Urbanism (Archaeology)

One of the main foci of comparative studies on ancient societies deals with urban dynamics and, in particular, with initial urbanization processes and their concomitance with the transformations that lead to the emergence of state dynamics. Within this context, we will analyze here the evidence about two nuclei that have provided a large amount of information on the characteristics of the population nucleation on the banks of the Nile during the IV millennium BC: Hierakonpolis, in Upper Egypt, and Tell el-Farkha, in the Nile delta. We will address, first, the available evidence for both historical situations, organizing it into four major areas, related to spatial dynamics, forms of functional specialization, social differentiation, and conflict, which allow us to notice the main innovations that characterize these processes. And second, we will propose a reconsideration of the information that relates to a specific problem: the relationship between the concentration of population in urban contexts and the processes of sociopolitical hierarchization that took place within and from the urban centers. In this sense, beyond the multiple differences between the urbanization trajectories of Hierakonpolis and Tell el-Farkha in the long term, the beginnings of these processes in both nuclei have a common characteristic, which is fundamental for further transformations: the creation of a social context whose practices exceeded the limits related to the preexisting logic of social organization.

The Mongol Zoominar presents:

Daily Life in the Mongol Empire
with
Susanne Reichert (University of Michigan)
"A Day at Karakorum: The City and Its People"

Alicia Ventresca Miller (University of Michigan)
"Life in the Northern Realms of the Mongol Empire"

Organizer and Moderator: Qiao Yang (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science)

Friday, February 18, 2022, 15:30 (IST time, GMT+2)

For Details and link:
Jonathan Brack: brackjon@bgu.ac.il
Wonhee Cho: wonheecho@gmail.com

ADVERTIMENT. La consulta d’aquesta tesi queda condicionada a l’acceptació de les següents condicions d'ús: La difusió d’aquesta tesi per mitjà del servei TDX (www.tdx.cat) i a través del Dipòsit Digital de la UB (diposit.ub.edu) ha estat autoritzada pels titulars dels drets de propietat intel·lectual únicament per a usos privats emmarcats en activitats d’investigació i docència. No s’autoritza la seva reproducció amb finalitats de lucre ni la seva difusió i posada a disposició des d’un lloc aliè al servei TDX ni al Dipòsit Digital de la UB. No s’autoritza la presentació del seu contingut en una finestra o marc aliè a TDX o al Dipòsit Digital de la UB (framing). Aquesta reserva de drets afecta tant al resum de presentació de la tesi com als seus continguts. En la utilització o cita de parts de la tesi és obligat indicar el nom de la persona autora.

Ujście, Piła i Jastrowie to miasta należące do staropolskiego starostwa ujsko-pilskiego, rozwijającego się od XIV wieku w oparciu o ukształtowaną w poprzednich stuleciach kasztelanię ujską. Pograniczne rubieże Korony charakteryzowały się niespokojną sytuacją polityczną, rozrzedzoną strukturą osadnictwa i dużym udziałem gospodarki leśnej.

Każde z miast starostwa uległo licznym przekształceniom; wnioski o rytmie przemian urbanistycznych możemy wyprowadzać w oparciu o analizę nielicznie zachowanych źródeł historycznych i kartograficznych oraz ostrożnie podejmowaną interpretację istniejących układów przestrzennych. Uzupełniający charakter w analizach mają prace archeologiczne, których wyniki uzupełniają dane archiwalne. Dzisiejszy "Stary Rynek" w Ujściu wraz z przyległymi ulicami jako przestrzeń miejska został zorganizowany dopiero na przełomie XVIII i XIX wieku, wcześniej stanowiąc teren grodu kasztelańskiego oraz starościńskiej siedziby z zapleczem i towarzyszącym mu przedmieściem. Nadzory prowadzone w Pile potwierdziły intensywność późnośredniowiecznego osadnictwa w rejonie nieistniejącego już Starego Rynku, wprowadziły również nowe fakty do wiedzy o nowożytnej przestrzeni sepulkralnej. Potwierdzony został również przebieg dawnej przeprawy przez rzekę, szczególnie istotny dla zrozumienia topografii lokacyjnego miasta, pojawiły się nowe dane co do początków miasta i jego przedlokacyjnego rozwoju. Wciąż otwarte pozostają dzieje przestrzeni miejskiej Jastrowia, nierozpoznanej archeologicznie ani archiwalnie, mimo obfitych zasobów źródłowych przechowywanych w Archiwum Państwowym w Szczecinie.

Temat podjęty został w ramach projektu "Ratusz i rynek w przestrzeni miast Prowincji Wielkopolskiej w świetle badań archeologicznych", realizowanego przez Autora od 2015 r. w Instytucie Archeologii Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego pod opieką prof.. dr hab. Anny Marciniak-Kajzer. Jest on finansowany przez Ministerstwo Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyższego w ramach programu "Diamentowy Grant".

Urban research in the Maya area often focuses on either the city as a whole, individual house groups, or neighborhoods as clusters of house groups; however, administrative districts provide another level of urban analysis. Administrative district identification rests on the assumption that specific architectural features and civic planning can be used as proxies for administrative services provided by the city and, as such, can be used to identify districts. With this simplification in mind: formal plazas served as spaces for markets and other large gatherings; ballcourts allowed spectators to watch ballgames; formal reservoirs stored rainwater runoff; and, E Groups provided ceremonial and ritual services. Each of these architectural features provided a service to city residents, occurs exclusively within nodes of monumental architecture often integrated by the causeway systems, and are easily distinguished and identified within the maps and LiDAR derived DEM datasets of Caracol, Belize. This investigation demonstrates that four of these features exhibit a strict scaling relationship. At Caracol, any node of monumental architecture with an E Group or a formal reservoir possessed a ballcourt, and all centers with ballcourts possessed formal plazas. The converse of the above statement does not hold. Thus, using feature distribution and two allocation methods, this paper identifies potential political or economic districts at Caracol.

Babylon was one of the biggest and greatest cities of the Ancient Near East. At present the ruins of Babylon extend over an area of 850 ha and constitute the largest ancient settlement in Mesopotamia.
The Report compiled in November 2004 on the state of the major relics in Babylon at that time, together with documentation of the modern infrastructure erected on the site during the 24-year rule of the late Saddam Hussein.
The use of substantial part of the Babylon archaeological site as a Coalition military base ("Camp Alpha") between April 2003 and December 2004 involved the placement of a major military facility, some 150 hectares in extent, directly on the center of the archaeological site.
The Report was prepared by the three Polish archaeologists (Mirosław Olbryś, Tomasz Burda and Agnieszka Dolatowska) stationed with Multinational Division Central South at Camp Alpha, for the occasion of the return of the site to Iraqi authorities. It reflects the condition of the site on the day of the hand over by the Multinational Forces in Iraq to the Iraqi Ministry of Culture.
The Report  has 107 text pages and over 1037 photographs and is a kind of conservation inventory. It assesses the condition of all the historical buildings erected on the ancient foundations and monuments located within the boundaries of the Camp Alpha. The document consists of two parts: (I) a catalogue divided into eleven zones established inside the Camp and (II) a second catalogue comprising fifteen historical buildings and monuments also located inside the Camp. Each catalogue item includes textual description and photographs. The part I and the entries of the part II have their own pagination and numbering of photographs.
A separate “Real Estate Inspection Report” on the fifty-two buildings (including the former palace of Saddam Hussein on an enormous artificial earthen hill) built on the site in the 1980s and 1990s was also prepared and joined.

first of a series of recreations in SketchUp in which we imagine the Via dell'Abbondanza of Pompeii 2000 years ago ===///=== primera de una serie de recreaciones en SketchUp en las que queremos imaginar la Via dell'Abbondanza de Pompeya hace 2000 años

La grande colonnade double qui a été fouillée et restaurée au Sud de Tyr par les équipes de Maurice Chéhab, entre 1946 et 1975, était considérée comme une rue à portiques. Les nouveaux travaux conduits depuis 2008 montrent qu'il s'agit d'une longue salle couverte à trois nefs qui appartient au vaste complexe des bains protobyzantins que l'on reconnaît maintenant dans cette partie de la ville. On peut la définir comme une basilique thermale. Elle desservait les palestres est et ouest et avait les fonctions d'un frigidarium et d'un centre de sociabilité. C'était aussi un hall de présentation des statues et inscriptions anciennes qui conservaient, dans une ville chrétienne, leur caractère d'oeuvres d'art et témoignaient du glorieux passé et de la vie civique de la cité.

Many events from Chicago history are evoked to create public excitement, community interest, and even ownership over elements of the contemporary city. Chicago's municipal flag does some of this symbolic work. Adopted in 1917, it depicts four six-pointed red stars, each commemorating an important Chicago event according to the city's dominant historical narrative. 1 The Battle of Chicago's Fort Dearborn is the first star, with the 1812 "massacre" reframed to hold white army soldiers and settlers blameless, unprovokingly victimized by Potawatomi warriors. Today brass plates embedded in the sidewalk demarcate the Fort's former location at the confluence of the Chicago River and Lake Michigan, a site now the center of a global city whose skyscrapers and spaces for mass consumerism cast their shadows where fortifications once stood. The second star represents the 1871 Chicago Fire, which destroyed over four square miles of the city's central commercial district and cost upwards of $150 million in damages. 2 The event continues to be used to unjustly incriminate Mrs. O'Leary's unfortunate cow and the Irish working-class men and women of that immigrant neighborhood, but it is also summoned to justify phoenixlike returns from ashes, including twenty-first-century construction projects. But no one event so thoroughly captured and continues to haunt the public and literary imagination as much as Chicago's 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, an event marked by the third star on the flag. 3 Known colloquially as the Chicago Fair, the primary, secondary, and even tertiary documentary record of this six-month long spectacle is encyclopedic in scope and breadth. 4 That record consists of endless bureaucratic accounts emblematic of the age of "the incorporation of America": newspaper articles and entire serials printed at the Fair for its six-month run, such as the World's Fair Puck; congressional records; magazine coverage in Scribner's and McClure's; guidebooks; academic articles and monographs,

Breve análisis del las formas en que se ha planteado el cambio social en la Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (Colombia) antes de la  llegada de los españoles, visto desde varios arqueólogos

Brief analysis of the ways in which social change has been proposed in the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta (Colombia) before the arrival of the Spain people, seen from several authors (archaeologists)

*Independent research

This chapter introduces Boundary Line Type (BLT) mapping, a vector GIS based cross-culturally and diachronically comparative method, used for mapping the socio-spatial significance of urban built environments. This new research method is related to other methods currently used to study contemporary as well as historical urban built environments such as urban morphology, space syntax, and GIS based approaches. BLT mapping uses GIS technology in order to apply an ontology of formal boundary conceptualisations expressing the constitutive differences among the materially constructed subdivisions which shape built environments and are inhabited by urban society. This ontology resulted from a firm socio-spatial theoretical grounding (Vis in Sp Flows: Int J Urb ExtraUrb Stud 2(4): 15–29, 2013a; Vis 2013b; Vis in J Borderland Stud, forthcoming) and is here operationalised on the basis of contemporary, historical, historically reconstructed, and archaeological ground-level city plans of the historic city of Winchester (UK) and Chunchucmil (Classic Maya, Mexico). The research processes of data preparation and the analytical mapping of BLTs by identifying them in empirical data contexts are presented. This alerts the prospective user to the challenges and practical measures involved in using spatial datasets of different origin. The interpretive opportunities of the resultant formal redescription of the urban landscape and the potential of the BLT data structure for both advanced spatial analysis and visualisation is explained. Facilitating this interpretive and analytical mapping practice is expected to stimulate future research to systematically explore societyspace relations as manifest and developing in cities over time and in socioculturally contrasting urban traditions. Devising and conducting this methodology advances the qualitative GIS research agenda for the spatial humanities and social sciences by marrying theoretically informed ideational concepts to quantifiable empirical units of information.

"Archaeology, as the discipline that searches to explain the development of society by means of material remains, has been avoiding the big issues involved with its research agenda. The topic of social evolution is concealed by anxiety about previous paradigmatic malpractice and the primary archaeological division of the world in culture areas still suffers from the archaic methods by which it was established. Archaeological inference of developing societies is weighed down by its choice of particularism within agency approaches and overtly reductionist due to the prevalence of statistical,
classificatory and biological approaches.

This book addresses these issues through a perspective on the spatial analysis of the built environment. As one of the principal properties of our dataset, as well as being the first materialisation of sociality, such spatialities are suggested to be a fundamental key for enabling an understanding of
the developing social identity of places, regions and areas. In order to arrive at a truly social inference of spatial datasets, archaeology’s usual analysis working from material remains towards socio-cultural interpretations needs to be inverted. The vantage point of this study consists of aprioristic social
theory. It constructs its arguments through an epistemological foundation comprising a selection of essential ideas regarding the three constitutive axes of developing societies: time, human action and human space. As it recognises the inherent position of these axes combined in the discipline of
human geography, a historical comparison of these two disciplines presents the angle from which plausible theoretical advancements can be made. The core of the book explores selected works of human geographers Allan Pred, Benno Werlen and Andreas Koch against the backdrop of theories
like structuration or systems theory, phenomenology, action theory, and to a lesser extent Actor Network Theory and autopoiesis. From this follows its own theoretical proposal called the social positioning of spatialities. On this basis hypotheses for methodological opportunities are discussed,
establishing a research agenda.

Firmly placing its efforts in current paradigmatic debates in the discipline, this study offers archaeological theorists an incentive to leave the safety of materially bound science and adapt an alternative perspective. It is an attempt to put archaeology back in the forefront of the social
theoretical debates it should contribute to."

Southeast Asia’s earliest cities emerged by the mid-first millennium CE after more than one thousand years’ growth toward urbanism and complexity. These early cities appeared both on the coasts and in river networks; their inhabitants engaged in trade and agriculture, and selectively embraced urban and religious concepts from neighboring cultures with which they interacted. This chapter examines competing arguments for how and why cities first appeared in Southeast Asia, their timing, scale, and form. Despite heterogeneity in urban pattern, early Southeast Asian cities shared key
structural features in configuration and social construction that reflect pan-regional ideological systems. Fewer urban forms arose in insular Southeast Asia compared with the mainland, and they emerged later in time; selected examples are also included for comparison. Early Southeast Asian urban systems were participants in the process Sanskrit cosmopolitanism (sensu Pollock), but a growing body of archaeological research identifies regionalization in urban form that distinguished
even the earliest Southeast Asian cities them from their South Asian counterparts.

Tell el-Amarna is situated in middle Egypt and is the location of the New Kingdom city of Akhetaten, founded by Akhenaten in c. 1347BC as the cult home for the Aten. Occupied only briefly, it is our most complete example of an ancient Egyptian city, at which a contemporaneous urban landscape of cult and ceremonial buildings, palaces, houses, cemeteries and public spaces has been exposed. It is an invaluable source for the study of both Akhenaten’s reign and of ancient Egyptian urbanism. The site has an extensive excavation history, and work continues there today.

Lo studio traccia le linee dello sviluppo della superficie in diritto romano. L’istituto sorse tra secondo e primo secolo a.C., in conseguenza di rilevanti mutamenti demografici e urbanistici e fu probabilmente modellato sulle concessioni vettigali. Inizialmente, la superficie fu basata sul contratto di locazione a tempo determinato e poi anche su quello a tempo indeterminato (ovvero in perpetuum) e i superficiari conduttori furono tutelati mediante l’interdictum de superficiebus, modellato su quello de loco publico fruendo. Poiché nel corso del tempo, sul finire del primo secolo a.C., si ammise nella prassi la possibilità di costituire diritti di superficie mediante compravendita, legato e donazione, la tutela interdittale non fu più sufficiente e così, forse tra primo e secondo secolo d.C., il pretore inserì nell’editto la tutela reale per via di azione, a vantaggio di tutti i superficiari, con l’eccezione di quelli che fossero meri conductores ad modicum tempus. Si esaminano tutti i tipi di azioni decretali in factum che il diritto romano conobbe a vantaggio dei superficiari.
Fonti particolarmente esaminate: Ulp. 16 ad ed. D. 6.2.11.10; Ulp. 70 ad ed. D. 43.18.1; Ulp. 68 ad ed. D. 43.9.1pr.; Paul. 29 ad ed. D. 13.7.16.2; Ulp. 17 ad ed. D. 6.1.73.1; Paul. 21 ad ed. D. 6.1.74; Ulp. 16 ad ed. D. 6.1.75; Ulp. 71 ad ed. D. 43.24.15.12; Paul. 19 ad ed. D. 6.2.12.2-3; Ulp. 16 ad ed. D. 6.2.11.1.

North Africa is rarely mentioned in scholarship on the medieval Mediterranean. This paper demonstrates the potential of archaeology for understanding the impact of the Arab conquests on settlement and society in seventh- and eighth- century North Africa. Despite difficulties in dating early medieval occupation, synthesis of the available evidence reveals that the Arab conquest was not catastrophic for settled life. Mapping the distribution of urban sites across North Africa shows that the majority of Byzantine towns were not abandoned but remained significant centres. The rural evidence is less clear, but suggests a relatively busy countryside of estates, farms and fortified villages. The paper then presents three detailed case-studies of the towns of Tocra, Sbeïtla and Volubilis in the early medieval period, before considering more broadly the evidence for fortifications, religious buildings (churches and mosques), housing and production in towns. It concludes with some preliminary observations on the nature of Arab rule in North Africa from the perspective of the archaeological evidence.

Esta obra configura una experiencia inédita en los anales de la Arqueología Argentina, dado que nunca, a más de 150años de iniciados los estudios prehistóricos, se había logrado tamaño protagonismo de los vestigios urbanísticos y arquitectónicos amerindios. Un extenso cuerpo documental, recogido por el autor durante una docena de años de pacientes investigaciones por el Norte argentino, Chile y Bolivia, han permitido concretar "Poblaciones Indígenas en Argentina", una compendiosa obra que está destinada a convertirse en un clásico de la literatura arqueológica americana. Antiguas aldeas, ciudadelas (Pukarás), santuarios, lamberías, caminos acueductos, plataformas rituales y andenes agrícolas se recomponen en sus páginas, ofreciendo una espléndida visión de los avances logrados por las sociedades indígenas precolombinas. Más de 650 instalaciones prehispánicas conforman la base del análisis científico, de las cuales cerca de 70 fueron seleccionadas para aplicar modernas estratégicas de clasificación y explicación de la historia cultural de quienes fueron sus constructores. Desde la aparición del fenómeno del sedentarismo, hasta el descubrimiento de América, transcurrieron en el Norte argentino más de 2.000 años de proceso cultural, "Poblaciones Indígenas en Argentina" nos ofrece un pormenorizado examen de la evolución de la instalación humana, a través de las diferentes etapas de complejización de la vivienda y de los poblados. La obra está estupendamente enriquecida por un material gráfico de excepción, compuesto por 50 planos y perspectivas, 4 atlas arqueológicos de Argentina, cuadros, gráficos y casi un centenar de fotografías inéditas de las instalaciones más conspicuas de la arqueología argentina.

Memoria final de la intervención arqueológica de apoyo a la restauración en la calle Escudo del Carmen nº 11, localizada en el barrio de San Matías de Granada, desde enero de 2007 a marzo de 2009. Director de la intervención: Luca Mattei. Técnico arqueólogo: Guillermo García-Contreras Ruiz.

The book brings to light the results of the first excavation in the old town of Trogir in 1978-1980, within the Trogir Town Museum (Garagnin - Fanfogna palace), with the contribution to the Hellenistic urbanism of central Dalmatia, and the description and analysis of more than 4000 recorded artefacts (mostly pottery, some lithic, glass, metal and stone finds) covering the time span from the Upper Paleolithic Period, Bronze and Iron Ages to Hellenistic, Roman and Medieval Period in Trogir/central Dalmatia.

Resumo
Este texto apresenta de forma breve e concisa alguns dos principais resultados da intervenção arqueológica levada a cabo recentemente num povoado indígena, situado no estuário do rio Lima e cuja ocupação remonta a fase inicial do processo de romanização da região.

Résumé
Ce texte présente un résumé des principaux résultats de la fouille archéologique d’un village indigène, situé dans l’estuaire du fleuve Lima (NW du Portugal), daté du début de l’occupation romaine de la région.

Palavras chaves: cultura castreja, proto-urbanismo, alto império