Session: #240

Theme & Session Format

Theme:
1. Networks, networking, communication: archaeology of interactions
Session format:
Regular session

Title & Content

Title:
CANCELLED Networks of Prehistoric Human-Animal Interactions in Western Anatolia, the Aegean and the Balkans
Content:
The Aegean, the Balkans, and western Anatolia constitute a vast and diverse zone, connecting Europe with Southwest Asia. Today, this zone contains more than ten states defined by modern borders. Archaeological evidence shows that tight networks of interaction via land, riverine and maritime routes influenced all aspects of life here since the Neolithic, if not earlier. Historic and ethnographic studies show that knowledge transfer among interacting but distinct communities plays an important role in shaping cultures of human-animal interactions, as they adapt to changing or new environments. Contact between distinct knowledge and value units affect human decisions on foraging, keeping, moving, feeding, slaughtering, processing, storing, sharing, and disposing animals and animal parts.
To test whether this is true for the prehistory of this crucial region, zooarchaeologists and other researchers dealing with animal remains and related material culture need to compare their notes more closely. This session will bring the zooarchaeologists working in this broad but deeply inter-related zone together for the first time. We hope to create a platform for dialogue and enhance the supra-regional network. We would like to exchange ideas through (sub-) regional or case studies related to the topic of human-animal mobility in this pivotal region. We would like to touch base on theoretical approaches and compare methodologies related to the issue of human mobility and connectivity, as well as those pertaining to (animal) food provisioning and preparation, dispersal of animal-based and related lifestyles, species introductions, transfer of animal- or breed-related knowledge and technologies, hybridization, persisting traditions in fishing, hunting and gathering, and human and animal adaptations to new climatic and environmental conditions from the pre-Neolithic to the end of the Bronze Age. We also welcome ethnoarchaeological, historical-zooarchaeological communications, as well as communications reviewing and/or appraising the state of the zooarchaeology in the region and its sub-regions.
Keywords:
Animal, Zooarchaeology, Balkans, Aegean, Anatolia
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:

Organisers

Main organiser:
Canan Cakirlar (Netherlands) 1
Co-organisers:
Vesna Dimitrijević (Serbia) 2
Giorgos Kazantzis (Greece) 3,4
Affiliations:
1. University of Groningen
2. University of Belgrade
3. Ephoria of Antiquities (Eph.A.) of Kozani
4. Archaeological Museum of Aeani