abstract: This dissertation explores how practices and interactions of actors at different scales structure social networks and lead to the emergence of social complexity in middle range societies. To investigate this process, I apply a complex adaptive systems approach and a methodology that combines network science with analytical tools from economics to the three sub-periods of the Prehistoric Bronze Age (The Philia Phase, PreBA 1 and PreBA 2) on Cyprus, a transformational period marked by social and economic changes evident in the material record. Using proxy data representative of three kinds of social interactions or facets of social complexity, the control of labor, participation in trade networks, and access to resources, at three scales, the community, region and whole island, my analysis demonstrates the variability in and non-linear trajectory for the emergence of social complexity in middle range society. The results of this research indicate that complexity emerges at different scales, and times in different places, and only in some facets of complexity. Cycles of emergence are apparent within the sub-periods of the PreBA, but a linear trajectory of increasing social complexity is not evident through the period. Further, this research challenges the long-held notion that Cyprus' involvement in the international metal trade lead to the emergence of complexity. Instead, I argue based on the results presented here, that the emergence of complexity is heavily influenced by endogenous processes, particularly the social interactions that limited participation in an on-island exchange system that flourished on the island during the Philia Phase, disintegrated along the North Coast during the PreBA 1 and was rebuilt across the island by the end of the period. Thus, the variation seen in the emergence of social complexity on Cyprus during the PreBA occurred as the result of a bottom-up process in which the complex and unequal interactions and relationships between social actors structured and restructured social networks across scales differently over time and space. These results speak more broadly about the variability of middle range societies and the varying conditions under which social complexity can emerge and add to our understanding of this phenomenon. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Anthropology 2017

abstract: This dissertation research investigates both spatial and temporal aspects of Bronze Age land use and land cover in the Eastern Mediterranean using botanical macrofossils of charcoal and charred seeds as sources of proxy data. Comparisons through time and over space using seed and charcoal densities, seed to charcoal ratios, and seed and charcoal identifications provide a comprehensive view of island vs. mainland vegetative trajectories through the critical 1000 year time period from 2500 BC to 1500 BC of both climatic fluctuation and significant anthropogenic forces. This research focuses particularly on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus during this crucial interface of climatic and human impacts on the landscape. Macrobotanical data often are interpreted locally in reference to a specific site, whereas this research draws spatial comparisons between contemporaneous archaeological sites as well as temporal comparisons between non-contemporaneous sites. This larger perspective is particularly crucial on Cyprus, where field scientists commonly assume that botanical macrofossils are poorly preserved, thus unnecessarily limiting their use as an interpretive proxy. These data reveal very minor anthropogenic landscape changes on the island of Cyprus compared to those associated with contemporaneous mainland sites. These data also reveal that climatic forces influenced land use decisions on the mainland sites, and provides crucial evidence pertaining to the rise of early anthropogenic landscapes and urbanized civilization. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Geography 2013

The rock carvings in southern Scandinavia are an important part of Bronze Age research and the Scandinavian cultural heritage. There are three known sites with rock carvings on the island of Gotland. They are located in the parishes of Lärbro, Fårö, and Lye. The rock carvings on Gotland has been somewhat forgotten and are not a big part of research regarding the Bronze Age on Gotland. The aim of this thesis is to analyse the images on the rock carvings as well as analyse their placements in the landscape, both the natural and the cultural. The images will be analysed and possible interpretations of them will be discussed individually and together. Their relation to other ancient monuments and archaeological features will also be analysed. Each area’s cultural landscape where the rock carvings are present will be presented and compared with the other sites on Gotland. The result of this thesis shows that the rock carvings in Lärbro and Fårö are similar in both images and placement in the landscape. Ships, cupmarks, and weapons are among images carved at both sites. They both have a connection to fresh water and are in close proximity to stone ships. These two rock carving sites show a connection to the sea and a maritime identity in both their images and the surrounding cultural landscape. The rock carving in Lye has a smaller number of images, only cupmarks and a pair of foot soles. It is located in a different landscape which does not exhibit a connection to water in any way but instead shows a link to the land. This indicates that the rock carvings on Gotland had a connection to both the water and the land.

Ce travail s’est intéressé à la dynamique de peuplement du sud de la Sibérie et de l’Altaï à l’âge du Bronze (IIIème - Ier millénaire avant J.-C), période pendant laquelle les steppes eurasiennes auraient connues de nombreux mouvements de populations. Les analyses moléculaires ont portés sur 69 spécimens anciens. La stratégie adoptée a consisté, en plus de l’étude de l’ADN mitochondrial, à étudier les lignées paternelles de ces individus, ainsi que des marqueurs autosomaux, informatifs de leur origine biogéographique (AIM) et des caractères pigmentaires. L’ensemble des données moléculaires obtenues nous a permis de mettre en évidence une évolution du pool génique au sein de la région étudiée. Le faible effectif observé par groupe culturel ainsi que le processus de recrutement funéraire peut avoir biaisé une partie des analyses. Néanmoins, ces données moléculaires ont amené de nouveaux éléments pour la compréhension du peuplement de cette région qui apparaît comme un processus complexe. / The present work has focused on the settlement of the South Siberia and the Altai mountains during the Bronze Age (III-I millennium BC), period during which the Eurasian Steppes knew a lot of population movements. The molecular analyses were performed on 69 ancient samples. The used strategy consisted in the study of maternal and paternal lineages and autosomal markers informative of biogeographical ancestry (AIM) and physical appearance. Taken together, these results show an evolution of the genetic pool in this area during the Bronze Age. The low effective observed in each cultural group and the funeral recruitment could of course have induced a bias in some analyses. Nevertheless, these molecular data gave new elements to understand the settlement of this region which seems to be a complex process that it will be necessary to deepen with new paleogenetic even paleogenomic studies.

Através da pesquisa dos elementos verticais, presentes na maioria dos edifícios da cidade de Mália do período palacial (2300-1480 a.C.), temos como objetivo nesta dissertação de mestrado analisar a organização tridimensional das construções, tanto as privadas como as públicas. A investigação inicialmente parte das noções do conhecimento de todas propriedades e características desses mega-artefatos, os edifícios. Em seguida, busca identificar padrões e regularidades, analisando os materiais, as técnicas e as disposições das escadarias inseridas nas construções, para assim poder compreender o papel do elemento vertical na percepção do espaço entre os minóicos, a tridimensionalidade de seus edifícios, suas restrições e possíveis reestruturações de funções, pois o que restou dessas construções são apenas as rotas horizontais. Tenta-se identificar as concepções que levaram seus usuários a optar por verticalizar suas cidades. Esta pesquisa revela que os elementos verticais são essencias na paisagem em relação aos aspectos espaciais construídos; definem edifícios que se destacam e modificam o território onde viviam os minóicos. / Through the research of vertical elements, which are prevalent throughout the majority of the buildings in the palatial city of Malia (2300-1480 a.C.), we aim to analyze the spatial organization of tri-dimensional constructions, in both private and public buildings. The investigation is initially based on the notions of the knowledge of all the properties and characteristics of those mega-artefacts, the buildings. Then, identify patterns and regularities, analyzing the material, the techniques, and the layout of staircases built into the constructions, as to achieve a deeper understanding of the role the vertical element played in the perception of space among the minoans, their tridimensionality techniques, the restrictions and the possibility of restructuring functions, since what is left of the constructions is only the floor plan. We attempt to identify the conceptions that led the users to choose to make their cities vertical. This research shows how essential the vertical elements are in the landscape when built spacial aspects are concerned; they define buildings which stand out and modify the territories where the minoans lived.

A Ilíada de Homero é geralmente caracterizada como um poema que trata da Guerra de Tróia, que teria acontecido mais de 500 anos antes da composição de tal poema, e teria sido transmitido através da tradição oral, até o momento em que foi escrito pela primeira vez. Esperava-se, portanto, que os fatos narrados pelo poeta correspondessem aos achados arqueológicos encontrados para o Período Micênico, mas o que se encontra na Ilíada é uma mistura de elementos da sociedade micênica e da sociedade contemporânea a Homero, ou seja, o século VIII a.C. O estudo da relação entre documentos arqueológicos dos períodos Micênico, Proto-Geométrico e Geométrico, compreendidos entre 1550 e o final do século VIII a.C., e a Ilíada de Homero é composto por duas categorias de fontes distintas, a arqueológica e a escrita, esta como resultado de uma tradição oral que a precedeu. A presente dissertação tem como foco apresentar as informações que se podem depreender da Ilíada de Homero que, de alguma forma, contribuíram para a interpretação arqueológica e se, de tal confronto, surgiram controvérsias entre os dois tipos de fontes, levando a uma reflexão sobre a questão da continuidade e da ruptura de elementos culturais próprios da Civilização Micênica e que, de certa maneira, se refletem nos períodos posteriores em pauta. / The Iliad of Homer is generally seen as a poem about the Trojan War, which took place more than 500 years before the composition of such poem, and transmitted by oral tradition down to the moment it was written for the first time. It was hoped, therefore, that the facts narrated by its poet matched the archaeological finds for the Mycenaean Period; instead what is found in the Iliad is an ensemble of the elements of the Mycenaean society and the one contemporary to Homer, which is considered to be the eighth century B.C. The study of the relation between the Mycenaean, Proto-Geometrical, and Geometrical archaeological finds, dating from 1550 to the end of the eighth century B.C., and the Iliad of Homer is based on two different categories of sources, namely the archaeological and the literary ones, the last one being the result of an oral tradition which had preceded it. The present dissertation focuses on showing the information that can be derived from the Iliad of Homer that somehow has contributed to the archaeological interpretation and whether controversies were raised between those two kinds of sources from such a comparison, leading to a reflection about the question of either continuity or rupture of the cultural elements proper to the Mycenaean Civilization and that, in a certain way, are reflected on the later periods concerned.

(in English): This thesis aims at collecting, cataloguing and analysing bronze objects from the area of the East Aegean-West Anatolian Interface in the second millennium B.C. Based on closer typological assessment and comparanda, the question of eventual local specific production along the Interface, different from the Aegea or Eastern Mediterranean, is being investigated here. From up to 217 collected items, indeed many types of bronzes, especially swords, razors and spearheads indeed show a set of specific features. Also, the characteristic of bronze metals differs in Lower Interface with stronger minoan-mycenaen influnce from items in Upper Interface which seems to be following more anatolian features.

This thesis is a study of textile production in the Late Bronze Age, using new evidence uncovered by excavations at Ancient Eleon in Boeotia, Greece. Textile production is a nearly forgotten art. To the Mycenaeans of the Greek Late Bronze Age (ca. 1700-1100 BCE) textiles were nearly a form of currency, and a symbol of power. This thesis begins by examining the Mycenaean administration of textile production, which was systematically controlled by the palatial centres of Greece and Crete. Linear B documents record resources and workers under palatial control, and the amounts of cloth that they were expected to produce. The Mycenaean palace at Thebes was the administrative centre that controlled the region of eastern Boeotia, including sites such as Eleon. No document directly links textile production at Eleon to Thebes, but other Theban tablets and the two sites’ close proximity suggest a similar relationship to other Mycenaean centres and their dependents. Usually, ancient textiles from Greece do not survive in the archaeological record. The only evidence that remains is the Linear B archives and the tools of production. Linear B tablets have not been found at Eleon, but many spindle whorls for yarn production, loom weights for weaving, and other tools indicating the production of textiles have been recovered from the site. This thesis discusses the significance of these objects and attempts to place Eleon in the greater context of the Mycenaean textile industry. / Graduate

AJ The work is paid to the study of the Bronze Age in the territory of Cambodia. This period is dated from the year 4000. Study of the Bronze Age in Cambodia, located in the lowlands in Southeast Asia, has long been influenced by the fact that the country was in the years 1865 - 1953 French colony. And yet they were the first archaeological excavations of prehistoric loklait made in Cambodia earlier than in other countries in East and Southeast Asia. Representative of the French protectorate in Cambodia Lieutenant Jean Moura, led by a focus on prehistoric monuments, won the research in 1864, stone tools at the site near the river Samrong Sen Chinita. The findings were later moved to study in France. Samrong Sen and the location was again examined in the years 1878-1879. This was practically initiated the study of the Bronze Age in Cambodia. The present study deals with a detailed description of the geography of Cambodia, the composition of the population, society, religion and language peculiarities. The basis of the work is characteristic of the major archaeological sites of the Bronze Age, classifications and technical analysis finds of bronze objects. The work can be seen as a first overview study of the Bronze Age in the territory of Cambodia.

No description available.