workshops

Since its early days, Archaeology was sometimes seen by governments as another means to exercise power and justify their will. The power of the past can, on the other hand, influence present decisions. Nowadays we all agree archaeological finds, studies and achievements can be motors for sustainable development and influence jobs, tourism or quality of life, among others. In this colloquium we deal with all aspects that involve archaeology, power, governments and the future.

In his famous 1872 volume "Rude Stone Monuments" architect James Fergusson commented on the inherently peculiar nature of megalithic architecture, which chose to employ large stone slabs that were frequently unmodified and unshaped. Sunsequent studies of the megalithic slabs themselves have focused mainly on their geological origin and the distances over which they had been transported. The materiality of the slabs and they way that they were extracted from their source material has been only rarely addressed, although megalithic 'quarries' have occasionally been identified, and the deployment of glacial boulders in North European monuments is a well-known phenomenon. The session proposed here will study the two ends of the megalithic process: starting with the extraction of the stones, and ending with the precise manner in which they were incorporated in the monuments. How far did the character and availability of certain types of material constrain and direct monument form? The presence or absence of shaping and smoothing, along with other aspects of selection in the choice and placement of the individual slabs, will also be addressed. This aim is to identify what it was about the 'megalithic' quality of the slabs that inspired this kind of construction.

For much of the 19th and 20th centuries, the engraved plaques of Iberia have been interpreted in a monolithic framework – as representations of the European Mother Goddess. Is this model still valid? Can the heterogeinity, abundance and extensive distribution of the plaques be captured under this model, or must we develop multiple interpretations for the plaques, according to their cultural context or stylistic type? How can scientific methods, such as statistics, GIS or DNA studies, be applied fruitfully to the study of Iberian plaques? Can models from social theory, cognitive studies or evolutionary archaeology offer new interpretations of the plaques? Papers in this session will develop new historiographic, theoretical and methodological perspectives on the Iberian plaques and pose new research agendas for the 21st century.

Volcanoes often had a devastating impact over civilizations and environment, revealed and documented by archaeological sites, in amore or less detailed way. Life in the immediate vicinity of active volcanoes was maintained or resumed whereas more distant civilizations were severely or completely affected by drastic modifications in the environment, governed by long distance phenomena. We wish to open a pluridisciplinary debate on the basis of resent research in this domain: volcanic eruptions have in fact affected Humankind since its African origins! Numerous questions may be raised: have eruptions favoured human inter-groups competition? The abandonment of affected territories is inevitable or a survival is organised on-site? Different eruption styles, with different impacts, lead to different responses, and the distance to the phenomenon has an influence in them? Past societies have been able to protect themselves from volcanic activity? Have they organised economic strategies to face the phenomenon? How to detect this stress and the societies’ responses in the archaeological data? Actualism, is it a good tool to proceed to those identifications?

WS05 – Roman occupation of Iron Age Iberian Southwest settlements
Occupation romaine des habitats de l’Âge du Fer du Sud-Ouest Ibérique
(Filomena Barata - mbarata@ippar.pt, Jorge Vilhena)

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WS06 – Quality management of prehistoric sites: from research to dissemination
Qualité de la gestion de sites préhistoriques : de la recherche à la dissémination
(Maurizio Quagliuolo - qmauri@tiscali.it, Luiz Oosterbeek - loost@ipt.pt)

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Our common Cultural Heritage, especially the prehistoric one, is subject to be rapidly deteriorated, needing to be preserved. On the other hand we have the responsibility to diffuse the knowledge of this Heritage to the public. Both of these activities have costs, sometimes expensive. The use of the Cultural heritage for tourism and other economic activities can help us to maintain it reducing costs and creating job opportunities. But there is a "break point" we have to study very well between "compatible development" (that take care of the context) and "sustainable development" (that is able to economically maintain itself). Our goal is to set an "equilibrium" between them. This session is aimed to discuss theoretical models and on-field experiences. The new HERITY International Registration for Quality Management of Cultural Heritage will also be introduced.

To debate archaeological research and heritage management within a wider cultural policy plan, managed by the public sphere. This includes both (1) the legal framework for regulations ruling archaeological activity (engaging the legislative action of modern democracies as well as the judicial action controlling the respect of such legislation by public and private social actors) and (2) the inclusion, by the public authorities, of a programmed action of memory generated by archaeological heritage, from the points of view of preservation methods and of education and tourist use. One will present and assess reports on experiences of relation between public archaeology and public framework for research and heritage management, in order to foresee an international public archaeology updating.
(SAP)

The aim of the WS is to establish a common strategy to face those perils as fires, floods or seismic tribulations, both at predictive and rescue levels.

During several hundred thousand years of human prehistory siliceous rocks such as flint and chert were the most important raw materials used for tool production. Already in the 5th millennium BC, however, the use of copper is documented in many neolithic tool assemblages and in the course of the 3rd millennium BC metal technology is introduced in prehistoric societies all over Europe. With a few exceptions metal is largely superior to flint when it comes to the production of tools, yet there are regions throughout the world where flint craftsmanship thrived long after metallurgy had been introduced. There are numerous examples of copper and bronze implements being copied with great skill in flint, and in some areas simple flint tools would seem to be in common use even in early Iron Age societies.

Contextual technological analyses of lithic inventories from the Stone Age document, how lithic exploitation patterns change characteristically through time. Evidently, different cultural traditions are not only characterized by the well known typological succession of artefact types, but also to a very high degree by different technological and socio-economic processes pertaining to raw material use and procurement strategies, as well as by the idiosyncratic, technical or functional mode of exploitation, i.e. knapping and further modification, of nodules and blanks. Obviously, these considerations also pertain to lithic inventories from later prehistory, but so far very little have been published on these issues.

The aim of this workshop is to congregate lithic researchers working on (pre)historic sites in which lithic technology were of apparent subordinate importance. Presenters are encouraged to share knowledge, data and analytical results on lithic inventories from a global range of societies in which tool-stone is being replaced by metal. Papers providing methodological and theoretical insight pertinent to these issues are also welcomed.

Experimental work on archaeology research is a tool to confirm working hypothesis based on the study of archaeological records. For the Paleolithic, the experiments can be directed to the knowledge of formation processes of sites and the interpretation of human occupations. Since the last decades it has been developed many experimental and ethnoarchaeological works focused on the knowledge and interpretation of prehistoric assemblages.

This workshop will permit to know and debate the most recent works and research approaches, with an special interest on the experimental integrated works and the interdisciplinary perspective. These includes lithic and fire technology and wood and animal processing.

The Bronze and Iron Ages of the peoples in Central and Eastern Europe include a number of common features, due both to migrations and the exchanges of goods. One of the characteristics is the presence of weaponry and military gear items on wide areas, from the Caucasus to the Balkans and Central Europe.

The lectures held and the discussions to follow are meant to emphasize a number of aspects such as: a) to what extent can the weaponry items indicate the political and social status of the dead, b) if the presence of similar types of fighting gear reflects migration or merely exchanges of goods, c) if the weaponry standardization reflects similar fighting techniques, in particular for the aristocracy etc.

We will also focus on other topics, such as: the evolution and types of weaponry and fighting gear, the link between weaponry and other types of funerary inventory, why certain types of items were destroyed and others were not.

Quartzite was frequently knapped by prehistoric human groups in several Pleistocene and Holocene sites. Sometimes, it represents the only raw material exploited in a site/region.

Nevertheless scholars usually consider quartzite as an alternative raw material for prehistoric lithic production when «better quality» rocks (i.e. flint) are available in a given geographical area.

In this workshop we deal with all the aspects that involve technology and experimentation to discuss the adaptative implications for lithic industries made from quartzite.

In prehistoric archaeology, the reconstruction of human behaviour is in large part based on the study of material culture remains. This type of analysis must take into account the natural or accidental events that participate in the formation of archaeological assemblages. The study of these events developed punctually until it was finally established as a true discipline called Taphonomy. First conceived in the field of palaeontology, the field of Taphonomy now integrates the ensemble of analytical methods employed to identify the phenomena responsible for the modifications observed on remains.

Though these phenomena have been known for several years, the modifications they induce are, with rare exception (Texier et al. 1998, Bertran et al.), studied separately for each type of material (faunal remains, remains of lithic, bone and ceramic industries, etc.). Furthermore, the absence of common experimental protocols precludes comparison between different observations, thus preventing the promising possibility of sharing Taphonomic approaches.

Does a given phenomenon produce the same type of alteration regardless of the initial surface condition or material? Can the results of taphonomic studies of bone materials contribute to our knowledge of the taphonomic history of lithic materials? Does one type of trace always correspond to the same agent?

The aim of this Workshop is to promote discussion on this topic and to suggest guidelines for further work, particularly on : Trampling, Rain wash, Weathering, Solifluction, Geliturbation, Compaction, Bioturbation, Dissolution.

Geographic information systems (GIS) have been used in archaeological research for over a decade. Most of the uses for this technology within prehistoric research have been related to the construction of descriptive models. GIS can also assist in the design of survey strategies through the construction of predictive models, however. Models of land-use, developed using GIS, also have potential as a means of simulating processes such as the dispersal of hominid populations and the colonisation of new land masses. The archaeological potential of GIS-based models will be explored in this session, with particular emphasis on predictive modelling, GIS-aided survey and simulations.

Ethnographic studies have become synonymous with visual study and in recent past every means of visual media is being used in these studies and even special courses and training are being offered. Ethnographic study in its true sense started in India in the 18th century and picked up its momentum in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

With the European colonization of India, the land of diversity attracted many ethnographers from around the world in general and from Britain in particular for studying the society and people.

Studying the tribes of India, more particularly those of the eastern and north-eastern India was not only an administrative necessesity but it also became an academic fashion among the British administrators, most of whom later joined as anthropology professors (J.H. Hutton, J.P. Mills, Christoph von Furer-Haimendorf etc.) in various universities/institution in Britain.
In other words India was a laboratory for anthropological studies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and some of the masterpieces on Indian tribes were written during this period. There was no visual media available and even camera was just getting introduced. Tribes in hilly areas were hostile to any outsider, let alone ethnographers. Still many works and publications of this period on Indian tribes were probably more visually documented than those of today. The visual representation was done with the help of line drawings and sketches.

Either the ethnographers themselves were good artists (John Butler & R.G. Woodthrope) or were being accompanied by an artist colleague (Major Strange was accompanying E.A. Samuells during the later’s study of the Juangs). There are even cases when ethnographers have tried to draw/sketch more than what they wrote (Henry Balfour on Naga). These drawings of colonial period revealed the people of India when no other visual media was available. The individuals in the drawings are not shown as static but in a dynamic manner appropriate to the context.

Minute details of the individuals and their dress and ornaments are shown so that an experienced person can make out cultural items which were in use and to which community they belonged. The sketches are so detailed and authentic that these, many a time, interpret a society better than the written documents. These sketches have not received the attention from the anthropological community which they deserve.
The present paper makes an attempt in that direction with the help of specific examples.
(GSA)

The name rock art is traditionally attributed to all non-utilitarian anthropic markings on rock surfaces; the term "art" is utilized latu sensu, without aesthetic implications, according to the Latin etymology that defines the human activity of producing artefacts, hence the derivation of the words artisan, artificer, artist.

Rock art is today only the "residue" of ancient cultural complexes, conserved over time, while songs, prayers, dances, gestures, votive offerings etc. are unrecoverable, but it displays the spiritual abundance of our oldest ancestors.

The keen interest in rock art derives from its relative rarity, as sites that testify the cognitive dimension of man; the main problem facing us now is conservation, protection and communication.

To identify the best procedures for a valid protection it is necessary to plan monitoring with instruments recording the variability in the environmental parameters and the impact on the rock monuments, in view of the primary conservational necessity.

The symposium will critically consider the propriety and feasibility of treating rock art of the past as a source of knowledge for the contemporary interpreter, examine the possibility that such knowledge may be distorted by subjective ethnocentric perceptions, and explore the necessity of evolving museological models, which can present and conserve rock art without reflecting current prejudices and predilections.

The symposium will also focus attention on the existing and pristine relation of the rock art landscapes with adjacent landscapes, humanized by local communities. An attempt will be made to assess the possibility of restoring the custodial interest, if any, of such communities in the rock art landscapes; and, to recognize the constructive, constitutive and creative role of rock art and the associated folklore in the conservation and replenishment of such landscapes.

The contributors may like to address themselves to the question of inter institutional cooperation across the globe for a quest into appropriate ways of documenting and presenting rock art within a museum, for inciting aesthetic, technical, ecological, cultural and touristic interest of visitors, and, for fulfilling convergent objectives of conservation, education, research or appreciation.

Rock art museums, projects or institutions, in open air or indoor, as cultural interpretation of reality, is a form of cultural heritage conservation technique.

Museology and museography of rock art should be sciences devoted to the survival of this spiritual legacy of humanity.
(GSA)

The workshop’s aim is to analize the new methods for cataloguing rock art, by the use of modern technologies: typology of the data-collection (d-base), digital photos, photogrammetry, laser scanner, etc. Particularly attention will be also dedicated to the conservation aspects for rock art’s preservation, throughout special Art Risk Schedules (ARS) and sharing data by Internet. This last topic will be discussed in order to preserve the Intellectual Property Right (IPR), most of all for the public administration.
(GSA)

Fire played a crucial part in the everyday life of Palaeolithic societies in relation with the varied function of fireplaces as well as the large number of activities closely related to them. The study of fires and their role was for a long time limited to typology. Over the last few years new studies have focused on the recognition of all kinds of burnt remains (phytholiths, charcoal, coal from bones, coke) and characterisation of combustibles properties, micromorphological studies, taphonomic analyses focusing on combustion processes and the differential conservation of burnt remains and ethnoarcheological studies. These approaches have considerably renewed our vision of the use of combustibles, the roles and the function of campsites during the Palaeolithic period. This workshop will enable us to find out and discuss the most recent researches on these topics.

Asserting that artifacts and behaviors are part of the human phenotypes Evolutionary Archaeology explains the archaeological record in terms of the Darwinian theory of evolution. Sharing this common ground a great diversity of scopes has arisen, mainly from the approaches of the Human Behavioural Ecology, Sociobiology, and Cultural Transmission Theory. All these selectionist lines of reasoning expand the explanatory domain of the evolutionary research in a variety of topics, including social, technological, and biological evolution. However, a complete unified paradigm in Evolutionary Archaeology has not emerged. This demands the discussion of diverse epistemological, theoretical and methodological issues. At the core of the debate come out questions such as the units of selection, the role of the cultural transmission, the construction of cultural lineages, the documentation of neutral variation, the linkages between adaptive ecological behaviour and the broad time scale processes from which emerge archaeological patterns, between others. This workshop will bring together researchers working in a wide range of time periods and geographic areas, in order to generate a rich discussion ambience regarding the theoretical and methodological issues that could lead to an unified Evolutionary Archaeology paradigm.

Multidisciplinary analyses of the Palaeolithic sites provide more and more information on the origin of resources exploited by the occupants of a site and the sweep of land they move on in order to meet their needs of both food and raw materials. The overlapping of these two types of supply areas may greatly differ according to the situations.

In this workshop we would like first to draw up the state of knowledge in this field and then look at the evidences in their settings, in considering, for instance, the climate or season, the topography, the availability and quality of the raw materials, the wealth in big or small game (and in potential vegetal food), the site function, etc. Discussions shall aim at working out what specifically concerns the human behaviour, among the range of possible responses to the immediate vital requirements, given the environmental constraints.

Signs of inconsistency, in the course of time, between shifting environmental conditions and stable behaviours or inversely between changing behaviours and apparently stable conditions, may feed the debates regarding the traditions, the knowledge or ability exchanges, the people movements. Well documented studies may introduce socio-cultural notions, allowing to eventually making out particular behaviours that refer to the idea of feat (hunting) or masterpiece (implement) and that involve, among the human group, much wider interests than just the matter of day to day requirements.

The various specialists constituting the scientific team in charge of the study of the Chauvet cave intervene in disciplinary fields which, besides the analysis of its parietal art, include the karstic geomorphology, the archaeozoology, the archaeology, the ichnology and the preservation of the cave. Our initial work has allowed us to set up a general chronological framework which becomes more and more refined in the course of our field work. The pooling of our results allows us to present a new assessment of the human and animal frequentations in the cave, of the succession of events in it be they natural or anthropological, of the Aurignaco-Gravettian cultural context, as well as of the management and preservation of such a site.

As distinct age groups, babies and children have their special place in the archaeological record. The examination of the manifold manifestations of their presence in prehistoric contexts would attract scholarly attention with approaches varying from purely archaeological and bioarchaeological analyses of burial contexts through chronology observations to interpretations and reconstructions of ritual and symbolic systems. Cross-cultural comparisons and parallels as well as the multidisciplinarity of these considerations would contribute to a more complete picture of the social and ritual structures in prehistory.

Presently there are numerous conflicts worldwide in the areas of conservation, management and promotion of rock art. Recent examples include Côa, Dampier, Guadiana and examples in Brazil, Dominican Republic, Peru, Columbia and U.S.A. An assembled group of individuals of divergent backgrounds and interests will be invited to discuss and draft issues and establish specific guidelines for such conflicts. The establishment of impartial roving arbitrators and grassroots fund-raising advocacy groups will be considered. The idea and proper operation of the International Rock Art Preservation Fund, free of government control or influence, might be developed, and any other ideas and potential initiatives that would benefit the protection of global rock art and the establishment of mechanisms of resolving disputes involving the destruction of rock art.

This workshop aims to enlighten the role and relationship between different features such as, postholes, hearths, rubbish pits, silos, ditches, palisades and other similar features. Although every period has its specific circumstances due to variation in land exploitation or economic strategies, each period has a contribution to make regarding the functionality and relationship between structural evidences and between features and environment. We expect a comparison between difference scientific approaches, (including field archaeology, ethnoarchaeology, experimental archaeology, landscape analysis, architecture, anthropology ...) to give new perspectives for the research of these features in archaeology.

Indeed, a commonly reoccurring problem in archaeological excavation is that there are several contexts which consist only of hollow features and no living floors; this is usually due to erosion or modern anthropic activity. The result is that the material culture is well known, but not the function of the area. This leads us to ask: is this a settlement? A working area linked to agricultural activities? Are they storage pits? Underground fire places? Clay mixing pits? Or simply rubbish pits? Simply put, what was the role of these features?

If understanding the stratigraphical nature and the actions that took place in and around the feature we are digging is the basis on which to interpret the function, then the correct excavation of these features is necessary to understand the possible purpose for which it was created. The first step is to establish a methodology for digging these features to be able to reach any interpretation of their function. In order to do this, it is necessary to consider all the evidence of similar features in prehistoric or historic periods by an archaeological and from an ethnographical point of view. The next step is, therefore, to find all the possible functions of these features.

In recent years, the archaeology of Recent Peninsular pre-history has gone through a truly empirical revolution. From North to South, from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, there are few regions that have not been the source of surprises. This fast rate of discovery is made even more interesting by the curious context in which it has occurred: the increasing theoretical diversity in approaches to peninsular Prehistory. The empirical “finds” are now accompanied by different types of interpretation, giving rise to passionate debates, generating resistance from the more orthodox and reckless approaches to the more avant-garde ones. All this not only gives rise to fascinating discussion but also really shows the ideologic and contingent character of the production (construction) of knowledge (in this case archaeological knowledge).

One of the focuses of this dynamic concerns the problems raised by ditched enclosures and their role in the development of the Neolithic and Chalcolithic communities of the Iberian Peninsula. Our ideas on this subject were radically changed in the last decade and the subject quickly took on a central role in theoretical discussion. Many questions relating to scale, meaning, to school, to the centrality of theory and to the growth and autonomy of archaeology make the debate on enclosures, in general, and ditches, in particular, one of the most fascinating areas of contemporary Iberian pre-history.

Ranging from models that are based on World System or Peer Polity Interaction, to the more holistic approaches to human behaviour; from the strictest empiricism and functionalism , to materialism, passing through the most daring (type of) phenomenology and the insufficiencies, indecisions and linguistic prejudices that all of this generates, today, turn the debate surrounding these contexts, is one of the liveliest areas in the production of knowledge and in reflexion on archaeology.

The main aim of this session, to be included in the UISPP program, is to gather researchers from different regions in Iberia, with different theoretical perspectives and for the first time to present together the data and most significant contexts and to compare the different approaches. And because the phenomenon, or the idea, as Chris Scarre puts it, is of European expression, it is essential that researchers who have dealt with this problem in other European regions should be included in this debate centered on the Iberian Peninsula.

The ideas about Middle to Upper Transition have changed in the last decades, the idea of an abrupt replacement of the Mousterian by Upper Palaeolithic industries were challenged by the presence of the so called Transitional Industries.

The general form of this Transitional Industries was the presence of a strong Mousterian substrata and the presence of some Upper Palaeolithic elements. The coexistence of both were explained in different ways, like acculturation to evolution. The aim of the colloquium is to point together the raw data of this Transitional Industries in order to best understand the complex process of the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition.

Both the rock art either the more recent philosophical texts reveal a typically human characteristic: the man's reflection on himself and his role in the world. For that reason Man always worried to classify and systematize the elements that surround him. Following this logic, he also tried find his place in the natural world, and for that it is necessary to know his origins. However this evolutionary exercise, when applied to the human species, finds a series of difficulties and impediments difficult to overcome. In that sense, the understanding of the Human Evolution should have in consideration a multiplicity of approaches. There are hiatuses that don't allow rebuild, with certainty, from beginning to end, the history of the human evolutionary past. The overcome of these hiatuses is only possible as a result completion of the complementarity that an interdisciplinary approach allows.

Taking into account all these elements, the Group of Studies of Human Evolution (GEEvH) tries to develop a body of research that demonstrates the importance of the crossing of perspectives coming from the most varied branches of the science, for knowledge of the Man`s run since about 8 million years witch separate anatomically modern Human from our closer relatives, the chimpanzees. With that purpose, GEEvH has been developing investigations in the following areas: archeology, anthropology, biology of the skeleton, paleodemography, primatology, ethology and genetics. From this exchange of theories and methodologies can appear new insights that allow completing the gaps separating us of the complete knowledge of human history.

The engagement with paintings and engravings on rock surfaces can only exist while the object itself survives. The object is generally a site with both cultural and natural landscape components and these can only be comprehended, studied, and appreciated in the place. Recorded images neither capture spatial relationships or summon up the tangible and intangible sensory experiences of being in the place.

Preservation and protection of indigenous sites ensures that all the spatial and sensory components of a site, and the context of paintings, survive beyond the recorded image. To record a site is to remove it to another culture, to preserve and manage a site is to protect it for all cultures for all time. Preservation ensures it remains part of the culture that created, used and lived with the site.

This session will attract presentations that discuss the tangible material aspects of a painted or engraved site and consider its place in the landscape. Papers discussing preservation, protection and management of rock art sites will be encouraged.

Strikingly similar Rock Art Symbols - painted or engraved - have been found all over the world. Whatever types of symbols are considered, e.g.: iconical (such as : stroke, pubic triangle, hand, foot, horned head, orant, a.s.o.) or artifactiform (such as paddle, shoe print, horseshoe, metallic artifacts, a.s.o.), or those one could call "initiatic" (such as: cupmark, concentric circle, spiral, labyrinth, cruciform, yin-yang rose, pentagramme, snake-like, disk and crescent, a.s.o.), a comprehensive inventory remains to be made. The meaning of Rock Art Symbols can of course diverge or even be non unique. Those symbols bring unpalatable difficulties to the one who tries to decipher their meaning(s). Some researchers believe those difficulties too large to be dealt with, while others tend to imagine too much of subjective meanings.

Our point of view attempts to stay between those two extremes, based on the conviction that scientific conclusions of their interpretation are possible. In this respect, it is most important to notice that some symbols do not only appear in Rock Art but also on pottery, metal works or other artefacts and even on monuments. This presence on other materials may be a leading thread to analyze how a symbol works.

As Mircea Eliade used to say, "The danger of the studies about symbolism lays on hasty generalizations". This researcher pointed out the importance of symbolism in the primitive thinking and its fundamental role in the life of traditional society. Since Rock Art is the oldest archive of Mankind activities, it is of prime importance to better understand the cognitive abilities of our ancestors through the symbols they carved onto the rocks.