Why we need new spectacles: Mapping the experiential dimension in prehistoric Cretan landscapes

The Bronze to Iron Age transition in Crete, a period of state collapse and insecurity, saw the island's rugged, high-contrast topography used in striking new ways. The visual drama of many of the new site locations has stimulated significant research over the last hundred years, with explanation of the change as the main focus. The new sites are not monumental in character: the vast majority are settlements, and much of the information about them comes from survey. Perhaps as a result, the new site map has not been much studied from phenomenological perspectives. A focus on the visual and experiential aspects of the new landscape can offer valuable insights into social structures at this period, and illuminate social developments prefiguring the emergence of polis states in Crete by c. 700 BC. To develop, share and evaluate this type of integrated study, digital reconstructive techniques are still under-used in this region. I highlight their potential value in addressing a regularly-identified shortcoming of phenomenological approaches-their necessarily subjective emphasis.

Why we need new spectacles: Mapping the experiential dimension in prehistoric Cretan landscapes

The Bronze to Iron Age transition in Crete, a period of state collapse and insecurity, saw the island's rugged, high-contrast topography used in striking new ways. The visual drama of many of the new site locations has stimulated significant research over the last hundred years, with explanation of the change as the main focus. The new sites are not monumental in character: the vast majority are settlements, and much of the information about them comes from survey. Perhaps as a result, the new site map has not been much studied from phenomenological perspectives. A focus on the visual and experiential aspects of the new landscape can offer valuable insights into social structures at this period, and illuminate social developments prefiguring the emergence of polis states in Crete by c. 700 BC. To develop, share and evaluate this type of integrated study, digital reconstructive techniques are still under-used in this region. I highlight their potential value in addressing a regularly-identified shortcoming of phenomenological approaches-their necessarily subjective emphasis.

Early–Middle Holocene vegetation history, climate change and human activities at Lago Riane (Ligurian Apennines, NW Italy)

The radiocarbon-dated palaeoecological study of Lago Riane (Ligurian Apennines, NW Italy) presented here forms part of a wider investigation into the relationships between Holocene vegetation succession, climate change and human activities in the northern Apennines. The record of vegetation history from Lago Riane indicates that, since the end of the last glaciation, climate change and prehistoric human activities, combined with several local factors, have strongly influenced the pattern and timing of natural vegetation succession. The pollen record indicates an important change in vegetation cover at Lago Riane at ~8500–8200 cal. years b.p., coincident with a well-known period of rapid climate change. At ~6100 cal. years b.p., Fagus woodland colonised Lago Riane during a period of climate change and expansion of Late Neolithic human activities in the upland zone of Liguria. A marked decline in Abies woodland, and the expansion of Fagus woodland, at ~4700 cal. years b.p., coincided with further archaeological evidence for pastoralism in the mountains of Liguria during the Copper Age. At ~3900–3600 cal. years b.p. (Early to Middle Bronze Age transition), a temporary expansion of woodland at Lago Riane has been provisionally attributed to a decline in human pressure on the environment during a period of short-term climate change

New animals, new landscapes and new worldviews: the Iron Age to Roman transition at Fishbourne

Anthropologists and cultural geographers have long accepted that animals play an important role in the creation of human cultures. However, such beliefs are yet to be embraced by archaeologists, who seldom give zooarchaeological data much consideration beyond the occasional economic or environmental reconstruction. In an attempt to highlight animal remains as a source of cultural information, this paper examines the evidence for the changing relationship between people and wild animals in Iron Age and Roman southern England. Special attention is given to ‘exotic’ species — in particular fallow deer, domestic fowl and the hare — whose management increased around AD 43. In Iron Age Britain the concept of wild game reserves was seemingly absent, but the post-Conquest appearance of new landscape features such as vivaria, leporaria and piscinae indicates a change in worldview from a situation where people seemingly negotiated with the ‘wilderness’ and ‘wild things’ to one where people felt they had the right or the responsibility to bring them to order. Using Fishbourne Roman Palace as a case study, we argue that wild and exotic animals represented far more than gastronomic treats or symbols of Roman identity, instead influencing the way in which people engaged with, traversed and experienced their surroundings.

K-T transition in Deccan traps of central India marks major marine seaway across India.

Deccan intertrappean sediments in central India are generally considered as terrestrial deposits of Maastrichtian age, but the Cretaceous–Tertiary (K–T) position is still unknown. Here we report the discovery of the K–T transition, a marine incursion and environmental changes preserved within the intertrappean sediments at Jhilmili, Chhindwara District, Madhya Pradesh. Integrative biostratigraphic, sedimentologic, mineralogic and chemostratigraphic analyses reveal the basal Danian in the intertrappean sediments between lower and upper trap basalts that regionally correspond to C29r and the C29R/C29N transition, respectively. Intertrappean deposition occurred in predominantly terrestrial semi-humid to arid environments. But a short aquatic interval of fresh water ponds and lakes followed by shallow coastal marine conditions with brackish marine ostracods and early Danian zone P1a planktic foraminifera mark this interval very close to the K–T boundary. This marine incursion marks the existence of a nearby seaway, probably extending inland from the west through the Narmada and Tapti rift valleys. The Jhilmili results thus identify the K–T boundary near the end of the main phase of Deccan eruptions and indicate that a major seaway extended at least 800 km across India.