Theme:
Mediterranean seascapes
Session format:
Session, made up of a combination of papers, max. 15 minutes each
Title:
Defining the environmental framework of Neolithisation. Human-environment interactions during the Early-Middle Holocene in the Western Mediterranean.
Content:
The Mediterranean Sea played an important role in the process of expansion of the farming lifestyle, reaching the westernmost part of the Mediterranean region in the second half of the 8th millennium cal BP. The adoption of an economy based on agriculture and husbandry, the establishment in permanent settlements, increasing population and the intensive and reiterative resources exploitation implied significant landscape transformation from the Neolithic onwards in the Western Mediterranean region. Geoarchaeological research in coastal areas and in Mediterranean islands becomes especially interesting given the role of the Mediterranean Sea in the Neolithic expansion. In that sense, palaeoclimatic and environmental changes and the impact of sea level and shoreline displacements would have affected on the settlement of prehistoric societies in coastal areas.
This session seeks to reconstruct the environmental framework of Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in the Western Mediterranean and assessing landscape transformation by first farming societies (Neolithic-Bronze Age) in this area. It will be of special interest including studies identifying natural and anthropogenic forcings in building coastal landscapes during Prehistoric times, as well as the impacts of sea level and coastline changes on settlement since Early Holocene. In that context, works related with subsistence strategies in Mediterranean coastal settlements will be of special interest, as well as studies addressing the human colonisation of Western Mediterranean Islands during the Early-Middle Holocene.
Keywords:
Geoarchaeology, Palaeoecology, Neolithic, Western Mediterranean
Session associated with MERC:
no
Session associated with CIfA:
no
Session associated with SAfA:
no
Main organiser:
Dr. Jordi Revelles (Spain) 1
Co-organisers:
Dr. Matthieu Ghilardi (France) 2
Dr. Kevin Walsh (United Kingdom) 3
Affiliations:
1. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
2. CEREGE-CNRS
3. University of York
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