Archaeological Research – Page 3

Writing a dissertation on the archaic Forum Boarium

Leave a Comment / Archaeological Research, Students / December 15, 2014

BY ANDREA BROCK, PhD candidate in the Interdepartmental Program in Classical Art and Archaeology, University of Michigan

“Every journey begins with one step.” — my mom

dissertation station — My at-home workspace, complete with furry dissertation buddy.

Enough with the background reading and procrastinating. This fall semester marked the official start of my dissertation, in written form at least. I feel like I’ve been working on this project for a decade already (although three years is more realistic). My dissertation is centered on my fieldwork at the Sant’Omobono Project in Rome. Specifically, I am interested in reconstructing the environment and topography of the archaic Forum Boarium. After returning from Rome at the end of the summer, I wrote a long to-do list of my intended accomplishments for the upcoming semester. A major part of that list was to write the opening chapters of my dissertation.

Although the primary goal was always hanging over my head, for weeks I couldn’t even begin to think about the dissertation. First there were conference abstracts that needed to be submitted, then countless grant proposals that needed to be dealt with if I had any hope of supporting my fieldwork in 2015, then just another book that I needed to read, then a meeting with my advisor, then some data crunching, then writing the conference papers … and so it goes. By the time the day came when I had nothing else to do, I just stared at my computer screen. An entire day wasted doing nothing but sitting in front of my computer! It is incredibly daunting to write the first sentence of such an intimidatingly long task. Upon lamenting (read: procrastinating) to my mom, she offered the true, albeit corny, words of encouragement above. I finally realized that I couldn’t avoid it any longer and started typing.

The main strategy that helped me get started on my first dissertation chapter was to write an extensive outline first. That way, I was able to get all of my thoughts on paper without having to worry about constructing vaguely coherent prose. This outline included the abundant references, which I would ultimately need to put into footnotes. After discussing the outline with the applicable committee member — and fortunately getting her approval — I was able to write more freely and quickly. I still encountered days where my momentum slowed, but I tried to keep the task in perspective. Each day was just focused on a particular section of a particular chapter. And each chapter isn’t so different from a seminar term paper, right? And I knocked those out tons of times as a pre-candidate, so why be intimidated by my dissertation? Well, that thought process worked for me at least. The semester is nearing an end and that long to-do list I wrote has been largely completed. Now, I just need to repeat the process next semester, and the semester after that, and the semester after that. But first, a break!

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You really don’t want to be a bird in Hierapolis

1 Comment / Archaeological Research / October 15, 2014

BY PAOLO MARANZANA, PhD student, University of Michigan Interdepartmental Program in Classical Art and Archaeology

As a student in the Interdepartmental Program in Classical Art and Archaeology, I have at long last reached the stage in which I start planning my dissertation. I have been looking forward to beginning my research on what historians call Late Antiquity, a period that encompasses a series of events that radically transformed the ancient world. During this period, between 300 and 600 CE, Christianity emerged, classical cities disappeared, and the western Roman Empire fell under the invasions of Germanic tribes. For my dissertation, I would like investigate the causes that led to the decline of classical cities in the eastern empire (Turkey, specifically). Turkey was one of the most urbanized regions in antiquity, and it has been at the center of many large excavations, mostly run by the German and Austrian Archaeological Institutes, since the 1800s (the most famous are certainly Ephesus and Pergamon). There is, therefore, plenty of material for me to work with in my study of ancient cities and their decline.

This summer, I took a study trip to visit a number of sites that I could use as case studies for my research. My stay in Turkey was about three weeks long, and I was able to visit nine different sites. These sites will certainly form the backbone of my research. During my visit, I met with the directors of the current archaeological projects, where I was shown the latest discoveries. The most striking was undoubtedly the uncovering of the so-called Plutonion, a sanctuary built at Hierapolis (southwestern Turkey, modern Pamukkale) in honor of Pluto, god of the underworld. The life of this sanctuary explains perfectly the kind of transformations that cities underwent during this period. Hierapolis was built over a large number of underground tunnels that were filled with earth gases (mostly toxic) and thermal water. The ancient population considered the entrance to one of these underground galleries to be the gateway to the underworld, where Pluto resided. This area was therefore monumentalized with the construction of a small sitting area (for worshippers) and a pool, where the thermal water could flow, and a marble archway that led into the underground cave. Among the many statues placed around the pool was found a colossal representation of Pluto, together with a reproduction of Cerberus, the three-headed dog who guarded the entrance to the underworld. The rituals performed seem to have involved the killing of birds, which were thrown inside the cave and died almost instantaneously because of the toxic gases. Excavations have confirmed the performance of this ritual, uncovering thousands of bones belonging to small birds inside the cave.

After the emergence of Christianity the sanctuary was destroyed (6th century CE), and the statues were taken down and thrown into the pool, which archaeologists found completely filled with material belonging to the destroyed sanctuary. In what appears to be almost a ritual annihilation, all pagan material was obliterated or hidden. The area was later occupied by private residences, showing that the city was inhabited at this point but that the use of the urban space had changed dramatically.

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Looking for non-elites at Gabii

Leave a Comment / Archaeological Research, Fieldwork / September 16, 2014

BY J. TROY SAMUELS, Ph.D. student, University of Michigan Interdepartmental Program in Classical Art and Archaeology

As a student in the Interdepartmental Program in Classical Art and Archaeology moving from the coursework phase of my time at U-M toward the dissertation-writing phase, I had the opportunity this summer for preliminary research in my dissertation topic: non-elites in Republican central Italy. Archaeology has long been a discipline associated with the material of elite lifestyle. It has often been far easier to attract interest with a fancy temple or golden ornament than with the potentially mundane trappings of non-elite life. Because of this, non-elites in the ancient world have, in general, received considerably less attention than their elite compatriots. While this imbalance has been changing over the past half century, there is still (thankfully for me) much work to be done.

My current research focuses on a major lacuna for studies of this important group: the early and middle Republican period (roughly speaking, the early 4th century through the early 1st century BCE) in central Italy. Non-elites are not the only poorly understood topic for this period; this has always been a bit of an archaeological terra incognita (the typical example for this lack of information being mid-Republican Rome itself, where Augustan and later imperial building projects have largely obscured the city’s “teenage” years). However, new research has begun to expand our understanding of life during this formative phase of the Roman state. The University of Michigan excavations at Gabii have been leading the way in these discoveries, uncovering Republican habitation on a scale hitherto unseen (for more, see my earlier blog post/associated links). However, as much of this activity is elite in appearance, the non-elites at Gabii remain enigmatic.

This past summer, while excavating at Gabii, I have made a conscious effort to promote the study of the city’s non-elite population. This has taken both a research-based and a pedagogical form. It is important to question what exactly we mean by elite: is it a value judgment based on the quality of material or craftsmanship? Is it based on our assumptions about life in Republican Italy? While I do not have (nor do I believe there is) an easy answer to this question, it has been productive reformulating this in as many ways as possible. It has also, I hope, been productive in challenging the students working at Gabii, making them question the material they are excavating. In doing so, they can begin to consider the less visible, possibly non-elite, individuals involved in the production, consumption, and distribution of the artifacts we discovered. This summer has proved highly productive, and I hope that my continuing research will help problematize and further bring to the forefront these sometimes invisible yet crucially important participants in Roman life.

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First season of the Olynthos Project

2 Comments / Archaeological Research, Fieldwork / September 9, 2014

BY KATE LARSON, PhD candidate, U-M Interdepartmental Program in Classical Art and Archaeology (IPCAA)

038 — The sun rises over the houses of Olynthos as excavated in the 1920s, now conserved and open to visitors.

In the past few decades, archaeologists have become more interested in the way people of ancient Greece actually lived. The evidence from written sources suggests that men and women were separated into different areas of the house, and they seldom discuss household tasks like cooking, weaving, and religious worship, which archaeology can illuminate. IPCAA professor Lisa Nevett has dedicated her career to understanding Greek houses, but until now she has had to rely on excavation data that focused primarily on architecture and intact artifacts. Nevett began to wonder how much more we might be able to learn about Greek houses if we used 21st-century archaeological techniques to pay attention to fragmentary material, non-fineware pottery, and microscopic chemical and organic materials preserved in soil. She, along with her co-directors Zosia Archibald of the University of Liverpool and Bettina Tsigarida of the 16th Ephoreia of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities in Greece, have been granted a five-year permit under the auspices of the British School at Athens to re-excavate one such site.

Located in the Chalcidice peninsula of northeastern Greece, Olynthos — no, that’s not a typo, although on a clear day you can see the famous Mount Olympus from the site of Olynthos — has been considered the “Pompeii of Classical Greece.” Historical accounts tell us that Phillip II of Macedon (the father of Alexander the Great) destroyed the city in 348 BCE and exiled all its occupants, who left behind their houses and belongings. The site was initially excavated by David Robinson of Johns Hopkins University between 1928 and 1938. Robinson found more than 100 houses, covering about 10 percent of the area of the site; each house contained a wealth of objects from daily life, including pottery, loom weights, figurines, and coins. While Robinson and his team carefully recorded which finds came from which rooms of the houses, the publications and archive don’t contain information about which finds the excavators deemed not important enough to record or save (such as fragmentary objects, non-fineware pottery, and bone) or any stratigraphic information about soil deposits and sequences. By contrast, the new Olynthos Project plans to excavate two houses over the course of five seasons using techniques not available to Robinson, such as geophysical survey, water floatation, micromorphology and microdebris analysis, geochemistry, and surface survey.

025 — Olynthos Project 2014 members excavate a small 2 x 2 meter trial trench.

The project began in February 2014, when a small team conducted magnetometry and resistivity (types of remote sensing that help identify structures and features under the soil prior to excavation) in order to find promising areas for excavation. From July to August 2014, a multinational group composed of undergraduate and graduate students, professional archaeologists, and specialists in various archaeological disciplines came together to test these results and identify areas for subsequent work. Olynthos still has much to teach us about life in ancient Greek houses.

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Ancient Populations On the Move

Leave a Comment / Archaeological Research / July 18, 2014

BY JANA MOKRISOVA, PhD student, Interdepartmental Program in Classical Art and Archaeology, University of Michigan

Looking from mountainous Kos toward the coast of Anatolia: the sea has always acted as an important link, a corridor facilitating travel.

Understanding the mobility of people — and the material connections expressed through the distribution of objects — is vital to the reconstruction of human activity in the past. In my dissertation, I look at the interaction of different groups of people in the Aegean and Western Anatolia at the end of the 2nd millennium BCE in order to assess if and to what degree groups moved at the end of the Bronze Age.

Questions concerning how people moved in the past are not easily addressed, since the clues passed down to us from millennia ago are limited in scope. The evidence for population movement is indirect, which makes our task challenging. The categories of material culture include, but are not limited to, portable objects (pottery, spindle whorls, jewelry) or the knowledge of how to make things. In the beginning of the 20th century, early pioneers of archaeology often thought of the distribution of foreign objects as directly reflecting the movement of people. Migrations, then, were considered large-scale movements of people with a shared sense of ethnicity and belonging. For example, if a pot from Mycenae traveled to the coast of Anatolia, so must the Mycenaeans have traveled with it. This view came under sharp criticism as archaeological research showed that artisans, sailors, traders, brides, workers, and others moved for different reasons, carrying a wide range of objects from a multiplicity of places. Therefore, in order to answer questions related to mobile populations, I consider archaeological evidence at multiple scales — starting from portable objects and their manner of manufacture to tracing cultural behavior within built spaces, such as houses. In general, I try to seek clues combining evidence for the introduction of new practices, such as the use of domestic space and the ways of making objects, rather than through the appearance of new objects alone.

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“This Quintessence of Dust”: Micro-Debris Analysis at Olynthos

1 Comment / Archaeological Research, Fieldwork / June 5, 2014

BY ELINA SALMINEN, PhD student, Interdepartmental Program in Classical Art and Archaeology, University of Michigan

Enthusiasm #2 Photo taken my Matt, from whom I sha — Processing of the residue from wet-sieving on site.

This summer, the University of Michigan will be starting a new archaeological project at Olynthos in northern Greece in collaboration with the 16th Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities, the British School at Athens, and the University of Liverpool. The goal of the project is to excavate two 4th-century BCE houses and improve our understanding of ancient domestic spaces as well as northern Greek cities. In preparation for the summer, I traveled to Charlottesville, Virginia, to learn about micro-debris analysis, a technique we will be using at our excavation. It was a busy two days with Lynn Rainville, a micro-debris expert based at Sweetbriar College. We discussed the potential of the technique and devised a plan for how to apply it in the field.

In short, micro-debris consists of the small inclusions that are present in the dirt we excavate but are rarely noticed by the excavator. These inclusions can range from beads to small bones (especially from animals like rodents or fish) to very small fragments of pottery. Even though these finds seem mundane, they are worth studying for several reasons, especially in a domestic context. Imagine sweeping a compact dirt floor. What will be removed, and what will stay put? Research has shown that small fragments are more likely to remain where they fall, and can therefore give us a more accurate picture about the use of spaces when they were inhabited instead of after abandonment (which is when most of the bigger “finds” are deposited — archaeologists are often quite literally excavating through trash pits!). The technique can also allow us to see activities that might not otherwise be visible because they left little evidence, and to accurately compare the density of finds in different areas due to the careful counting and measuring involved.

The method itself can be quite tedious! After an excavator collects a soil sample for analysis of an area that seems interesting, the dirt is literally washed in a barrel to get rid of small grains of sand — in archaeological lingo this is known as flotation or wet-sieving.

29714238471 — View of the flotation barrel.

In the process, botanical remains like burnt seeds will float to the surface and will be collected for analysis by specialists. The rest of the sample will be carefully picked through and searched for archaeological materials. The finds will then be sorted by type, counted, and weighed.

It is only after all this that analysis can begin.

Despite the slow and often boring sorting that is involved, it will hopefully be worthwhile in the end. We have come a long way from removing dirt by the cartful to expose monumental buildings with little regard to their contents and the people who used them. Using micro-debris analysis alongside multiple other methods, the project at Olynthos aims to study how different spaces were used in ancient houses, and even how these uses changed depending on the time of day or the season. Even though it might not look like much at first glance, micro-debris can help us get at the hustle and bustle of ancient houses behind the stone wall foundations that are visible to the visitor now.

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Burning Questions about Greek Sacrifice

1 Comment / Archaeological Research, Fieldwork / May 19, 2014

BY DAN DIFFENDALE, PhD student, Interdepartmental Program in Classical Art and Archaeology, University of Michigan

Archaeologists study the (often-broken) material remains of human behavior in hopes of answering questions about human life in the past. We cannot directly access the past; we are constrained to form hypotheses and narratives on the basis of materials that exist in the present and are observable through excavation or surface survey. One category of hypothesis creation and testing is that of experimental archaeology (sometimes included among “actualistic” approaches). Archaeologists attempt to replicate past human behaviors in order to observe the resulting material signature, which can be compared with the archaeological record.

As a member of the Mt. Lykaion Excavation and Survey Project in Greece, I helped to excavate an ancient Greek mountaintop altar. This “ash altar” was built up over centuries by the accumulation of many thousands of animal bones burned by Greek worshipers in honor of the god Zeus. Although specialist studies of the bones and of the altar sediments have told us a great deal about the sacrificial practice at Mt. Lykaion in antiquity, many questions remain open.

Since 2012 I have collaborated with Jacob Morton of the University of Pennsylvania to create an experimental ash altar in Athens, Greece, built up out of the remains of dozens of sheep thighbones and tails, burned according to current hypotheses about Greek sacrifice. In mid-May we will carefully excavate the accumulation of one and a half years of experimental burning, in order to compare the material record of these processes with the observed archaeological record at Mt. Lykaion. In addition to this goal, the “Burning Questions” project, as we call it, includes observation of the sensory experience of the burnt offering part of Greek sacrificial ritual as well as the behavior of burning tails, which the Greeks observed as omens.

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Sequencing Ancient Pottery from Northern Afghanistan

Leave a Comment / Archaeological Research / April 15, 2014

Bactrian bowl (left) and Greek bowl (right).

BY CHARLOTTE MAXWELL-JONES, PhD student, U-M Interdepartmental Program in Classical Art and Archaeology

Pottery is one of the most common archaeological finds. This is because unlike cloth, wood, food, even human remains, pottery doesn’t chemically break down, and almost everyone in the ancient world used it for storage, transportation, and dining. Archaeologists use pottery as evidence for daily behaviors, trade and travel patterns, cultural contact, and dating.

I have been lucky enough to work on a large corpus, or collection, of pottery from northern Afghanistan for almost four years. All of the pottery is from the capital of ancient Bactria, the easternmost frontier conquered by Alexander the Great in the late 4th century BCE, and right now it is stored in Kabul, Afghanistan. I am studying this pottery to create a chronological sequence for the city it comes from. This will help us date the deposits the pottery is found in and help us determine how the capital interacted with neighboring cities.

There are two types of “chronologies”: relative and absolute. Relative chronology will tell you what is before and after something, but it doesn’t give you a date. Absolute chronology will tell you the date of an object, either specifically (October 1957) or generally (late 3rd century BCE). Both types are useful, but I started with a relative chronology. To do this, I first looked at all the pottery I was studying, from about 600 BCE to 600 CE, and figured out what pottery shapes were present (turns out, a lot!). Then I went through and wrote down how many examples of each shape I found in each archaeological deposit. Usually pottery shapes come into use, grow in popularity, and then decline — a lot like fashion trends. So I look for these trends in pottery and then make a list of what order the shapes show up in. Jeans are a perfect example: bell-bottom jeans came before ripped, stonewashed jeans, which came before wide-legged jeans, which came before low-rise jeans. Pottery was just as much a part of people’s daily lives as clothing, and although the trends may not have changed as quickly as jeans in the late 20th century, they are just as recognizable.

Studying this pottery, I’ve been able to see big changes in pottery types. In the Achaemenid Persian period, right before Alexander the Great came to Bactria, undecorated, peach-colored pottery is popular. After the Persian Empire is conquered, there is a huge growth in the number of shapes and decorations in use. Some of these shapes and decorations are so similar to what has been found in Greece and the Near East that if they were side by side, it would be hard to tell them apart. Although it’s not the globalization that we have today, this shows that despite distance, people in the ancient world were connected to one another.

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“We do not follow maps to buried treasure, and ‘X’ never, ever, marks the spot” — Indiana Jones

1 Comment / Archaeological Research / February 17, 2014

BY JENNY KREIGER, PhD student, U-M Interdepartmental Program in Classical Art and Archaeology

When I teach my students about archaeology, I find that many of them have vague ideas about what archaeologists do. This is especially true for those parts of archaeology that do not take place in the trenches: the reading, writing, thoughtful discussions, and detective work that happen elsewhere. Some archaeologists (myself included) do the majority of their work in paper and ink rather than dirt and potsherds, and this side of archaeology is its own sort of adventure.

I began a new phase in my adventure this year: my dissertation. Right now I am preparing for what I hope will be several months of research abroad in the fall, split between Naples and Rome. My work deals with catacombs (underground cemeteries) in the major cities of late antique Italy, particularly the economic systems that helped produce these complex sites and the artifacts in them. While in Italy, I will spend my time examining archives, museum collections, and catacomb sites, but before I go, I need to build a good foundation for my research. So for now, I am reading about the sites I will visit, collecting inscriptions and other texts that tell parts of the catacombs’ story, and designing ways to organize and analyze the data I will gather. It may seem like slow going now, but all of this will help me make the most of my time in the field.

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Pulled from the Trenches

1 Comment / Archaeological Research, Fieldwork / February 10, 2014

BY GEOFF EMBERLING, Assistant Research Scientist, Kelsey Museum

We are in the final preparations to return to the archaeological site of El Kurru in northern Sudan for a second field season. We have obtained our permissions from the governments of Sudan and the United States, raised funds, gathered an international group of about 25 archaeologists, and purchased and packed all our trowels, notebooks, and computers.

The site is well known to archaeologists as the burial site of many of the “Black Pharaohs,” kings of Kush who conquered Egypt and ruled as its 25th Dynasty from about 725 to 653 BC. They are mentioned in the Bible because they helped defend Jerusalem against the invading Assyrian army in battles around 701 BC, but it was ultimately the Assyrian army that drove them out of Egypt. Kush, however, continued as the major political power in the Middle Nile valley for another 1,000 years or so. As a result of its importance, El Kurru was designated part of a UNESCO World Heritage area, “Gebel Barkal and the Sites of the Napatan Region.”

It will be an unusually exciting season. One of our teams, directed by Prof. Abbas Sidahmed Zarroug, is working to preserve and protect the royal pyramids. Abbas is a Sudanese archaeologist who grew up in the village of El Kurru, and he has a unique perspective on this cultural heritage. Another team, directed by Prof. Rachael Dann of the University of Copenhagen, will be working around the currently known royal burials to identify non-royal burials or perhaps even royal burials missed by earlier archaeologists.

My team, based at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology at the University of Michigan, will be working to excavate the burial chamber of the largest pyramid at the site and to uncover a “mortuary temple” (temple for a dead king) with mysterious underground chambers (see photo above). We are also investigating the royal city around the cemetery by following remains of what we think is a city wall. We are grateful for major funding from the Qatar-Sudan Archaeological Project; from the National Geographic Society, who will be sending a film crew to document our work; and from Ms. Kathleen Picken.

Note: Keep up to date with this year’s season at El Kurru by following Geoff Emberling’s blog posts at:

http://elkurrukush.blogspot.com/

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