The archaeological study of quarries focuses mainly on the reconstruction of the extraction process, while rock-hewn spaces have often been approached from the point of view of architectural styles or art-history. Nevertheless, a holistic structural approach to the study these spaces could allow a better understanding of the agency of those who carved the stone.

Stone quarries and rock-cut sites have rarely been included in global studies of historical landscapes and few are the forums dedic...

Jebel Aruda, a prominent mountain ridge overlooking the Taqba Dam lake in northern Syria, was the location of a remarkable settlement that flourished between c. 3300 and 3100 BC during the so-called Uruk period. For the inhabitants the sacredness of this high place, evidenced by the discovery of a large temple complex, seems to have taken precedent over its impractical location far above the valley of the Euphrates River. The site was destroyed under unknown circumstances, leaving behind the ...

The volume in hand throws light on historical encounters with troubled pasts in contemporary Dutch and Greek historiography. Contributors, experts in their respective research fields with a wide range of scholarly publications, eschew dominant national accounts, deconstruct top-down narratives, and situate the historical subject(s) at the centre of the analysis.

Troubled pasts are the outcome of local, national and international conflicts, of the continuous quest for growth and dominance, of...

The research presented in this book results from an international interdisciplinary research program in Hayonim cave (Israel) from 1992 to 2000, directed by Prof O. Bar-Yosef (Harvard University) and L. Meignen (CNRS, France), and focusing on a long archaeological sequence dated to circa 300-140 000 years ago. The intensive fieldwork and research following it allowed us to document an essential period of human history in the Levant: the end of the Lower Palaeolithic and Early Middle Palaeolit...

Menschen und Räume waren schon immer durch Routen verbunden: Pfade, Wege und Straßen – zu Lande, zu Wasser und manchmal auch durch die Luft, über Stock und Stein ebenso wie über Holzbohlen, Pflaster und Asphalt. Menschen und Tiere folgten ihnen. Die Routen lenkten den Kreislauf von Rohstoffen und Waren. Sie bestimmten die Wege, auf denen die Menschen vor Elend und Gefahr flohen, und sie bildeten die physischen und imaginären Adern der Netzwerke zwischen Gemeinschaften. All diese kultur...

Als einer der zentralen Orte menschlicher Interaktion prägen Städte wie kaum ein anderes Phänomen unsere Lebenswirklichkeit. Sie stehen dabei in einem hochkomplexen, reziproken Verhältnis zu den Veränderungen umweltlicher, sozialer, politischer, wirtschaftlicher und religiöser Konstellationen. Entsprechend sind die Anforderungen an Städte und die mit ihnen verbundenen Vorstellungen oft einem hochdynamischen Wandel unterworfen. Gerade vor dem Hintergrund einer immer rasanteren Urbanisie...

Across Western Asia, the astonishing increase in the availability of durable ceramic containers in the seventh millennium BCE had significant societal repercussions – so much so that vital social, economic, and symbolic activities became dependent upon the availability of pottery containers. These early ceramic containers, however, established themselves alongside flourishing pre-existing container traditions, with vessels made in a wide range of materials including clay, bitumen, basketry,...