Theme:
5. Theories and methods in archaeology: interactions between disciplines
Session format:
Regular session
Title:
Between Time, between Methods: Exploring the Links of Chalcolithic and Bronze Age Carpathian Basin through a Ceramic Lens
Content:
From delimitation of interaction areas to consideration of technological changes, the prehistoric ceramics of the Carpathian Basin and the adjacent areas provide new fields for integrating theory with high-resolution studies of the human past. Beyond re-evaluation of the relative dating, the technological advances of the Information Age highlight the necessity of re-thinking the research questions: does conjunction of production and interaction represent the only facet of ceramic style formation? What underlying histories are responsible for the formation of the archaeologically-distinctive groups? How can overarching similarities of the technological process be used to explain the maintenance of obvious distinctions?
Expansion of the scope beyond material characterizations towards the socio-cultural processes is further mobilized by the increasing availability of analytical methods where ceramics are no longer viewed from the perspective of typochronological studies but provide the medium for investigating subsistence practices, site-formation processes and exploitation of the natural environments. The involved framework of archaeological practice integrating perspectives and methods results in an increasing complexity of research and the developed models of human past. The refined analytical tools provide the means of investigating previously inaccessible parts of the prehistoric record and conceptualization of turning points between otherwise separated periods.
The transition from the Chalcolithic to the Bronze Age represents a time of change in terms of formation of individualized personhoods and the increasing examples of collective habitation. How can the two be linked to formation of Bronze Age tell-landscape? Beyond typological similarities and temporal consecutiveness, is there other evidence of relationship between periods and regions? Finally, how did the introduction of bronze technology impact the existing economic relations and established technologies?
As organizers we invite papers, work-in-progress studies and posters which explore the multidisciplinary approaches to the highlighted period by integrating social theory, ceramic analysis and the dynamics of the human past.
Keywords:
Late Prehistory, Central Europe, Pottery studies, Contextual approach
Session associated with MERC:
no
Session associated with CIfA:
no
Session associated with SAfA:
no
Session associated with CAA:
no
Session associated with DGUF:
no
Session associated with other:
Main organiser:
Robert Staniuk (Germany) 1
Co-organisers:
Marian Lie (Romania) 2
Dominika Oravkinová (Slovakia) 3
Affiliations:
1. Kiel University, Institute of Pre- and Protohistoric Archaeology
2. Romanian Academy, Iași Institute of Archaeology
3. Slovenská Akadémia Vied, Archeologický ústav
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