Plants as material culture in the Near Eastern Neolithic: Perspectives from the silica skeleton artifactual remains at Çatalhöyük

Investigating plants used for building and craft activities is important for understanding how environments surrounding archaeological settlements were exploited, as well as for considering the social practices involved in the creation and use of plant objects. Evidence for such plant uses has been observed at many Near Eastern Neolithic sites but not widely discussed. Survival may occur in a number of ways, including as impressions in clay, and as charred or desiccated macroremains. Another, less well-known, way in which plant artifacts can be found is as silica skeletons (phytoliths). Formed by the in situ decay of plants, their analysis may tell us about taxa exploited, and locations in which plant artifacts were used or discarded. At Çatalhöyük, an abundance of silicified traces of plants used in building materials and for craft activities survive, and are found in domestic and burial contexts. Their analysis demonstrates the routine use of wild plants, especially from wetland areas, for basketry (mats, baskets and cordage) and construction, as well as the secondary use of cereal husk chaff in certain types of building materials. The numerous finds suggest that plant-based containers played an important role as an artifactual class, even after the adoption of early pottery.     

The devolution of mudbrick: ethnoarchaeology of abandoned earthen dwellings in the Bolivian Andes

This ethno-geoarchaeological study considers the formation of archaeological deposits through a study of abandoned contemporary mudbrick structures on the Taraco Peninsula, Bolivia. The study site was a domestic compound with rooms for different functions that had been abandoned for over 50 years. Structures were in variable states of decay in terms of roof cover, walling integrity and abandonment fills. Geoarchaeological samples were collected from intact and weathered adobes, earthen hearths, mud plaster, and flooring. Adobes and mud plaster were locally derived from topsoil containing archaeological sediments with added gravel and plant temper. This study found a relatively light anthropogenic signature for decayed earthen houses.Rising damp exfoliated mud plaster despite un-mortared cobble wall foundations. Organic matter from roof fall attracted thriving soil faunal populations, which furthered site destruction through bioturbation, particularly packed earth floors. Sediments derived from weathered mudbrick retained little evidence of prior use as construction materials unless exposed to heat. Sediments exposed to high-temperatures produced the most distinctive rubified features but were structurally compromised. Isolated thermal features from decomposed adobe would not be distinguishable from other hearth types. Adobes exposed to low or moderate heat had few distinctive features in thin section. Intact adobes and floors that were not exposed to heat have fewer pores than natural sediments and distinctive grass inclusions. These adobes disarticulated into loose sediments when exposed to weathering. Adobe fall outside the crumbling structures blended into topsoil.This study sheds light on functional attributes of pre-Columbian construction practices. Thick, fine-textured sterile flooring is commonly encountered in the study region. This would control bioturbation from roof fall in a previous occupation enabling reconstruction in abandoned dwellings. In contrast to the contemporary dwelling, prehistoric mortared cobble foundations would resist rising damp. Cobbles without mortar may relate more to design and construction than durability. These contrasts between contemporary and prehistory construction practices reflect differences in the design, construction costs and functional use-life of adobe structures.     

Another (mud)brick in the wall: scientific analysis of Bronze Age earthen construction materials from East Crete

Mudbricks appear to have been one of the most common building materials used in domestic architecture in Bronze Age Crete. Well-preserved earthen construction materials from the sites of Vasiliki, Makrygialos and Mochlos in East Crete have been examined with regard to their macromorphological characteristics and their mineralogical and chemical composition in order to investigate the nature of the raw materials used, the technology of manufacture and the potential use of specific recipes. The methods applied include a combination of mineralogical and chemical analytical techniques, namely petrography, neutron activation (NAA), X-ray fluorescence (XRF), and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. Finally, a range of raw materials from the immediate vicinity of each site were sampled and analyzed in order to compare with the archaeological data and identify potential sources. The analyses suggested that there is a degree of standardization in the recipes and the manufacturing process and that the selection of the raw materials depends on availability.     

Urban geoarchaeology and environmental history at the Lost City of the Pyramids,Giza: synthesis and review

Sediment accretion in ancient urban sites and tells records a combination of cultural and geomorphic processes. Urban geoarchaeology is focused on site accumulation, collapse, weathering and erosion, as constrained by architectural plans and structures. These may document settlement growth and decay, as well as environmental history, posing a multidisciplinary challenge of interactive and fluctuating processes.     

Architecture as material culture: Building form and materiality in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of Anatolia and Levant

Mudbrick technology and permanent architecture are Neolithic hallmarks but their origins are not well understood. By adopting a symmetrical approach to the examination of building materials, and contextualizing these materials within a cultural knowledge of resources and other concurrent social practices, this paper challenges environmentally determined approaches to explain the adoption of mudbrick technology during the PPNA in Anatolia, Upper Euphrates and the Levant. This research illustrates the weak correlation between architectural form and building material, suggesting that although nature provides resources, it is culture that dictates architectural form and material use. It is argued that the human-constructed environment became normalized throughout the PPNA and the social complexities of village life created a conceptual shift towards an artificial environment, supported by other changes in symbolic behavior. If building materials, such as mudbricks, were considered objects reflexive of human behavior, then we can access the complex and entangled relationship between people and things. Furthermore, the choice of building materials and their use in architecture can be considered codes of social practice and even ideology. As material culture, architecture becomes a metaphor for human engagement and symbolic communication.