The Austrian Denkmalschutzgesetz (heritage protection law) aims to give total protection to all archaeological heritage. To achieve this, it takes a ‘finds-centred’ approach: chance finds are protected by some provisions in the law, searching for archaeology is restricted severely, and exclusively to archaeology graduates, by others. Yet, what has…[Read more]

Archaeologists like to think that heritage protection laws serve the purpose to protect all archaeology from damage. Thus, provisions like that of § 11 (1) Austrian Denkmalschutzgesetz or Art. 3 i-ii of the Valetta convention are interpreted as a blanket ban on archaeological fieldwork ‘unauthorised’ by national heritage agencies, and a gene…[Read more]

I investigate the organization of urban activities in Early Bronze Age cities of Northern Mesopotamia. I combine evidence from archaeological survey, magnetometry, and excavations to demonstrate that cities were broadly integrated in terms of function and use of space: inhabitants in outer cities, lower towns, and extramural areas all pursued a…[Read more]

Published in the Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology and Heritage Studies, Vol. 3, No. 3, 2015. This contribution was part of FORUM Investing in the Future of the Past: Alternative Careers for Mediterranean Archaeologists.

The lines between death and life were neither fixed nor finite to the peoples of the ancient Mediterranean. For most, death was a passageway into a new and uncertain existence. The dead were not so much extinguished as understood to be elsewhere, and many perceived the deceased to continue to exercise agency among the living. Even for those more…[Read more]

The story of the Philistines as Mycenaean or Aegean migrants, refugees who fled the Aegean after the collapse of the palace societies c.1200 BC, bringing an Aegean culture and practices to the Eastern Mediterranean, is well known. Accepted as essentially true by some, yet rejected as little more than a modern myth by others, the migration…[Read more]

The study of the collapse of past societies raises many questions for the theory and practice of archaeology. Interest in collapse extends as well into the natural sciences and environmental and sustainability policy. Despite a range of approaches to collapse, the predominant paradigm is environmental collapse, which I argue obscures recognition…[Read more]

The collapse of palatial society at the end of the Greek Bronze Age in c.1200 BC has long been a subject of fascination and contention. This monograph re-evaluates the different theories on this collapse and possible areas of continuity, making full use of recent archaeological data as well as the latest theoretical work on collapse in the…[Read more]

A case study in how small projects use digital tools.

An article on Slow Archaeology for a volume of North Dakota Quarterly dedicated to Slow.

This paper describes a peculiar set of objects from the “La Elvira” site, also known as The Bicentennial House in La Matanza, the most populated county in the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina (Figure 1). These objects were found in the last standing building from “La Elvira”, a 19th century productive ranch in the countryside near Buenos…[Read more]

Additive manufacturing poses a number of challenges to conventional understandings of materiality, including the so-called archaeological record. In particular, concepts such as real, virtual, and authentic are becoming increasingly unstable, as archaeological artefacts and assemblages can be digitalised, reiterated, extended and distributed…[Read more]

This chapter is an introduction to two of the major aspects of the study of Achaemenid Persian art, namely its definition, and the analysis of quotations of other artistic traditions. Achaemenid art is best defined as consisting of two categories of material. One is the art of the empire, i.e. art produced in furtherance of imperial goals. The…[Read more]

In his recent study of religion and imperialism in the Achaemenid Persian Empire, Bruce Lincoln depicts the Achaemenids as savage and decadent in order to make a point about contemporary American foreign policy. This paper challenges Lincoln’s vision of the empire by examining the severe methodological flaws that underlie it, especially his…[Read more]

It has recently been argued that a group of five monuments at S. Omobono were part of a single building program, attributed to the Roman consul M. Fulvius Flaccus in 264 BCE, a program that also included a monument at Orvieto, loc. Campo della Fiera. The monuments in question include two altars, a circular ‘donarium’ and fragments of two bases car…[Read more]

This article addresses how current archaeological approaches to political boundaries potentially misconstrue evidence for mobile kingship.

The article deals with the tumba (or tomba) and with the diffusion of this building type in the medieval rural territory of Rimini. By tumba we normally mean a fortified settling of modest dimensions, built on high ground in order to protect cultivated areas: its characteristics are well described into the De Agricoltura, a treatise written by…[Read more]

Slow archaeology situates contemporary, digital archaeological practice both in the historical tradition of the modern discipline of archaeology and within a discourse informed by calls for Taylorist efficiency. Rather than rejecting the use of digital tools, slow archaeology calls for archaeology to embrace a spirit of critical engagement with…[Read more]

Excavation of archaic Morgantina (c.700–450 BC), Sicily, has brought to light a significant pattern in the distribution of imported Greek pottery. This pattern, which shows a preference for imports with features that referred to metal vessels, is echoed at sites around the western Mediterranean. We argue that the preference for certain types was c…[Read more]

For at least a decade, scholars examining colonial influences on the material culture of indigenous populations in the ancient Mediterranean have found recourse in the concept of hybridity. These investigators have recognized that in situations where different cultural groups meet and mix, artifactual and behavioral traits from both the dominant…[Read more]