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This book examines the history of the Aegean islands and the changing concepts of insularity in the late archaic and classical period, with particular emphasis on the 5th century and the period of Athenian imperial control over the Aegean world. The predominant presence of islands in the Aegean geographic landscape inevitably created a variety of different and sometimes even conflicting perceptions of insularity. Using the theoretical concept of network, the book examines the religious networks of the insular world of the Aegean (Calauria and Delos) and their later transformation into networks of imperial control for 5th-century Athens. Athenian control over the islands transformed the concept of insularity in Greek thought and even provided powerful imagery for Athenian self-representation, exemplified in the metaphor of the ‘island of Athens’. Imperial Athens may have strengthened some aspects of the concept of insularity, such as ‘weak island’ or ‘safe island’, but beyond imperial politics, there also lay a world of frequent interaction outside the sphere of mainstream political narrative. The book examines the cases of island-networking on a micro-political and economic level, as well the interaction between islands and their mainland dependencies, the peraiai.

The analysis of lipids (fats, oils and waxes) absorbed within archaeological pottery has revolutionized the study of past diets and culinary practices. However, this technique can lack taxonomic and tissue specificity and is often unable to disentangle signatures resulting from the mixing of different food products. Here, we extract ancient proteins from ceramic vessels from the West Mound of the key early farming site of Çatalhöyük in Anatolia, revealing that this community processed mixes of cereals, pulses, dairy and meat products, and that particular vessels may have been reserved for specialized foods (e.g., cow milk and milk whey). Moreover, we demonstrate that dietary proteins can persist on archaeological artefacts for at least 8000 years, and that this approach can reveal past culinary practices with more taxonomic and tissue-specific clarity than has been possible with previous biomolecular techniques. Ancient diets have been reconstructed from archaeological pottery based on lipid remains, but these can lack specificity. Here, Hendy and colleagues analyze ancient proteins from ceramic vessels up to 8000 years old to produce a more nuanced understanding of ancient food processing and diet.

AIM: Chorthippus parallelus is one of the classic model systems for studying genetic structure and phylogeography in the Western Palaearctic. Here, we investigate the regional genetic differentiation of C. parallelus and evaluate the historical and evolutionary processes responsible for such genetic structuring, test the nature of the Turkish Straits system as a barrier to dispersal, and explore the contribution of Anatolian populations to the biodiversity of the Western Palaearctic. LOCATION: Western Palaearctic. METHODS: We incorporated sequence data from dense sampling of the phylogeographically important Anatolian region with both previous and newly obtained data of the nuclear fragment cpnl‐1 and the mitochondrial fragment COI–tRNALeu–COII. In total, 1049 sequences of cpnl‐1 from 33 regions were analysed to investigate the genetic diversity, genetic structuring and phylogeography of C. parallelus across its distributional range. The mtDNA region was additionally used to test whether the Turkish Straits system acts as a barrier. RESULTS: The analyses revealed that not all southern refugial populations of C. parallelus have contributed equally to the post‐glacial recolonization of Europe. Four genetic clusters across the species' range were recovered: cluster A (eastern part of the Anatolian Diagonal); cluster B (western part of the Anatolian Diagonal); cluster C (Spain, Italy, southern Balkans, west part of Anatolia and Russia); and cluster D (covering the entire distributional range of the species). The Turkish Straits system has been a weak barrier to dispersal by C. parallelus, allowing gene flow from Anatolia to the Balkans. MAIN CONCLUSIONS: The current patterns of genetic structuring of C. parallelus were best explained by multiple expansion and contraction events. Anatolia has been well connected to the Balkans, contributing genetically to the establishment of central and northern European populations prior to the Holocene. The Anatolian refugium is suggested to be the centre of origin for Western Palaearctic C. parallelus diversity rather than a Balkan refugium.

Late Preclassic (300 BC-AD 100) turkey remains identified at the archaeological site of El Mirador (Petén, Guatemala) represent the earliest evidence of the Mexican turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) in the ancient Maya world. Archaeological, zooarchaeological, and ancient DNA evidence combine to confirm the identification and context. The natural pre-Hispanic range of the Mexican turkey does not extend south of central Mexico, making the species non-local to the Maya area where another species, the ocellated turkey (Meleagris ocellata), is indigenous. Prior to this discovery, the earliest evidence of M. gallopavo in the Maya area dated to approximately one thousand years later. The El Mirador specimens therefore represent previously unrecorded Preclassic exchange of animals from northern Mesoamerica to the Maya cultural region. As the earliest evidence of M. gallopavo found outside its natural geographic range, the El Mirador turkeys also represent the earliest indirect evidence for Mesoamerican turkey rearing or domestication. The presence of male, female and sub-adult turkeys, and reduced flight morphology further suggests that the El Mirador turkeys were raised in captivity. This supports an argument for the origins of turkey husbandry or at least captive rearing in the Preclassic.

Coupled multiproxy indicators (pollen, stable isotopes and charcoal) reconstructed from annually laminated lake sediments from Nar Gölü in Cappadocia (central Turkey) complemented by documentary and archaeological evidence provide a detailed record of environmental changes and their causes from late Antiquity (AD 300) to the present day. Stable isotope data indicate marked shifts in the variability in summer drought intensity and winter—spring rainfall, but these did not coincide in time with changes in vegetation and land use shown by pollen data. Rather, human impacts appear to have been the main driver of landscape ecological changes in Cappadocia over the last two millennia. Pollen and charcoal data indicate four principal land-use phases: (i) an early Byzantine agrarian landscape characterized by cereals and tree crops, and marking the later part of the so-called Beyşehir Occupation phase; (ii) a period of landscape abandonment and the establishment of secondary woodland from AD 670 to 950 coinciding with the Arab invasions of Anatolia and marking the transition from late Antiquity to the middle Byzantine period; (iii) the re-establishment of cereal-based agriculture and pastoralism from c. AD 950, with this cultural landscape being maintained through the Byzantine `Golden Age', the Seljuk and Ottoman Empires; and (iv) agricultural intensification during the late Ottoman era and the Turkish Republic (AD 1830 to present). Charcoal fluxes indicate that prior to the twentieth century, landscape burning was most frequent at times of diminished human impact when fuel biomass increased. Pollen and historical data show remarkably close agreement in terms of the timing of landscape change, and the former suggest that rural cultural traditions were able to survive largely intact through short-lived periods of socio-political dislocation such as the sixth century Justinian plague and the thirteenth century Mongol invasions.

There has been considerable focus on the main, expansionary, and inter-regionally linked or 'globalising' periods in Old World pre- and proto-history, with a focus on identifying, analyzing and dating collapse at the close of these pivotal periods. The end of the Early Bronze Age in the late third millennium BCE and a subsequent 'intermediate' or transitional period before the Middle Bronze Age (~2200-1900 BCE), and the end of the Late Bronze Age in the late second millennium BCE and the ensuing period of transformation during the Early Iron Age (~1200-900 BCE), are key examples. Among other issues, climate change is regularly invoked as a cause or factor in both cases. Recent considerations of \"collapse\" have emphasized the unpredictability and variability of responses during such periods of reorganization and transformation. Yet, a gap in scholarly attention remains in documenting the responses observed at important sites during these 'transformative' periods in the Old World region. Tell Tayinat in southeastern Turkey, as a major archaeological site occupied during these two major 'in between' periods of transformation, offers a unique case for comparing and contrasting differing responses to change. To enable scholarly assessment of associations between the local trajectory of the site and broader regional narratives, an essential preliminary need is a secure, resolved timeframe for the site. Here we report a large set of radiocarbon data and incorporate the stratigraphic sequence using Bayesian chronological modelling to create a refined timeframe for Tell Tayinat and a secure basis for analysis of the site with respect to its broader regional context and climate history.

Aim: To reconstruct the evolutionary history of a genus of freshwater beetle with a pan-Mediterranean distribution, to test classic hypotheses which proposed a Miocene origin for groups with high biodiversity in the Iberian and Anatolian peninsulas. Location: Mediterranean basin. Methods: We sequenced four mitochondrial and one nuclear gene from 51 specimens of 30 of the c. 60 extant species of Deronectes (Dytiscidae), all typical of mid-mountain streams from North Africa and Iberia over most of Europe to the Middle East. We used maximum likelihood, Bayesian probabilities with an a priori evolutionary rate and a dispersal-extinction-cladogenesis model to reconstruct their biogeographical history. Results: Deronectes has two major lineages which originated in the mid Miocene; one including mostly eastern and another mainly western and central Mediterranean species. From these two areas, range expansions, mainly at the end of the Miocene and beginning of the Pliocene, resulted in the many species groups and some of the extant species of the genus. Most of the current diversity and distributions are, however, of Plio-Pleistocene origin, particularly in widespread European species. Main conclusions: In line with traditional hypotheses, we found an ancient division between eastern and western Mediterranean lineages of Deronectes, likely resulting from the isolation of Europe west of the Alps from the Balkans and Anatolia during the early-middle Miocene. The history of the genus was strongly influenced by major geological and climatic events, with successive cycles of fragmentation and subsequent eastward and westward range expansions, resulting in a steady accumulation of species across the basin. Most of these range movements took place through the north side of the Mediterranean, with only local displacements in the south during the Messinian salinity crisis and a recent (Pleistocene) colonization of the Italian Peninsula, which remained largely submerged through most of the genus' evolutionary history.

Gordion has long served as an archaeological type site for Iron Age central Anatolia and provided pioneering radiocarbon (14C) determinations as reported in the first issue of Radiocarbon (1959). Absolute dating of key events at Gordion continue to reshape our understanding of regional development and interaction in the Iron Age, with a major conflagration in the late 9th BCE century at this site the most recent focus of attention (DeVries et al. 2003). Here we present the latest series of 14C determinations for Gordion from Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age contexts. Fifteen absolute dates provide a critical new framework for establishing the timing and tempo of cultural transformation from the collapse of the Hittite Empire through to the subsequent formation of the Phrygian polity that dominated central Anatolia from the 9th to the 7th c. BCE. This chronometric revision transforms our perspective on the LBA/EIA transition at this site: from disengagement from Hittite hegemony in the 12th c. BCE, to the precocious emergence of the Phrygian capital in the early 9th c. BCE.

Alluvial and colluvial sequences were studied around the prehistoric tell Arslantepe in 11 exposures and additional auger cores. The chronology is based on 11 optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) ages, four radiocarbon ages, and the embedded artifacts. Sediments contained wood charcoals, providing information on former vegetation. Fluvial activity is documented during Late Glacial times (15.4 ± 2.5, 12.8 ± 3.1 kyr) and frequently after Roman times. Slope and soil erosion occurred in the early (10.6 ± 1.4, 8.2 ± 0.7 kyr) and mid–late Holocene (6.7 ± 0.9, 5.4 ± 0.7–4.7 ± 0.7, 2.6 ± 0.2–2.5 ± 0.2, 1.9 ± 0.2–1.8 ± 0.2 kyr, and during the last 1000 years). The early Holocene erosion phases pre-date the so far established onset of settlement at the tell. This either indicates an earlier onset of agricultural land use than assumed or climatic influence on erosion, such as the 10.3 and 8.2 kyr climate events known from Western Europe. The erosion phases at around 5.0 and 2.6 kyr could reflect geomorphic responses to societal collapse (Late Chalcolithic state, Neo-Hittite kingdom) at Arslantepe. Most intensive Holocene soil erosion and landscape degradation occurred after occupation of the region by the Roman Empire. This is paralleled by the onset of river activity. A part of the lower neo-Hittite town as well as an early Holocene Terra Rossa–like soil that had formed rapidly were found buried. So far, no indication for mid–late Holocene fluvial activity of the adjacent creeks until Roman times has been found. Our results illustrate the large potential of slope deposits for long term reconstructions of human induced landscape transformation in Anatolia.

From the Pueblo I to the Late Pueblo III periods (725–1280 CE), in the Mesa Verde and McElmo Dome regions of the American Southwest, turkey use continuously increased, then declined during the final period of widespread residential occupation in the region. Increasing aridity in the Late PIII period may have limited agricultural productivity, and consequently, the ability to provision turkeys. In this paper, we use C, Sr, and O isotope analyses of turkey bone ( n  = 95) from archaeological contexts to investigate whether the turkey diets and the locations where they were raised changed over time as a consequence of demographic and social changes in the region. Our results show that almost all turkeys were raised by Puebloan maize farmers in or in the vicinity of the McElmo Dome region and fed a C 4 -based diet, presumably dominated by maize, during the whole period under study. However, it seems that they were fed less maize during the late thirteenth century. Perhaps facing lower yield harvests, maize was prioritized for human consumption, which resulted in less intensified turkey production efforts and reduced investment in maize-provisioned flocks. Our results also attest to the occasional use of local (likely wild) turkeys not provisioned with maize, and one wild turkey brought in from a more distant area.