Project Division A. Developments

The project focuses on long-term developments of ResourceCultures in the south of the Iberian Peninsula. During the first phase, resources and resource complexes of the Chalcolithic in the coastal area with its favourable settlement conditions and in the dry inland area were compared. During the second phase, the focus was on Bronze Age and modern forms of use of different landscape types in the Guadalquivir Valley and the neighbouring Sierra Morena, which were understood as resource structures and examined from an archaeological and ethnological perspective. In the third phase, in accordance with the general concept of the SFB 1070, resource cultures that met and mutually influenced each other in this region at certain times are now being researched.

The aim of the project is to investigate the development of specific ResourceComplexes in south-eastern Iran, which have formed the basis of regional and interregional exchange relations since the Bronze Age. This interdisciplinary project combines the disciplines of archaeology and ethnology in order to demonstrate the interaction of resources and ResourceComplexes, social networks and framework conditions and their significance for the emergence of social processes. The region of Jiroft in the province of Kerman in south-eastern Iran serves as the study area.

The project deals with the importance of resources for the socio-political and cultural development of Syrian palace systems during the Middle and Late Bronze Age (2000–1200 BC). Research has so far defined Syrian palace systems primarily as economically functioning households, that is as 'palace economies' or 'oikoi'. In this project, it will be explored how these states also used resources to construct power, political ideology, cultural identity and social integration, as well as to consolidate interregional communication and internal and external networks.

The project investigates the developments in the handling of agricultural resources in the southern Levant from the beginning of the Bronze Age to the end of the Iron Age (ca. 3600–586 BC). During the first phase of funding, the focus was on agriculture as a resource. During the second phase, the aspect of animal husbandry was added. In the third phase of funding, nutrition as a culturally differentiating and culture-forming feature is to be combined with the agricultural ResourceComplex, to which it stands in a reciprocal relationship, in order to understand the meaning of the ResourceCultures of Palestine.

The project aims to investigate developments in the use of resources during the transition from the Late Bronze Age to the Iron Age in the eastern Mediterranean, with a special focus on the Levant. The focus is on connectivity and exchange as a ResouceAssemblage as well as the role of the specific ResourceCultures of the coastal cities in the socio-cultural dynamics of the period.