Since the 1960s, research on the chemical composition of ancient archaeological glass has been executed. It has become clear that raw ancient glass exists of three main ingredients: silica, lime,...Show moreSince the 1960s, research on the chemical composition of ancient archaeological glass has been executed. It has become clear that raw ancient glass exists of three main ingredients: silica, lime, and a flux. Next to these ingredients, iron is always found in the mix which gives glass naturally a green or blue colour. Around the fourth century AD, a new type of glass was introduced. This glass type was probably made in Egypt and is distinguishable from the other compositional types of glass by its yellow to green colour. Research indicates that the glass has high levels of iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), and titanium (Ti) in its composition. This is why, in 1994, the term ‘HIMT’ glass is introduced by prof. I. Freestone. This research focuses on the dispersion of HIMT glass during the fourth to seventh centuries AD on the Italian peninsula to fill in gaps in the knowledge of the general dispersion of HIMT glass throughout the Mediterranean area. HIMT glass was not the only type of glass on the market. In this research, the focus lies on HIMT glass, but to provide more context about the general glass market, also other types of glass like Egypt I and II and Levantine glass are being discussed. It is generally accepted that there are two primary glass production areas for all the ancient glass: the Levant and Egypt. The glass was formed here into large chunks which were shipped throughout the Mediterranean area to secondary production areas. There the glass was formed into vessels or other useable objects. To understand where the glass originates, chemical research is performed. Hereby, not only the chemical elements, which could be added intentionally or unintentionally, are taken into account, also isotopes, like neodymium (Nd) and strontium (Sr) which respectively indicate the age of the sediments and the source of lime, are being researched. This results in the distinction of several glass compositional groups. This research aims to answer the following question: ‘How is HIMT glass dispersed in Italy during the fourth to seventh centuries AD?’. After providing information on the chemical composition of glass and the existing glass compositional groups, an overview is given of 17 sites on the Italian peninsula where HIMT glass is present in the glass assemblage. These sites are researched using archaeological publications. A distinction is made between production sites, where the glass was formed into objects and where production waste was found, and consumption sites, where the objects were solely 68 used. Looking at the context of the sites and the composition of the glass assemblages found there, an overview of the presence of HIMT glass on the Italian peninsula could be provided. To understand the specific dispersion of the glass, three main subjects, trade in the Mediterranean area, trade in Italy, and recycling practices are researched. The research concludes that the glass was shipped from Egypt into Italy via multiple ports and trade routes after which the glass was spread throughout Italy. HIMT glass was mostly used for common ware, because of its relatively low quality, and therefore also useful for recycling. Since this research is based on the existing publications of sites containing HIMT glass, future research could include looking at yet unpublished sites, the data from already published assemblages that have not been used for this thesis, and the possibility of regional differences in shapes of HIMT glass.Show less
The study of Indian Ocean archaeology has often focused on individual sites and has tended to focus primarily on connections between major port sites without the inclusion of smaller sites and the...Show moreThe study of Indian Ocean archaeology has often focused on individual sites and has tended to focus primarily on connections between major port sites without the inclusion of smaller sites and the spaces in between these major sites. Within this thesis I focus on the role of Sri Lanka within the broader context of the Indian Ocean trade networks. Sri Lanka has long been thought to have been a central point within these aforementioned trade networks due to its geographical location at the “center” of the Indian Ocean, coupled with its natural topography that made it an ideal safe port of call for ancient merchants. However, most of Sri Lanka’s prominence in this context is based off historical texts and sporadic archaeological evidence from major sites such as Mantai and Anuradhapura. This research will focus on a wider range of sites and archaeological evidence in order to see what exactly was Sri Lanka’s role within the broader Indian Ocean trade networks. In order to accomplish this I will create an overview of all the available evidence such as archaeological reports, scientific articles and publications related to this topic. Following this I will also provide suggestions for the continuation of this research so that it may benefit the wider academic community. These suggestions will include the application of digital techniques in the field such as LiDAR, in order to properly understand the spaces in between the major sites so that a more complete picture is gained rather than one that focuses mainly on famous urban sites. Alongside this I will also discuss methods to properly store and disseminate the data related to this research in a way that makes it more accessible to the wider academic community. Through the creation of an overview of all the available material as well as the aforementioned suggestions, I will provide a framework for the next steps to be taken in terms of research into Sri Lanka’s role in the Indian Ocean trade networks.Show less
This thesis explores the extent to which Middle English Romances's readers could have been familiar with the botanical matters referenced within these tales. The data has been gathered from 6...Show moreThis thesis explores the extent to which Middle English Romances's readers could have been familiar with the botanical matters referenced within these tales. The data has been gathered from 6 Middle English Romances: Lay le Freine, Sir Thopas, The Knight's Tale, Athelston, The Awntyrs off Arthur, and The Romaunt of the Rose. The research also includes explorations of non-romance texts and archaeobotanical results to discuss the presence of botanical matters in multiple facets of the lives of contemporary readers of the Middle English Romances.Show less
Dental root translucency (alsoroot transparency, apical translucencyor transparency or root dentine sclerosis) has long been used to estimate age-at-death in forensic as well as archaeological...Show moreDental root translucency (alsoroot transparency, apical translucencyor transparency or root dentine sclerosis) has long been used to estimate age-at-death in forensic as well as archaeological human remainsbut has never been tested on a Dutch archaeological collection with known sex and age-at-death individuals. This thesis testedseven already existing (sets of) formulae using dental root translucency as a parameter, that weredeveloped on samples from various geographical regions, on the known sex and age-at-death sample from the Middenbeemster Collection housed at the Laboratory of Human Osteoarchaeology at the Faculty of Archaeology in Leiden University, The Netherlands. A total of 77 individuals werestudied, resulting in age-at-death estimations for 67 of theseindividuals. To test if a more accurate formula could be developed for the Middenbeemster Collection, and even Dutch osteoarchaeological human remains, several new formulaewere trailedresulting in the following formula (T = translucency in mm):Age =19.832+7.667*T +-0.299*T2.With this formula, no statistical difference was found between males and females and seemed not to be affected by dental disease.The new formula was tested on twenty-onenew individuals from the Middenbeemster Collection and twenty individuals from Arnhem, Eusebiuskerk, allonly having an estimated osteological age category. The newly derived formula performed well in the forty-one newly studied individuals, bringing the total number of studied individuals with an age-at-death estimation to 108 individuals. The small sample size and slight underrepresentation should be addressed in future research that either has to enlarge the known age-at-death sampleand/or enlarge the estimated age-at-death sampleto test the presented formula of this thesis.Show less
This thesis focusses on Hafit tombs (3200-2500 BC) in the Wadi Suq and Wadi al-Jizzi regions of the Sultanate of Oman. The main research question proposed is whether existing theories on the Hafit...Show moreThis thesis focusses on Hafit tombs (3200-2500 BC) in the Wadi Suq and Wadi al-Jizzi regions of the Sultanate of Oman. The main research question proposed is whether existing theories on the Hafit period can explain the distribution pattern present in the study area. In order to answer this question, four sub-questions were created exploring: the general distribution of the tombs, the orientation of the tombs and the correlation between the tombs, visibility and the dry river beds also known as wadis. Each of the sub-questions was answered by applying different tools in ArcGis on the dataset provided by the Wadi al-Jizzi Archaeological Project. Regarding the overall distribution of the tombs, it can be concluded that significant sites with large numbers of Hafit tombs are primarily located around the Wadi Suq, instead of the larger Wadi al-Jizzi and that all the Hafit cemeteries seem to have been located more closely to the area known as the Lower Batinah than towards the mountains. The analysis also revealed that the tombs at Site 43 seem to be clustered like Late Prehistoric Tombs (LTPs), which are of a post-Hafit date. The orientation of the tombs seemed initially clearly focused towards the north-east/south-west and east-west. This coincides with the variation in the azimuth of the sunrise between the months of June and September for the Sohar region. However, a site-to-site comparison displayed a more nuanced picture. The orientation of the tombs at S6 and S58 are evenly distributed, suggesting that they might have been constructed in a later phase of the Hafit period. The analyses in the current thesis also displayed that at the threshold of 1500 meters all tombs in the study area correlate to a wadi system. Interestingly, all of the tombs are clearly visible from the wadi system, despite the different distances to a wadi. This thesis concludes that current theories are unsatisfactory to explain the distribution of Hafit tombs in the study area and that more research is needed in this regard. Not only to improve existing theories or add new ones, but also to determine whether the patterns discussed in this thesis are unique for the study area or are also visible in other parts of the Oman peninsula.Show less
On the 8th of December 2018 the Ephesos Museum reopened its exhibition spaces of the permanent collection in the Viennese Hofburg after being closed for a year. This research aims to compare this...Show moreOn the 8th of December 2018 the Ephesos Museum reopened its exhibition spaces of the permanent collection in the Viennese Hofburg after being closed for a year. This research aims to compare this new exhibition with the original exhibition of the museum four decades ago and investigate the influence archaeological research, political intentions, and national identity had on the composition of the collection, the opening, and display of the museum in 1978 as well as the reopened exhibition in 2018.Show less
Figurines are some of the most commonly found artefacts in Neolithic sites across the Near East. These objects have often stimulated colourful interpretations, focussing primarily on stylistic...Show moreFigurines are some of the most commonly found artefacts in Neolithic sites across the Near East. These objects have often stimulated colourful interpretations, focussing primarily on stylistic elements of the anthropomorphic subjects. Such elements, like their perceived femaleness accompanied by voluptuousness, have historically been deemed as directly linked to concerns with fertility and pregnancy, which led to the assumption of the figurines being ritual objects and representations of deities, often labelled as ‘mother- goddesses’. These interpretations essentially generalize the entirety of the figurine assemblages of the Neolithic world, and erase the possibilities of in-depth analysis of these objects. This thesis takes on a different approach, with the belief that a comprehensive analysis that aims to understand these objects should first of all focus on the assemblage of a single context (namely a single site in a given chronological frame), covering the full ‘life-span’ of the figurines within such spatial, chronological, and cultural boundaries, starting from the context of deposition, the process of manufacture and the possible uses. Stylistic observations should only be considered in association to these aspects just mentioned, in the case of possible patterns highlighting the meaning and uses of these objects. A comparative analysis of two or more assemblages could be introduced at a second stage of analysis, within pertinent geographical and chronological boundaries, in order to highlight possible differences and similarities. This approach is what was applied for the research of the figurines of two Neolithic sites of the Lake District in Western Anatolia: Hacilar and Höyücek. These sites, broadly dated to the Late Neolithic period (ca. 6,400 – 6,000 BC), present a significant corpus of figurines, which amount to 72 for Hacilar, and 84 for Höyücek, with the aims of investigating their contexts of deposition and their manufacturing processes in order to highlight possible meaning and uses that were associated to these emblematic objects withi the individual sites and in a broader regional context. The structure of this research will start with an introductory chapter on the Neolithic in the Lake District (Chapter 1), followed by a theoretical chapter that will discuss the history of figurine studies, and will frame the theoretical approach preferred for this research. The datasets of Hacilar and Höyücek will be discussed in Chapter 3 and Chapter 4, which will then be compared in their results in Chapter 5. Finally, the conclusions of this research will be presented in Chapter 6. This research has shown that the figurines of Hacilar and Höyücek had highly dynamic meanings and uses, even within the same sites, which on the one hand shows how inherently flawed the past research has been, and on the other it opens up new avenues of research around aspects like the manufacturing process, which have barely been actively studied in figurines.Show less
Research master thesis | Archaeology (research) (MA/MSc)
open access
Ethnoarchaeological studies in the pre-colonial Caribbean are limited. This research presents a pilot investigation that employs an innovative approach to understanding the spatial and temporal...Show moreEthnoarchaeological studies in the pre-colonial Caribbean are limited. This research presents a pilot investigation that employs an innovative approach to understanding the spatial and temporal developments of the Late Ceramic Age site of El Flaco, northwestern Dominican Republic (excavated in the context of the ERC-synergy project Nexus1492: New World Encounters in a Globalising World), through the study of three key features: postholes, hearths, and mounds. These are material manifestations of past human activities and inform archaeologists on issues of structure building activities, cooking activities, and the myriad activities that result in the stratigraphic build-up of mounds. Following Ingold (1993, 2000), this research approaches each sample of studied features as a place-based taskscape. This allows each feature to be studied separately, as well as in relation to each other. To subsequently arrive at a well-informed interpretation, the archaeological record is conceptualized with the use of an interpretative visibility (sensu Mans 2012, 179). The interpretative visibility is developed and enhanced by consulting archaeological and ethnographic sources focused on the pre-colonial and modern Indigenous lifeways of Amazonia, as well as on archaeological sources focused on Indigenous lifeways of the pre-colonial Insular Caribbean. Moreover, it is supplemented by three informal ethnographic case studies of present-day living situations in the northwestern Dominican Republic. To translate the interpretative visibility to the archaeological record of El Flaco, methodological parameters have been extracted from the ethnoarchaeological studies conducted in modern Amazonia by Mans (2012) and Duin (2009). The interpretative visibility intends to function as a source of inspiration for the interpretation of the archaeological record of El Flaco. It does not intend to equate one with the other. By contrasting and comparing the interpretative framework with the archaeological data, using the methodological parameters extracted from the studies by Mans (2012) and Duin (2009), this research has developed meaningful interpretations of the spatial interrelationships and developments of the features studied. The analysis of posthole features confirms the presence of a large habitation structure that was periodically repaired or perhaps fully rebuilt over time. Hearth features evidence a use in both domestic and ritual spheres and are characteristically different dependent on their use. Finally, the stratigraphy of the mounds attests to both long- and short-term activities that take place on the mounds, such as the burning of trash, or elsewhere at the site, such as the building of new structures. The results of this study successfully contribute towards the understanding of the dynamics and developments of the pre-colonial village of El Flaco through space and time.Show less
The ERC-Synergy project Nexus1492: New World Encounters In A Globalising World is, amongst others, investigating past activities in the indigenous Caribbean. One of these activities was the...Show moreThe ERC-Synergy project Nexus1492: New World Encounters In A Globalising World is, amongst others, investigating past activities in the indigenous Caribbean. One of these activities was the production of pottery. This thesis aims to investigate the chaîne opératoire of pre-colonial pottery through studying the 'act' of incising and punctating ceramic vessels during the Late Ceramic Age. This research was executed through the macroscopic analysis and comparison of 35 Meillacoid and Chicoid pottery sherd samples with 44 experimentally manufactured clay-slabs which were incised and punctated with 16 different experimental tools of various material types. The archaeological samples which were studied in this research are all originating from the pre-Columbian archaeological site of El Flaco, Dominican Republic. An inland site situated along the 'Ruta de Colon' and at the southern foothills of the Cordillera Septentrional at a distance of approximately 20km from the ocean. The main focus of this research is the potter's toolkit re-creation, comparing archaeological sample sherds with experimental clay-slabs with the goal of figuring out which tools were probably part of the potter's toolkit for the sake of incising and punctating ceramic vessels and which were not. Other variables like the dryness of clay vessels at the time of incising and punctating and the different possible gestures or motions are also discussed in this study. Preliminary conclusions include, but are not limited to a probably extensive toolkit with many tool-types as possible utensils for producing specific incisions and punctations, with tools from the category plant matter (read small wooden sticks and twigs) as the most important part of this toolkit. Additionally, it seems plausible that incisions and punctations were more likely to be applied to pre-colonial pottery on a relatively plastic clay, as opposed to a drier vessel.Show less
