Theme:
5. Theories and methods in archaeology: interactions between disciplines
Session format:
Regular session
Title:
Integrated Methodologies for the Study of Lifeways, Dietary and Occupational Environments in Prehistoric and Historical Periods
Content:
The proposed session aims to host talks discussing how inter and cross-methods including, the analysis of skeletal remains, bio-deposits and ancient material culture can be successfully applied to the study of dietary and occupational environments in pre-historical and historical periods. In the last decade, much archaeological attention has been focused on reconstructing ancient lifeways, with a special emphasis on dietary and daily habits, occupational environments and health status. Throughout time and space, the life of ancient humans involved a deep entanglement between people and material culture. Consequently, analyzing ancient lifeways means searching for both direct strands of evidence for human biographies (i.e., skeletal remains as well as other bio-archaeological deposits) as well as indirect evidence of people daily life activities (i.e., material culture and ancient technology).
Recent advances in the field of bio-archeology have proven dental calculus as an important archaeological deposit with high potential to provide novel insights into dietary and non-dietary habits, health conditions as well as occupational environments of past populations. Similarly, the study of ancient tool use, based on the application of quantitative approaches (e.g., 3D modeling, spatial analysis, surface metrology, laser scanning confocal microscopy) in combination with standard use-wear as well as optical and chemical analysis of ancient residues, have provided us with new means for understanding tools’ biographies and their involvement in the daily-life of past populations.
This session invites all those interested in the study of ancient lifeways, regardless of geographic boundaries or chronology, to share their results based on cutting-edge inter and cross-disciplinary approaches applied to different archaeological and bio-archaeological evidence, to explore new narratives which only the integration of such interdisciplinary methods can provide, and to discuss future avenues in the analysis of human and material culture biographies.
Keywords:
Ancient Lifeways, Ancient diet, Occupational Environments, Health Conditions, Skeletal Remains and Material Culture, Bioarchaeology and Archaeometry
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:
Emanuela Cristiani (Italy) 1
Co-organisers:
Anita Radini (United Kingdom) 2
Andrea Zupancich (Israel) 3
Affiliations:
1. Sapienza University of Rome / DANTE - Diet and ANcient TEchnology Laboratory
2. University of York, Department of Archaeology and Physics
3. Tel-Aviv University, Department of Archaeology and Near Eastern Cultures
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