This paper examines the Aegean and Aegeanising ceramic wares of Geometric type that were recovered in excavations at the Cilician seaport of Kinet Höyük. Its Geometric pottery assemblage, published here for the first time, is among the largest found so far in the eastern Mediterranean and provides the starting point for a new reconstruction of Greek pottery consumption patterns in the eastern Mediterranean. With this aim, we first present the formal and archaeometric characteristics of the Kinet repertoire, the nature of its archaeological contexts, and how it compares with Geometric ceramic assemblages elsewhere. The second part of our paper assesses this popular Aegean ceramic type’s modes of production in order to define the conditions that sponsored the many dimensions of its distribution, exchange and consumption.*

This article explores the architectural benefactions of Gnaeus Vergilius Capito, a wealthy resident of Late Julio-Claudian Miletus, who held a number of positions in the Roman imperial administration prior to constructing the baths and theatre stage building in his home city. Through a detailed study of the archaeological and epigraphic evidence associated with Vergilius Capito, this article sheds light on when and why he built his public monuments and will demonstrate how members of the provincial elite like Capito, who had also been involved in local and wider imperial society, were representedthrough architecture. It will also show how culturally bilingual individuals could play a fundamental role in promoting Roman cultural influence in Greek provincial settings and will advocate a more individual-focussed approach when discussing the influence of Rome on its provinces. The article concludes that Capito’s Roman-Milesian citizenship enabled him to mediate between the world of the Greek polis and that of the Roman imperial system and uses the medium of architectural benefaction as a vehicle for driving cultural change in provincial settings.

Trajectories of social complexity following socio-political collapse have provided fertile ground for new theoretical and methodological perspectives in archaeology. Here we investigate ceramics from the site of Alişar Höyük, a settlement that was likely part of the Iron Age polity of Tabal. Best known from Assyrian texts, Tabal emerged in central Anatolia after the Late Bronze Age Hittite collapse, but its structure and operation remain enigmatic. Excavated in the 1920s and 1930s, a large sample of ceramics from Alişar has since been curated at the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago. Using multiple perspectives on this Middle Iron Age ceramic sample, we explore the political and economic structures at this site in terms of its interaction sphere. Our results suggest that if Alişar was part of Tabal, by the Middle Iron Age this polity was highly intra-regionally integrated, competitive and heterarchical.

Who were the Lelegians? Ancient Greek and Latin texts refer to the Lelegians as an indigenous people, locating them in southwestern Anatolia in a region known in historical times as Caria. Yet attempts to find evidence for the Lelegians ‘on the ground’ have met with questionable success. This paper has two aims. First, it provides an up-to-date picture of the archaeology of ancient Caria and shows that there is little indication of distinctly ‘Lelegian’ forms of material culture during the first millennium BCE. Second, it juxtaposes archaeological evidence with the development of the Lelegian ethnonym and suggests that the idea of a distinct Lelegian identity was retrospectively constructed by the Carians to fulfil the role of an imaginary ‘barbarian other’. This happened in the late Classical and early Hellenistic periods, a time of intensified Carian ethnogenesis, and was a process that responded to and made creative use of earlier Greek knowledge traditions. Finally, this paper argues that a later horizon of Lelegian imagining occurred in modern scholarship of the 19th and 20th centuries. Who, then, were the Lelegians? This article proposes that they were an imaginary people, invented and reinvented over the centuries.

Drills and projectile points from a site often share a similar shaped base, and it is typically assumed that these drills are reworked hafted points. Measurements of triangular-shaped drills and triangular arrow points from an Iroquoian site indicate that, on average, these drills had narrower bases and were thicker than points. Additionally, most preserved point foreshafts from the western United States are too short if used as a simple drill shaft, and most dart and arrow shafts are too long to serve as convenient drill shafts if used with a strap or bow drill. These data call into question the assumption that drills were reworked hafted points at Iroquoian and possibly other sites.

Worn constantly on the chest, reliquary crosses were intimately implicated in the lives of medieval people. Previous studies of such crosses have tended to consider them as tools through which people achieved specific ends, either as prophylactics against disease or as signifiers of hierarchical status. An alternative and complementary interpretation would emphasise intimacy: the prolonged rapport of particular crosses with particular bodies. This paper assembles and publishes 14 reliquary crosses from Aphrodisias in Caria, presented with commentary in an appendix. The body of the article addresses the archaeological contexts in which these crosses were found and explores the funerary use of reliquary crosses across Middle Byzantine Asia Minor from this novel perspective.

This article discusses a subterranean building, situated north of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, which was investigated during a recent interdisciplinary survey conducted by Çiğdem Özkan Aygün. Although it is generally accepted that the edifice had more than one phase of use, the date of its original construction and utilisation has been problematic since the building is not mentioned in any written sources and was either not included in other archaeological excavations and surveys or not studied intensively. The aim of this paper is to present the underground building in detail and to propose a date for its construction based on the new survey data and on ancient written sources about the church of Hagia Sophia. Archaeological data from previous surveys are also taken into account. The subterranean building’s different phases of use are documented, and it is proposed that it was originally used as a reliquary, then later, after a number of alterations, became a cistern.

Radiocarbon dates on marine shell and other materials of marine origin appear significantly older than contemporaneous samples of terrestrial/atmospheric origin. Misunderstandings regarding the mechanisms that give rise to this “marine reservoir effect” (MRE), the terminology used to define it, and the mathematics used to describe it cause many coastal archaeologists to distrust or misinterpret marine shell dates. The recent release of a reformulated 14C calibration curve for marine samples (Marine20), which necessitates recalculation of all local reservoir age corrections, may add to the confusion. Here, we review the benefits of dating shell; provide a plain-language explanation of the mechanical, chemical, biological, and cultural processes that give rise to age disparities associated with the MRE; and offer advice to archaeologists intending to date marine shell. Our hope is that these comments will not only aid archaeologists in the planning and interpretive stages of research but also assist in assessing the reliability of legacy chronologies based on marine materials. More broadly, we encourage careful evaluation of all sources of uncertainty in all 14C chronologies, whether based on terrestrial or marine materials.

Recent investigations of Morton Village, a Mississippian and Oneota community formed following Oneota migration into the central Illinois River valley around AD 1300, focus on evaluating the social context for the remarkable violence evidenced at the adjacent Norris Farms 36 cemetery. Here, we use the concepts of thirdspace and hybridity to examine three areas of village life: creation of the physical structure of the village, ritual, and foodways. Within these three areas, we identify transformations of Mississippian and Oneota practices that support the interpretation that villagers were engaged in the formation of a coalescent community.

Rýzmburk Castle is one of the largest and most important medieval castles in Bohemia, documented since 1250 AD. Its North tower is assumed to be built in 1260–1300 AD. To test this assumption, the surface layers of mortar were inspected for the presence of charcoals suitable for radiocarbon dating, and 10 charcoals were found. The charcoals probably originated from wood used for lime burning. The results of radiocarbon dating using accelerator mass spectrometry agree with the historical estimation. Single post-1287 sample indicates that the building date might be refined to 1287–1300 AD.

Archival charcoal tree-ring segments from the Mississippian center of Kincaid Mounds provide chronometric information for the history of this important site. However, charcoal recovered from Kincaid was originally treated with a paraffin consolidant, a once common practice in American archaeology. This paper presents data on the efficacy of a solvent pretreatment protocol and new wiggle-matched 14C dates from the largest mound (Mound 10) at Kincaid. FTIR and 14C analysis on known-age charcoal intentionally contaminated with paraffin, as well as archaeological material, show that a chloroform pretreatment is effective at removing paraffin contamination. Wiggle-matched cutting dates from the final construction episodes on Mound 10 at Kincaid, indicate that the mound was used in the late 1300s with the construction of a unique structure on the apex occurring around 1390. This study demonstrates the potential for museum collections of archaeological charcoal to contribute high-resolution chronological information despite past conservation practices that complicate 14C dating.