Trypillan proto-cities at Istanbul EAA cession 2014
Трипільські протоміста на конференції Європейської спілки археологів у Стамбулі, вересень 2014 року - cпеціальна сесія, присвячена появі найдавніших міст у Європі відбудеться 13 вересня. З 22 доповідей, поданих на сесію, 16 торкаються трипільської культури. Нижче подано назви та короткі тези доповідей та постерів, які включено до програми. Кольором виділено ті доповіді та тези, які стосуються трипільських протоміст.
T05S001 Re-assessing urbanism in pre-Roman Europe
SESSION ORGANIZERS: John Chapman, Johannes Müller, Mikhail Videiko, Bisserka Gaydarska, Marco Nebbia and Robert Hofmann
CHAIR PERSONS: Johannes Müller (Morning Session 1); Bisserka Gaydarska (Morning Session 2); Marco Nebbia (Afternoon Session 1); Robert Hofmann (Afternoon Session 2).
ORAL PRESENTATIONS:
MORNING SESSION
1) Introduction
AUTHORS: John Chapman, Johannes Müller and Mikhail Yu. Videiko
SPEAKER: John Chapman
AFFILIATION: Durham University, Department of Archaeology
CITY: Durham, UK
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ABSTRACT
Since Gordon Childe, the ‘Big Narratives’ of prehistory have included the origins of urbanism, whether in the Near East and Anatolia, Europe and worldwide. However, the scale of this topic has been antithetical to most post-processualist approaches, leaving a theoretical vacuum at the heart of the debate over urban origins. Recent research on ‘Big Weird Sites’ (Cahokia, Greater Zimbabwe, Angkor Wat, etc.: SAA 2013 session) has begun to create a framework for the study of settlements which are far larger, and apparently far more complex, than their coeval sites.
From the traditional Aegean – European perspective, urban origins lie in the 3rd millennium BC, exemplified by Early Bronze Age centres such as Troy and Knossos. But this view ignores a set of large settlements from the late 5th and 4th millennia BC in the Trypillia (aka Tripolye) group of modern Ukraine and Moldova. A group of over 30 of the so-called Trypillia mega-sites cover areas of over 100 ha, while the largest (Talljanky, at 340ha) is as large as large EBA Near Eastern city at Uruk. These are the largest settlements in 4th millennium Europe. It is now time to include these mega-sites in a discussion of scale and settlement nucleation in prehistoric Eurasia and discuss how such massive agglomerations may have functioned.
The principal aims of this session are twofold: (1) to assess the place of the Trypillia mega-sites in the debate over urban origins; and (2) to set the mega-sites in a comparative framework of urban origins in Europe and the Aegean.
2) A Ghost is still haunting Europe: The Neolithic Proto-cities
AUTHOR: Bisserka Gaydarska
SPEAKER: Bisserka Gaydarska
AFFILIATION: Durham University, Department of Archaeology
CITY: Durham, UK
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ABSTRACT
More than 10 years ago, the late Dan Monah published a paper with a very similar title to the above, in which he argued against Trypillia mega-sites being seen as 'Neolithic proto-cities'. Not only have his arguments not been appreciated but recent years have seen an 'explosion' of towns and cities, emerging on the prehistoric map of (Eastern) Europe like mushrooms after rain. Is 'urbanism' fashionable yet again? Has post-processual relativism affected the way that settlements are seen? Or are we really faced with a previously unrecognized phenomenon? In this paper, I shall try to address these questions by exploring the evidence of the Trypillia mega-sites. The pros and cons for naming these sites as 'proto-cities' will be critically assessed within a wide framework of concepts, including Childe's criteria for urban settlements, low-density urbanism and Fletcher's view of global settlement development.
3) Interpreting Trypillia Culture mega-sites: old and new data on the processes of urbanization in Copper Age Europe
AUTHOR: M. Videiko
SPEAKER: M. Videiko
AFFILIATION: Institute of Archaeology, NAS
CITY: Kyiv, Ukraine
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ABSTRACT
The interpretation of the large area (up to 350 ha) of settlements of the Tripyllia culture became a problem after the discovery of several such sites through aerial photography and geomagnetic survey in the 1970s. It was suggested that these sites represented the ‘proto – city’ type of settlement. Evidence of the processes of urbanization in the Carpathian- Dnieper region included such features as large settlements with high populations, complex planning structures, defensive systems and unusually large, probably public buildings. Also some kinds of craft working (pottery production, metallurgy and flint processing) were detected. In the last ten years’ research, geomagnetic prospection and new excavations allowed the specification of the size and density of settlements, which were characterized by an even greater number of inhabitants than was previously assumed. It turned out that the planning structure of the mega-sites was even more complex than previously imagined. We also found a system of large -scale public buildings and fortifications. Excavations confirmed the presence of temples and pottery kilns, allowing us to speak about the complex processes of the formation of proto-cities.
4) Three Decades of Large-scale Prospection on Moldavian and Ukrainian Copper Age Settlements
AUTHORS: Knut Rassmann, Vladimir Kruts, Aleksey Korvin-Piotrovskij, Karsten Mischka, Johannes Müller and Mikhail Videiko
SPEAKER: Knut Rassmann
AFFILIATION: Römisch-Germanisch Kommission, Frankfurt am Main
CITY: Frankfurt am Main, Germany
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ABSTRACT
Almost unnoticed in the West, in the early 1970s Ukrainian archaeologists developed an innovative research design to investigate the large Copper Age settlements of the Tripolye-Cucuteni Culture. The combination of aerial photography and large-scale geomagnetic prospection allowed the detection of these settlements’ fundamental structures. The
large number of excavations which followed was consequently principally based on and guided by these data, particularly in terms of the highly visible (and characteristic) burnt houses.
In 2007, CAU Kiel and the Romano-Germanic Commission started an ambitious prospection program intended to investigate Copper Age settlements on a broader scale. This large-scale prospection in Moldavia and Ukraine revealed the settlement structures of Chalcolithic communities which were amazing, both in terms of the precision of the results and number of details they provided. The new data were used to evaluate former prospection and confirmed key issues about the basic layouts of the settlements that were studied.
5) Stabilization Points in Carrying Capacity of the Cucuteni-Tripolye Populations: Re-assessing the Formation and Development of the Giant-Settlements
AUTHORS: Aleksandr Diachenko and Ezra B. W. Zubrow
SPEAKER: Aleksandr Diachenko
AFFILIATION: Institute of Archaeology, NAS
CITY: Kyiv, Ukraine
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ABSTRACT
Settlements of the Cucuteni-Tripolye cultural complex (ca. 4800 – 2900 calBC) provide an excellent dataset for the analysis of long-term demographic and socio-economic development of these prehistoric populations. Micro-regional and super-regional studies are made possible by the large territory that extends from the Romanian Carpathian Mountains to the Eastern bank of Dnieper and by the many short-term occupations accompanied with well-developed relative chronologies. Our presentation focuses on both the stabilization points in the carrying capacity of the Cucuteni-Tripolye populations and the resulting stabilization of the occupations. Special attention is paid to the giant-settlements in the Southern Bug - Dnieper interfluve. The paper uses simulations based upon well-known mathematical approaches in theoretical ecology. The results are two significant changes in the carrying capacity of the populations and the consequent values for regional carrying capacity in the Southern Bug - Dnieper interfluve, as well as new stabilization points for the population growth. The result is a substantive re-assessment of the formation and development of the giant-settlements. Secondly, the paper points out the implications regarding the improvement of mathematical approaches to demography.
6) Proto-towns or not Proto-towns?: That is the Question!
AUTHORS: Francesco Menotti and Aleksandr Diachenko
SPEAKER: Francesco Menotti
AFFILIATION: University of Basel
CITY: Basel, Switzerland
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ABSTRACT
At the time of their development, the Chalcolithic Cucuteni-Tripolye giant-settlements (also known as ‘mega-sites’) were the largest residential agglomerates in Europe and beyond. It is therefore not surprising that their sheer size has been triggering incandescent discussions as to whether they should be considered as ‘proto-towns’, or simply ‘settlements’. The concept of ‘Tripolye [Trypillia] proto-towns’ is by no means new; it was firstly advanced by N.M. Shmaglij in the early 1970s, continued throughout the 1990s and 2000s, and it has even recently been ‘re-vitalised’ (e.g. M. Yu. Videiko and N. B. Burdo). It should be noted, however, that arguments in favour of the urbanization process in Cucuteni-Tripolye residential complexes have also been criticized throughout the above-mentioned period (see V.A. Kruts, V.M. Masson, E.A. Saiko and A.G. Korvin-Piotrovskiy). This paper discusses a series of issues in order to help the delegate understand whether the Tripolye ‘mega-sites’ should (or should not) be regarded as ‘proto-towns’. For instance; what is meant by a ‘(giant)-settlement’? What are the characteristics that allow a residential unit to qualify as a ‘proto-town’? And, last but not least, do we have any other evidence that confirms similar ‘urbanization processes’ in Chalcolithic Ukraine, or in the nearby regions?
7) Recent studies in Talianki
AUTHOR: Volodimir Kruts
SPEAKER: Volodimir Kruts
AFFILIATION: Institute of Archaeology, NAS
CITY: Kyiv, Ukraine
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ABSTRACT
Talianki is the largest settlement of the Tripolye culture. It has been studied since 1981. Remains of about 50 dwellings were excavated along this period. This led to the reconstruction of the interior and exterior of the Tripolye house as well as the socio-economic reconstructions of their social structure. New site features were investigated recently, following geo-magnetic surveys conducted by the Römisch-Germanische Kommission. Kilns associated with ceramic production were excavated in 2013. This led to the conclusion about ceramic craft production that had only previously been assumed. Besides this, surveys in the Southern part of a settlement found three objects that are small in size but with abnormally strong magnetic anomalies. These objects should be excavated prior to the EAA Meeting. They may have been associated with metallurgical production.
8) Maidanet’s – a Tripolje megasite on the move
AUTHORS: Robert Hofmann, Natasha Burdo, Walter Dörfler, Stefan Dreibrodt, Wiebke Kirleis, Carsten Mischka, Johannes Müller, René Ohlrau, Knut Rassmann, Michail Yu. Videiko
SPEAKER: Robert Hofmann
AFFILIATION: University of Kiel, Institut für Ur- und Frühgeschichte
CITY: Kiel, Germany
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ABSTRACT
Surveys and excavations in the last two years opened again the huge archive of the Maidanet’s mega-site for extensive studies on social demography, economy, and political and cultural changes. The fieldwork resulted, on the one hand, in a clear picture of different feature types, while, on the other hand, in models of intra-site interactions during prehistoric times. The reconstruction of the Neolithic landscape and the organization of social space are indicating a society which is deeply rooted in the exploitation of natural and human resources. A series of 14C dates provides a new base to test hypotheses concerning the dating, development and duration of the site. Overall, this ongoing research will contribute to a much better understanding of the nature of the mega-site as well as of the possible causes for their formation and downfall. In relation to soil formation processes, it can be discussed whether the carrying capacity of the local environment was reached or the collapse of this mega-site was linked to water or other shortages.
9) The landscape of the Tripillia mega-sites: preliminary results from Nebelivka hinterland, Ukraine
AUTHOR: Marco Nebbia
SPEAKER: Marco Nebbia
AFFILIATION: Durham University, Department of Archaeology
CITY: Durham, UK
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ABSTRACT
The study of “urban” sites has been tackled in many different ways, but mainly by concentrating on research at the site level, looking at their structure, planning and development. Recently, research has started to focus on formation processes, re-focusing the investigation towards the broader contexts in which “Big-Sites” are located. The aim is a better and more complete understanding of urban origins as complex systems of different processes which have led to “Big-Site” formation. The case of the Trypillia group offers an excellent opportunity to investigate the phenomenon in which over 30 mega-sites (each covering more than 100 ha) developed in the late 5th and 4th millennia BC in modern Ukraine and Moldova. This paper will present results from the study of one of these sites (Nebelivka, UA) where, along with the research on the site itself, a systematic off-site analysis of satellite images and fieldwalking is being carried out in order to establish the formation and development of the settlement pattern. The use of remote sensing combined with fieldwalking has resulted in the detection and identification of a variety of archaeological sites and environmental features, which is helping to build up a more complete picture of the Tripillia mega-site phenomenon.
10) Settlement planning at the Trypillia mega-site of Nebelivka – improvisation and adaptation
AUTHOR: John Chapman
SPEAKER: John Chapman
AFFILIATION: Durham University, Department of Archaeology
CITY: Durham, UK
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ABSTRACT
Recent research by British, Ukrainian and German teams have used modern geophysical techniques to achieve what we have termed the second phase of the Trypillia mega-site ‘Methodological Revolution’. A prime example is the research of Durham University geophysicists under the aegis of the joint Anglo - Ukrainian Project ’Early urbanism in prehistoric Europe: The case of the Trypillia mega-sites’ to produce the first complete modern mega-site plan. Many types of new features have been discovered at the 250-hectare site of Nebelivka., as well as a wide range of new feature combinations. In this paper, I use some insights from performance theory and ideas about the maintenance of tradition to explore the ways in which people developed the three spatial levels of the mega-site plan – the individual household (both burnt and unburnt structures), the ‘neighbourhood’ level (or feature combinations) and the community level (or complete plan), as well as the ways in which people responded to the opportunities and constraints provided by each level in tension with the other two levels. This deconstruction of mega-site ‘planning’ in the Trypillia B2 phase offers some interesting insights into the social order at Nebelivka.
AFTERNOON SESSION
11) From one mega-site to another : A comparative look at Trypillia mega-sites and Neolithic Çatalhöyük in Anatolia'
AUTHORS: Lindsay Der and Justine Issavi
SPEAKERS: Lindsay Der
AFFILIATION: Stanford University, Department of Anthropology
CITY: Stanford, USA
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ABSTRACT
This paper considers similarities and differences in the trajectories between Trypillia mega-sites in Eastern Europe and that of the Neolithic mega-site of Çatalhöyük in Anatolia. At 33 hectares, with 18 levels of Neolithic occupation spanning 1,200 years, and peaking at around 8,000 inhabitants, Çatalhöyük is considered to be an important source of evidence regarding the transition from settled villages to urban agglomeration. While these mega-sites are spatially and temporally separated, there are a number of startling parallels between them. Thus, a comparative look at different types of mega-sites and their rise and fall has the potential to elucidate new insights into broader questions concerning highly populated permanent settlements in the prehistoric and contemporary concepts of urbanism. Within this comparative framework, we consider paths of growth and decline, social organization, and settlement structure for these mega-sites, with a specific focus on areas where stark parallels exist such as iconography and the changing role of the house throughout site occupation.
12) ‘Large’ settlements of the Late Neolithic Central and Northern Balkans: Current Evidence and Perspectives’
AUTHOR: Boban Tripković
SPEAKER: Boban Tripković
AFFILIATION: University of Beograd, Department of Archaeology
CITY: Beograd, Serbia
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ABSTRACT
In recent decades, research on Neolithic settlements of the Central and Northern Balkans has gradually transformed from an initial highly targeted focus on stratigraphy and development of tell sites to the current intensive surveys and excavations of ‘large’ flat sites. It is known from previous research that some Vinča culture sites covered several hectares; however, their apparent size was usually seen as a result of the shifting of the settlement through time, or simply a consequence of modern-day disturbances, such as the dispersal of archaeological material due to agricultural activities. Through the use of geophysical methods in archaeological prospection, however, it has been confirmed that many of the ‘large’ sites did indeed occupy surfaces of 10 or more hectares. Moreover, it has been revealed that some settlements were surrounded by ditches, and that the layout of buildings was planned and organized in a way that indicates some form of communal order. These settlements flourished in various parts of the Central and Northern Balkans in the period from the mid-6th to the mid-5th millennium BC. This paper summarizes the information available so far on these large Vinča culture settlements, and discusses the socio-economic context in which they appeared and developed.
13) "Mega-sites" of the Michelsberg culture in west-central Germany
AUTHORS: Detlef Gronenborn, Sandra Fetsch and Sabine Kuhlmann
SPEAKER: Detlef Gronenborn
AFFILIATION: Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum
CITY: Mainz, Germany
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ABSTRACT
During the Michelsberg culture, approximately around 4000 cal BC, a number of sites with sizes of up to 100 ha, with occasionally enormous fortifications, appeared in the Neuwied Basin (Urmitz) and the Rhine-Main confluence area (Schierstein, Kapellenberg, Glauberg). Most of these sites have been extensively destroyed before any modern archaeological investigation and thus remain very difficult to interpret. However, the Kapellenberg is well preserved, with ditches and banks still visible. It may thus serve as a blueprint for interpreting these Late Neolithic mega-sites. Current investigations at the Kapellenberg indicate large-scale interior occupation layers and a complicated architectural history of the defence system. However, it is entirely unclear whether these sites were occupied continuously or only for certain periods. There are also indications of sudden abandonment. Michelsberg “mega-sites” may thus represent a curious byway along the road to urbanism.
14) Urban scale and dynamics in the Northern Fertile Crescent: 4000 BC-1000AD
AUTHORS: Dan Lawrence, T.J. Wilkinson, Graham Philip, Hannah Hunt
SPEAKER: Dan Lawrence
AFFILIATION: Durham University, Department of Archaeology
CITY: Durham, UK
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ABSTRACT
In the Middle East, most cities before about 1000 BC were of relatively modest size, usually much less than 400 hectares, with those in the rain-fed zone attaining a maximum of 120 ha. In contrast to the modest scale of these Bronze Age Middle Eastern “cities”, those of Mesoamerica and South Asia are manifestly vast, constituting what has become known as "low density agrarian-based urbanism" (Fletcher 2004, 2012). However, whereas low density urbanism appears less significant in the Middle East than South Asia, later cities were extremely extensive in area. Fletcher (2004) argues that the relationship between city size and longevity implies the existence of “an operational ceiling” such that the larger the size of the city, the shorter the lifespan. A similar generalization holds for the compact cities of northern Syria and Iraq as far south as early Islamic Samarra, located just beyond the limit of rain-fed cultivation. This paper draws on the database of the Fragile Crescent Project for the northern Levant and Upper Mesopotamia to test the above model of city size and duration. We then explore this relationship in relation to long-term population trends, food supply, social factors, the scale of the political economy and sustainability.
15) The Beginning of Urbanisation in the Eastern Aegean: Economic Models and Archaeology
AUTHOR: Arne Windler
SPEAKER: Arne Windler
AFFILIATION: Institute of Archaeological Science, Bochum
CITY: Bochum
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ABSTRACT
Over the course of time, urban centres had and still have a dynamic development. An understanding of the process of urbanisation requires a consideration of economic forces. The failure of older approaches, such as Central Place theory, to explain this process led Paul Krugman to solve this problem in the 1990s with the development of the so-called “New Economic Geography”. This approach focuses on decreasing transportation costs and a highly specialised sector as the forces leading towards urbanisation. To connect the economic model to the archaeological record, both quantitative and qualitative approaches have to be taken into consideration. In a case study, this theory is applied to the Eastern Aegean Sea during the third millenium B.C. The invention of scales, weights and a metrical standard reduced transaction costs drastically over a wide area. The development of specialised production and urbanisation is exemplified by Poliochni on Lemnos, where a centre for textile production emerged, as well as by the Lower City of Troy. Furthermore the regional settlement distribution could be successfully simulated using this economic theory. The NEG explains the rise of urban centres, and the theory can be used to compare early urbanisation in the Eastern Aegean and the Trypillia area, owing to changes in transportation facilities.
16) Size Doesn’t Matter: Selimpaşa, Çatalca, Kanlıgeçit, Mikhalich and the Sudden Lifting of Complexity in Early Bronze Age Southeast Europe
AUTHORS: Volker Heyd, Şengül Aydıngün and Emre Güldoğan
SPEAKER: Volker Heyd
AFFILIATION: University of Bristol, Department of Archaeology & Anthropology
CITY: Bristol, UK
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ABSTRACT
While the first half of the third millennium BCE in most of South Eastern Europe is still characterised by comparatively medium levels of socio-economic complexity and the dominance of pastoral tribes of North Pontic origin, the period of 2500-2000 BCE sees an explosion in complexity and the inclusion within this contact zone of modern Turkish Thrace and southeastern Bulgaria in a wider network, now dominated by trade, colonies, urbanism and new forms of prestige/status expressions. The most puzzling element in this newly emerging picture are complex settlement sites consisting of strongly defended citadels of c.0,4ha and outer settlements of c.4ha. Best examples are the Selimpaşa Höyük at the Marmara Sea, and Kanlıgeçit and Mikhalich in inland Thrace. The site of İstanbul-Çatalca may also be implicated. Although thus moderate in size, they represent a form of central place that can only be regarded as ‘foreign’ in a regional environment dominated by tell settlements, wattle-and-daub architecture and hand-made dark burnished pottery. Kanlıgeçit in particular stands out as being a smaller copy of Troy IIc, even showing matching architectural details and ritual features. Does this speak in favour of the presence of Anatolian/eastern Aegean foreigners, trade emporia and even colonies in Europe, or the early transfer of an Anatolian urban model to Europe?
17) Size and complexity in Terramare polities in the Po Plain: an OBIA object/ pattern/ scenery-oriented approach to detecting the rule-sets of “landscapes of power.”
AUTHORS: Armando De Guio, Claudio Balista, Andrea Betto, Claudio Bovolato and Luigi Magnini
SPEAKER: Armando De Guio
AFFILIATION: University of Padova, Dipartimento di Beni Culturali
CITY: Padova, Italy
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ABSTRACT
During its 30-year international cooperation, our AMPBV (Alto-Medio Polesine – Basso Veronese ) project has been progressively focussing on possible “rule-sets” underlying the spatial/temporal (often “punctuated”)/functional setting and morphogenetic path (“birth”, ”death”, and possible “resurrection”) of complex “Landscape of Powers” (LoP) in the Bronze Age of the Po Plain. The basic idea that emerges is to try to exploit all sources of available evidence, starting from Remote Sensing (for instance, the use of OBIA object/ pattern/ scenery-oriented approaches) to discover possible practice/action-based logics (rarely Bayesian, normally “fuzzy” and “risk and uncertainty”-driven), endowed with some explanatory potential for the integrated strategy responsible for the instantiation of pioneer Landscapes of Power. The last involves, inter alia, big jumps in the order of magnitude of settlement size and ranking range, along with major changes to the recurrent rank/size function- related spatial rules. This would involve a number of agrarian and sacred landscapes, in what could be referred to as a “hyper-coherent” code of practice in territorial decision-making. As an example, there appears to be a number of emerging rules in the spatial layout of key vectors and nodes (such as those referring to the unprecedented and extraordinary connectivity and hydraulic networks) in relation to centre/periphery and marginal “locations”. The “fractal rule-set” seems to work at different, nested layers of resolution and complexity from the intra- and inter-polity levels, when we compare the local “dendritic central place systems ”, such as those operating in the Valli Grandi Veronesi of around Frattesina, to the all-encompassing “world system.”
18) Bronze Age urbanism: the status of the Corneşti mega-site
AUTHORS: Anthony Harding, Bernhard Heeb and Alexandru Szentmiklosi
SPEAKER: Anthony Harding
AFFILIATION: University of Exeter, Department of Archaeology
CITY: Exeter, UK
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ABSTRACT
How “urban” were large enclosed sites in Bronze Age Europe? The question has been asked many times without any consensus being forthcoming. There are notable phases of enclosure in various parts of Europe at various stages of the Bronze Age. But such sites, while clearly the location of significant agglomerated settlement and home to hundreds of people, cannot incontrovertibly be described as ‘urban’. The rolling lowlands of the Banat have seen fieldwork in recent years on a number of large-scale Bronze Age enclosed sites. The most extensively excavated is Feudvar near Mošorin in Serbia, but by far the largest is Corneşti in Romania, where four concentric earthwork rings enclose an area over 17km2 in extent. Fieldwork since 2007, and in particular geophysical survey, is shedding light on the function of particular parts of the site interior, but the wider question of how such a site was built and organised remains open. This paper will consider aspects of the Corneşti site in terms both of its internal features but also of its wider setting, and suggest ways in which its enormous scale might be understood within the dynamics of the start of the Late Bronze Age in central Europe and beyond.
19) The Iron Age 'superoppidum' of Belsk, Ukraine
AUTHORS: Timothy Taylor, Sergey Makhortykh and James Johnson
SPEAKER: Timothy Taylor
AFFILIATION: University of Vienna, Institut für Urgeschichte und Historische Archäologie
CITY: Vienna, Austria
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ABSTRACT
The mid-fifth century Greek description of a wood-ramparted city in an ethnically-mixed zone of Scythia appears at first implausible, especially in terms of scale. Herodotus’s ‘Gelonus’ was inhabited by fair-haired, blue-eyed ex-Greek-trader Geloni, who had settled within the land of the dark, lice-eating Budini. Measuring 30 stadium lengths (30 x c. 190 m = 5.7 km) on each side (if constructed on a broadly rectangular plan, about 30 km2 in area), it has been dismissed by many classicists as another Herodotean ‘lie’ or exaggeration. A plausible archaeological identification can nevertheless be sustained at the site of Belsk on the Vorskla tributary of the Dnieper, in the Poltava region of eastern Ukraine. Here, surviving 10 m high ramparts extended 12 km north–south and 7 km east–west to enclose perhaps 25% more area than Herodotus estimated. Defended or controlled by three oppidum-sized sub-fortresses, the site, under intermittent archaeological investigation for more than a century, was constructed in the sixth–fifth century BC, while the presence of 2,000 Scythian-period kurgan burial mounds indicates a substantial occupation over at least three centuries. This paper reports on archaeological and bio-anthropological research initiatives at Belsk and presents some working hypotheses concerning social function and economic role.
20) Experiments in urbanism? Reconsidering the nature of Late Iron Age oppida in Britain and France
AUTHORS: Tom Moore and Côme Ponroy
SPEAKER: Tom Moore
AFFILIATION: Durham University, Department of Archaeology
CITY: Durham, UK
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ABSTRACT
The appearance of mega-sites (traditionally known as ‘oppida’), often of unparalleled scale (e.g. Bibracte 200ha; Colchester: 2,000ha), in the Late Iron Age of Europe provides a unique dataset for exploring how complex social systems can articulate power in distinct and novel ways, in the absence of ‘towns’ in the Classical sense. However, the question of whether these can be described as ‘urban’ has overshadowed a deeper understanding of the development and role of such sites. By continuing to examine this issue almost wholly in relation to Roman urban development or against checklists devised for the Mediterranean world, studies have measured Iron Age societies against peculiarly Classical concepts of urbanism or isolated them from wider debate. Taking Late Iron Age France and Britain as our focus, and using evidence from our own field projects, this paper will demonstrate the complexity of the oppidum phenomenon. We shall argue that the increasingly sophisticated understanding of the diverse forms taken by mega-sites and ‘urbanism’ elsewhere in the world (e.g. Cowgill 2004: Ann. Rev. of Anthropology), and the ways that these were used to articulate power, provide useful comparisons for re-situating Iron Age ‘oppida’ within more nuanced understandings of the emergence of large, complex societies without Classical urban forms.
21) Re-Assessing the Oppida: New Perspectives on Urbanisation Processes in the European Iron Age
AUTHOR: Manuel Fernández-Götz
SPEAKER: Manuel Fernández-Götz
AFFILIATION: University of Edinburgh School of History, Classics and Archaeology
CITY: Edinburgh, Scotland
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ABSTRACT
For a long time, the origins and development of Late Iron Age Oppida were viewed from predominantly economic perspectives and as dependent on contacts with the Mediterranean world. However, advances in research in recent decades make it necessary to qualify and re-assess many of the traditional interpretations of the genesis and functions of these centres. This paper focuses on the political and religious role of the Oppida, questioning the assumption that they concentrated all relevant industrial and trading activities, and arguing that these centres represented a new ‘technology of power’ related to a more hierarchical and centralising ideology. Moreover, the early chronology of the great open agglomerations of the 3rd to 1st centuries BC shows that the concentration of the population and economic activities began some time before the foundation of the Oppida. Finally, it will show that the existence of places for cultic purposes and holding assemblies very often pre-dated the development of major settlements on the sites occupied by the Oppida - a phenomenon which has profound implications for our understanding of Iron Age urbanisation processes.
22) From the Neolithic to the Iron Age – Demography and Social Agglomeration: The Development of Centralized Control?
AUTHOR: Johannes Müller
SPEAKER: Johannes Müller
AFFILIATION: University of Kiel, Institut für Ur- und Frühgeschichte
CITY: Kiel, Germany
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ABSTRACT
New research results on Late Hallstatt settlement patterns have been used to describe agglomerated central settlements such as the Heuneburg as “cities” or “sub-cities”. A reconstruction of the general demographic development of Europe from ca. 6000–500 BC emphasizes, beside a general population increase, such agglomeration processes at different times. Three examples of centralization - even urbanization - processes, at Okolište, Trypillia mega-sites and Hallstatt, are described and linked to the question of social power and social control in prehistoric societies. In consequence, the Hallstatt development emerges as a structural phenomenon already observed in Neolithic, Chalcolithic and Bronze Age societies. As we are confronted with processes not necessarily known from historical or ethnographical records, a new term – ‘social agglomeration-control’ ( “agglo-control”) – is introduced, which highlights prehistoric centralization processes as triggers of social control in non-literate societies.
POSTERS
1) The temple on the Trypillia mega-site of Nebelivka
AUTHORS: N. Burdo and M. Videiko
SPEAKER: N. Burdo
AFFILIATION: Institute of Archaeology, NAS
CITY: Kyiv, Ukraine
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ABSTRACT
Investigated in 2012 at the Trypillia mega-site of Nebelivka, Kirovograd Domain, Ukraine, the remains of the construction with an area of c. 1,200 sq.m. (the so-called ‘mega-structure’) can be interpreted as the remains of a public building - a temple. The recently completed plan of the settlement according to geomagnetic survey shows that, on its territory, it was the only building of this size, which became the center of the complex plan, constructed at the highest point. These excavations gave us the possibility to reconstruct a two-storey building made of wood and clay surrounded by a galleried courtyard, five rooms on the second floor and raised family altars made of clay on the ground floor. Its construction required labour commensurate with the construction of several dozen ordinary houses. Its plan and some features of this structure find analogies in temples from the 5th – 4th millennia BC known from excavations in Anatolia and Mesopotamia.
2) Apulian (SE Italy) mega-sites of the Early Iron Age (VIII-VI cent. BCE)
AUTHOR: Alessandro Vanzetti
SPEAKER: Alessandro Vanzetti
AFFILIATION: Sapienza University of Rome
CITY: Rome, Italy
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ABSTRACT
In Northern Apulia, some mega-sites emerged during the Early Iron Age, slightly later than the proto-urbanization of Etruria, Latium and Northern Italy. The 80-ha size of sites such as Ausculum and Ordona (VIII cent. BCE onwards) can be easily compared with other Italian proto-urban sites, but there is a jump in size to 500 ha at Arpi (VII cent. BCE onwards), which is enclosed by an earthen bank. These mega-sites have been neglected in the Italian debate on proto-urbanization, owing to a lack of fine-grained data and because of other non-standard proto-urban aspects in the social complexity of Apulia (e.g., cemeteries and the late adoption of writing). In order to understand the different models of (proto-)urbanism of Italy, it is relevant to consider all of these situations, which can be better understood by a comparative study of Southern Apulia in its broader Southern Italian context.
3) England on the Edge: the stable isotope evidence
AUTHOR: Sarah Mallet
SPEAKER: Sarah Mallet
AFFILIATION: University of Oxford
CITY: Oxford, UK
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