Paper short abstract:

Like the diverse character of the components forming a city itself, research on cities often focuses on separate aspects of the urban complex and its development. How can theory be used to unite the ideational and the physical parts of urban studies?

Paper long abstract:

Bound by its material confines archaeology is always struggling to retrieve the animated processes that left behind observable traces. Spatiality is the most immediate datum of the material record and supplies a wealth of reflective shapes. Somewhere between the contrariety of the measurability of basic shapes and their original ideational background archaeological discourse is located. The urban environment offers probably the most elaborate spatial record; a material reflection expressing the way human convivence was organised. In order to study the urban landscape we need both ends of the spectrum. On the one hand we need to understand the ideational formation processes of the social, while on the other hand we need to understand how that becomes materialised as reflected by measurable records. Only when these theoretical prerequisites are met a start of explicating human space can be made.

This presentation will make a tentative exploration of both the ideational (social) approach to space and the more material (built) approach to space as a means to offer an introduction to ways we can think about and study the spaces of the urban environment. In urban studies an integrative approach combining social theory, urban and historical geography, planning, modelling, and spatial analysis is rarely found. The historical depth of archaeology seems apt to contribute both through scrutinising theorisation and the broad temporal scope of its data. Mediating between these two sides, are adaptations of sociological middle-range theory the path to a better understanding of the development of the physical shape of cities?

Paper short abstract:

The paper aims at an introduction of the work of French philosopher Henri Lefebvre and German philosopher and sociologist Walter Benjamin to archaeology. A critical assessment of the work of Benjamin and Lefebvre on urban space is proposed, with regard to its potential contribution to an anthropologically oriented archaeological exploration of spatial issues.

Paper long abstract:

The issue of urbanism has been central to archaeology since at least the time of V. Gordon Childe and the concept of the "urban revolution". However, this issue still goes to a large extent theoretically unnoticed. In contrast with archaeology, architecture has embraced a significantly broad array of theories on the city and has begun to incorporate urban theory to its practices in a systematic way in the past two decades. In the proposed paper, I choose to discuss the work of two highly influential theorists in urban studies and assess the potential relevance of their work on the city to archaeology.

The paper aims at an introduction of the work of French philosopher Henri Lefebvre and German philosopher and sociologist Walter Benjamin to archaeology. A critical assessment of the work of Benjamin and Lefebvre on urban space is proposed, with regard to its potential contribution to an anthropologically oriented archaeological exploration of spatial issues. The work of Lefebvre and Benjamin remains to a great extent terra incognita for archaeologists and anthropologists. Contrary to this, architecture and urban studies acknowledge this potential and especially since the 1990s there has been rising interest in Benjamin and Lefebvre's work and their ideas on the city and urban space.

The basic tenets of Benjamin and Lefebvre on the social production of spatial relationships within the city realm are outlined. It emerges that their work has a strong potential for archaeological studies of urban space.

Paper short abstract:

The landscape concept in” Ancient Near East” archaeology is still beyond the urban theory due to the nature of the archaeological research.

Paper long abstract:

Urban discourse in the " Ancient Near East" archaeology is totally materialized by the modern western thought, the priority of these discourses is to syntheses the ancient cities within the grand theories in order to construct the universal schema of the city, state, and empire formation ; which contributes to minimize the ancient cities landscapes .

The paper will basically discuss the hierarchical binary structure of the urban grand theories, and their formation in" Ancient Near East" archaeology from antiquarianism in to postmodernism archaeology. One of the binary opposition in urban discourse is the center dominate over boundary , so the archaeologists made an effort to explore the elitist centers in cities , such as temples , palaces, cementers , and public buildings , since they reflect the power of the elite , on the contrary the boundaries of t he cities are usually absent .

Also this paper will explore the binary opposition of time dominated over space ; through analyzing how the archaeologists subordinate the ancient cities ( space ) in chronological sequence of the state formation , and utilize landscape as a geopolitical container in order to illustrate the rising and falling process of the ancient cities in landscape, to explain the political changes in state formation and reformation . Finally the paper tries to breakdown these binaries of the grand theories in the "ancient near east" archaeology, through re-examining theoretically the boundaries and space of the ancient cities that might lead to re- theorizing city landscapes

Paper short abstract:

Does archaeology lack the theorised methodology to capitalise on its unique position in the study of the urban process or is it hamstrung by its acceptance of the rural/urban dichotomy? It is argued that archaeology would in fact benefit from a re-evaluation of its approach to settlement characterisation.

Paper long abstract:

The development of urban settlements in a society is synonymous with a concept of progress toward civilisation. Unsurprisingly this position leaves the concept of the urban place as open to exploitation in the development of archaeological narratives, particularly when it can construed to be of nationalistic relevance.

Through an exploration of archaeological interpretations of urban development in early medieval England it will be demonstrated that this notion of the urban place, of its efficacy in our understanding of that society, has been utilised in the post-war development of a revised national narrative. Despite subsequent critique following a growth in available data, it has not been possible to move beyond the basic concept of whether a specific site was or was not urban in character. In this model it is questionable to what extent the nuances and complexities of wider, inter-settlement structures can be explored. It will be argued that archaeologists need to explore alternative forms of settlement characterisation, that they need not accept the rural/urban dichotomy as a natural to format of settlement opposition.

Paper short abstract:

This paper will discuss Lynch’s elements of the city (Paths, Edges, Districts, Nodes and Landmarks) and use them to analyze the interaction between urban and rural landscapes

Paper long abstract:

Lynch's (1960) concepts of the legibility of the city have been applied to reading the development of the roofscapes of Carthage and Beirut (Mills 2006). Lynch's five elements, Paths, Edges, Districts, Nodes and Landmarks, have proved a useful tool for the reading of the ancient city (e.g. Bayliss 1998, Malmberg 2008). In this paper the use of legibility has been extended analysing ceramic material (pottery and building materials) recovered from field survey to characterize the constructed Roman rural landscape. This proved a useful framework in order to conceptualize the relationships between physical landscape, cultural constructs and surface survey material when interpreting the Roman ceramic material from the Nepi Survey Project. This project carried out a programme of fieldwalking in the territory of ancient Nepet (modern Nepi) north-west of Rome in 1999 and 2000. The application of Lynch's elements, combined with the methodological tools of functional pottery analysis, made it possible to define and analyze the geographical tensions affecting the manufacture, use and discard of ceramic materials and hence explore the interaction between this town and its setting with the wider trading networks of the empire from the 3rd century BC to the 7th century AD.

Paper short abstract:

Discussing place and space in the 18th century town of Al Zubārah in northwest Qatar allows us to critically think through the conceptualisation of Islamic Urbanism in archaeology. Taking a critical approach, we aim to show how a particular historical context shaped Zubārah’s urban form.

Paper long abstract:

Much of our understanding of urban space in Islamic cities has been based on ideas derived from the archetypal, 'classical' Islamic city. While the concept of the 'Islamic city' itself has long been critiqued, traditional ideas remain commonplace in archaeological and historical treatments about place and urban spaces during the Islamic periods. Critics, for example Nadia Abu-Lughod, have long ago called for a more contextual approach that takes into account the particular historical conditions that shaped cities in the Islam world. It is now highly questionable whether there is, in fact, such a thing that can be called the 'Islamic City' that applies across the Muslim world. This opens up the opportunity to critically rethink the nature of urban space and place in the Islamic world.

In this contribution, we focus on the case of Al Zubārah in north-western Qatar to consider the shaping and formation of settlement urban topography in a late Islamic town. Few settlements of this date have been studied and common assumptions about the nature of space and place projected onto late Islamic urban forms from earlier time periods have prevailed. In this paper we seek to examine these assumptions and challenge them on the basis of recent work in Zubārah, an outstanding example of a Gulf town dating to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries CE.

Paper short abstract:

Problems with identifying the spatial articulation of early Greek cities between the mid-9th and the last third of the fifth centuries BC can be addressed by turning to the understudied northern half of Greece, especially Thessaly, and the underused (in historical Greek Archaeology) resources of historical geography and complexity theory.

Paper long abstract:

Whilst it is now clear that the physical development of early (8th/7th century) Greek cities is geographically limited and temporally protracted I argue that instead of drawing lines between city and non-city phases is a mistake, because as Ernst Kirsten (1956) noticed long ago Greek poleis (usually and misleadingly translated as city-states) are not really cities at all but village-states (Dorpstaaten). Once the appropriate scale is recognised and the successive stages of 'urban' forms are attended to, it becomes clear that early activity sometimes anticipates the functionality of later structures and at others defines the main activity loci of subsequent periods, in strong contradistinction from previous ones. Sometimes the location of settlements alone indicates an organised community such as in Eretria, where a flooding river was a perpetual threat or across the bay in Oropos where early metalworking could not have been accommodated by local supply. In others, we can trace the movement and competition of settlements, such as in Boeotian Orchomenos/Tanagra and Chaeronea, respectively.

The lack of attention to these stages coincides with a predominant focus on the polis communities of the southern half of Greece. Understudied regions to the north in areas later defined as regionally-governed ethne are archaeologically comparable to their southern counterparts in early periods.

Thessaly provides opportunities for all of the above-mentioned forms of analysis and offers a special opportunity because its continuous occupation and open territory suggest subsequent changes in spatial articulation result from human 'decisions and dispositions' rather than historical or environmental determinism.

Paper short abstract:

Sunlight has an important role in urbanism and can play a vital part in defining spatial boundaries, and the nature and use of urban space. The hot-arid climate of the Mesopotamian plain makes the analysis of sunlighting a powerful tool for understanding the early cities which developed here.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the impact of sunlighting on urban form, with particular focus on the cities of ancient Mesopotamia. Light plays a vital role in forming the character, functionality and meaning of urban space, and can act to define and enforce boundaries within the urban landscape. This is particularly true for hot-arid regions, such as the Mesopotamian plain, where the presence or absence of direct sunlight is amongst the most important factors in shaping the activities which take place in an area, and at what time these occur. At the city scale, settlements have the ability to create a favourable microclimate for their inhabitants through the manipulation of sunlighting. This can be achieved through city form; the street layout and the height and density of buildings, which act to selectively protect or expose buildings and exterior spaces from the effects of strong direct sunlight. In the cases examined here, city forms are well adapted to ameliorate climatic stress but are not produced through centralised planning; effective macro forms are instead produced by the requirements of basic lighting priorities applied at the household and neighbourhood level. The precise light environment produced by a settlement represents the result of choices and compromises made by the inhabitants which both reflect and form social practice. The strategic and culturally specific use of sunlight is demonstrated using the excavated 2nd millennium BC domestic housing from the city of Ur.

Paper short abstract:

This paper aims to convey the importance of defining the Victorian Garden Cemetery as a valuable urban space and to demonstrate the highly interdisciplinary nature of the interpretation of the site and its impact upon the city of Bristol.

Paper long abstract:

Arnos Vale Cemetery is an early Victorian Garden Cemetery, an Arcadian Landscape in design, spanning an area of 45 acres on the edge of Bristol and opened in 1839. An unusually large expanse of garden and woodland within an urban setting, it has recently undergone an extensive restoration programme and is a pilot scheme for English Heritage. It is now in the process of attempting to comprehensively piece together its history and examining its importance to the city of Bristol.

By applying interdisciplinary research this can tell us not only about garden and landscape history, architecture and death and burial; but much more than one might first consider about urban life in Victorian, Edwardian and early 20th century Bristol. In carrying out these types of methods this can significantly raise the profile of the site and subsequently the profile of the Victorian Garden Cemetery.

This paper also aims to look at the complexities of such a wide range of disciplines being involved in the interpretation of the site ranging from social history to ecology. It could also raise debate about how and why only recently this type of landscape is being recognised by others as Historical Archaeology. In view of these aspects however, consideration must also be given to how that sits alongside the fact that Arnos Vale remains an active cemetery with burials continuing to take place today.

Paper short abstract:

This paper presents preliminary thoughts on the potentials of spatial analysis methodologies for investigation of eremophilia (love of solitude or deserted places) as an embodied, socio-spatial phenomenon in early urbanism.

Paper long abstract:

This paper represents the preliminary stages of an investigation of changing relationships between 'individual' and 'community' in the context of early urbanism. A widely accepted view holds that urban life isolates or alienates the individual human being, but archaeological attempts to evaluate the validity of such a view in relation to early urban societies have been rare. Writings on solitude, particularly psychological and sociological works, have often presented it as a malady. To distinguish the solitude examined here from such a perceived ill, the term 'eremophilia' - love of solitude, or of deserted places - is used.

Application of a variety of methods of spatial analysis should enable the investigation of eremophilia as an embodied, socio-spatial phenomenon. Consideration of eremophilia as an aspect of human interaction with an urban world is likely to entail analysis on meso- and macro-spatial levels. While household worlds should not be forgotten, we cannot impose present-day cultural norms, together with ideas of progress and globalisation, upon the archaeological remains. Berdyaev's proposed correlation between humankind's 'expanding horizons' and the individual's increasing sense of isolation is illustrative of this, relying upon the assumption that 'living' in the past happened solely within household spheres, and only recently began to occur in 'the world' as a whole. It is proposed that, on the contrary, experiences of solitude are influenced to a greater degree by sensory stimuli, particularly those leading to awareness of activity outside one's control and beyond one's immediate surroundings, than by social factors.

Paper short abstract:

This interdisciplinary paper offers a working model in which archaeological, literary, and historical evidence are used in conjunction to illustrate contemporary conceptions of urbanism and urban landscapes in early-medieval England.

Paper long abstract:

Utilising literary and historical sources to illuminate conceptions of urban space primarily grounded in the archaeological record is a difficult business, with its own set of particular problems and possibilities. Archaeology may tell us what people did, and why they did it, but not necessarily why they thought they did it, nor a great deal about the cultural dialogues which accompanied processes of change or continuity. In the case of urban studies, an interdisciplinary approach to conceptions of urban landscape is often particularly well suited to shedding light upon contemporary conceptions of the delineation of urban space. This is arguably because urban settlements present themselves as geographical and ideological centres for the exchange of ideas, and their discussion and preservation - in whatever form, and under whatever impetus. This process is often one upon which the town or city often leaves its mark. Archaeology reveals the city most purely as a physical artefact, literature as a conceptual construct - and in conjunction the two can reveal much about the historical narrative that lies between them. This paper will discuss the approach I am adopting in my postdoctoral project, 'Building Cities in the Anglo-Saxon Mind', and give reasons why similar frameworks may be useful to other researchers working in urban studies, whether or not they are engaging with largely pre-literate cultures. It invites constructive criticism of the model proposed, and suggestions for ways in which it may be altered to better represent the perspectives of the allied fields concerned.

Paper short abstract:

This presentation explores the bearing upon the session´s aims of revisiting archaeologies of public buildings from perspectives offered by recent explorations of Dewey´s (1927) insights of the making of things public (Latour and Weibel 2005).

Paper long abstract:

The emergence of 'public buildings' and 'public spaces' have long figured centrally in archaeological research on the social aspects of agriculture, the emergence of village life ways, and the independent development of cities in very diverse parts of the ancient world. Debates over whether cities are causes or effects of social change have a much longer history. But perhaps the longest histories - maybe even dating to the earliest urban life-ways has been that of the emergence of collectivities (publics) around issues that the hitherto predominant institutions cannot or do not address; and expressions in the form of narrative of these collectivities experience of discrepancies between how things ought to be and actually existential conditions.

This presentation explores the bearing upon the session's aims of revisiting archaeologies of public buildings from perspectives offered by recent explorations of Dewey's (1927) insights of the making of things public (Latour and Weibel 2005).