90–130 whole vessels might be estimated at the assemblage. Analysis of the types and forms allows dating the assemblage within the end of IV – third quarter of III c. BC.

'BRsim' is an R function which allows to calculate the Brainerd-Robinson similarity coefficient. Even tough it has been devised many years ago, it keeps being used in archaeological literature as even a cursory search on Google plainly shows.
The function reports:
a) a correlation matrix in tabular form, displayed on the R console;
b) a heat-map representing, in a graphical form, the aforementioned correlation matrix.
In the heat-map, the size and the color of the squares are proportional to the Brainerd-Robinson coefficients, which are also reported by numbers.

Understanding the impact of land-use change within assemblages is fundamental to mitigation policies at local and regional scale. Here, we aim to quantify how site-level terrestrial assemblages are responding to land-use change in Colombia a mega-diverse country and to project future biodiversity under different scenarios of land-use change associated with climate change policies. Location Colombia (northern South America). Methods We collated original biodiversity data from 17 publications (285 sites) that examined how human impact affects terrestrial biodiversity in Colombia. From each site we estimated compositional intactness (i.e., compositional similarity to undisturbed sites). We fitted generalized linear mixed effects models to estimate how these measures of local biodiversity vary across land-use habitats. Using space-for-time substitution, we applied our estimates to hindcast biodiversity changes since 1500 and project future changes under climate change policies of the four Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). Results Assemblages in urban, cropland and pasture sites were compositionally very different from those in primary vegetation. We infer that average compositional intactness has been reduced by 18% across Colombia to date, with strong regional variation. The best RCP scenario for future biodiversity is GCAM-RCP4.5, a path that favor the expansion of secondary forests under a strong carbon market; while the worst is MESSAGE-RCP8.5, "the business as usual" scenario. Main conclusions Land-use change has driven an increasing change in the composition of ecological assemblages in Colombia. By 2095, the implementation of carbon markets policy of climate change from GCAM-RCP4.5 could mitigate these 5 changes in community composition. In contrast, the business-as-usual scenario MESSAGE-RCP8.5 predicts a steep community change placing the quality of ecosystems at risk.