Traditional Ploughing at Byhamu

Traditional ploughing at Byhamu | Source: community.topoi.org/web/revolutions/

The revolutions workshop will examine the transition from the Epipalaeolithic/Mesolithic to the Neolithic, and the emergence of food-­pr­oducing economies in countries that border the Mediterranean Sea. Rather than discussing domestication itself, it aims to examine the processes of Neolithisation over the broader region. The chaired sessions within the roundtable workshop will begin with brief summaries of the papers, then focus upon discussion between the individual session participants before the broader group of roundtable participants and audience debates them.

The key issues that this workshop aims to address are:

  • The reasons and temporal pace of change from non-food producing to food-producing groups.
  • The extent to which indigenous changes within technology, storage and increasing sedentism characterise the transition to food production between the Epipalaeolithic/Mesolithic and the Neolithic, and the degree of any interaction between immigrant farmers and indigenous groups.
  • The potential impact of wider and local environmental change upon the emergence of food-producing economies.
  • The effects of human and object relationships; how did the introduction of farming change existing technologies and what impact did this new technology and objects have on human groups?
  • The ecological, social, and cognitive consequences of tending ­animals and plants.
    The directionality of movement of human groups and animals within these contexts.
Book of Abstracts

Download the Book of Abstracts [PDF | 2,2 MB]

REGISTRATION

Revolutions Workshop PosterThe keynote lectures are open to all, but as there will be limited places at the roundtable workshop, those wishing to attend as members of the participatory audience should e-mail their interest to the organisers at: revolutions@topoi.org

Further Information

—> Giulio Lucarini
—> Revolutions on community.topoi.org

Program

29.10.2015
17:30 - 18:00
Registration
18:00 - 18:15
Introduction and Welcome
Michael Meyer
18:15 - 19:30
Rethinking the North African Neolithic: the multifaced aspects of a long-lasting revolution
Barbara Barich
19:30 - 20:00
Reception
30.10.2015
08:30 - 09:00
Registration
09:00 - 10:15
Where has 50 years of research on the Mediterranean Neolithic got us to?
Keynote Lecture
Graeme Barker
10:15 - 10:20
Opening of the Revolutions Workshop
10:20 - 10:40
Early livestock in Egypt: the current state of archaeozoological research
Veerle Linseele
10:40 - 11:00
Use of wild plant resources in the Early Neolithic: an indication for continuity between the Mesolithic and Neolithic plant based subsistence?
Elena Marinova
11:00 - 11:20
Tea break
11:20 - 11:40
A disowned nobility: the role and exploitation of wild plants in North Africa during the Holocene, analyzed through an integrated functional analysis on stone tools
Giulio Lucarini
11:40 - 12:00
The inception of dairying practices across Holocene North Africa: a combined archaeological, molecular and isotopic approach
Julie Dunne
12:00 - 13:00
Discussion
13:00 - 14:30
Lunch
14:30 - 14:50
The peopling of the “Green Sahara”. Modelling the demographic and dietary response to Holocene climate change
Katie Manning
Adrian Timpson
14:50 - 15:10
Caught in the current: maritime connectivity, insularity, and the spread of the Neolithic
Helen Dawson
15:10 - 15:30
Tea break
15:30 - 15:50
An isotopic view on the spread of the Neolithic in the central Mediterranean
Marcello A. Mannino
15:50 - 16:10
By sail and by land: comparing the maritime and inland streams of Neolithisation across the western Balkans
Marc Vander Linden
16:10 - 17:30
Discussion
17:30 - 19:00
Ingenuity, contingency and exigency: a new model of the origins and spread of food production in southwest Asia and North Africa
Keynote lecture
Fekri A. Hassan
31.10.2015
09:30 - 09:50
The Epipalaeolithic prelude to farming in Morocco
Nick Barton
09:50 - 10:10
The Neolithic transition in northeastern Morocco
Jörg Linstädter
10:10 - 10:30
The Neolithisation process in Nubia: new and old data
10:30 - 10:50
Tea break
10:50 - 10:10
Revolution(s) in Egypt. Over a century of research on the Egyptian Neolithic
Agnieszka Mączyńska
11:10 - 11:30
New perspectives and methods applied to the "known" settlement of Merimde Beni Salama, Western Nile Delta
Joanne Rowland
11:30 - 12:30
Discussion
12:30 - 14:00
Lunch
14:00 - 14:20
Revolutions of the (middle) Nile: the dynamics of a Holocene riverscape
Annett Dittrich
14:20 - 14:40
From complex hunter-gatherers in the Eastern Sahara to the Early Nile Neolithic
Karin Kindermann
Heiko Riemer
14:40 - 15:00
The herding revolution in the desert: adoption, adaptation, and social evolution in the Negev and Levantine deserts
Steven Rosen
15:00 - 15:20
Tea break
15:20 - 15:40
Evolution and innovation in lithic technology in the course of the development of agriculture in Neolithic Egypt
Noriyuki Shirai
15:40 - 16:00
A multiple-scale approach to the Neolithisation of Lower Egypt
Geoffrey Tassie
16:00 - 17:00
Discussion