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Aegeus Society For Aegean Prehistory

ARTICLES | 2009

Private pantries and celebrated surplus: storing and sharing food at Neolithic Çatalhöyük, Central Anatolia

Antiquity 83, No. 321 (September 2009): 649–668.

In the Neolithic megasite at Çatalhöyük families lived side by side in conjoined dwellings, like a pueblo. It can be assumed that people were always in and out of each others’ houses – in this case via the roof. Social mechanisms were needed to make all this run smoothly, and in a tour-de-force of botanical, faunal and spatial analysis the authors show how it worked. Families stored their own produce of grain, fruit, nuts and condiments in special bins deep inside the house, but displayed the heads and horns of aurochs near the entrance. While the latter had a religious overtone they also remembered feasts, episodes of sharing that mitigated the provocations of a full larder.

The early management of cattle (Bos taurus) in Neolithic central Anatolia

Antiquity 83, No. 321 (September 2009): 669–686.

The authors use metrical, demographic and body part analyses of animal bone assemblages in Anatolia to demonstrate how cattle were incorporated into early Neolithic subsistence economies. Sheep and goats were domesticated in the eighth millennium BC, while aurochs, wild cattle, were long hunted. The earliest domesticated cattle are not noted until the mid-seventh millennium BC, and derive from imported stock domesticated elsewhere. In Anatolia, meanwhile, the aurochs remains large and wild and retains its charisma as a hunted quarry and a stud animal.

Review of Aegean Metallurgy in the Bronze Age: Proceedings of an International Symposium Held at the University of Crete, Rethymnon, Greece, on November 19-21, 2004

Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Blackwell, N.G., 2009. Online review of Iris Tzachili (ed.), Aegean Metallurgy in the Bronze Age: Proceedings of an International Symposium Held at the University of Crete, Rethymnon, Greece, on November 19-21, 2004 (Athens 2008), Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2009.02.18.

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Floor sequences in Neolithic Makri, Greece: micromorphology reveals cycles of renovation

Antiquity 83, No. 322 (December 2009): 955–967

Dating and examination of plaster floor sequences by micromorphology at a tell site in Greece shows when they were made and how they were composed. While numerous informal floor surfaces using recycled rubbish were put in place, as and when, by the occupants, formal floors rich in plaster seem to have been re-laid at regular intervals in reflection of a communal decision – even if the actual floors followed a recipe determined by each household. The authors rightly champion the potential of the technique as a possible indicator of social change at the household and settlement level.

For Gods or men? A reappraisal of the function of European Bronze Age shields

Antiquity 83, No. 322 (December 2009): 1052–1064.

Are the imposing, decorated copper-alloy shields of Bronze Age Europe symbolic objects or functioning weapons? The author undertakes new analysis and experiments to conclude that whether bronze, leather or wood, all shields had a range of purpose in which the ceremonial and homicidal could rarely be completely isolated.

Review of Sparta and Laconia: from Prehistory to Pre-modern

Antiquity

Stewart, D.R., 2009. Review of W.G. Cavanagh, C. Gallou & M. Georgiadis (ed.), Sparta and Laconia: from Prehistory to Pre-modern (London: British School at Athens), Antiquity 83 (No. 322, December): 1199–1200.

Review of The Cave of the Cyclops: Mesolithic and Neolithic Networks in the Northern Aegean, Greece. Volume 1, Intra-site Analysis, Local Industries, and Regional Site Distribution

Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Button, S., 2009. Online review of A. Sampson, The Cave of the Cyclops: Mesolithic and Neolithic Networks in the Northern Aegean, Greece. Vol. I. Intra-site Analysis, Local Industries, and Regional Site Distribution (Philadelphia 2006), Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2009.08.21.

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Theodore Fyfe: Architect 1875-1945

Cambridge

Theodore Fyfe: Architect 1875-1945 Theodore Fyfe (1875-1945) is widely known as Arthur Evans’s architect during the first five excavating seasons at the Palace of Knossos (1900-1904). From 1904 onwards Fyfe was working mainly for John James Burnet at the British Museum. From 1922 until 1936, he was Director of the Cambridge School of Architecture; and from 1926 until his retirement in 1941 he was University Lecturer in Architecture.

Kavousi IIA: The Late Minoan IIIC Settlement at Vronda. The Buildings on the Summit

Philadelphia, Pa.

Kavousi IIA: The Late Minoan IIIC Settlement at Vronda. The Buildings on the Summit This volume is the second in the series of final reports on the work of the Kavousi Project and the first volume on the cleaning (1982–1984) and excavations (1987–1992) at the mountain sites located above the modern village of Kavousi in eastern Crete. These sites, Vronda and the Kastro, shed light on the Early Iron Age, the transitional period in Cretan history known popularly as the Dark Ages, thereby elucidating the way of life of the people who lived in the area of Kavousi during that period and how their culture changed over time.

Ubi dubium ibi libertas. Studies in honour of Professor Nikolaos Faraklas

Rethymnon

Ubi dubium ibi libertas. Studies in honour of Professor Nikolaos Faraklas The volume brings together a series of papers in honour of Professor Nikolaos Faraklas, on the occasion of his retirement from the University of Crete. The papers (in Greek) are written by colleagues and former students. Some of the papers cover prehistoric issues.

The LMΙΙΙ Cemetery at Tourloti, Siteia. The ‘Xanthoudidis Master’ and the Octopus Style in East Crete

Oxford

The LMΙΙΙ Cemetery at Tourloti, Siteia. The ‘Xanthoudidis Master’ and the Octopus Style in East Crete Halfway along the mountainous route between the Ierapetra isthmus and Siteia, on the northern limits of the western mountain range of the Siteia province (eastern Crete), is the small village of Tourloti. Approximately 2.5 kilometres north of the village, on the hillside that drops down to the beach at Mochlos, on the site of Plakalona, is a LMIII chamber tomb cemetery. Richard B. Seager was the first to identify and excavate the site in 1900.

Helis and the adjacent region during the Mycenaean period (in Greek)

In Η. Αndreou & Ι. Αndreou-Psychogiou (eds), 2009. Ήλις, παρελθόν, παρόν και μέλλον. Πρακτικά εκδήλωσης προς τιμήν Ν. Γιαλούρη (Ήλις, 13 Αυγούστου 2006) (Pyrgos): 21-36.

The author examines the region of Helis (Peloponnese) during the Mycenaean period. Most of the article focuses on the Mycenaean cemetery at Agia Triada, where 50 chamber tombs have been found (40 at the site Agiannis and 10 at the site Spilies). Many colour photographs of the finds from the tombs are also included.