Tracing Prehistoric Social Networks through Technology (Routledge Studies in Archaeology)

This volume investigates smaller and larger networks of contacts within and across the Aegean and nearby regions, covering periods from the Neolithic until Classical times (6000–323 BC). It explores the world of technologies, crafts and archaeological 'left-overs' in order to place social and technological networks in their larger economic and political contexts. By investigating ways of production, transport/distribution, and consumption, this book covers a chronologically large period in order to expand our understanding of wider cultural developments inside the geographical boundaries of the Aegean and its regions of contact in the east Mediterranean.

This book brings together scholars’ expertise in a variety of different fields ranging from historical archaeology (using textual evidence), archaeometry, geoarchaeology, experimental work, archaeobotany, and archaeozoology. Chapters in this volume study and contextualize archaeological remains and explore networks of crafts-people, craft traditions, or people who employed various technologies to survive. Central questions in this context are how and why traditions, techniques, and technologies change or remain stable, or where and why cross-cultural boundaries developed and disintegrated.

Ann Brysbaert holds an MA and PhD in Archaeology, and a BSc (Hons) in Archaeological Conservation. She has conducted fieldwork in Greece, U.K., Italy, Belgium, Turkey, Syria, Israel, and Egypt both as archaeologist and as archaeological conservator. She currently holds an Alexander von Humboldt Senior Fellowship at the University of Heidelberg, Institut für Ur-und Frühgeschichte und Vorderasiatische Archäologie.

Together with colleagues from Leicester, Glasgow and Exeter she received a 5-year research grant from the Leverhulme Trust for an innovating interdisciplinary project called ‘Tracing Networks in the Ancient Mediterranean and Beyond’. She is especially interested in looking at ancient technologies and materials from an interdisciplinary perspective, combining archaeometric work with social theoretical approaches. She regularly publishes on the theme of painted plaster, cross-craft interaction and craft specialisation, and material culture.