Session: #670

Theme & Session Format

Theme:
4. People of the Present – Peopling the Past
Session format:
Session with keynote presentation and discussion

Title & Content

Title:
Neolithization of the Mediterranean: Integrated Approaches to Old Questions
Content:
The spread of Neolithic lifeways, farming and herding, from the Middle East and Anatolia to the rest of the Mediterranean and Europe approximately 9 thousand years ago is a complex landmark event in the history of humankind that so far has been understood only in broad strokes.
Despite the extensive scholarship on the subject that includes studies of material culture, settlement, linguistic, archaeozoological, archaeobotanical, biogeochemistry and archeogenetic data offering explanations about the processes involved, major questions remain concerning the specifics of demographic and cultural change, and chronology. Where population movement has been invoked to interpret change and cultural discontinuity, movements tend to have been simply identified as events, rather than further investigated as to the size, composition or organisation of the migrant groups, the motivation and consequences for all social groups involved, i.e. the people moving, the receiving communities as well as those staying behind.
This session therefore aims to shed new light on the Neolithic expansion through the Mediterranean in this context by studying population changes in detail and linking it to changes in material culture, language, lifeways and the socio-economic organisation of the populations involved, within a clear chronological framework. To this end we invite proposals for papers on this topic from a broad array of disciplines including archaeology, bioarchaeology, archaeogenetics, biogeochemistry, archaeodating, and linguistics.
Keywords:
Neolithization, archaeology/bioarchaeology, archaeogenetics, biogeochemistry, archaeodating, linguistics
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:
Argyro Nafplioti (Greece) 1
Co-organisers:
Çiğdem Atakuman (Turkey) 2
Mehmet Somel (Turkey) 3
Tristan Carter (Canada) 4
Affiliations:
1. Ancient DNA Lab, Institute of Molecular Biology & Biotechnology (IMBB), Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH)
2. Department of Archaeometry, Middle East Technical University (METU)
3. Department of Biological Sciences: Biology/Molecular Biology and Genetics, Middle East Technical University (METU),
4. Department of Anthropology, McMaster University