RGZM/LEIZA - Tagungen – serie

The volume "Humans, environment and Chronology of the Late Glacial of the North European Plain" assembles papers presented during a workshop for the 15th Congress of the Union International des Sciences Préhistoriques et Protohistoriques held in Lisbon in September 2006. The workshop was organised under the remit of U.I.S.P.P. Commission XXXII, which focuses on the "The Final Palaeolithic of the Great European Plain", and the present volume continues the series of conference proceedings that have been published at regular intervals during the past decade. This most recent contribution underlines the geographical spread and chronological depth of research into this topic, with papers ranging from those in the British Isles to the eastern Baltic and from the Paris Basin to southern Scandinavia, and covering a period of time extending from the late Magdalenian to the early Mesolithic.

Since Antiquity, the routes of the so-called Silk Road formed an important network for commercial, cultural and technological exchange. Far-reaching and criss-crossing the Asian continent they connected eastern and south-eastern parts of Asia to the Mediterranean world via both maritime and overland routes. Named after the lucrative silk trade, which developed during Han Dynasty, one tends to think of the Silk Road as a one-way road starting in China and ending at the Mediterranean. However, goods, technologies and ideas were travelling in both directions, and glass is an excellent example for a trade-good that arrived in the East from the West. The key developments of glass, which had its origins in the Middle and Near East, mainly took place in the Mediterranean and in the Arab World during Antiquity and Islamic times. Although known in the Far East since at least the Han Dynasty and treated as equivalent to precious stones, glass never played a significant role in Far Eastern cultures. Therefore, glass finds from Far Eastern sites provide evidence for far-reaching trade-relationships and imply cross-fertilization with other cultures. Thus, the contributions to this conference dealt with a geographical area between Western Europe, the Balkans, the Near East, Central Asia, as well as Eastern and Southeastern Asia and covered a chronological range from 200 BC to AD 1000. The conference focused on the one hand on recent results of scientific analyses of glass and on the other hand on archaeological questions. The possibility of interdisciplinary research was one of the focal points of the conference and hence this volume, as well as questions on workshops, raw material, technology and trade. The current state of research on glass along the Silk Road was the subject of an international conference within the scope of the "Sino-German Project on Cultural Heritage Preservation" of the RGZM and the Shaanxi Provincal Institute of Archaeology, hosted in 2008 in Mainz. The book contains the contributions to that conference.

Behind the intriguing title of this volume is a compilation of many of the papers presented during a session of the 15th Congress of the Union Internationale des Sciences Préhistoriques et Protohistoriques held in Lisbon in 2006. The session reviewed the current state of research into the spatial analysis of western Eurasian Palaeolithic and Mesolithic sites. Covering a broad temporal and geographical range, these studies reflect the enormous variety of spatial evidence preserved in the archaeological records of these periods.

Between 1200 and 750 BC, the Mediterranean world saw the breakdown of Bronze Age civilizations, and the rise of Iron Age cultures. These chronological stages which unfortunately are often taken into consideration separately, have been bridged.The editors’ introduction and a picture of the theoretical framework of Mediterranean studies, are followed by five geographical parts. By commenting on cultural changes and interculturality in the sub-regions of the Mediterranean, new important insights into interregional mobility, connectivity, and decentering phenomena are provided. The vision of the Mediterranean parts as equally important for understanding the significance of contacts represents a special feature of the volume.

In this volume the concept of complex systems is used to discuss the interplay between social and environmental factors for the emergence and maintenance of maritime infrastructure and route systems in the ancient and medieval period. The approach is applied to various aspects of maritime history within the research programme ‘Harbours from the Roman Period to the Middle Ages’.Complexity theory and network analysis provide an analytical framework to describe social configurations (cities, maritime communities, polities) and environmental phenomena (hydrosphere, climate) as complex systems, entangled via mechanisms of feedbacks, adaptation or disruption.

In 1799, one of the most important hoards of gold from the European early Middle Ages was discovered near the village of Nagyszentmiklós (then in the Kingdom of Hungary, now Sânnicolau Mare, Romania). It consists of 23 gold vessels with a total weight of almost 10 kg.What makes the treasure so valuable is the high quality of workmanship and the exotic beauty of some of the vessels. Above all, however, it represents a unique resource for the study of cultural connections between the Mediterranean world and the nomadic societies of Eurasia. The contributions in this volume—results of a conference held in Vienna in 2010—deal, among other things, with techniques of goldsmithing and the possible connections between the treasure and the culture of the Sasanian Empire.

The study of sanctuaries and sacred contexts in Magna Graecia and southern Italy has undergone profound changes in recent years. The discoveries of weapons in some sanctuaries (e.g. Caulonia) in museum magazines (e.g. Paestum) together with monographic studies on specific weapons (e.g. tanks) today allow systematic research of weapons in votive contexts. Especially important is the possibility of comparing ritual practice in different cultures. This volume collects contributions on the complexity, prevalence and significance of war in votive contexts of southern Italy between the Archaic and Roman periods.

Contributions in this volume from archaeology and history deal with the question of what effect external pressure might have had in decentralised political structures with personalised rule in the European empires of the 10th century.One of the most important findings is that the concrete effects of external threats are hard to grasp, and the archaeological findings do not give a clear picture. The traditionally assumed causal links between external incursions and crisis phenomena are obviously just as unacceptable as the assumption that the Hungarian incursions would have had a lasting impact on existing structures.

Based on the research project the project "Metal finds as testimony to the interaction between Greeks and indigenous people in Sicily between the 8th and 5th centuries BC", the nineteen contributions to this volume deal with the interactions between archaeological legacies and identities both from a theoretical-methodological point of view and on the basis of concrete case studies. The focus is on ancient Sicily and its extensive connections and interdependencies, but the geographical framework extends from Asia Minor and Greece via Sicily and Lower Italy to France and Central Europe.

Researchers from the fields of archaeology, history, philology and natural sciences present their studies on ancient gemstones. Using precious minerals as an example, trade flows and production methods, also utilisation and perception, are discussed in a cross-cultural and diachronic approach.

Within the research project known as ‘Harbours from the Roman Period to Middle Ages’, an international conference titled “Harbours as objects of interdisciplinary research – Archaeology + History + Geosciences” was held in Kiel in 2015. This volume includes 26 papers presented at the conference under the headings ‘Geophysics and Field Research: Developing methods’, ‘Geoarchaeology: Changing Harbour Environments’, ‘Archaeological Features: Harbour Facilities and Infrastructure’ and ‘Written and Iconographic Sources: Complementing the Material Evidence’.