Environmental Archaeology : Current Theoretical and Methodological Approaches

This book aims to thoroughly discuss new directions of thinking in the arena of environmental archaeology and test them by presenting new practical applications.

Recent theoretical and epistemological advancement in the field of archaeology calls for a re-definition of the subdiscipline of environmental archaeology and its position within the practise of archaeology.

New technological and methodological discoveries in hard sciences and computer applications opened fresh ways for interdisciplinary collaborations thus introducing new branches and specialisations that need now to be accommodated and integrated within the previous status-quo.

This edited volume will take the challenge and engage with contemporary international discussions about the role of the discipline within the general framework of archaeology. By drawing upon these debates, the contributors to this volume will rethink what environmental archaeology is and what kind of input the investigation of this kind of materiality has to the reconstruction of human history and sociality. 

Evangelia Pişkin received her PhD from Leicester University, UK. She is Associated Professor at the Department of Settlement Archaeology, Middle East Technical University, Turkey. Her work focuses on zooarchaeological studies. She has taken part in more than 20 excavations and various research projects funded by national and international bodies such as British Academy, British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey, Wenner-Gren Foundation and own University funded projects.

Arkadiusz Marciniak holds PhD from the University of Poznań, Poland, where he currently works as a Professor of Archaeology. His major research interest comprises the development of early farming communities in the eastern Mediterranean and western Asia and their progression to complex societies. He is one of the directors of large excavation project at the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük. His other interests comprise a history of archaeologicalthought as well as social and political circumstances of the development of archaeological theories. He is author and editor of ten books and dozens of articles in peer-reviewed journals.

Marta Bartkowiak received her M.A. at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, and she is currently completing her PhD dissertation regarding the problem of introduction and intensification of production and consumption of milk and dairy products among the Neolithic communities of NW Anatolia and Central Serbia. Her research interests encompass archaeology of food, biomolecular archaeology as well as application of up-to-date methods from field of chemistry and biology on the ground of archaeology. She is also interested in socio-cultural transformations of communities from Neolithic Anatolia, the Near East and the Balkan Peninsula. Moreover she participated in many international projects such as Catalhoyuk Research Project, Seshat: Global History Databank, NeoMilk - The Milking Revolution in Temperate Neolithic Europe, The times of their lives: towards precise narratives of change for the European Neolithic through formal chronological modelling. She was a PhD fellowship holder of LeCHE Project (Lactase Persistence and Cultural History of Europe) funded by 7th EU framework Marie Curie Initial Training Networks (FP7-ITN-215362-2).