Yes / After more than 3500 years of occupation in the Neolithic and Bronze Age, the many lake-dwellings’ around the Circum-Alpine region ‘suddenly’ came to an end. Throughout that period alternating phases of occupation and abandonment illustrate how resilient lacustrine populations were against change: cultural/environmental factors might have forced them to relocate temporarily, but they always returned to the lakes. So why were the lake-dwellings finally abandoned and what exactly happened towards the end of the Late Bronze Age that made the lake-dwellers change their way of life so drastically? The new research presented here draws upon the results of a four-year-long project dedicated to shedding light on this intriguing conundrum. Placing a particular emphasis upon the Bronze Age, a multidisciplinary team of researchers has studied the lake-dwelling phenomenon inside out, leaving no stones unturned, enabling identification of all possible interactive socio-economic and environmental factors that can be subsequently tested against each other to prove (or disprove) their validity. By re-fitting the various pieces of the jigsaw a plausible, but also rather unexpected, picture emerges. / Swiss National Science Foundation

This Project examines the coexistence of two cultures?–?in this case the host Gulf, and the imported Western?–?and addresses certain problems that still need attention. This Project celebrates the creation of the third, hybrid, culture as a result of their intermingling. In this Research, Postcolonial Theory? and Transitional Object Theory? are used as conceptual frameworks, and are combined with Archaeology and Design as a practice. On a personal level, the Project evolved out of my cross-cultural origin and experiences. On an academic level, the Project serves as an experiment, trying to fill the gaps in the Gulf region’s search for identity. This Project utilized Design in two phases, initially during the research, and then as tool?/ language to mediate the issues found within the cross-cultural context. The Project explores and questions the ways in which artifacts/objects alter our perception, experience and memory. On an interdisciplinary level, this Project claims that Design?–?as a discipline –?is integrated in the process of curating memories through the creation of physical objects. Since objects have always been used as tools to dictate the narratives of our social memory, questions of power and control are essential – the current status of this region is a third culture, a hybrid product of Culture ‘A’ and Culture ‘B’. This project is interested in mechanisms that can be used to preserve this interesting phenomena often stigmatized as negative.

This research explores the world of material belongings of Muslim Syrian newcomer/refugee families as they establish themselves in Canada since 2015. The study centers the cultural and emotional meanings of the material belongings by looking at both those that are brought with the newcomers and those that are left behind. It aims to shed light on how these objects hold memories and connect refugees to their cultural and personal histories while also examining the role of displacement in this context. Additionally, it investigates the different perspectives between generations by looking into how the value and meaning of belongings may alter between older and younger family members. The key questions of the study develop at the intersection of material culture and forced migration. It first examines whether material belongings hold a significant place in the everyday lives of refugees and how this reflects on their memories. Secondly, it considers if migration and the experience that comes with it alters refugees’ attachments to their material belongings and leads to changing their sentimental value over time. Thirdly, it evaluates whether the decision-making process behind what refugees choose to bring with them and what they decide to leave behind is affected under distressing circumstances. Methodologically, the study offers an alternative ethnographic approach by braiding migrant narratives with object biographies, shifting the subject of the narrative toward a demonstration of the interrelationships of persons and things. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

Yes / The biographical approach has been applied to many studies of European prehistoric metal­ working which frequently discuss the potential for recycling metalwork through melting to create new objects, drawing influence from the many ‘founders hoards’ known from across Europe. An agglomerate of half ­molten bronze objects from Switzerland suggests that such recycling practices occurred there, although previous archaeometallurgical analysis has indicated that such practices were temporally limited. This article focuses on an alternative form of recycling — the direct conversion of one object into another through cutting and reshaping — observed on several razors from Late Bronze Age (LBA) lake ­dwelling contexts in Switzerland. Atypical decorative motifs on these razors identify them as having been cut from arm­ or leg­ring jewellery pieces. It is suggested that these ‘ring­razors’ were valued as individualized objects and created as personal mnemonic devices. / Swiss National Science Foundation

No / Over 150 years of research in the Circum-Alpine region have produced a vast amount of data on the lakeshore and wetland settlements found throughout the area. Particularly in the northern region, dendrochronological studies have provided highly accurate sequences of occupation, which have correlated, in turn, to palaeoclimatic reconstructions in the area. The result has been the general conclusion that the lake-dwelling tradition was governed by climatic factors, with communities abandoning the lakeshore during periods of inclement conditions, and returning when the climate was more favourable. Such a cyclical pattern occurred from the 4th millennium BC to 800 BC, at which time the lakeshores were abandoned and never extensively re-occupied. Was this final break with a long-lasting tradition solely the result of climatic fluctuation, or were cultural factors a more decisive influence for the decline of lake-dwelling occupation? Studies of material culture have shown that some of the Late Bronze Age lake-dwellings in the northern Alpine region were significant centres for the production and exchange of bronzework and manufactured products, linking northern Europe to the southern Alpine forelands and beyond. However, during the early Iron Age the former lake-dwelling region does not show such high levels of incorporation to long-distance exchange systems. Combining the evidence of material culture studies with occupation patterns and burial practices, this volume proposes an alternative to the climatically-driven models of lake-dwelling abandonment. This is not to say that climate change did not influence those communities, but that it was only one factor among many. More significantly, it was a combination of social choice to abandon the shore, and subsequent cultural developments that inhibited the full scale reoccupation of the lakes. / Swiss National Science Foundation