Contact:
icaane-at-unibas.ch
Workshops
Download the program of the workshops
The 9th ICAANE will have fourteen workshops:
- 1. The Construction of Neolithic Corporate Identities
- 2. The Chronology of Transitional Periods from 3000-1000 BCE: Comparing Absolute Chronologies Based on 14C to Relative Chronologies Based on Material Culture
- 3. Desert Kites – Archaeological Facts, Distribution and Function
- 4. Artifacts made out of Bone and Related Materials: Manufacture, Typology and Use
- 5. Trajectories of complexity in Upper Mesopotamia: processes and dynamics of social complexity and their origin in the Halaf period
- 6. Collections at risk: sustainable strategies for managing Near Eastern archaeological collections
- 7. The Settlement Landscape of the Orontes Valley in the Fourth through Second Millennia BCE
- 8. Tracing Commemoration - Social Dimensions of the Past in the Past
- 9. Archaeology of the Negev and the 'Arabah during the Iron Age
- 10. Late Neolithic at Çatalhöyük in the Near Eastern context
- 11. Museums and the ancient Middle East: Exhibit practice and audiences
- 12. Elite Residences in the Hellenistic and Roman Near East
- 13. Ethnoarchaeology and experimental studies in Near Eastern archaeology
- 14. Irrigation and Water works in the Ancient Near East
1. The Construction of Neolithic Corporate Identities
Workshop Organisers: Trevor Watkins (University
of Edinburgh), Marion Benz (University of Freiburg
i. Br.) & Hans Georg K. Gebel (Free-University Berlin)
One of the most momentous thresholds in the longer-term
evolution of human sociality was neolithisation - the transition
from more flexible mobile foraging communities to sedentary and
complex corporate societies. For too long Neolithic research has
concentrated on the economic side of this transition, while the
formation and maintenance of these early large-scale communities
could not have developed without unprecedented cognitive and
social capacities. More than ever before, in these sedentary
milieus the human ability to perceive selectively, to memorize
associatively, and to act in a collaborative way, evolved by
steadily valorizing, symbolically charging and communicating
practices, discourses, spaces and things, including building
“traditions”. Corporate identities in the Near Eastern Late
Epipalaeolithic and Neolithic were not only formed and sustained
by commonly accepted tangible things (images, paraphernalia,
practices etc.), they were also promoted and transformed by
intangible modes, codes and ideological concepts.
The workshop aims to identify and translate the empirical evidence
of the different intangibles that helped to form Epipalaeolithic
and Neolithic group identities. One of the approaches might be the
concept of (inter-)mediality by which cognitive competences
behind corporate strategies can be identified. In addition to
prehistoric archaeologists, the workshop invites contributions
from specialists in evolutionary and cognitive sciences.
Contact: T.Watkins-at-ed.ac.uk
2. The Chronology of Transitional Periods from 3000-1000 BCE: Comparing Absolute Chronologies Based on 14C to Relative Chronologies Based on Material Culture
Workshop Organisers: Felix Höflmayer (University
of Chicago) & Elisabetta Boaretto (Weizmann Institute)
As chronology is the backbone of history, secure absolute dates are
a prerequisite for understanding political history, trade and
cultural interconnections in the Ancient Near East. For a long
time chronology was based on changes in the material culture and
synchronization with historical chronologies of Egypt and
Mesopotamia. Even 60 years after the development of radiocarbon
dating, relative chronologies of the Levant, Anatolia, Cyprus and
the Aegean are the common basic chronological models used for
writing history.
However, in the last decades a major change has taken place based on
integrating field work, quality control on the datable material
and improvement in radiocarbon dating analysis. This new approach
has resulted in high resolution absolute chronologies for certain
periods that in turn raise fundamental questions about timing of
events, synchronization with historical chronologies, and
reliability of material culture changes for absolute dates and
diffusion of ideas, trade and so on. This in turn has resulted in
some disagreements between traditional chronological models and
radiocarbon dating. These differences, which can reach a few
hundred years in some cases, occur in several chronological phases
and may in part be attributed to the different methodological
approaches to absolute dating between science and humanities, a
difference that should be addressed in the proposed workshop.
In this workshop we would like to present the current state of
research in chronology from the Early Bronze Age down to the Iron
Age, both from a scientific as well as from an archaeological
point of view in order to detect agreements as well as
disagreements. Field archaeologists, epigraphers and radiocarbon
experts will be invited to give state of the art research results
regarding the chronologies in the Near East region between the 3rd
and 1st millennium BC. This would provide new research directions
for students and all scholars.
Contact: fhoeflmayer-at-uchicago.edu
3. Desert Kites – Archaeological Facts, Distribution and Function
Workshop Organiser: Ueli Brunner (University of Zurich)
Research on Desert Kites has intensified during the last
years. These large stone structures are now known from many parts
of the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant and Syria but also from
Central Asia. They appear in a great variety of forms. Common to
all are two or more long stonewalls converging towards an
enclosure. Their function is still highly debated. Some scholars
see them as hunting traps whereas others think them to be suitable
to collect semidomesticated animals.
The desert kites are the most spectacular remains of a long forgotten
culture at the fringe of the desert. It is time to give this
culture the status it deserves. The discussion about the
controversial ideas of the function of desert kites will help to
understand the economy of these cultures.
The workshop is a unique possibility to bring together the leading
scientists working on the subject.
Contact: ueli_brunner-at-bluewin.ch
4. Artifacts made out of Bone and Related Materials: Manufacture, Typology and Use
Workshop Organisers: Hermann Genz (American University of
Beirut) & Canan Çakιrlar (University of Groningen)
Artifacts made out of materials of faunal origin (bone, ivory, horn, antler, mollusc shell, etc.) are commonly encountered in excavations in the Ancient Near East. While some groups of artifacts, such as ivory carvings or engraved Tridacna shells have received considerable attention, mainly because of their artistic significance, more mundane, yet more abundant objects such as tools and simple jewelry have often been neglected.
To address this imbalanced situation, we would like to organize a
workshop focusing on artifacts made of bone and related materials
from the Ancient Near East from the Neolithic to the Islamic
Period.
The discussion will focus on the following aspects:
- Identification of raw materials and manufacturing methods
(including possible workshop remains)
- Retrieval practices on the excavation (how, when and by whom
are artifacts identified? Especially ad-hoc tools with limited
alterations may only be identified through a detailed faunal
study)
- Exchange in raw materials or finished items (ivory, shells)
- Typology and chronology of specific artifact categories
- Functional aspects (including use-wear studies)
- Contextual discussion
Contact: hg09-at-aub.edu.lb
5. Trajectories of complexity in Upper Mesopotamia: processes and dynamics of social complexity and their origin in the Halaf period
Workshop Organisers: Marco Iamoni (University of Udine) & Salam Al Quntar (University of Pennsylvania)
Upper Mesopotamia has been seen until a few decades ago as a
region that underwent passive processes of complexity which
originated in Lower Mesopotamia. Yet, recent archaeological
research has demonstrated that complexity was developing in
Lower and Upper Mesopotamia at comparable rates. This
reconstruction is based, however, on a patchy understanding of the
dynamics affecting Upper Mesopotamia throughout the 7th-4th
millennia BC: most of the data comes actually from the Upper
Euphrates and the Syrian Jezirah, whereas the Upper Tigris has
been so far only very marginally considered.
Furthermore, the study of such transformation has been based on the
analysis of the Ubaid and LC materials, somehow underestimating
the importance of the “wider perspective”, i.e. the integration of
previous periods, within longer developmental processes.
The scope of this workshop is thus to focus on the processes of
complexity from a wider standpoint, that takes into account the
dynamics that started already in the Halaf period and continued
throughout the Ubaid and the LC in Upper Mesopotamia. Participants
are invited to present papers that re-discuss the roots of such
processes from multiple standpoints (material cultural, settlement
pattern, regionalisation, urbanisation, specialisation and
exchange), so that longer trends of complexity may be properly
recognized and discussed.
Contact: marco.iamoni-at-uniud.it
6. Collections at risk: sustainable strategies for managing Near Eastern archaeological collections
Workshop Organiser: Andrew Jamieson, University of Melbourne
This workshop addresses a crucial but often ignored aspect of Near
Eastern archaeology: the sustainable management of increasing
numbers of archaeological collections. Every archaeological
collection is at risk, not only from warfare or civil unrest, but
from natural elements such as earthquakes, fire and floods, and
from inevitable decay due to climatic conditions or neglect. The
workshop aims to share views and raise awareness about
archaeological collections management in the Near East as the
cultural heritage of this region continues to be threatened by
ongoing instability and conflict. Discussion will consider short,
medium and long-term approaches to archaeological collections
management. In the short-term, the care of archaeological
collections during periods of instability and in conflict zones is
acknowledged as a high priority requiring urgent attention and
needing an immediate response. In the mid-term, there is a need to
assess the significance of archaeological collections and develop
criteria in order to prioritise available resources to deal with
the continuing influx of artefacts into repositories. In the
long-term, there is an on-going necessity to develop strategies
for sustainably managing archaeological collections in the future,
considering access and use, and improving collections management
practices. The workshop will stimulate an exchange of ideas and
perspectives on the issues involved in Near Eastern archaeological
collections management, with a view towards articulating
sustainable strategies for the management of Near Eastern
archaeological collections.
Contact: asj-at-unimelb.edu.au
7. The Settlement Landscape of the Orontes Valley in the Fourth through Second Millennia BCE
Workshop Organisers: Melissa Kennedy (University of Sydney)
& Stephen Bourke (University of Sydney)
In the context of developing urban life and economic interaction in
the northern Levant in the Proto-historic periods, the Orontes
Valley is often characterised as a ‘land between’ the better-known
coastal entrepot and the dense settlement landscapes of the
Euphrates and its tributaries. Often covered by summaries of
‘Inland West Syria’, the particular characteristics of the Orontes
Valley settlement landscape are obscured (if not ignored entirely)
by a focus on the spectacular discoveries at Ebla and more
recently at Qatna.
This workshop seeks to foreground the role of smaller–scale
settlements in the Orontes Valley in the developing inter-regional
interaction of the Third Millennium BCE. It aims to identify key
networks of inter-action, and evaluate their varying intensities
over time. The workshop will also seek to explore the varying
effects of the peripheral ‘mega-sites’ on the smaller settlements
of the Orontes Valley. Finally, we will consider the importance
of inter-regional trading networks – how they were created,
maintained, and the consequences of their disruption.
Ultimately we hope to re-assess the varying importance of the
Proto-historic Orontes Valley settlement landscape within its
Syrian regional and Levantine inter-regional context.
Themes/Questions to be addressed in this Workshop
- The settlement landscape of the Orontes catchment
- Integration of sequences/identification of key settlement phases
- Material cultural markers and relative chronology
- Defining sub-regional settlement 'clusters'
- Identifying networks of communication and interaction
- Assessing the varying role of nomads in networks
- Inter-regional interaction before, during and after the Eblaite state
- Defining transitional horizons
Contact: melissa.kennedy-at-sydney.edu.au
8. Tracing Commemoration - Social Dimensions of the Past in the Past
Workshop Organisers: Sarah Lange (University of
Tübingen) & Aaron Schmitt (University of Mainz)
To approach the topic of Commemoration in the Ancient Near East (ANE)
several general questions need to be asked: What did people in the
ANE commemorate? What were the criteria for their choices? For
what purpose did they commemorate? By what means did they
commemorate – did they use objects and/or places? How did the ways
the people in the ANE chose for commemoration depend on the
subject that was honored? And thus, are we able to trace these
acts of commemoration and how?
To substantiate the expressed questions we constrain the topic to two
aspects: The commemoration of the deceased and the commemoration
of historical personages, deeds and events. Concerning the first
matter, it has to be asked whether the memory of deceased members
of a social formation (from small groups such as the family to
larger social groups and the whole ‘society’) was kept alive
purposefully; if so, why and by what means? How did the
commemoration of the dead change over time? And, connecting this
key issue with the matter of historical commemoration: How were
kings commemorated and how can the commemoration of the king as a
deceased be differentiated from a commemoration of the king as a
historical personage? How and to what extent were objects used to
remember historical events, historical places and historical
personages? Was there a deliberate choice concerning what was
remembered? Who made these choices? In which dimensions do we have
to visualize the act of commemoration? And finally, could the act
of commemoration have different connotations (negative/positive)?
With regard to the two key issues we are going to address these
questions in our workshop on the basis of well documented and
self-contained contexts as well as objects coming from those. The
cuneiform sources are another crucial element that can contribute
to the answers we seek for. Additionally we would like to draw
upon theoretical concepts developed in other disciplines – after a
thorough investigation concerning their viability – to fill the
gaps that exist in the archaeological and textual data and to help
us explain our evidence.
We are convinced that a workshop is one of the best formats to bring
together different scientists who can contribute to answer these
questions from their individual perspective and can help us to
trace the social dimensions of commemoration in the ANE.
Contact: sarah.lange-at-uni-tuebingen.de
9. Archaeology of the Negev and the 'Arabah during the Iron Age
Workshop Organiser: Gunnar Lehmann (Ben-Gurion University)
The workshop will be concerned with recent research on the archaeology
of the Negev, 'Arabah and Arabia during the early Iron
Age. The idea is to discuss settlement, trade and subsistence
strategies with special emphasis on issues such as trade with
the Arabian peninsula, the copper production in the 'Arabah
and the phenomenon of Qurayya Ware (“Midianite pottery”). The
presentation of recent archaeological research will shed new light on these questions.
Contact: gunnar.lehmann-at-gmail.com
10. Late Neolithic at Çatalhöyük in the Near Eastern context
Workshop Organisers: Arkadiusz Marciniak (Poznań
University) & Lech Czerniak (Gdańsk University)
The session organizers have been conducting intense study of the upper
Late Neolithic strata of the East mound at Çatalhöyük. These
works have brought about a series of new discoveries that shed
light onto hitherto unknown developments in the final phase of
the settlement occupation.
Late Neolithic houses comprise a series of small, cell-like spaces,
probably used for storage and working areas, surrounding a
larger central 'living room'. They show a significantly
lesser degree of symbolic elaboration. The most significant
changes in burial practices involved a lack of intramural
burials, which were replaced by a special burial
architecture. Considerable changes occurred also in
subsistence practices, including procurement, storage,
processing and consumption of different resources.
The session seeks to put up these developments in the second half of
the 7th millennium cal BC in a broader Near Eastern
context. In particular, we intent to examine parallels and
discrepancies in the process of disappearance of Neolithic
megasities in the light of new discoveries in other areas of
the Near East. Accordingly, by putting up Late Neolithic
Çatalhöyük in a broad regional context, the session will
facilitate an in-depth discussion on social, economic and
ideological changes taking place at the end of Neolithic and
beginning of Chalcolithic.
Contact: arekmar-at-amu.edu.pl
11. Museums and the ancient Middle East: Exhibit practice and audiences
Workshop Organisers: Lucas Petit (National Museum of
Antiquities, Leiden) & Geoff Emberling (Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, University of Michigan)
Museums represent one of the major ways the ancient Middle East is
presented to the general public, collectively reaching millions of
visitors each year. This was already noticed by Shanks and Tilley
(1987) some 25 years ago. The increasing public prominence of
museums since then and the concurrent proliferation of programs of
museum studies are further indications of the opportunities
presented by museum exhibits.
Current practices of exhibiting the ancient Middle East are structured
and constrained in different ways in different museum contexts and
cultural settings, yet there has been a nearly complete absence of
formal discussion about exhibitions among ancient Near East
curators and scholars.
This session will provide a first opportunity for an international
group of museum curators to discuss opportunities and tensions in
exhibiting art, histories, and cultures of the ancient Middle
East. Opportunities may include varied ways of connecting with
different audiences and interests; tensions may include differing
approaches to the past taken by art museums, history museums,
national museums, and university museums, or the roles of
curators, educators, and audiences in constructing exhibitions.
Contact: L.Petit-at-RMO.NL
12. Elite Residences in the Hellenistic and Roman Near East
Workshop Organisers: Stephan G. Schmid (Berlin), Zbigniew T. Fiema (Berlin/Helsinki), Piotr Biewnkowski (Manchester) & Bernhard Kolb (Basel)
A particular result of the symbiosis of old and new traditions is
represented by elite residences (palaces, villae) in the Near
East. Between the conquests of Alexander the Great and the Later
Roman Period, the area under consideration witnessed the
appearance of spectacular residences which feature both the old
elements of Near Eastern architectural traditions as well as "new"
elements, mostly deriving from such structures as the Argead
palaces at Aigai and Pella in Macedonia. The specific arrangement
and combination of these elements may be purely fashionable but
may also point to some specific functional considerations.
This workshop addresses the question of elite residences in the Near
East, concentrating on the few known structures in Judea and
Transjordan, associated with Herod the Great and the Nabataean
kings. Topics will include general plans, landscape designs,
interior decoration, building traditions used, the elusive issue
of the ‘quality’ of materials and construction, and best specific
parallels from elsewhere in the Mediterranean. In order to widen
the scope of discussion, selected complexes of funerary
architecture will also be added in order to ascertain the
relations between the architecture of the living and the
architecture of the dead in the elite context.
Contact: stephan.g.schmid-at-culture.hu-berlin.de
13. Ethnoarchaeology and experimental studies in Near Eastern archaeology
Workshop Organiser: Ruth Shahack-Gross (Weizmann Institute of Science)
Ethnoarchaeological and experimental research are two types of
actualistic studies that bridge an important gap between the
present and the past. Such studies are often used by
archaeologists as they focus on material remains and thus provide
a means for interpretation of archaeological material remains
related to cooking, subsistence practices, activity areas,
production processes (e.g., of metals, of ceramics), and
ideological and ritual aspects of human activities.
Traditionally, such actualistic studies (especially ethnoarchaeology)
stem from and relate to the anthropological schools of
archaeological thought. They are therefore related mostly to
prehistoric archaeology and rely heavily on macroscopic
observations and interviews. In recent decades however,
actualistic studies are being conducted more and more by
archaeologists working in historical periods, and hence address
many questions related to practices evident in historic periods
only, such as a variety of pyrotechnological practices (baking,
metal and glass production), urbanization, and more. Such
practices, processes and materials that are typical of historic
periods are especially relevant to Near Eastern archaeology.
In addition to the above, it is noted that methodological changes
characterize Near Eastern actualistic studies. A new approach
focused on materials and their microscopic traits in
ethnoarchaeological contexts and experimental studies is
developing in the last decade. To date, there is almost no
discourse between these apparent three different types of
actualistic studies: experimental, macro-ethnoarchaeology, and
micro-ethnoarchaeology.
The aim of the proposed workshop is therefore to bring together the
different types of actualistic studies carried out in the Near
East in order to promote discussion of methodological and
interpretational aspects of these studies, on all levels of
observation (from macroscopic to microscopic) and all time
periods. It is proposed that methodological aspects will be
highlighted by presentations and discussion of method, theory and
research design of actualistic studies, while interpretational
aspects will be highlighted by presentations of case studies. The
proposed program is therefore given below. Note that several
researchers have already agreed to participate in this workshop.
The organizer is still accepting speakers to this
workshop.
Contact: ruth.shahack-at-weizmann.ac.il
14. Irrigation and Water works in the Ancient Near East
Workshop Organiser: Seyed Abazar Shobairi (University of the Athens)
During the last few years the archaeology of irrigation and water
supply has become a major topic in ancient Near Eastern
studies. The lack of water as a result of insufficient
precipitation made it essential for ancient historical empires to
utilize hydraulic technologies to develop remarkable systems of
water supply and irrigation management to deal with such
aridity. Irrigation and water works played an important role in
both rural and urban settlement in these ancient civilizations,
particularly for the Achaemenid and Sassanid periods. Whereas some
scholars have looked at urban water management, irrigation and
water supply within the context of daily routines of life and
their role in the settlement patterns, others see, for example,
Achaemenid water systems providing evidence of interactions with
the Classical Greece world.
The scope of this workshop will be upon the presentation of the most
recent research on key aspects of irrigation and water
distribution in the Near East especially for Achaemenid and
Sassanid Persia. The workshop will bring together senior
researchers working on the subject in order to assess the state of
the field and identify new directions of research.
Contact: sshobairi-at-arch.uoa.gr
Last revised September 11, 2014
Webmaster: R. Gautschy
Contact: icaane-at-unibas.ch
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