Settlement Patterns and Systems

Archaeologists face a growing problem of how to integrate disjointed and often divergent fragments of data to produce meaningful regional models. A case study reviews and articulates a body of otherwise incomplete and potentially misleading site-specific archaeoloeical data from Wainiha Vallev in Kaua'i Island (Hawaiian Archipela!zo) to pasthe abundance and spatialextent of ~rchaeological sites are interpreted to have increased, contributine to an archaeological record that consists of a small number of religious sites, extensive ~gricultural fieldbover the floor of the valley, at least one small-scale local basalt quarry, and an unknown number of habitation complexes.

A regional historical context and research design was prepared to guide the California Department of Transportation’s (Caltrans)  investigations of Native American archaeological resources in the Antelope Valley region of southeastern California. The Antelope Valley (Study Area) is a westward extension of the Mojave Desert in northern Los Angeles County (Caltrans District 7) and southeastern Kern County (Caltrans District 9). The focus of this study is the archaeological record of Native Americans in this region from initial occupation until AD 1835 (the end of the Mission Period). The purpose of the contexts and theme discussions (with research questions and data needs) provided herein is to assist with evaluations of the information potential of Native American archaeological sites in the Antelope Valley. This document provides information about the natural and cultural setting of the Antelope Valley Study Area, the theoretical orientation used in the research design, and presents research themes, along with research questions and data needs that can guide archaeological investigations. The natural setting includes information about topography, geology, hydrography, climate, vegetation, and fauna. The cultural setting provides information about chronology, ethnohistory, previous archaeological investigations, and geoarchaeology. The theoretical orientation section presents discussions of the main archaeological theoretical perspectives of cultural materialism, optimal foraging, the collector-forager model, subsistence intensification and storage of resources, and human behavioral ecology. Research themes that can be used to structure future archaeological research in the Antelope Valley include paleoenvironmental reconstruction, settlement systems, subsistence, exchange and conveyance, lithic technology, lithic sources, population movements, and social differentiation. Research questions and the kinds of data necessary to address these questions are provided for each theme.

At first glance the typical medieval Islamic map of ‘the West’—Surat al-Maghrib— strikes us as nothing more than a quaint abstraction of circles, triangles, and oblong shapes ornately adorned with vivid pigments. Closer study presents a more complex image, however, of passion and conflict; of attraction and revulsion; of love and hate. Indeed the Maghrib map is by far the most dissonant image in the extant collection of medieval Arabic and Persian maps and, as such, one of the most engaging. Whereas all the other images have a veneer of harmony and balance, this one is—by deliberate design—passionately conflicted. It is the discord of desire inlaid within the Muslim pictographs of the Maghrib that is the focus of this chapter, the over-arching question being how did medieval Islamic cartographers settle on such a strange looking image as a representation of the Western Mediterranean— in particular, North Africa, Islamic Spain, and Sicily? Answering this question requires immersing ourselves in the map-image itself, and takes us through a series of subliminal messages ranging from intra-Islamic imperial ambitions to erotic and nostalgic Andalusian poetry.

East of the Jordan Rift Valley, sites in the Mediterranean zone flourished from the MPPNB onwards. Sites are abundant, especially in the major wadis, and are usually small to medium in size, with the larger settlements, such as 'Ain Ghazal, probably reaching ca. 5 hectares in area. Throughout the period, subsistence was increasingly based on farming and herding (Asouti & Fuller 2012; Horwitz & Ducos 2005; Martin 1999). West of the Jordan Rift Valley, in the Mediterranean zones of the Galilee, Carmel, Judea and Samaria, smaller (1-3 hectares), though densely packed settlements emerge, which probably functioned as small villages or hamlets, whose economy was based on domesticated plants and hunted prey (Goring-Morris et al. 2009; Horwitz & Lernau 2003; Kuijt & Goring-Morris 2002; Sapir-Hen et al. 2016). The transition to the LPPNB seems to have been accompanied by substantial changes in settlement patterning and economic strategies. In the Mediterranean zones west of the Jordan Rift Valley, most MPPNB sites seem to have been abandoned, while large villages appeared north of the Dead Sea Basin (e.g. Beisamoun) as well as the coastline opposite to and south of the Carmel (e.g. Atlit-Yam; Goring-Morris et al. 2009). At the same time, sites east of the Jordan Rift Valley reached 'mega-site' proportions, as large settlements of at least 10 hectares developed in major wadis, surrounded by smaller, 'satellite' settlements (Rollefson 2008a; Simmons 2007). It remains unclear whether the apparent 'abandonment' of the areas west of the Jordan Rift Valley indeed reflects actual processes, or whether it is the result of site visibility. It is quite possible, for example, that LPPNB sites in the Galilee and adjacent areas are covered by later period Tells (Kuijt & Goring-Morris 2002). In any case, the fact that the main settlements of the MPPNB in the area were no longer occupied signifies a change in site-location choices. Economy-wise, by the end of the LPPNB domesticated species such as sheep, goat, pig and cattle occupied a growing percentage in faunal assemblages, and hunting, which played a central place during the MPPNB, seems to have declined considerably. Along the Mediterranean coast, fishing emerged as an important economic activity during the FPPNB/PPNC (Galili et al. 2004). Several explanations were suggested for the Jordanian 'mega-site' phenomenon. One explanation ties the 'mega-sites' to population growth due to pressure, especially from areas in and west of the Jordan Rift Valley (the so-called 'Jericho Stimulus', sensu Gebel 2004b). Some have even viewed such developments as evidence for 'protourbanism' (Nissen 2004; and see Rollefson 2004b contra Gebel 2004b). Rollefson correlates the 'mega-site' phenomenon with ecological deterioration, pushing the smaller, ecologically sensitive MPPNB settlements to larger farming villages in more 'tractable environments' (Rollefson 2008a, p.90). He links the abandonment of the MPPNB settlements in the western regions to the same environmental degradation and suggests that some of these communities joined the population east of the Jordan Rift Valley, resulting in the general population explosion of the Jordanian highlands (ibid.). The final stage of the PPNB (FPPNB/PPNC) shows a gradual demise of both scale and complexity of the former Neolithic lifeways. While the economic base of herding THEORETICAL BACKGROUND Spatial Archaeology and Geographic Information Systems Since the earliest days of archaeology, archaeologists have been aware of the importance of the spatial component of the archaeological record. This is due to the fact that much of the data recovered, whether at the intra-or inter-site levels, is spatial in nature: each artefact, feature, or site not only has a location of its own, but also a series of spatial relationships, relative to other entities, such as other archaeological features or the environment. For most of the 20 th century, spatial data was tabulated and plotted by hand, and the analysis of the spatial information was restricted to visual appraisal. Over the past several decades, however, the quality and volume of the spatial data we collect have increased dramatically as new techniques and equipment have become available, and as new interpretative frameworks for the study of the past were formed. This trend began with the quantitative revolution of the 'New Archaeology' in the early 1960s, when the pursuit of more objective and verifiable methods of analysis led to an increase in techniques for spatial analysis (e.g. Hodder & Orton 1976, and references therein). These new methods and techniques were derived from different fields of research, such as mathematics, statistics, geography, and ecology. These were mainly statistical and quantitative techniques, such as the non-randomness test and Nearest Neighbour analysis, aiming at more objective and less visual methods of data appraisal (e.g.

Townscape studies and landscape archaeology can supply significant information about broad cultural development in towns, states, and regions. The macroscopic view offered by examining communities provides a lens through which cultural, religious, socio-political, and commercial ideas are transferred between regions, modified by community members, and solidified in the creation of cultural identities. Examination of seventeenth-century English settlement patterns and their underlying influences in Woodbridge and Piscataway, Middlesex County, New Jersey provides insight into the role township corporation freeholders played in cultural identity formation in northeastern New Jersey. The townscape systems employed by these freeholders had lasting impacts on regional cultural development within the state.

Fortified settlements represent one of the most important sources of knowledge about the economic and social relations in the Early Bronze Age. Archaeological site in Vráble has a prominent position within them. Thanks to the combination of non-invasive methods, archaeological excavation and interdisciplinary cooperation, a huge settlement complex, in centre of which is situated fortified settlement enclosed by three ditches, was discovered. In its inner area, but also outside the fortification, were detected almost 160 ground-plans of houses, which were deliberately arranged into radial rows. Analogies to such architecture can be found in Eastern Mediterranean and the Eastern Urals region of Russia and North-Western Kazakhstan. East and West of the fortification in Vráble is located an economic background, comprised of batteries of storage pits. South of the settlement, a burial ground is situated with high density of graves (almost 1000 in total). Location of the fortified settlement on the crossroad of trade routes, distribution of the non-ferrous metal ores and goods made from them were the main preconditions for the formation of this central site. The accumulation of goods and birth of the social elite was closely connected with it.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss recent archaeological evidence about settlement and village-life throughout the Greek Middle Ages, during the Early and Middle Byzantine (late 7th – early 13th), Late Byzantine or Frankish (early 13th – middle 15th) and early Ottoman eras (late 15th – 17th) in the Aegean. The paper draws on the ‘Ancient Cities of Boeotia Intensive Survey Project’ carried out in the region of Tanagra in Boeotia, central Greece, by Rijksuniversiteit Leiden in the Netherlands, and with which the author has been involved since 2000. The ongoing ‘Ancient Cities of Boeotia Project’, which began its systematic Survey Programme at the site of the ancient city of Tanagra and its surrounding territory in 2000 (led by Prof. J.L. Bintliff, Leiden University), aims at the detailed examination of past human activity at the ancient city and its immediate countryside. Surface survey in the immediate territory of Tanagra has revealed the remains of a number of deserted villages dated to the Byzantine, Frankish and early Ottoman periods, granting the project the potential to further investigate and interpret the material culture of this period in the area, in an attempt to provide a complete and more detailed picture of regional settlement history and rural/domestic life.

We analized in this work a group of Islamic ceramics, the matted painted scratched ware, which have their origin in the Almohad period and reach great development under Merinid. Our study will focus on Ceuta but it will be referred to the whole area of the Strait of Gibraltar. After the characterization of these ceramics, we define two production phases (Almohad and Merinid) identifying its main typological and decorative features. It also provides a distribution map in the Straits of Gibraltar, highlighting similarities and differences of the ceramics of this class compared to other areas that are represented and their possible relationship to the Merinid material culture.
Se analiza en este trabajo un grupo de cerámicas islámicas, las esgrafiadas y pintadas con óxido de manganeso, que tienen su origen en el periodo almohade y alcanzan gran desarrollo bajo los mariníes. Nuestro estudio se centrará en Ceuta pero en él se hará referencia al conjunto del ámbito del Estrecho de Gibraltar. Tras la caracterización de estas cerámicas, se definen dos fases (almohade y mariní) en la producción identificando sus principales características tipológicas y decorativas. Se establece además un mapa de distribución en el área del Estrecho de Gibraltar, destacando las similitudes y diferencias de las cerámicas de esta clase respecto a otras áreas en las que están representadas y su posible vinculación con la cultura material mariní.

Initial cosmology may have been designed and measured. I suggest the principal reference points of its measure were the motions of the stars, the sun and the moon and the cardinal directions. A cosmology was a projection on the terrain of the sky, anchored to prominent landmarks on the ground and the sun’s annual path around it.
I propose it was paced in accordance with the attainment of early human. It can be viewed as a “blueprint” (a grid) upon which most, if not all, archaic edifices were rooted; thus the location of; Stonehenge, Marathon and the pyramids, to name but a few, was according to a measured plan that predates them.
It seems that such geometric measure of a cosmology was a common sermon in prehistoric times. Its paced trajectories (lay-lines) extended from a center to where sunrise and sunset, marked the changing of seasons (solstices).
On latitute 32°N, near Babylon, its paced trajectories from a center, made a perfect HEXAGON (A hexagon is a planar graph of a cube). This phenomena may have had a significant meaning in early religion.

Archaeological excavation of fortified settlements from the Early Bronze Age is after hundred years of research still very current topic. From such a long time was collected a huge amount of data which is being evaluated in the light of the newest results of archaeological excavations in Rybník (district Levice), Santovka (district Levice) and Vráble (district Nitra) each located in different environment. In connection with modern methods of field work and geographical information systems we can closely examine how the environment influenced the function and importance of fortified settlements and what was the relationship among fortified and open settlements through space and time. This allows us to think of new factors which (directly or indirectly) influenced foundation, duration and abandonment/destruction of sites from the second half of the Early Bronze Age in Slovakia (climate change, migration, warfare).

The concept of the foraging radius is essential to understanding hunter-gatherer settlement, subsistence, and sociocultural complexity yet is notoriously difficult to reconstruct archaeologically.  Late prehistoric Western Mono foraging radii in the southern Sierra Nevada were reconstructed using GIS analysis of least-cost path distances between dispersed caching features and centralized residential features.  Mean distances from settlements to caches exhibit a bimodal distribution, with peaks between 0.5 and 5.0 km, and 6.0 and 8.5 km, the former representing a caching limit and the latter a foraging limit around major settlements.  Combined, these data demarcate a two-part foraging radius predicated not only on sustaining winter group aggregations but also on facilitating spring and summer residential moves.  These results show the efficacy of using features and simple GIS-based spatial analyses to reconstruct prehistoric foraging radii and provide the means to model the energetics different foraging behaviors, this speaking strongly to social and economic factors conditioning the development of complex hunter-gatherer societies.

1994 Doctoral Dissertation:

Since the advent of environmental land use planning laws in the 1970's, local, state, and federal agencies have been requiring the identification and protection of archaeological resources.  This cultural resource management (CRM) activity has generated many volumes of reports listing properties inspected, prehistoric site locations, and other information needed to serve land use planning needs.

This dissertation attempts to understand the type of data contained in these studies and develops a suite of analytical techniques which can utilize this information to generate meaningful inferences about prehistoric cultural and natural processes.

The data used in the current study come from the Clear Lake Basin, located in California's North Coast Range.  The least cost model of subsistence economics is applied to ethnographic, paleo-environmental, and archaeological data in an effort to develop a hypothetical scenario outlining the periods and expected economic changes which occurred in the region.  Archaeological expectations concerning settlement pattern, technology, and population for each period are developed.

The CRM data from the Clear Lake Basin are studied using the concepts of constrained exploratory data analysis, remnant settlement patterns, and persistent place.  A combination of obsidian hydration and diagnostic artifacts is used to place sites within a chronological framework.  Patterns derived from the exploratory data analysis are then compared with the expectations which were derived based on previously existing data and the least cost model.

Through the use of site distribution maps, changes in site area and site size over time, the current analysis succeeds in identifying the earliest evidence of settlement in the Clear Lake Basin, outlines periods of major economic change, and suggests various motivating factors which may have led to this change.

The following aspects of Clear Lake Basin and surrounding regional prehistory are entertained:
1. Regional resource areas which were in use during various periods throughout prehistory;
2. Major technological/economic changes, when they occurred, and the circumstances which may have led to their inception, and;
3. The demographic history of the Clear Lake Basin (Pomo) inhabitants and how it effected the prehistory of surrounding regions.

Location is one of the key drivers of the consumption and mobility behaviour of people. Agglomeration results in concentrated activity nodes, better provision of public transportation and superior environmental infrastructure, and smaller living spaces that may decrease the environmental load of mobility and energy use. On the other hand, urbanized areas are the nodes of growth and consumption
that provide better accessibility to a wide spectre of commodities. This may in turn increase the environmental load of households living in more urbanized areas.
The thesis addresses the dilemma between the environmental benefits and disadvantages of urbanization across the settlement hierarchy of Estonia, aiming to receive new insights about the effect of location on the environmental load of final consumption. It explores the environmental load of the consumption and mobility behaviour of Estonian residents and analyses the carbon load of business travel along the travel needs and management in knowledge-intensive
business service sector.
The thesis applies environmentally extended input-output methodology to analyse the ecological footprint or carbon load of final consumption based on the data collected from high school students (2009) or acquired from Household Budget Survey that was conducted by Statistics Estonia (2012). The carbon load of business travel is explored with the help of data gained from active mobile positioning and individual interviews with business travellers, and focus group
interviews with organizations (2013). The concept of settlement hierarchy is used as a proxy for geographical location of residents and businesses.
The environmental load of the final consumption of households derives in majority from shelter-related consumption and is considerably lower in Estonia than in European countries of higher wealth. The differences in disposable income levels between the compared countries could lead to even higher differences in the environmental load. However, the high share of expenditure on domestic energy use among Estonian households due to the climatic conditions and poor insulation of dwellings as well as the carbon intensity of the energy sector in Estonia decrease the expectable environmental benefits deriving from lower overall expenditure volume. The size of the environmental load of Estonian residents could not be compared to other Eastern European countries due to the lack of conducted research available.
The findings of the thesis confirm the benefits of dense urban settlements over suburban or rural areas in terms of the environmental load from mobility.
Higher level urban settlements, nevertheless, do not show advantages in front of smaller towns, although it could be expected on the basis of previous research.
The benefits of higher level urban areas are evident only in case of business travel due to the economic agglomeration and concentration of businesses as professionals working in locations that are more distant need to put more efforts on reaching their business network in the main economic centres.
On the other hand, the thesis points out the lifestyle environmental impacts of additional consumption that occurs along higher degrees of urbanization both in dense urban cores and in their surrounding hinterland. Better availability and accessibility of various commodities, especially leisure-related goods and services, in higher hierarchy level settlements favour their consumption and the consequent environmental load also when differences in income levels and
other socio-demographic aspects of households are considered.
The thesis reveals the exceptional position of the residents of regional
industrial centres in Estonian settlement hierarchy considering their significantly low environmental load from final consumption. The very conservative consumption and mobility pattern of the households residing in the Eastern Estonian industrial cities is only partially explained by lower affluence level and different ethnical composition of the population when compared to the rest of the country. It may be assumed that the industrial character, founding and development peculiarities when compared to other cities in Estonia, environmental
problems, remnants of Soviet period scarcity-determined consumption
culture, lack of opportunities for self-expression, and low rate of social relations with the hinterland areas have hindered these regional centres to develop towards contemporary urban cores of active lifestyle.
The study on business travel showed that the need for business travel in
knowledge-intensive service sector considerably depends on the phase of the business cycle at hand. While the success of marketing and sales especially depends on physical co-presence, then core business processes, where the need for travel and communication is the highest, provide opportunities for some travel substitution with virtual modes of communication. Established trust relationships in business partnership are one of the main prerequisites for such substitution  and its environmental benefits.

In der Vorgeschichte und im Mittelalter setzten Kommunikationssysteme das Bestehen von Siedlungsstrukturen voraus. Demzufolge sind jene als ein Element der Besiedlung zu definieren.Fur die Untersuchung von Kommunikationssystemen kommt der Analyse und der Interpretation
archaologischer Quellen, die direkt und indirekt als Zeugen der kommunikativen Verbindungen erscheinen, eine grose Bedeutung zu. Im Rahmen des Projekts „Der Mensch im Grenzland ‒ interregionale Kommunikationssysteme und deren Infrastruktur im Nordosten des polnischen Tieflands im fruhen und hohen Mittelalter“ (Nr. 11H 12 0526 81) wurden am Institut fur Archaologie der Mikołaj-Kopernik-Universitat in Toruń in den letzten Jahren verschiedene Untersuchungen zu Kommunikationssystemen durchgefuhrt. Zu den archaologischen Fundplatzen Pommerns, die unter verschiedenen Gesichtspunkten untersucht wurden und in Bezug auf System und Struktur von Kommunikationslinien wichtige Ergebnisse lieferten, gehoren die drei Siedlungszentren von Kałdus und Pawłówek in Kujawien-Pommern sowie Żołte in Westpommern (Abb. 1, 2), die nicht nur als Handelsstationen, sondern auch als gateway cities zu interpretieren sind. Sie sind durch folgende Faktoren gekennzeichnet:
a) die Lage in Grenzgebieten als Einfall- und Ausfalltore in bzw. aus bestimmten Regionen -
Kałdus/Chełmno in das Kulmer Land (Ziemia Chełmińska), Pawłowko in die sog. Krajna im nordlichen Grospolen und sudlichen Kaschubien sowie Żołte in das Gebiet der Dramburger Seenplatte (Pojezierze Drawskie) und das Einzugsgebiet der oberen Rega;
b) die Lage in Kontaktzonen zwischen zwei gesellschaftlich und kulturell unterschiedlich
entwickelten Regionen, wobei sie Bindeglieder zwischen verschiedenen geographischen, politischen und wirtschaftlichen Raumen bildeten;
c) die Lage an Orten mit Schlusselfunktion fur den Fernhandelstransport (Knotenpunkte
und Umschlagplatze), von denen aus nicht nur der Gutertransport, sondern auch der Durchzug von Menschen kontrolliert werden konnte (gateway communities fur den Transport);
d) unabhangig von der Funktion einer gateway city die Funktion eines Verwaltungssitzes zur
Kontrolle des mit Transport und Austausch in Verbindung stehenden Wirtschaftssektors.

The development and analysis of distribution maps is one of the most frequent applications in archaeological research. For instance, sets of archaeological sites can be used to calculate larger areas, which represent, for example, the spatial spread of a culture or the site density within an area of interest. In many previous studies this is archived manually. However, this process is problematic because it is

We report on the results of two years of continuos fieldwork between 1977 and July 1979, carrying out the archaeological survey of a large section of Easter Island, including quadrants 3, 7, 8,9 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14, from Akahanga to Hanga Maihiku and the environs of Ahu Tongariki in the southeast coast, and from Hangaroa and Tahai in the west coast, through 15 km by the highlands of the interior of the island up to the statue quarries at Rano Raraku  volcano.  Within an area of 4.691,87 hectares , a total of 6.556 archaeological features and sites were recorded by the authors.  This number includes recording and documentation of 540 moai, 599 caves and rockshelters; 1.048 house remains;  1.225 umu pae (stone lined earth ovens); 566 hare moa (chicken houses);  587 stone walled agricultural structures and mulch gardens; 249 taheta and puna (water wells); 178 religious-ceremonial monuments and burial structures; and 202 sites with petroglyphs. Other 1.254 recorded features were not classified, due to their poor state of conservation or unknown function.

The present volume brings together papers presented at three different meetings of the Commission for “The Final Palaeolithic of Northern Eurasia” (formerly Commission XXXII “The Final Palaeolithic of the Great European Plain”) of the International Union of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences (Union Internationale des Sciences Préhistoriques et Protohistoriques – UISPP). The meetings were held in three
consecutive years – at Amersfoort in the Netherlands (2012), Schleswig, Germany (2013), and Burgos, Spain (2014). The collection of papers can be seen as a reflection of the Commission’s ambition to stimulate and co-ordinate research on the Late and Final Palaeolithic of Northern Eurasia. From a chronological perspective, this time span saw the emergence and migration of hunter-gatherer groups into previously
unoccupied territories across the North European Plain during the Late Glacial and Early Postglacial periods, i.e. from approximately 15,000 to 8,000 BP. Given the magnitude of climate fluctuations and, as a consequence, the changes in the landscape, vegetation and fauna, the Late and Final Palaeolithic cultures of
Northern Eurasia were characterized by a variety of adaptive responses. These are reflected in their technologies, settlement patterns, subsistence practices, social organizations and even ideologies. The thematic focus of the Commission highlights all of these topics and the research questions associated with them.

This study addresses the question of how residential location influences the ecological footprint (EF) of households. The type and location of settlements are considered one of the key determinants of the patterns of mobility and consumption, and their associated environmental load. As different settlement types bring different consumption intensities causing adverse environmental effects, the search for the best settlement structure is complicated. We study the environmental load of 16–17-year-old high school students from thirty randomly selected schools located across Estonia by means of a questionnaire survey. The study finds that the EF of high school students is significantly affected by the position of their residence in the settlement hierarchy as a result of different levels of affluence, density, and accessibility to goods and service, all of which vary spatially. Students from the metropolitan area of Tallinn tend to place a larger load on the environment and have higher EF values than students from the rest of Estonia. In addition, higher per capita income and larger living spaces tend to increase the footprint of these students. The results show that the strong sociospatial stratification of Estonian residents, symptomatic of a transitional society, is evident also in their environmental consumption load and mobility habits.

During the past summer, salvage operations were carried out at the Donaldson site which had been previously investigated by J.V. Wright in 1960 (Wright and Anderson 1963). The excavations were designed to
gather additional data on settlement and subsistence patterns at the site .

while the study of central settlements has lost none of its importance, interest has grown in micro-regional research and the investigation of settlements with differing function and layout. Only complex research projects can address broad issues of Bronze Age land use. We sought answers to the following questions: 1) Did differences exist between the regional and micro-regional settlement patterns during successive periods of the Bronze Age? 2) Were there genuine centres and specialised settlements during the Bronze Age in Central Europe? 3) How did a communityʼs cultural background influence landscape use in a particular region? 4) How is social and political organisation reflected in cemeteries? The Bronze Age settlement history of the Százhalombatta area was investigated as part of an international research project.

Ancient states and early complex societies emerged in areas where urban settlements had the resources to house large populations and where economic and political centers and institutions could be established to run the society. By contrast, marshes, isolated deserts, extreme mountain peaks and thick forests served as refuges for those who wanted to escape from the state. Moreover, taking these examples into consideration, scholars seem to share the assumption that it is unexpected to find urban centers and central political organizations of isolated refuge areas in the ancient world.
This dissertation examines the hypothesis that under certain historical and environmental circumstances, the marshes of southern Iraq, which are normally considered places of refuge, could become centers of political power and develop a political organization independent of that associated with irrigated areas. The focus of this dissertation will be on the archaeological evidence for an example of political independence in the marshes during the first Sealand dynasty (1739 -1340 BCE). Specifically, the objective is to understand how the archaeological record reflects the existence of this dynasty, and helps explain its success in these exceptional conditions. The data will also help us to understand the archaeology of the Sealand during this time of political centralization in the southern Mesopotamian marshes. To date, all information concerning this dynasty has been based on textual sources unsupported by archaeological data.
From 2003 to 2009, I conducted surveys in both the alluvial plain and also the marshes of southern Iraq. The data I collected during that time will test the hypothesis that the people of Mesopotamia’s ancient marshes exploited specific political and economic circumstances, through the use of their unique environmental setting, to create their own independent political structure, the first Sealand Dynasty. It will further test the idea that this dynasty took on the shape of a shadow state that confronted the primary state in Babylon.

while the study of central settlements has lost none of its importance, interest has grown in micro-regional research and the investigation of settlements with differing function and layout. Only complex research projects can address broad issues of Bronze Age land use. We sought answers to the following questions: 1) Did differences exist between the regional and micro-regional settlement patterns during successive periods of the Bronze Age? 2) Were there genuine centres and specialised settlements during the Bronze Age in Central Europe? 3) How did a communityʼs cultural background influence landscape use in a particular region? 4) How is social and political organisation reflected in cemeteries? The Bronze Age settlement history of the Százhalombatta area was investigated as part of an international research project.

These metallic (bronze) payment seals of the Caliphate of al-Andalus stand in clear contrast with the early lead seals of the conquest and governors period. With the evidence we have up to now, it seems that the lead seal method was not used past the very early part of the Emirate period.