Uni-Tübingen

Summaries of the Projects

A 01 Pernicka/Krauß: Resources and the emergence of inequality. Raw materials and communication systems in prehistoric South-Eastern Europe

The aim of the project is to study changes in the availability of raw materials and strategies of their use as well as the acceptance and use of technological innovations in two model regions in prehistoric South-Eastern Europe, namely the Banat and the western coast of the Black Sea. The comparative analysis will highlight how these factors have been instrumental for the formation, stability, and decline of social groups. More

A 02 Bartelheim: Many ores and little water. Socio-cultural change in connection with the use of resources in the later prehistory of the Iberian peninsula.

The project aims at investigating and reconstructing the dynamics and the diversity of the socio-cultural manifestations on the Iberian Peninsula in relation to the use of resources. The analysis will be conducted in a comprehensive way using a long-term perspective from the third to the first millennia BC. By comparing detailed studies in two regions with markedly different natural conditions there will be the chance to identify resources as factors in these processes more perspicuously as before. More

A 03 Pfälzner: Stones from the south. Exchange of resources between Mesopotamia and the region of the Persian Gulf

This project will investigate the circulation of cultural resources in the Persian Gulf. It will try to pinpoint the motivation of this exchange, which primarily aimed at obtaining precious stones for the Mesopotamian city-states and empires of the third millennium BC. The consequences of these far-reaching processes for the formation of local resource-cultures in the Gulf will be particularly emphasized. To achieve this an archaeological survey will be carried out in the Iranian province of Hormuzgan. More

A 04 Pfälzner: The development of palace-resource-cultures in Syria
The project aims at replacing the traditional concept of the palace-economy, used to describe small and middle-sized Kingdoms in second millennium BC Syria, by the model of palace ResourceCultures and to explore the development of these systems. This new concept emphasises the systematic endowment of materials and objects with symbolic value in order to strengthen political power. In one case study, the importance of objects made of precious materials in palatial contexts is investigated, while a second case study is devoted to the so-called “International Style” as a political resource. More

A 05 Kamlah/Riehl: “The land flowing with milk and honey“. Development and significance of agrarian resources in Bronze and Iron Age Palestine

This project will investigate the agricultural resources of Ancient Palestine (Bronze to Iron Age; with a focus on the cultivation of plants) by conducting two case studies (each as dissertation project): an archaeobotanical case study analysing the natural scientific and ethnographic sources, and a biblical archaeological case study on the archaeological, historical and literal sources. The work program will be specifically organized to arrange a very close cooperation between both case studies. More

A 06 Bartelheim/Kamlah: Political collapse as a consequence of economic change? Control of resources at the transition from the Bronze to the Iron Age in the Eastern Mediterranean

The transition from Bronze- to Iron Age in the Eastern Mediterranean stands as an example for an analysis of the interaction between socio-cultural processes and the use and control of resources. A case study dealing with the Southern Levant will study both archaeological and philological evidence under this point of view. Later on further regions will be included to achieve a better understanding of economic, political and historic processes during the 13th and 12th centuries BC. More
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B 01 Floss/Conard: Variability of the use of resources. Spatial exploitation by Late Neanderthals and Early Modern Humans in Europe

The focal point of project B 01 is represented by two doctoral theses scheduled to be completed within three years. Their topic is the analysis and provenience study of lithic raw materials used for the production of stone artefacts during the transition from Middle to Upper Palaeolithic. The studies are linked to two field projects in Burgundy and the Swabian Jura. During the initial year of funding it is planned to establish the geological and petrographic basis, whereas during the second year the archaeological analysis of the lithic assemblages will be conducted. Year three focuses on the synopsis and the interpretation of the results previously achieved, whereas the fourth year is dedicated to the publishing of the doctoral theses and the discussion of the results during the international conference “ResourceCultures”. More

B 02 Knopf/Kühn/Scholten: Favor – disfavor? Development of resources in marginal areas

This project investigates the causes for processes of resource-development and resulting movements into otherwise unfavourable or marginal areas. This will be done against the background of specific cultural and historical needs for resources in two different case studies. An area favourable because of its abundance of arable soil is considered as the starting point for movements into adjacent unfavourable areas with different landscape-related location factors: the eastern Black Forest and the western Swabian Jura. One case study will conduct pedological and archaeopedological analyses; the other will focus on archaeological aspects. A synthesis of both case studies will be done together by and PhD students and project managers. More

B 03 Staecker/Patzold: Exploitation of resources and ruling areas in the Middle Ages: monasteries and castles

During the initial period of funding a castle and several monasteries of different clerical orientation are investigated and compared, with respect to their specific exploitation and use of resources. To achieve this, it is necessary to use all available archaeological, written, visual and cartographical sources. Furthermore, new surface scans (LIDAR-measure) and GIS-Data will be analysed. In addition, prospections and soil analysis at one selected example are planned. Based on these investigations it is possible to point out the meaning of different resources for clerical and secular authorities in a specific area (Oberschwaben in South Germany). More

B 04 Posamentir: Search for resources as an incentive for ‘processes of colonization‘? Causal research regarding the foundation of Greek settlements between the Black Sea and the western Mediterranean

The project is concentrating on the question, whether various kinds of resources played a major role in certain processes of migration between the 8th and 5th century BC. Two geographic areas, being extremely different in their prerequisites, were chosen for a comparison with each other. Scientific publications of the last years have to be re-assessed under this aspect and combined with research on natural preconditions. Furthermore, knowledge of utilisation of certain resources by earlier and locally bound societies has to be taken into account. More

B 05 Schäfer: Colonization? Imperialism? Provincialisation? – Resources between conflict and integration in the Phoenician-Punic West in the 1st millennium BC

The study of the meaning of resources in the context of the Phoenician ‘colonisation’ with regard to the socio-cultural dynamics in the target regions of this process is the subject of this project. The geographical frame is defined by the Western Mediterranean and the adjacent Atlantic shores (Northern Africa, Malta, Sicily, Sardinia and the Iberian Peninsula). The chronological frame spans the 1st half of the 1st millennium BC. The work plan of the subproject includes the systematisation and study of different archaeological sources relating to resources, the analysis of cultural ‘markers’ for socio-cultural dynamics in ‘colonial’ and ‘indigenous’ settlements and a radio-carbon dating series. More

B 06 Baten/Härke/Wahl: Humans and Resources in the Migration Period and the Early Middle Ages – Anthropological und bioarchaeological analyses of the use of food resources and the detection of migrations

It is planned to take two regional samples in order to study the settlement areas of Alamannic and Franconian tribes of the 5th to 8th cent. AD. Collecting, processing and analysing of evidence will be done as a part of the project by two PhD students. One will focus on the statistical analysis and the collection of economic and geographic variables that might explain differences of nutrition. The other will perform the anthropological measurements and data collection, including the processing of isotope analysis. Among other isotopes, also Strontium isotopes will be considered, possibly giving hints about the origin of migrants. More

B 07 Fuchs/Pfälzner: A hunt for raw materials? The expansion of Mesopotamian empires into the northern mountain regions

The project investigates the strategies of Mesopotamian empires of the third and first millennia BC to assess and procure culturally important resources on their northern periphery in the regions of the Zagros and Taurus mountains. The Akkadian and the Neo-Assyrian Empire will be compared. A first case study explores the cultural resources of the Assyrians in the north on the basis of textual evidence, while an archaeological survey in Iraqi-Kurdistan is a part of the second case study, which aims at reconstructing the strategies of the Akkadian and the Neo-Assyrian empires with regard to resources in the north. More
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C 02 Männlein-Robert/Stanzel/Meier: Images of dearth and abundance. Resources and their literary construction in the context of the Greek Colonization

The aim of the project is to analyse poetical reflections on resource-based experiences in two case studies (both of diachronic and synchronic character). The first deals with instructions imbedded in Hesiod’s archaic poem ‘Works and Days’. These instructions are to be studied in terms of a practical interpretation. It is also intended to examine the poem’s mythical parts in order to achieve a better understanding of how resources are evaluated in (their) culture-specific context(s). In the second case study texts of the Hellenistic period, especially Arat’s ‘Phaenomena’, are to be analysed in respect to the reception of Hesiod’s text as a cultural resource (above all in Alexandria). Additionally the specific relevance of real resources in poetical texts will be examined. More

C 03 Schäfer: Resources and the formation of societies, settlement areas and cultural identities of the Italian peninsula in the 1st millennium BC

The concept of ‘resource’ as the basis of formation and change of social groups is used to create a new image of the relationship between processes of settlement and the formation of societies and cultural identities on the Italian peninsula during the 1st millennium BC. ResourceComplexes related to metals and arable soil in settlement areas at the Tyrrhenian Sea (dominated by Etruscan Cities) and the Magna Graecia will be examined and compared. Access to symbolic orders, representations and valuation of resources is gained via a contextual analysis of objects and monuments in specific public spaces: cemeteries, shrines, settlement centres. More

C 04 Hardenberg/Nadjmabadi: Religious resources: achieving and converting resources in central and southern Asia

This project deals with the role of resource complexes for the creation, maintenance and expansion of important religious institutions in South and Central Asia. Ethnographic and ethno-historical data about religious resources will be collected in extensive fieldworks in India, Kyrgyzstan and Iran. These case studies illustrate the socio-cultural practices necessary for achieving and converting religious resources, they serve to identify the interdependencies between religion, economy and state and they help to understand, how conflicts about religious resources develop. More

C 05 Staecker: Profit and dissipation of resources. Creation of ideological capital in the Viking Age and the Late Middle Age in Northern Europe

The aspect of wasting or investing in profit-orientated or ideological capital will be investigated with the example of hoards and church buildings on the Baltic island of Gotland. The hoards will be analysed according to their degree of fragmentation, the quality of craftsmanship, the iconographical meaning and the origin from other economical regions. The complementary study is focussing on the investment-volume of the church building, its decoration on the exterior as well as in the interior. More

C 06 Alex: Rice and medicinal plants. The cultural construction of medicinal and food plants in southern India

The project is dealing with the South Indian resources rice and medicinal plants. Rice is the main crop in the alluvial areas of the southeast Indian River Delta region, medicinal plants grow mainly in the forests of the mountainous regions of southern India. In the first study it will be demonstrated, how the rice-economy and the products paddy and rice are embedded into specific, historically grown, patterns of meaning and social structures. In the second study the traditional practices, necessary for the production of medicinal plants, are being explored. In addition it will be examined, which concepts of nature, environment, sustainability and effectiveness are determining the use of medicinal plants. More

C 07 Härke/Staecker: Prehistoric icons as resources in the past and present

As cultural resources ‘Icons’ are a part of a complex process and should therefore be analysed from a diachronic perspective. In the first phase of this project the Viking ship graves from Oseberg, Gokstad and Hedeby as well as the monuments from Jelling will be studied. The importance of these monuments in the processes of the creation of identity and nations is not yet researched. With the investigation of the significance of these monuments in the past as well as today it should be revealed that what might appear as archaeological objectivity is always depending on the contemporary view and interaction between science, media and the public. More

Ö Bartelheim/Klocke-Daffa: Resources and the public

The project is part of the public relations for the Collaborative Research Centre. Its task is the transfer of scientific results and on scientific discourses in the public. This will be done mainly by press work in collaboration with the University of Tübingen´s Office of Communication, in electronic media (as for example on an own homepage), with lectures, lecture series and exhibitions.

S Scholten/Kühn: Service project geoscientific and geoarchaeological expertise

The scientific service project S develops and implements information systems and techniques to provide and analyse environmental and spatial datasets of natural systems like soil, water and topography. Further, project S serves as a geoscientific and geoarchaeological helpdesk for all sub-projects within the Collaborative Research Centre ResourceCultures (SFB 1070). In particular, project S offers summer schools and hands-on training courses on how to use geoinformation systems (GIS) and how to handle environmental and spatial data sets.