Social Boundaries (Archaeology)

The identification of distinct social groups has been a long-standing concern throughout the history of Southwest U.S. archaeology. Boundaries in material culture patterning have commonly been described at scales that range from the "culture area" and "province" levels to those of regional "alliances" and "macrosystems." The culture areas known as Mogollon, Anasazi, and Hohokam, for example, are familiar to any archaeologist who has spent even a little time studying Southwest prehistory. Archaeologists have generally identified boundaries for these areas by trait distributions of key artifact types, selected behavioral practices, environmental adaptations, and architectural traditions.
          Cross-cultural research has made it increasingly clear that many (if not most) of these archaeological social boundaries exceed the scale of social boundaries in traditional small-scale societies. Reliance on particular types of data in Southwestern research, particularly on decorated ceramics and monumental architecture, has limited the range of social scales that are observable in the archaeological record. A conceptual paradigm, beginning in the earliest days of Southwestern research, emphasizing homogeneity and stressing the similarities within large, environmentally defined areas, has further influenced the nature of investigation. A critical -- if often overlooked scale of analysis -- lies at the local level. As used in this study, "local systems" refers to well-bounded, small-scale systems whose participants engaged in regular face-to-face interaction. Previous archaeologists have observed spatial discontinuities in ceramic patterning at subregional scales in the Southwest. However, few conceptual and methodological tools are available for examining social boundaries within this smaller framework. The idea of local traditions -- as these are manifested in technological variability -- is not unfamiliar to archaeologists.
          We concentrate our research on the Tonto Basin in east-central Arizona, using architectural and ceramic data from the Roosevelt Community Development Study to examine technical choices made by the prehistoric inhabitants. What our study provides are a conceptual framework and analytical methods for examining this type of material culture patterning. This conceptual framework emphasizes how differences in a wide range of technical choices made during the production process effect the final appearance of the manufactured goods. We attempt, following Lemonnier (1986:180), to view goods as the result of these choices and to place them into broader technical systems in which they participated in the prehistoric past.
          We examine changes in social boundaries at two critical points in the
developmental sequence of a small local system located in the eastern portion of the Tonto Basin. The first is the Colonial period (beginning ca. A.D. 750), in which a technological approach illustrates processes of population movement into the study region. The second is the early Classic period (beginning ca. A.D. 1250) where technological attributes reflect patterns of co-residence between groups with different enculturative backgrounds that participated in the same local system. Use of this technological framework for the Colonial period confirms a previous model based on stylistic variation. Yet this same focus on technological variation in the Classic period also identifies previously undetected dimensions of social interaction.

This is a report on the archaeological investigation of the area of Sandy Creek Site (1Bb227) that falls within the Right-of-Way of the Centreville Bypass construction project in Bibb County, Alabama. The fieldwork involved remote sensing, controlled surface collection, unit excavation, topsoil removal, and feature excavation. Specialized analysis on materials recovered included soil flotation, pedologic analysis, ethnobotanical analysis, radiometric analysis, and systematic artifact classification. Subsistence, chronological, and material culture information was added to the existing body of knowledge of the middle Woodland period Montevallo Phase. Information from these analyses is incorporated in a synthesis of the cultural history of the middle Cahaba River drainage.

The expansion of the so-called Tisza culture from the core areas of its development in the middle portion of the Tisza River in Serbia begins in the period of the fully formed Vinca settlements (5200-5000 cal. BC) in the northern Banat. Individual finds ofTisza pottery style at some Vinca sites could be evidence of pottery circulation in the south Banat area. However, at several sites in the north and central Banat, there is contemporaneous occurrence of pottery of both Vinca and Tisza styles in equal amounts, which might indicate their coexistence. In addition, the occurrence of finds marked by characteristics of both styles is attested. In order to shed light on social interactions, technological variances between Tisza and Vinca pottery in the region of the northern Serbian Banat have been studied with different methods. These comprise both macroscopic and microscopic techniques for assessing the technological attributes of the pottery. Petrographic characterisation through microscopic examination of ceramic thin sections has been carried out. The results of this research have revealed different technological choices in some aspects of pottery production, which point to the employment of distinctive recipes in the manufacture of pottery. The social dimension of this phenomenon is worth exploring.

The archaeological site of Gradište near Iđoš, in the municipality of Kikinda,
Serbia, is well known in the archaeological literature of the region. Excavated on several
occasions since 1913, the site is best known for the existence of a late Neolithic settlement where
material culture belonging to both Vinča and Tisza communities was found in the same archaeological
contexts. Furthermore, the site is known for a 250 metre diameter fortified settlement from the
Late Bronze/Early Iron Age period. А new research cycle was initiated in 2014 in order to explain
cultural processes during prehistory in this part of the Pannonian basin. The first season of the
new research campaign was focused on geophysical prospection of an area of approximately 2
hectares, geological coring and excavation of four stratigraphic trenches across the site. This
work has confirmed the existence of up to 2.5 metres of archaeological remains on the tell site
with several daub structures detected and the existence of numerous archaeological features within
the Late Bronze - Iron Age settlement.

Building on similarities and exploring differences in the way scholars undertake their research, this volume presents crossdisciplinary communication on the study of borders, frontiers and boundaries through time, with a focus on Turkey. Standing at the dividing/connecting line between Europe and Asia, Turkey emerges as a place carrying a rich history of multiple layers of borders that have been drawn, shifted or unmade from the remote past until today: from Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers to the period of early states in the Bronze Age, from the poleis of classical antiquity to the period of the empires defined by the Roman expansion and Byzantine rule, from the imprints of the Ottoman state’s expanded frontiers to contemporary Turkey’s national borders. Amidst proliferating interdisciplinary collaborations for the study of borders between social anthropology, geography, political science and history, this book aims to contribute to a nascent but growing direction in border studies by including archaeology as a collocutor and using Turkey as a case study.

Within the 2 nd Millennium, world vegetation changed. This dramatic dynamism (evolution) was greatly felt within the past three centuries of the second Millennium. These changes originated from anthropic activities whose impact has affected the biodiversity, water and soil resources and also biogeochemical cycles.