Archaeological Review from Cambridge - 35.2: Knowledge-scapes
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Item Open Access “Stick Them with the Pointy End”: The Knowledge-scape of Sword Fighting in Archaic Central Italy(Archaeological Review from Cambridge, 2021-01-01) Scarsella, Elena; Montes-Landa, Julia; Jürcke, Friederike; Cecarelli, AlessandroLearning to fight with a sword is not a straightforward task: it takes years and intense practice to master a fighting discipline. Although having previous knowledge on how to use a different sword can be useful, it does not guarantee quick learning. In the case of warrior societies, investing into the training becomes a matter of survival, as warriors entrust their weaponry with their lives. Around the end of the seventh century BC, a radical change in sword typology involved most of Central Italy. Although the area of origin of these new objects is still unclear, they soon appeared all over the region under examination. In this paper, I will investigate the mechanisms of reception, appropriation and local adaptation of a communal and widespread combat style in order to outline their role in the definition of Central Italian pre-Roman identity/identities.Item Open Access Esoteric Botanical Knowledge-scapes of Medieval Iberia(Archaeological Review from Cambridge, 2021-01-01) Prado, Shalen; Montes-Landa, Julia; Jürcke, Friederike; Cecarelli, AlessandroEsoteric texts containing botanical knowledge-scapes provide robust complementary data for paleoethnobotanical analyses. These data fill in the gaps for our interpretations of plant taxa that are often archaeologically invisible and provide more detail about the complex relationships between the people of the past and archaeologically visible plant remains. These texts also contain information that cannot be accessed through archaeology alone, such as the ‘qualities’ of plants that are determined by celestial bodies within the ‘great chain of being’ (among other factors). Lastly, such texts provide details on the sources and distribution of plants across the Medieval world (e.g. geographic indicators). Using the Picatrix, the Latin translation of an earlier Arabic esoteric text, the Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm, it is argued that esoteric texts have multiple applications for archaeological investigations that use paleoethnobotanical analyses.Item Open Access A Tale of Red and Black: Reconstructing Transfer of Knowledge in Late Chalcolithic Cyprus(Archaeological Review from Cambridge, 2021-01-01) Hadjigavriel, Maria; Montes-Landa, Julia; Jürcke, Friederike; Cecarelli, AlessandroThis paper focuses on the interactions between communities in Late Chalcolithic Cyprus (c.2900/2700–2400 BC), when several red and black burnished pottery types were produced across the island. The aim is to investigate what that interaction can tell us about the sharing of technological knowledge between communities in western Cyprus, and about knowledge-scapes connecting communities of practice and sites. This paper builds upon studies on mobility, technology, and the social value of technology. A comparative macroscopic study of red monochrome pottery from three sites situated along western Cyprus is conducted to shed light on the intensity, nature and degree of contacts between these communities at the time. Specifically, the local variants of Red and Black Stroke Burnished Ware from Lemba-Lakkous, Kissonerga-Mosphilia and Chlorakas-Palloures are examined.Item Open Access ‘Cheese-scapes’: An Ethnoarchaeological Study of the Traditional Production of Halloumi in Cyprus(Archaeological Review from Cambridge, 2021-01-01) Laoutari, Rafael; Montes-Landa, Julia; Jürcke, Friederike; Cecarelli, AlessandroSince the introduction of the ‘Secondary Products Revolution’ by Sherratt in 1981, the importance of secondary products in the development of past societies has been discussed in numerous studies. The large-scale focus of these scholarly works overlooks the role of the secondary products in everyday life. Researchers have approached dairy products based on material culture, iconography, faunal remains, texts and recently, through lipids analysis and paleo-genetics. Nevertheless, the practice of using milk for making by-products has rarely been approached in terms of the associated primary activities. Consequently, this paper introduces the concept of ‘cheese-scape’ (the ‘knowledge-scape’ of cheese production) for further developing some of the implications of secondary products in past communities. Using ethnoarchaeology, the ‘cheese-scape’ unfolds in the traditional production of halloumi in Cyprus and provides a framework for the investigation of past societies where dairying was practised.Item Open Access Knowledge-scapes as Resources: An Archaeological Approach to the Construction of Cultural and Social Identities(Archaeological Review from Cambridge, 2021-01-01) Schweizer, Beat; Montes-Landa, Julia; Jürcke, Friederike; Cecarelli, AlessandroConcepts of ‘cultural memory’ almost directly equate knowledge of the past with culture, usually referring to textual and/or mythological evidence. From this perspective, research on cultural knowledge has its focus on valuation and canonization in relation to the construction, sustaining or altering of identities, rather than on practical and useful skills securing subsistence. However, cultural knowledge is based not only on texts and myths, but also on things, monuments and landscapes, representations as well as body practices and emotions. Thus, knowledge-scapes as networks or meshed bundles connecting knowledge with shaped things, designed spaces and monuments, as well as associated body practices directed at senses and emotions, can be seen as resources in which cultural memories are actualized, representations of social groups are constructed and social spaces are generated. It will be argued that knowledge-scapes conceptualized as resources of identity building are closely connected to sacred spaces in a broad sense of important public spaces set apart. From an archaeological perspective, different types of features related to sacred spaces can be analysed as evidence of knowledge-scapes. The Heroon of Poseidonia/Paestum is discussed as a case study of knowledge-scapes related to the construction of the past.Item Open Access The Role of Landscape Knowledge Networks in the Early Pleistocene Technological Variability of East Africa(Archaeological Review from Cambridge, 2021-01-01) Clark, James; Linares-Matás, Gonzalo; Montes-Landa, Julia; Jürcke, Friederike; Cecarelli, AlessandroEarly human behaviour was related to the social knowledge of the landscape through an awareness of the spatio-temporal distribution of resources and the ability to successfully exploit that resource network. In this paper, we explore the dynamics of raw material procurement, technological manufacture and tool use in several Early Pleistocene assemblages from the Oldowan and Early Acheulean of East Africa. We argue that investment in lithic assemblages would have been dependent on the accumulation and consolidation of environmental knowledge through the adoption of food-procurement strategies allowing for predictable access to highly-ranked resources in open and seasonal environments. Integrating the plasticity of social knowledge networks as a population-dependent process with the relationship between procurement strategies and resource predictability within the landscape provides an interpretive framework that can explain and illustrate the broad scale technological differences present in Early Pleistocene assemblages.Item Open Access Knowledge-scapes' in Archaeology: An Introduction(Archaeological Review from Cambridge, 2021-01-01) Jürcke, Friederike; Montes-Landa, Julia; Ceccarelli, Alessandro; Montes-Landa, Julia; Jürcke, Friederike; Cecarelli, AlessandroAs part of the introduction to the ARC volume 35.2 on ‘knowledge-scapes’, this paper introduces the concept, its components and its application in archaeology. The origins, development and use of knowledge-scapes in the fields of cognitive theory and archaeology are explored and contextualized within current archaeological thinking. Practical approaches to the study of knowledge-scapes are also presented by using the papers published in this volume as case studies. These papers offer a variety of methods, datasets and approaches to identify, explore and interpret past landscapes of knowledge. We argue that the study of the dynamic transmission and transformation of knowledge in the past, including the related socio-cultural and material aspects, should be a core aspect of archaeological research.Item Open Access Contents - ARC 35.2: Knowledge-scapes(Archaeological Review from Cambridge, 2021-01-01) Montes-Landa, Julia; Jürcke, Friederike; Cecarelli, AlessandroItem Open Access Forthcoming issues, cover art, back cover(Archaeological Review from Cambridge, 2021-01-01) Montes-Landa, Julia; Jürcke, Friederike; Cecarelli, AlessandroItem Open Access The Routledge Handbook of Memory and Place Edited by Sarah De Nardi, Hilary Orange, Steven High and Eerika Koskinen-Koivisto(Archaeological Review from Cambridge, 2021-01-01) Ruf, Kim Eileen; Clark, JamesItem Open Access Handbook of Cognitive Archaeology: Psychology in Prehistory Edited by Tracy B. Henley, Matt J. Rossano and Edward P. Kardas(Archaeological Review from Cambridge, 2021-01-01) Martín-Ramos, Carmen; Clark, JamesItem Open Access Metals, Minds and Mobility: Integrating Scientific Data with Archaeological Theory Edited by Xosé-Lois Armada, Mercedes Murillo-Barroso and Mike Charlton(Archaeological Review from Cambridge, 2021-01-01) Sainsbury, Victoria A; Clark, JamesItem Open Access Ancient Knowledge Networks: A Social Geography of Cuneiform Scholarship in First-Millennium Assyria and Babylonia By Eleanor Robson(Archaeological Review from Cambridge, 2021-01-01) McGovern, Rhonda; Clark, JamesItem Open Access Knowledge-scapes as an Alternative to Long-term Geodeterminism in Travelling and Movement(Archaeological Review from Cambridge, 2021-01-01) Latorre-Ruiz, Juan; Montes-Landa, Julia; Jürcke, Friederike; Cecarelli, AlessandroHuman groups use similar routes of communication to travel between two points in the long-term, not because of the influence of geography, but because geography involves a knowledge-scape that is passed on through generations of travellers. Thus, geography is not an entity that eliminates human agency, but rather it is the place where the practical and technical knowledge necessary to travel between two points is passed down between generations of voyagers which, subsequently, causes them to use similar itineraries. To explore these ideas, pre-modern travelling around the Bay of Biscay, between northern Iberia and western France, is employed as a case study. The interval analysed is placed between the Bronze Age, when the coasts of the bay started to resemble those of today, to Late Antiquity, when pre-modern orientation methods started to be replaced by modern ones (2300 BC–AD 1000). This study focuses on sea routes, which are analysed using archaeological evidence and written sources, although the same ideas could be applied to land routes.Item Open Access Traditions of the Separate: Creation of Wetland Deposition Knowledge-scapes(Archaeological Review from Cambridge, 2021-01-01) Treadway, Tiffany; Montes-Landa, Julia; Jürcke, Friederike; Cecarelli, AlessandroOur interpretations of British prehistoric deposition practices have been greatly influenced by classical sources and inherited wisdom. However, with the expansion of artefact databases, reanalysis is required to reconsider what is known about wetland deposition in relation to British Iron Age activity. To do so, we must understand how archived physical evidence has been interpreted, and as a result, created certain biases in modern understandings. This paper proposes the use of amalgamated object records to refine British Iron Age wetland depositional traditions in Wales and Scotland.Item Open Access Cover - ARC 35.2: Knowledge-scapes(Archaeological Review from Cambridge, 2021-03-01) Montes-Landa, Julia; Jürcke, Friederike; Cecarelli, Alessandro; Ricci, Matilde