Bradley J. Parker

THE CONSTRUCTION AND PERFORMANCE OF KINGSHIP IN THE NEO-ASSYRIAN EMPIRE

The institution of kingship is such an important component of ancient societies as to be considered nearly universal by many scholars. In spite of this, discussions of kingship, especially in the ancient Near East, are surprisingly rare in the scholarly literature. Furthermore, the nature of the data pertaining to the Neo-Assyrian Empire, which includes a vast textual corpus and rich archaeological remains, means that this data set is often difficult for non-specialists to access. The goal of this paper is to reexamine and synthesize some well-known arguments, combine them with a number of new ideas about how kingship was constructed and performed in the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and present the resulting analysis to a wider, anthropologically oriented audience. To do so, 1 step back from the philological minutiae that so often hinder the cross-cultural or interregional integration of Near Eastern data to examine three easily comparable structural components of kingship: ideology, legitimacy, and implementation.

The Upper Tigris Archaeological Research Project (UTARP)

Introduction During the summer of 2005 members of the Upper Tigris Archaeological Research Project (UTARP) undertook a sixth season of archaeological field work at the site of Kenan Tepe in the Upper Tigris River region of southeastern Turkey. This research took place between May 13 and July 4, 2005. Research was funded by generous grants from the Curtiss T. and Mary G. Brennan Foundation in collaboration with the University of Utah and the United States National Endowment for the Humanities. Funding from NEH covered the project infrastructure (including rent for the project dighouse, the cost of the project van and driver and the project cook) and costs associated with the excavation of trenches where we expected to discover remains dating to the Late Chalcolithic period. Funds from the Brennan Foundation and the University of Utah were directed exclusively to trenches that we expected to yield data from the Ubaid period. In this report to the Curtiss T. and Mary G. Brennan Foundation and the College of Humanities at the University of Utah, I will briefly outline the Ubaid research conducted during the 2005 field season. After a short introduction I will discuss each of the Ubaid excavation units. I will conclude with a few preliminary observations about the nature of Ubaid occupation at Kenan Tepe. First I would like to make a few remarks about the both the research and the logistics of UTARP’s 2005 field season. In archaeological terms the 2005 field season was perhaps our most productive and most interesting season yet. We excavated two superimposed domestic structures, found part

Indices of household maize beer production in the Andes: An ethnoarchaeological investigation

Recent literature on the role of alcohol in the ancient world has shown that the production and consumption of fermented beverages played a key role in the organization of many prehistoric political and household economies. The study of alcohol as a lubricant in social dynamics is especially salient in the Andes, where reciprocity is the primary form of traditional economic interaction. Despite the fact that scholars studying ancient Peru have long acknowledged the central role that the production and consumption of beer made from fermented grains or fruits (collectively referred to as chicha) played in traditional Andean societies, few field projects have focused on how to recognize the loci of small-scale chicha production in the archaeological record. In this paper, which presents the results of ethnoarchaeological research in eastern Cuzco province, Peru—where this type of research has not previously been undertaken—we use both new data and existing studies to identify fifteen independent indices capable of aiding archaeologists in the recognition of domestic brewing in the archaeological record. To do so, this study focuses on the material correlates of small-scale household chicha production, with an explicit emphasis on quantitative, rather than qualitative, data, including ceramic morphology and use wear; the particularities of vessel assemblages; the preponderance of tools, refuse, and residues; and the characteristics of brewing facilities. Previous studies demonstrate that, in spite of both variation in technology and organization across the region and cultural differences through time, ethnoarchaeological observations of modern production and consumption of chicha in traditional settings can generate valuable information pertinent to the interpretation of the archaeological record. This paper builds on these studies by verifying as well as questioning previous findings and by proposing new analogs. In doing so, this paper demonstrates that ethnoarchaeological observations of the modern production of chicha can provide valuable interpretive information not just for Andeanists but for any archaeologists seeking to identify and interpret the archaeology of brewers and brewing.

Methodological advances in household archaeology: an application of microartifact analysis at Pampa La Cruz, Huanchaco, Peru

The purpose of this paper is contributing to the development of methodologies to investigate ancient households. Microartifact analysis focuses on the tiny fragments (<1 cm) of ceramics, bone, lithics and shells that are produced as a result of human action. These tiny fragments are much more likely to remain in or near the context where they were originally produced and are often trampled into the soil matrixes of ancient surfaces. This study applies microartifactual sampling, processing and analytical techniques to characterize and compare the activities that took place on ancient surfaces at the site of Pampa la Cruz in Huanchaco, Peru. By examining the density of various microartifact categories per liter of excavated surface matrix, this study isolates loci of food production, suggests which types of local and non-local foods were consumed, theorizes about cooking practice and waste disposal, and examines traffic patterns at Pampa la Cruz.