Turkish delights: European Association of Archaeologists 20th Annual Meeting

Date: 10-14 September 2014
Location: Istanbul, Turkey
Registration: https://www.eaa2014istanbul.org/paket 
Papers and posters: https://www.eaa2014istanbul.org/sayfa/142 

Due to its central location among distinct cultural geographies, Istanbul has always been a world city of focal importance from early prehistory to the present, adorned with the fabulous relics of three great empires. Linking east and west, past and present, the city is unique as a multicultural metropolis.
 

The organizing committee has taken the 2014 EAA Meeting as an occasion to conduct a series of parallel cultural activities to create synergy on cultural heritage in Istanbul by setting archaeological and art exhibitions, book and restoration fairs in different parts of the town. The participants to the Congress will be provided with a rich and varied selection of archaeological and cultural tours providing an opportunity to visit sites and monuments all over Turkey.
 
EAA Istanbul 2014 Meeting, hosted by Istanbul Technical University, will be held at Taşkışla Campus of the Faculty of Architecture. Taşkışla Campus is a historical building, centrally situated in the European part of Istanbul overlooking the Bosphorus. It is in a walking distance to major hotels, budget accommodation facilities and Istanbul’s world famous hub of entertainment.

Become a member of the EAA >

Palaeolithic Pests and Neolithic Nightmares: Were Prehistoric Children Really as Bad as You Think?

When you picture a prehistoric child, what do you see?

Popular culture and biological evidence have influenced our belief that children in prehistory were unruly, temperamental and ultimately extremely violent. There have been two interesting articles published this month that aim to shed light on prehistoric childhood.

A research team from PALAEO (Centre forHuman Palaeoecology and Evolutionary Origins) and the Department of Archaeology at York recently offered a new and distinctive perspective which suggests that Neanderthal children experienced strong emotional attachments with their immediate social group. This research results from an investigation into Neanderthal burial sites which suggests that children’s graves were generally more elaborate graves than those of older individuals.

“The traditional view sees Neanderthal childhood as unusually harsh, difficult and dangerous. This accords with preconceptions about Neanderthal inferiority and an inability to protect children epitomising Neanderthal decline. Our research found that a close attachment and particular attention to children is a more plausible interpretation of the archaeological evidence, explaining an unusual focus on infants and children in burial, and setting Neanderthal symbolism within a context which is likely to have included children.” Said Dr Spikins from the research team involved in the project.

A second paper, published as an advance article in  European Journal of Archaeology and titled Ageing, Childhood and Social Identity in the Early Neolithic of Central Europe, also challenges the traditional preconception of prehistoric children. In this case focusing on the children of the Neolithic Linearbandkeramik culture, the article argues that Neolithic children could have played an active role in their communities from a young age and visits the discovery of handmade tools, particularly smaller versions of axes or ‘grave goods’ that could be found in the child graves. These tools suggest that not only did children play an active role in their communities from a young age but also suggest an acknowledged engagement with the process of growing and learning into adulthood.

Read Ageing, Childhood and Social Identity in the Early Neolithic of Central Europe here >

Czech yourself before you wreck yourself: 19th EAA Annual Meeting in Pilsen

The annual meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists (EAA) is almost upon us and in this week's blog post Rachel Young, Maney Publishing's new Executive Publisher in archaeology and heritage, cherry picks the sessions that catch her eye:

 
"I’ve been looking forward to attending the 2013 EAA Meeting for some time. Looking at the programme I feel a bit like a kid in a sweet shop. Generally anything with the words ‘lithic, ‘stone’, and ‘landscape’ catches my eye, and there are plenty of sessions to choose from in this year’s programme.

As there are so many enticing sessions on offer it’s been hard work honing my list. The ‘Public Archaeology’ session on Thursday 5th September is a ‘must attend’. Lorna Richardson has co-organised a round table to discuss the definition of the discipline which should be lively. It will be interesting to see Estella Weiss-Krejci’s session on ‘Archaeology meets modern art: artists’ approaches to prehistoric data’ given the dismissive comments made about the contribution of modern art in many reviews of the British Museum’s recent ‘Ice Age Art: Arrival of the Modern Mind’ exhibition. Don Henson and Diane Scherzler’s session on digital heritage also catches my eye as I have an infatuation with laser scanning and its potential in multi-scale archaeological interpretation after a recent scanning demonstration. The main digital heritage session, ‘New digital developments in heritage management and research’, is co-organised by Julian Richards, Franco Niccolucci and Elizabeth Jerem and held over Friday. I am planning to see as much of this as I can, digital archives, data standards and open access are going to be core concerns for archaeology publishers over the coming years!
 
Aleks Pluskowski’s session on ‘Indigenous Communities in Conquered Landscapes’, looks fascinating as does 'Creating Landscape Visions: managing the past while imagining the future'. I’m hoping that there will be some imaginative presentations and perhaps some new methods of presentation.
 
Iain Banks will be presenting at ‘The Archaeology and Heritage of the Prisoner of War experience: researching and managing a fragile resource’. As this overlaps with the main digital heritage session I will do my conflict archaeology stint in the ‘Archaeology and cultural heritage during and after armed conflict’ session on Saturday afternoon.
 
With all of this it looks like I won’t get a lithics fix this year, even though these two sessions look very interesting: ‘New Perspectives on Lithic Scatters and Landscapes: Different scales, different approaches?’ and ‘Managing lithic tools: The contribution of technological and functional studies to the understanding of stone tool management during the Neolithic’, especially if there was a discussion on stone selection.
 
Do please come and visit the Maney Publishing stand to tell me what I’ve missed. If I’m not there you know what sessions I’m likely to be attending or just possibly I'm somewhere enjoying a cold Czech beer!"

NEW EVENT: 2013 International Rock Art Congress

The eyes of the rock art world will turn to Albuquerque, New Mexico during Memorial Day week 2013 (26th - 31st May), when the International Federation of Rock Art Organizations (IFRAO) will convene its International Rock Art Congress.

IFRAO is a consortium of more than fifty international rock art research associations, who explore the many facets of rock art – the study of prehistoric human-made markings found on stone in natural landscape settings.  The local hosting organization is American Rock Art Research Association (ARARA).

Albuquerque provides an excellent portal for exploration of Southwestern cultures and rock art.  The theme “Ancient Hands Around the World” is designed to bring together the diverse interests of the many people who study and work to conserve the pictographs and petroglyphs in all countries. Depictions of hands are found in rock art of all cultures and in all time periods, and their symbolism portrays the goal of assembling researchers from across the globe to share their experiences and knowledge.

The conference is open to all—professional archaeologists and interested avocationalists alike. In keeping with the international agenda established over the past years, the conference will offer four days of oral and poster presentations in sessions organised by topics, and Wednesday will be devoted to field trips for all attendees. Other special cultural events are planned throughout the week including evening lectures open to the public, dances by local Pueblo groups, social events and vendor offerings of rock art related merchandise. Opportunities to book extended field trips before and after the Congress will also be available.

A small sampling of session topics will include Rock Art in Asia and the Pacific; Great Mural Traditions of the American Southwest; Research in Chinese Rock Art; and Gender and Sexual Dynamics in Rock Art, to cite only a few of the very interesting subjects on offer.  There will be a special session devoted to student research and the official languages of the Congress will be English and Spanish. 

>> Register as a delegate online

The bare bones of it: ignore the hype, believe the reality

Robin Skeates

It has been billed as the exhibition everyone should see. “Rare and beautiful’ says The Telegraph, “Astonishing” says Metro, so it seems a perfect fit to have
Robin Skeates, an expert in prehistoric Europe at Durham University, weigh in on ‘Ice Age Art: The Arrival of the Modern Mind’ at The British Museum for the first post to ‘Can you dig it?’.

“There may be no such thing as reality these days (Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation killed it off), but if you go and see the ‘Ice Age Art’ exhibition at the British Museum (open until the 26^th May) your faith in the ‘real thing’ might be partially restored.

On display is a great collection of Palaeolithic portable art, assembled from museums across Europe – from France to Russia. Even the über-figurine, the Venus of Willendorf, is present … in the form of a curvaceous bar of hand-made, vegan soap from Shetland on sale in the exhibition shop. But the original Palaeolithic objects are compelling – to the extent that my fellow visitors simply ignored most of the modernist artworks placed alongside them for comparative purposes. Having seen many of the artefacts in photographs, it was revealing to figure out the true scale of these objects, to be reminded just how many were carved from the bones of hunted animals, to see details such as the skirt on the Venus of Lespugne, to imagine the leaping horse baton from Montastruc being used in motion, to fall in love with a little modelled fish from the same site, and to feel guilty at gazing a little too long at the breasts on a stick-figurine from Dolní Vestonice. It was also somehow reassuring to see how fragmentary and fragile objects such as the ‘Lion Man’ from Stadel Cave really are. And seeing all these things together made them seem more feasible, more real.

So, ignore the media hype, ignore the uninspiring text panels, and ignore – if you can – the pervasive, high-pitched, electro-acoustic dripping noises that accompany the video montage of cave art (or was it someone’s mobile phone dying?). The real thing is so much better. And for those of you who still don’t believe in reality, you must see the original of the exhibition poster image – a tiny figurine of yellow steatite on loan from the Musée des antiquités nationales at Saint Germain en Laye, which bought it in 1896 from Louis Alexandre Jullien, who ‘found’ it in one of the Balzi Rossi caves: it’s probably a fake!”

Read more about the exhibition.