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Deeply stratified settlements are a distinctive site type featuring prominently in diverse later prehistoric landscapes of the Old World. Their massive materiality has attracted the curiosity of lay people and archaeologists alike. Nowadays a wide variety of archaeological projects are tracking the lifestyles and social practices that led to the building-up of such superimposed artificial hills. However, prehistoric tell-dwelling communities are too often approached from narrow local perspectives or discussed within strict time- and culture-specific debates. There is a great potential to learn from such ubiquitous archaeological manifestations as the physical outcome of cross-cutting dynamics and comparable underlying forces irrespective of time and space.
This volume tackles tells and tell-like sites as a transversal phenomenon whose commonalities and divergences are poorly understood yet may benefit from cross-cultural comparison. Thus, the book intends to assemble a representative range of ongoing theory – and science –based fieldwork projects targeting this kind of sites. With the aim of encompassing a variety of social and material dynamics, the volume’s scope is diachronic – from the Earliest Neolithic up to the Iron Age–, and covers a very large region, from Iberia in Western Europe to Syria in the Middle East. The core of the volume comprises a selection of the most remarkable contributions to the session with a similar title celebrated in the European Association of Archaeologists Annual Meeting held at Barcelona in 2018. In addition, the book includes invited chapters to round out underrepresented areas and periods in the EAA session with relevant research programmes in the Old World. To accomplish such a cross-cultural course, the book takes a case-based approach, with contributions disparate both in their theoretical foundations – from household archaeology, social agency and formation theory – and their research strategies – including geophysical survey, microarchaeology and high-resolution excavation and dating.
This volume tackles tells and tell-like sites as a transversal phenomenon whose commonalities and divergences are poorly understood yet may benefit from cross-cultural comparison. Thus, the book intends to assemble a representative range of ongoing theory – and science –based fieldwork projects targeting this kind of sites. With the aim of encompassing a variety of social and material dynamics, the volume’s scope is diachronic – from the Earliest Neolithic up to the Iron Age–, and covers a very large region, from Iberia in Western Europe to Syria in the Middle East. The core of the volume comprises a selection of the most remarkable contributions to the session with a similar title celebrated in the European Association of Archaeologists Annual Meeting held at Barcelona in 2018. In addition, the book includes invited chapters to round out underrepresented areas and periods in the EAA session with relevant research programmes in the Old World. To accomplish such a cross-cultural course, the book takes a case-based approach, with contributions disparate both in their theoretical foundations – from household archaeology, social agency and formation theory – and their research strategies – including geophysical survey, microarchaeology and high-resolution excavation and dating.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1. Introduction: Learning from Prehistoric Tells
by Antonio Blanco-González and Tobias L. Kienlin
Chapter 2. Architectural Phases, Use-life Episodes and Taphonomic Processes in Tell Formation: An Approach to Neolithic Tell Halula (Syria)
by Miquel M. Molist, Quim Sisa, Julia Wattez and Anna Gómez-Bach
Chapter 3. Re-discovering the Neolithic Landscapes of Western Thessaly, Central Greece
by Athanasia Krahtopoulou, Charles Frederick, Hector, A. Orengo, Anastasia Dimoula, Niki Saridaki, Stella Kyrillidou, Alexandra Livarda and Arnau Garcia-Molsosa
Chapter 4. The Old Becomes New: Material Culture and Architectural Continuity on an Anatolian Höyük
by Sharon R. Steadman & Jennifer C. Ross
Chapter 5. Moving Bottom-up: The Case Study of Kakucs-Turján (Hungary) and its Implications for Studies of Multi-layered Bronze Age Settlements in the Carpathian Basin
by Robert Staniuk, Mateusz Jaeger, Gabriella Kulcsár, Nicole Taylor, Jakub Niebieszczański and Johannes Müller
Chapter 6. Exploring the Bronze Age Tells and Tell-like Settlements from the Eastern Carpathian Basin. Results of a Research Project
by Florin Gogâltan, Alexandra Găvan, Marian A. Lie, Gruia Fazecaș, Cristina Cordoș and Tobias L. Kienlin
Chapter 7. Talking Trash. Reconstructing Activities, Discard and Abandonment at Late Bronze Age Tell Sabi Abyad (Syria)
by Victor Klinkenberg
Chapter 8. Domesticаtion of Tells: Settlements of the First Farmers in Pelagonia (Macedonia)
by Goce Naumov
Chapter 9. Tells (and Flat Sites) as Social Agents: A View from Neolithic Greece
by Stella Souvatzi
Chapter 10. Human Activities on a Late Neolithic Tell-like Settlement Complex of the Hungarian Plain (Öcsöd-Kováshalom)
by András Füzesi, Knut Rassmann, Eszter Bánffy and Pál Raczky
Chapter 11. The Practice of Everyday Life on a European Bronze Age tell: Reflections from Százhalombatta-Földvár (Hungary)
by Joanna Sofaer, Marie Louise Stig Sørensen and Magdolna Vicze
Chapter 12. Social Life on Bronze Age Tells. Outline of a Practice-oriented Approach
by Tobias L. Kienlin
Chapter 13. Architecture, Power and Everyday Life in the Iron Age of North-eastern Iberia. Research from 1985 to 2019 on the Tell-like Fortress of Els Vilars (Arbeca, Lleida, Spain)
by Joan B. López, Emili Junyent and Natàlia Alonso
Chapter 14. Then, Now, to Come – A Commentary
by John Chapman
