Free Book from ASOR

Over the past three years, the archaeologists from the Pyla-Koutsopetria Archaeological Project, who have worked at the site of Pyla-Koutsopetria about 10 km west of Larnaka, have collaborated with the American Schools of Oriental Research Committee on Publications and the folks at Open Context. The result of this partnership is a free, linked, digital version of the 2014 monograph, Pyla-Koutsopetria I: Archaeological Survey of an Ancient Coast Town edited by William Caraher, David Pettegrew, and R. Scott Moore.

Here’s the blurb from the ASOR website where you can download the book:

We are very pleased to release a digital version of Pyla-Koutsopetria I: Archaeological Survey of an Ancient Coastal Town (2014). We have modified this copy of the manuscript to include links to the archaeological data produced from 2003-2011 during almost a decade of intensive pedestrian survey and study by the Pyla-Koutsopetria Archaeological Project (PKAP). We have published our data with the Open Context platform where it underwent basic review by the managing editor. By integrating PKAP field and study data with Pyla-Koutsopetria I, the reader can now “drill down” into the data through hyperlinked text in a pdf version of the book. 

These links allow the reader to view the various digital archaeological “objects” that form the basis for the arguments advanced in this book. These digital archaeological objects range from individual survey units with attendant descriptive data to individual artifacts or batches of artifacts. We have also linked to the various categories of artifacts in our typology. These followed the chronotype system which both informed our sampling strategy in the survey and how we described our finds. We assigned a type to each artifact based on the chronotype naming conventions. These conventions combined a fabric or form with a period and could range from the exceedingly broad – like Medium Coarse Ware dating to the Ancient Historic period (750 BC- AD 749) – to much more narrowly defined and specific categories like African Red Slip Form 99. We have also linked to the various chronological periods assigned on the basis of the chronotype system which guided much of our analysis of artifact distribution in this book.

It is important to stress that this is a provisional document. In some ways, the book reflects the retrofitting of a traditional, analogue text with a layer (literally as well as figuratively) of links to our published digital material. As a result, we did not consider whether the data present in Open Context could be easily arranged by the user to replicate the analyses underpinning this analogue volume. For example, in the book, we organized our data spatially into zones which reflected both practical and archaeological divisions in our survey area. We have not arranged our data in Open Context in such a way that it is easy to query a zone for particular types of artifacts. In future projects, digital data and description will be more closely coordinated allowing the reader to explore the textual arguments more fully while still preserving the granularity of the original archaeological data.

This provisional digital edition would not have been possible without the cooperation of Eric and Sarah Kansa at Open Context who invited us to submit our data for publication at their site. Kevin M. McGeough and Hanan Charaf, the editors at the ASOR Archaeological Report Series, supported our distribution of this digital version of our work as did Charles Jones, the chair of the ASOR Committee on Publications, and Andy Vaughn, ASOR’s Executive Director. We hope that this provisional publication represents a step forward in the publication of volumes with linked data.

You can read what Bill Caraher, one of the co-authors, says about the project here on his blog.

Environment, landscape and society: diachronic perspectives on settlement patterns in Cyprus

The Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute is pleased to announce the upcoming conference at CAARI: Environment, landscape and society: diachronic perspectives on settlement patterns in Cyprus

 All are welcome to each day of the conference.

Join us for the keynote lecture and two days of papers on Saturday and Sunday 18-19 February.

Friday 17 February 6:45 pm

The longue durée: the piedmont of the Corinthia and cycles of regionaloccupation
Prof. James C. Wright,
Bryn Mawr College and Director of the American 
School of Classical Studies in Athens

The keynote lecture will be followed by an open reception at CAARI.
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Saturday 18 February 2017

8:15
Welcome address and introduction

8:30
Ayia Varvara Asprokremmos, a Pre-Pottery Neolithic A taskscape on the 
Yialias River in central Cyprus: implications of focused resource exploitation for understanding early connections between Cyprus and the mainland
Carole McCartney

9:00
Reconstructing the palaeoenvironment in southern Cyprus and its 
interaction with the Neolithic humans: the case of Klimonas (PPNA)
Pantelitsa Mylona, Benoît Devillers and Jean-Denis Vigne

9:30
Choosing Kataliondas Kourvellos: a diachronic and contextual approach
Julien Beck and Patrizia Birchler Emery

10:00
Building a central place in Neolithic Cyprus
Andrew McCarthy

10:30 COFFEE BREAK

11:00
Weather forecast: heavy rains over Khirokitia
Alain Le Brun

11:30
The value of place in Chalcolithic Cyprus: a view from Souskiou
Sam Crooks

12:00
Middle to Late Chalcolithic Cyprus: the landscape perspective
Charalambous Paraskeva

12:30
Beyond the dots: the transformation of the settlement pattern and 
the strategies of land use in Bronze Age Southwestern Cyprus:
Francesca Chelazzi

13:00 LUNCH

14:30
Marki Alonia: a long-lived Early and Middle Bronze Age settlement in 
the Alykos Valley
Jennifer Webb

15:00
On the western front: the Dhiarizos Valley in the Early and Middle 
Cypriot periods
Lisa Graham and Andrew McCarthy

15:30
Drifting down the big still river: Erimi Laonin tou Porakou in its 
ecological context during the Middle Bronze Age
Caterina Scirè Calabrisotto, Mari Yamasaki and Luca Bombardieri

16:00
Preliminary geoarchaeological studies on the human-landscape spatial 
manifestation across the Yialias and Pedieos rivers before the dawn of city-kingdoms
Annita Antoniadou

16:30
The Ayios Sozomenos Survey 2016 preliminary results: exploring Bronze Age regional settlement patterns in a fortified landscape
Eilis Monahan and Despina Pilides

17:00
Environmental change and state-level agency in protohistoric Cyprus: infilling of the Yialias Ria
Michael Brown and Benoît Devillers

19:00 RECEPTION FOR PARTICIPANTS

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Sunday 18 February 2017

9:00
Sites, rivers and hinterland: site organisation and interaction in SE 
Cyprus during the Late Bronze Age
Jan Coenaerts

9:30
Exploring the materiality of water in Late Bronze Age Cyprus
Louise Steel

10:00
Investigating the interplay between human society, environmental 
impact, and artistic production in Bronze and Iron Age Cyprus: preliminary results and future directions
Zuzana Chovanec

10:30 COFFEE BREAK

11:00
Unlocking sacred landscapes: a holistic approach to Cypriot 
sanctuaries and religion
Giorgos Papantoniou

11:30
Idalion in its landscape
Pamela Gaber

12:00
From royal palace to desert Kastro: the Amathus acropolis through the ages
Thierry Petit

12:30
Settled and sacred landscapes of Cyprus: environment, settlement and 
territoriality in the valley of Xeros in Late Antiquity
Athanasios K. Vionis

13:00 LUNCH

14:30
Settlement and topography in Early Byzantine Cyprus
Charles A. Stewart

15:00
Town and country in Late Antique and Medieval Cyprus
Lisa Kennan and Andrew McCarthy

15:30
Mining landscapes of Solea changing through time
Vasiliki Kassianidou

16:00
MPM PROJECT: surveys, studies of landscape archaeology and 
geo-archaeological prospecting in the Moni Valley system
Oliva Menozzi, Eugenio di Valerio, Silvano Agostini, Maria Giorgia di Antonio and Serena Torello Di Nino

16:30
The infinite web: interactions and mobilities along the Northern Troodos
Michael Given

17:00 Closing remarks and discussion

CAARI’s New Petrographic Thin-Section Laboratory

CAARI is eagerly anticipating the arrival of our top of the line Buehler thin section equipment that will be part of our new Petrographic Thin Section Laboratory, the only one in Cyprus. Through generous funding from the United States Department of Education, CAARI has been able to purchase this specialized equipment that will allow researchers to prepare and analyze thin sections for use in geology, ceramic studies, osteology or any other discipline that uses this technique.

CAARI will house our equipment at the University of Cyprus laboratories, and university staff and students will make use of and maintain the equipment. This arrangement is an excellent way for CAARI to join forces with the superb facilities at the University of Cyprus, and allows CAARI affiliates to make the most of collaborative scientific studies. We are very proud to be able to bring this equipment to Cyprus. The equipment is expected to arrive early in 2017. It will open a new realm of scientific possibilities to researchers in the Mediterranean.

CAARI’s October Reception at the Embassy of Cyprus

During the October hearings on the renewal of Cyprus’ Memorandum of Understanding, CAARI co-hosted a program and reception at the Embassy of Cyprus. Attendees learned about the wide range of diplomatic, legal, regulatory, and policing initiatives being implemented by the Republic of Cyprus to halt illegal trafficking of cultural heritage. They also gained a vivid glimpse of the way individual archaeologists – if they have the imagination that CAARI’s Director, Andrew McCarthy has – can use their digs to protect them. Dr. McCarthy showed how he initiated a festive annual cook-off in a village near his site by replicating the extraordinary prehistoric roasting pit found there, and putting it to use. Villagers and visitors alike gained a new appreciation for the site, and for the way it could bring value to the surrounding community.

The program’s distinguished participants were: Dr. Leonidas Pantelides, Ambassador of the Republic of Cyprus; Dr. Marina Solomidou-Ieronymidou, Director of the Department of Antiquities, Republic of Cyprus; Dr. Andrew McCarthy, CAARI Director; Mr. Michalis Gavrielides, Police Inspector, Cultural Heritage Office, Cyprus Police; Dr. Evangelini Markou, Numismatist-Researcher, National Research Institute-Athens.

The Potential of Digital Archaeology at the Athienou Archaeological Project

Check out Jody Gordon (Wentworth Institute of Technology) discuss the role of 3D printing and digital archaeology more broadly at the Athienou Archaeological Project (AAP).

https://youtu.be/gXzZvZxYwRI

 

For more on this project and the work of the AAP team of Michael Toumazou, Erin Walcek Averett, and Derek Counts, check out their contribution to their edited book Mobilizing the Past for a Digital Future: The Potential of Digital Archaeology (The Digital Press at the University of North Dakota: Grand Forks, ND 2016) or download the entire book for free here.