Interconnections in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds

On 3 April 2019 a workshop entitled Interconnections in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds was held at the University of Crete in Rethymnon. Further information is available at https://www.history-archaeology.uoc.gr/en/archives/8073. Papers of interest to Nestor readers included:
E. Cline, “Trade Networks and Social Interactions in the Late Bronze Age Aegean and Near East”

CAA 2019

On 23-27 April 2019 the Annual Conference of Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA 2019): Check Object Integrity will be held in Kraków. Further information is available at https://2019.caaconference.org/. Papers and posters of interest to Nestor readers included:
T. Claeys, “‘Meeting The Minoans’ – an Assessment of Visitors’ Experience on a Bronze Age Archaeological Site in Crete”
G. Artopoulos and I. Romanowska, “Modelling spatial relations at Choirokoitia,”
T. Sager, “Untangling Complexities of the Cretan Postpalatial Built Environment”
B. Bogacz, N. Papadimitriou, D. Panagiotopoulos, and H. Mara, “Recovering Commonalities and Highlighting Differences in Aegean Sealings”
V. Klinkenberg and R. Timonen, “The missing landscape of the Mycenaean Argive Plain”
G. Malaperdas, V. Panagiotidis, A. Psychas, C. Maggidis, and N. Zacharias, “GPS Technology in Field Survey the Mycenaean Spercheios-Valley Archaeogeophysical Project (MY.SPE.AR. Project 2018-2022)”
A. Brysbaert, “‘Welcome to the Aegean Bronze Age’ Computer-enhanced Open Access in archaeological research”
P. Gheorghiade and H. Price, “From Local to Global: Nested Interaction and Community in Late Bronze Age Crete”

The April 2019 issue of Nestor (46.4) is available as a free download.

Dialogues in Archaeology

On 7 April titles and abstracts (up to 300 words) are due for participation in the 5η Αρχαιολογικοί Διάλογοι. 5th meeting of Dialogues in Archaeology, to be held on 31 May-2 June 2019 in Volos; submissions should be sent by email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Further information is available at http://ad2019.uth.gr/el/home.php. The central theme of the conference will be ThalassoGeographies: Sea Routes, Flows, Networks; themes will include:
• Population movements by sea, creation and development of migrant settlements through time, migrants’ professional activities and their relations with the rest of the population diachronically.
• Commercial activities, sea routes and communications, diasporas, port areas and the related human communities.
• Craft production and sea-related activities, the relationship of the sea with the residential environment and the forms of human interaction with craft/industrial space.
• Underwater antiquities (shipwrecks, harbors, sunken antiquities, prehistoric continental shelf). Management and promotion of underwater cultural resources (the conditions for the development of the sea front, alternative underwater tours, museums of underwater antiquities etc). ‘Internal’ aquatic landscapes (rivers and lakes) may be included in this section.
• Ports as cosmopolitan centres of coexistence and tolerance in diversity and hybridity.
• Migrants and indigenous: the historical background of their relations from prehistory until today.
• ‘Insularity’: islands as intermediate and transitional zones, not only literally but also metaphorically (stability of terrestrial ground versus the instability of the sea horizon’s infinity).
• Issues of shipbuilding and navigation.
• Urbanization and demographic changes throughout the centuries.

5th Symposium of Greek Gastronomy

On 30 April 2019 submissions are due for the 5th Symposium of Greek Gastronomy: Sensing the Food. 5o Συμπόσιο Ελληνικής Γαστρονομίας, to be held on 27-28 July 2019 in Chania, Crete. Abstracts (150-300 words) for 15-minute oral presentations with a biographical statement (100 words) should be submitted, with “Symposium 2019” in the email subject line. The 2019 symposium will take be held outdoors, so participants should plan to present without the use of microphones or PowerPoint. Further information is available at https://hellenicgastronomy.wordpress.com/. Proposals are invited from the fields of archaeology, history, anthropology, sociology, ethnography, cross-cultural sciences, gastronomy, geography, neurobiology, art, design and literature, particularly interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research; possible topics may include but are not limited to:
• Sensory aspects of food and gender
• Food’s sensory qualities and social class
• Food’s sensory qualities and ethnicity
• Τaste as a social sense
• Food, senses and identity
• Food - sensory memory
• Food and sensory ethnography
• Food, place and the taste of home
• Taste, smell: pleasure/disgust, pure/impure
• Food and sensory storytelling
• Senses and the interactions between humans, food and environment.
• Emotions surrounding food
• Neurogastronomy
• Food as performance art
• Making sense of multisensory food
• Culinary heritage, produits de terroir, senses and emotions
• Taste as experience
• Sensory marketing and tourist culinary experience
• Gastronomic tourism and visitors’ senses and emotions.
• Gastronomical virtual reality
• Sensory science and the food industry
• Multi-sensory food design

European Islands

On 15 May 2019 abstracts (250 words in English) are due for a conference and edited book entitled European Islands Between Isolated and Interconnected Life Worlds: Interdisciplinary Long-Term Perspectives, to be held at the University of Tübingen on 15-16 November 2019. Further information is available at https://www.academia.edu/38311244/Call_for_Papers_-_European_Islands_Between_Isolated_and_Interconnected_Life_Worlds_Interdisciplinary_Long-Term_Perspectives_Germany_Nov._15-16_2019_. Thematic questions include:
• Are island residents more attuned to climate change because of their dependence on its control?
• How are islands different from other isolated locations (e.g. desert communities)?
• Which social and societal practices are unique to small islands (<10,000 km2) vs. larger islands?
• What is the role of islands in processes of globalization?
• How do islands cope with adversity through their religious beliefs, technological outlays, regulations, and social norms? Can these practices be seen as a (cultural) resource for the islanders?
• How do we distinguish different types of identities between archipelagos and islands?
• Does the distance to the mainland play a role in island historical development? Can differences be traced between geographical regions?

Cypriot Archaeology, Pre-Modern Material Culture, and Cultural Heritage in the UK

On 5 April 2019 a symposium entitled Cypriot Archaeology, Pre-Modern Material Culture, and Cultural Heritage in the UK will be held at UCL Institute of Archaeology. Further information is available at https://maryjahariscenter.org/blog/cypriot-archaeology-pre-modern-material-culture-cultural-heritage-uk?fbclid=IwAR1XSbCX2iGqebdAySa2t1a46l-AnVIuya1q10P0birCliA1nIbBWJzBCtQ. Papers of interest to Nestor readers will include:
G. Mut, “Textiles are in the details. Looking for a Chalcolithic ‘textile culture’”
L. Crewe, “Excavating a looted cemetery: methods and results from Chalcolithic Souskiou-Laona”
E. Cory-Lopez, “Picrolite: the chaîne opératoire in a practical approach”
M. Monaco, “Exploring changes in activity patterns among Cypriot Chalcolithic and Bronze Age communities”
R. Laoutari, “Is it an ‘elite’ world? Unfolding the deathways at the Prehistoric Bronze Age Cemetery of Vounous, Cyprus”
S. Douglas, “Burials, Bodies and Objects: Using the Mortuary Record to Interpret Bronze Age Identity on Cyprus”
M. Dikomitou-Eliadou, “Early and Middle Bronze Age Lapithos X-rayed: The ReCyPot project”
R. J. Stacey, R. K. Smith, and J. Thomas-Oates, “Of opium and oil: detection of alkaloids in a Cypriot base-ring juglet”
L. Bushnell, “Opium abuse in ancient Cyprus? Out of context, it’s just fake news”
T. Humphrey, “Hierarchy and heterarchy, a brief re-exploration of Cypriot socio-political organisation in the Late Bronze Age”
M. Dolan, “Shipshape: Re-examining the role of terracotta boat models in Late Bronze and Iron Age Cyprus”
G. Papantoniou, A. K. Vionis, and D. Nicolaou, “Unlocking the Sacred Landscapes of Cyprus (UnSaLa-CY) – Settled and Sacred Landscapes of Cyprus (SeSaLaC): Two interconnected Cyprus-based Projects”

SAA 2019

On 10-14 April 2019 the Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting (SAA 2019) will be held in Albuquerque, NM. Further information is available at https://www.saa.org/annual-meeting. Papers and posters of interest to Nestor readers will include:
P. N. Kardulias, “The Ethnoarchaeology of Stone Craft Production in Athienou, Cyprus”
P. Vaiglova and A. Bogaard, “The Nitrogen Challenge at Çatalhöyük”
E. Roditi and B. Starkovich, “Were Neandertals the Original Snowbirds? Zooarchaeological Evidence from Greece”
H. Tomas, “Early Bronze Age Burial Structures of the Eastern Adriatic and Their Possible Connections with the Aegean”
A. Simmons, “Neolithic Voyagers: Why Colonize the Mediterranean Islands—The Example from Cyprus”
G. Elezi, “Manufacture of Late Neolithic Pottery from the Southern Balkans: An Integrative Approach”
Z. Chovanec, “Over Land, Sea and the Space Between: Evidence for Multi-Scalar Interactions between Eastern Mediterranean and Central European Communities during the Bronze Age”
L. Swantek, “Local Actions and Long-Distance Interactions: Challenging the Paradigm for the Emergence of Social Complexity on Cyprus during the Bronze Age”
E. Booker, “Cypriot Clay Bodies: Contact, Corporeality, and Figurine Use in the Cypriot Late Bronze Age”
W. Weir, “The Development of Plain and Monochrome Wares in Protohistoric Bronze Age Cyprus”
W. Crist, “Social Approaches to Board Games in Mediterranean Archaeology”
N. Susmann, “Expanding the Boundaries of Cultic Space: An Investigation of Nature in Greek Cultic Spaces in the Argolid and Messenia (2800–146 BCE)”
R. Kulick, “Crisis in Geoarchaeological Context: Reassessing Bronze Age ‘Collapse’ at Palaikastro, Crete, Greece”
B. Lis, E. Kiriatzi, and N. Müller,”From Local to Regional Technological Landscapes – The Mobility of Aeginetan Potters”
S. Debowski and D. Doyel, “The World as His Oyster: Our Journey with Alan Simmons”
J. Cooper, “Neolithic Tales from the Eastern Mediterranean Basin: A Graduate Student’s Experience under Dr. Alan H. Simmons at the University of Nevada Las Vegas in the 1990s”
T. Davis, “Hippos, Cows and CAARI: Alan Simmons’ impact on Cypriot Archaeology”
A. McCarthy, “Signs of Shared Identity: Neolithic Incised Stones in Cyprus and Beyond”
L. Lucas, “Filling the Envelope: a History of Archaeobotanical Research in Cyprus”
K. DiBenedetto and L. Keach, “Landscape and Super-Regional Scale Interaction within the Aceramic Neolithic of Cyprus”
A. Osterholtz, “Becoming Cypriot: Identity Formation, Negotiation and Renegotiation on Bronze Age Cyprus”
R. Kolvet, “Characteristics of an Upland Cypro-PPNB Ground Stone Assemblage”
K. Twiss, J. Taylor, J. Issavi, S. Haddow and C. Mazzucato, “Assessing Inequality at Neolithic Çatalhöyük, Anatolia”
S. Allen and M. Wendel, “Landscape and Plant Use in High Albania: New Results from the Late Neolithic to Iron Age at Gajtan and Zagorës”
B. Starkovich, “Small Carnivore Use in the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic of Kephalari Cave (Peloponnese, Greece): Opportunistic or Optimal?”

Middle and Late Helladic Laconia

On 12-13 April 2019 a conference entitled Middle and Late Helladic Laconia: Competing principalities? will be held at the Netherlands Institute at Athens, organized by the Netherlands Institute at Athens, the Ephorate of Antiquities of Laconia, and the University of Groningen. Further information is available at http://www.nia.gr/nl/nieuws-kalender/nieuws/522-conference-program-competing-principalities. The program will be:
E. Banou, A. Chapin, and L. Hitchcock, “The Eurotas Valley, Laconia, in the 2nd Millennium B.C.: The Area of Vapheio–Palaiopyrgi in Context”
W. Cavanagh, C. Gallou, I. Spondylis, and J. Henderson, “Southern Laconia in the Middle and Earlier Late Bronze Age: pottery from Pavlopetri and other sites”
K. P. Trimmis, “The curious case of an island: A preliminary account on the Northern Kythera Middle and Late Bronze Age Landscapes; Laconian, Cretan, or Kytherian?”
C. Wiersma and W. de Neef, “The Ayios Vasilios Survey Project. Results of the pedestrian field survey and geophysical research
S. Voutsaki, “The political geography of Mycenaean Laconia”
N. Karadimas, A. Vasilogamvrou, and E. Kardamaki, “Preliminary remarks on the stratigraphy of the West Stoa from the new Mycenaean palace at Ayios Vasileios, Laconia”
M. Tsouli, A. Kotsi, and D. Vlachakos, “A new Mycenaean settlement by the middle Evrotas valley: the site Vrysika of Xirokambi”
S. MacVeagh Thorne and M. Prent, “Middle Helladic Geraki”
J. Crouwel, “Geraki - from Middle to Late Helladic: ceramic evidence”
E. Banou, M. Tsouli, and G. Tsiaggouris, “Ceramic Evidence on the Transition to the Mycenaean Era in Southern Laconia: Prehistoric Pottery from Passavas near Gytheio”
D. Kondyli and I. Mathioudaki, “Throwing some light on the early history of the Mycenaean palace at Ayios Vasileios, Laconia: Examining three early Mycenaean pottery deposits from Building Alpha”
V. Hachtmann and S. Voutsaki, “The relationship between Central and South Laconia during the Early Mycenaean period: The pottery evidence”
M. Tsouli, A. Maltezou, and G. Tsiaggouris, “New evidence on the funerary landscape of Middle Helladic Laconia”
L. Souchleris, “A new cemetery of the Late Bronze Age at Pellana, in the northern part of the Eurotas valley”
T. Alušik, “Health status in Middle and Late Helladic Laconia”
S. Voutsaki, I. Moutafi, V. Hachtmann, and M. Dee, “The North Cemetery at Ayios Vasilios: austerity and differentiation in the Early Mycenaean period”
Y. de Raaff, T. Verlaan, S. Voutsaki, and G. Nobles, “Destruction, construction and reconstruction: the Built Chamber Tomb of the North Cemetery at Ayios Vasilios, Laconia”
Y. van den Beld, “Brick by brick: labour investment and processes of change in Ayios Vasilios”