ArchAtlas: Workshops

Workshop 2009

Title: Routes and Landscapes in Eurasia: exchange and movement from prehistory to the present
Organized by: Toby Wilkinson & Sue Sherratt
Date: 7 March 2009
Venue: Department of Archaeology, University of Sheffield

List of Papers

About the Workshop
1. It has long been recognised that the exchange of goods, people and ideas is instrumental in social change through human history. Archaeological accounts have tended to be one of two types: (1) material-led analyses of the distributions of objects, aided by scientific provenance studies; or (2) more general theoretical approaches addressing the possible mechanisms of exchange based on ideas from anthropology and economics. While both have been successful in recognising patterns in the material, and critiquing assumptions of our modern worldview, the missing factor has often been the mechanisms of movement, and the specific routes by which such exchanges could have taken place. A detailed understanding of the landscapes within which past peoples moved is thus necessary. Though there are significant challenges, this is increasingly becoming possible with GIS and remote sensing data, where the opportunities of advanced mapping combining multiple datasets allow archaeologists to return to the specificity of the landscape, rather than an abstract notion of space. They also make it possible to take account of both phenomenological understandings of landscape and map-based mathematical approaches to terrain and environment. The participants in this workshop showcase their work on routes, and address a set of questions on the importance of routes to exchange, and the ability of archaeology to solve such problems:
  - To what extent can archaeology be used to trace ancient routes of trade, migration or cultural exchange?
  - How can new technologies (GIS, remote sensing, predictive modelling, digital mapping) help us to approach routes of movement in the past?
  - How can we model the nature of route systems using new GIS technologies combined with social theory?
  - How do trade routes come into being?
  - In what way do landscape types affect movement of goods, people and ideas?
  - How do formalised systems of trade function differently from more informal exchanges?
  - How do polities attempt to control routes, and how can we visualise this?
  - Can we identify route 'bypassing', such as smuggling? What role do environments play in this? What effects can such 'short-circuits' have?
  - What makes a potential route an actual route? When can we call a route of movement a trade route? Are there different levels or kinds of movement?
  - What is the long-term relationship between routes and settlement growth & decline?
  - What are the effects of different route types (eg. the geometrical nature of Roman roads vs. mountain pathways which snake across passes) on social development, and on the nature of exchange?
  - What lessons can we take from anthropological and/or historical accounts of routes?

Workshop 2007

Title: Mapping Human History from Space: Tells, Routes and Archaeogeography in the Near East
Organized by: Susan Sherratt
Date: 3 March 2007
Venue: Department of Archaeology, University of Sheffield

List of Papers

About the Workshop
1. Mapping Human History from Space took place on 3rd March 2007. The aim of this one-day Workshop was to explore and demonstrate the exciting possibilities offered by the combination of satellite imagery, GIS techniques, environmental and palaeogeographical data, and information from archaeological surveys to reconstruct early settlement history in the Near East. Seven scholars from the United Kingdom, USA, Germany, Switzerland and Turkey, all actively engaged in using satellite imagery and GIS techniques to illuminate various aspects of the archaeology of this crucial part of the ancient world, presented their research at the Department of Archaeology, University of Sheffield. The abstracts and presentations from the Workshop are published here as visual essays on the ArchAtlas website. Together they show the wealth and breadth of the possible applications of these techniques. The wide-ranging discussion of the advantages of using such combined approaches to create a more integrated view of Old World prehistory and history which followed the lectures are reflected in the presentations as they are published here.
  
  The event was also an opportunity to discuss the future development of ArchAtlas itself, the results of which will be shown in the changes and advances to be seen in the forthcoming Edition 3 of the website! In particular, we hope that this will be the first in a regular series of Workshops to be published in the new ArchAtlas Journal in formats which would not be possible in traditional print media.