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Settlement sustainability and societal change in the ancient Mediterranean: the case of Zagora. A settlement becomes a community when its physical design supports its social structure and thrives when diversity secures its economic base. Probing the failure of once-prosperous centers like 8th-century BC Zagora will illuminate past approaches to issues of settlement sustainability in the face of environmental, social and economic challenge.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE130101560
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$372,600.00
Summary
A world of its own: earliest human occupation of the Maros karsts in Southwest Sulawesi, Indonesia. Excavations at Leang Burung 2, a rockshelter on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, yielded evidence for the initial arrival of modern humans and underlying deposits containing primitive stone tools from earlier inhabitants. This project aims to recover further evidence of early modern humans at the site and the identity of the earlier tool-makers.
From Paddy to Pura: the origins of Angkor. This project explores the origin and rise of the state in ancient Southeast Asia. Through the investigation of sites in Cambodia and Thailand and using an array of innovative technologies, the research will contribute to the global investigation of humankind's trajectory toward ever-increasing complexity.
House to House Enquiries in the Hellenistic Near East. Housing is primary, vivid evidence of domestic life. Its key role in interpreting the social fabric of human settlement is a current international debate. This will be the first study of households in the Near East in the Seleucid period, when Macedonians settled the Levant. Did Greek culture interact with eastern traditions? Only archaeological evidence survives. The project takes a unique, newly-excavated site in Syria as a starting point ....House to House Enquiries in the Hellenistic Near East. Housing is primary, vivid evidence of domestic life. Its key role in interpreting the social fabric of human settlement is a current international debate. This will be the first study of households in the Near East in the Seleucid period, when Macedonians settled the Levant. Did Greek culture interact with eastern traditions? Only archaeological evidence survives. The project takes a unique, newly-excavated site in Syria as a starting point for a wider investigation of Hellenistic houses in the Near East, using the cross-disciplinary evidence of architecture, ceramics, domestic cult, zooarchaeology, palaeobotany and nuclear analysis of clays to interpret living space.Read moreRead less
Proxies of power: ceramics and the Anatolian Iron Age. This project aims to understand the economic and political dynamics of emerging, competing polities during the Early and Middle Iron Age (~1200-600 BCE) in central and west Anatolia. It deploys a new protocol that combines mineralogical with geologically high resolution stable and radio-isotopic techniques for in-hand ceramics and sediments. This project will establish a definitive, spatially-discrete model of ceramic exchange between the ce ....Proxies of power: ceramics and the Anatolian Iron Age. This project aims to understand the economic and political dynamics of emerging, competing polities during the Early and Middle Iron Age (~1200-600 BCE) in central and west Anatolia. It deploys a new protocol that combines mineralogical with geologically high resolution stable and radio-isotopic techniques for in-hand ceramics and sediments. This project will establish a definitive, spatially-discrete model of ceramic exchange between the centres of three contemporary Anatolian polities: Phrygia, Lydia, and Tabal. The project will develop a new understanding of the economic and political transformations of Iron Age history, and expand the capabilities of a range of analytic techniques in archaeological contexts.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE160100703
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$346,536.00
Summary
The Drumbeat of Human Evolution: Climate Proxies from Rockshelter Sediments. This project aims to trial new techniques for extracting environmental information from the sediments contained within archaeological rock shelters. Homo sapiens evolved during a period of dramatic climate variation, which almost certainly influenced human development and global dispersal. High-resolution climate records are rarely available for Pleistocene archaeological sites and so it is challenging to quantify the d ....The Drumbeat of Human Evolution: Climate Proxies from Rockshelter Sediments. This project aims to trial new techniques for extracting environmental information from the sediments contained within archaeological rock shelters. Homo sapiens evolved during a period of dramatic climate variation, which almost certainly influenced human development and global dispersal. High-resolution climate records are rarely available for Pleistocene archaeological sites and so it is challenging to quantify the degree of behavioural response to environmental change. This project aims to apply novel geophysical and geochemical techniques to provide new climate records for Indonesia and South Africa, facilitate correlation with other climate archives and thus create a means of directly evaluating the degree of environmental influence on human behavioural evolution.Read moreRead less
The Early Modern Economy, East Asia 1500-1700AD. This project aims to gauge the extent to which East Asian society was incorporated into the early phases of the global economy using high-resolution geochemical ceramic analysis to integrate shipwreck, production and stylistic classes. The development of globalized economic systems beginning in the 16th century unleashed a profound and accelerating transformation of the social, political and ecological landscape of the modern period. While the Eu ....The Early Modern Economy, East Asia 1500-1700AD. This project aims to gauge the extent to which East Asian society was incorporated into the early phases of the global economy using high-resolution geochemical ceramic analysis to integrate shipwreck, production and stylistic classes. The development of globalized economic systems beginning in the 16th century unleashed a profound and accelerating transformation of the social, political and ecological landscape of the modern period. While the European contribution to the early modern phase of this transformation has been exhaustively studied, relatively little is known about the timing and extent of the Asian response to this new economic juncture.Read moreRead less
Iron Age Exchange in Anatolia 1200-200BC, an archaeometric approach. Currently researchers from Turkey, Europe, Australia, Japan, and the US are prominent in a wide variety of archaeological and historical projects in the Eastern Mediterranean and Anatolia that overlap the period studied here. Establishment of a robust geochemical model for the complex Iron Age assemblage of trade ceramics of Anatolia will provide a major national and international scientific resource for ongoing research in the ....Iron Age Exchange in Anatolia 1200-200BC, an archaeometric approach. Currently researchers from Turkey, Europe, Australia, Japan, and the US are prominent in a wide variety of archaeological and historical projects in the Eastern Mediterranean and Anatolia that overlap the period studied here. Establishment of a robust geochemical model for the complex Iron Age assemblage of trade ceramics of Anatolia will provide a major national and international scientific resource for ongoing research in the archaeology, history and economic history of the region. The project would represent a new phase of close collaboration between US, European and Australian institutions as well as an ideal setting for graduate student training both in archaeology and archaeological science. Read moreRead less
The archaeology of cultural interaction: The working lives of Greek colonists and indigenous Syrians in Seleucid Syria. The discovery of the unique importance of Jebel Khalid is well known internationally and the project has brought considerable overseas recognition of the contribution of Australian archaeology to Levantine studies. The project fosters research collaboration between Australian and Syrian researchers and institutions and establishes Australia as a major centre for the study of th ....The archaeology of cultural interaction: The working lives of Greek colonists and indigenous Syrians in Seleucid Syria. The discovery of the unique importance of Jebel Khalid is well known internationally and the project has brought considerable overseas recognition of the contribution of Australian archaeology to Levantine studies. The project fosters research collaboration between Australian and Syrian researchers and institutions and establishes Australia as a major centre for the study of the archaeology of Syria. It also fosters goodwill between Australia and an important member of the Arab world and contributes to improving local perceptions of that region.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE180101288
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$384,983.00
Summary
Strategic resources and human cooperation in the rise of social complexity in Arabian archaeology. This project will conduct the first systematic archaeological analysis of the behavioural strategies humans adapted following metal resource depletion and trade in southeastern Arabia. It will examine how social complexity in metal production records of several sites within Oman compares with other regions in Cyprus and Turkey. This will provide greater knowledge of how people settled this region a ....Strategic resources and human cooperation in the rise of social complexity in Arabian archaeology. This project will conduct the first systematic archaeological analysis of the behavioural strategies humans adapted following metal resource depletion and trade in southeastern Arabia. It will examine how social complexity in metal production records of several sites within Oman compares with other regions in Cyprus and Turkey. This will provide greater knowledge of how people settled this region and subsequently responded to dynamic environmental changes over the past 5,000 years.Read moreRead less