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Aegeus Society For Aegean Prehistory

ARTICLES | 2026

‘We don’t talk about Çatalhöyük, we live it’: sustainable archaeological practice through community-based participatory research

Sonya Atalay World Archaeology 42.3 (2010): 418-429.

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) provides a methodology for engaging descendent and local communities as partners in archaeological research. This article, based on a five-year comparative research project that examines CBPR’s application to archaeology, demonstrates a collaborative model that involves reciprocity, is action based and aims to build community capacity while engaging communities in the process of archaeological research and heritage management.

The Minoan lion: Presence and absence on Bronze Age Crete

Andrew Shapland World Archaeology 42.2 (2010): 273-289.

Animal depictions are frequently treated by archaeologists either as direct reflections of human-animal relations or as symbolic of social realities. This paper offers a different way of conceptualizing animal depictions, as objects which mediate between society and human relationships with non-human animals.

Caves, palimpsests and dwelling spaces: examples from the Upper Palaeolithic of south-east Europe

Geoff Bailey & Nena Galanidou World Archaeology 41.2 (2009): 215-241.

Deposits in caves and rock-shelters typically occur in the form of low-resolution palimpsests or time-averaged deposits, resulting from the superimposition of repeated and variable episodes of occupation, low rates of sedimentation and mixing by natural and anthropogenic processes. Despite the development of an impressive array of analytical techniques to disentangle these palimpsests into their constituent episodes of occupation, high resolution chronologies and detailed snapshots of activity areas and spatial organization have proved elusive.

Post-collapse: The re-emergence of polity in Iron Age Boğazköy, central Anatolia

L. Kealhofer, P. Grave, H. Genz & B. Marsh Oxford Journal of Archaeology 28.3 (August 2009): 275–300.

How communities reorganize after collapse is drawing increasing attention across a wide spectrum of disciplines. Iron Age Boğazköy provides an archaeological case study of urban and political regeneration after the widespread collapse of eastern Mediterranean Late Bronze Age empires in the early twelfth century BC.

Domesticity by default. Ritual, Ritualization and cave-use in the Neolithic Aegean

Peter Tomkins Oxford Journal of Archaeology 28.2 (May 2009): 125–153.

Neolithic caves in the Aegean are conventionally understood in domestic terms, principally as temporary homes for farmers or pastoralists. This paper challenges the theoretical and empirical foundations of this orthodoxy and develops an alternative model grounded in an understanding of Neolithic ritual and how through ritualization the everyday is referenced and transformed.

Contrasting subsistence strategies in the Early Iron Age? – New results from the Alföld plain, Hungary, and the Thracian plain, Bulgaria

John Chapman, Enik Magyari & Bisserka Gaydarska Oxford Journal of Archaeology 28.2 (May 2009): 155-187.

What can students of the past do to establish the predominant land-use and settlement practices of populations who leave little or no artefactual discard as a testament to their lifeways? The traditional answer, especially in Eastern Europe, is to invoke often exogenous nomadic pastoralists whose dwelling in perpetuo mobile was based on yurts, minimal local ceramic production and high curation levels of wooden and metal containers.

The Minoan fallacy: Cultural diversity and mortuary behaviour on Crete at the beginning of the Bronze Age

Borja Legarra Herrero Oxford Journal of Archaeology 28.1 (February 2009): 29-57.

We are becoming increasingly aware of regional data patterning in the archaeological record of Prepalatial Crete, yet a theoretically informed and methodologically systematic study assessing the significance of such differences is still lacking. This article investigates variation through the rich mortuary record of the period and explores the significance of such diversity for our understanding of Prepalatial Crete.

Beyond ethnicity: The overlooked diversity of group identities

Naoise Mac Sweeney Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 22.1 (2009): 101-126.

This article challenges the current tendency in archaeology to assume an ethnic basis for group identity. Archaeology has rehabilitated the concept of ethnicity over the last decade, embracing a theoretically sensitive model of it as both socially constructed and socially constructing, as flexible, embodied and hybridised. The success of this model has been such that group identities are often assumed to be ethnic without investigation.

Political geography and palatial Crete

Andrew Bevan Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 23.1 (2010): 27-54.

The political geography of Crete during the period of the Bronze Age palaces has been a subject of widespread debate, not only with respect to the timing of the island’s move towards greater social and political complexity, but also with regard to the nature of the political institutions and territorial configurations that underpinned palace-centred society, as well as their longer-term stability over the course of the second millennium BC.

Location and perspective in the Theran Flotilla Fresco

Thomas F. Strasser Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 23.1 (2010): 3-26.

The Flotilla Fresco from Akrotiri on Thera depicts 14 sea craft, with seven large ships seemingly en route between two landmasses. There are, however, strong arguments against the idea of a long-distance voyage, and instead this study supports the concept of a nautical ceremony.

Mycenaean Dimini in context: Investigating regional variability and socioeconomic complexities in Late Bronze Age Greece

Panagiota A. Pantou American Journal of Archaeology 114.3 (July 2010): 381-401.

Recent excavations at the Mycenaean town of Dimini in the Bay of Volos in Thessaly have led to the interpretation of this site by its excavator as the regional “palatial” administrative center. This article discusses the available archaeological evidence from all three known Mycenaean settlements in the Bay of Volos (Dimini, Kastro and Pefkakia) and considers aspects of settlement pattern, architecture, artifact distribution, burial practices, and craft specialization in those settlements.

Swords and Swordsmanship in the Aegean Bronze Age

Barry Molloy American Journal of Archaeology 114.3 (July 2010): 403-428.

Warfare and combat are often considered to have played central roles in the characterization of elite identities and the social evolution of Aegean Bronze Age polities of Crete and the Greek mainland. Iconography and mortuary practice provide insights into how warrior identity and violence were materially celebrated.

A Return to the Dark Ages? Reply to Thornton et al. 2010

Nissim Amzallag American Journal of Archaeology 114.2 (April 2010): 317-329.

A synthetic theory pointing out the central importance of metallurgy in the emergence of Bronze Age civilizations was recently published in the AJA (‘From Metallurgy to Bronze Age Civilizations: The Synthetic Theory’ [2009] 497-519). In reaction, six well-known authors (Christopher Thornton, Jonathan Golden, David Killick, Vincent Pigott, Thilo Rehren, and Benjamin Roberts) have written a rebuttal devoted mainly to defending the current localizationist paradigm challenged by the synthetic theory.

La raccolta del croco a Thera: un tipo particolare di iniziazione femminile?

Lucia Alberti Studi Micenei ed Egeo-Anatolici 51 (2009) [2010]: 37-69.

Gli affreschi rinvenuti nella Xesté 3 di Akrotiri e il loro possibile significato sono stati oggetto di numerosissimi ed autorevoli studi. In questa sede si intende proporre una ulteriore ipotesi, che nasce dall’analisi dell’iconografia e del contesto archeologico, con un riferimento specifico agli oggetti rinvenuti negli ambienti dell’edificio. In particolare, sarà preso considerazione il cosiddetto “settore femminile” della Xesté 3.