Timothy Matney

Artefacts of Cognition: the Use of Clay Tokens in a Neo-Assyrian Provincial Administration

The study of clay tokens in the Ancient Near East has focused, for the most part, on their role as antecedents to the cuneiform script. Starting with Pierre Amiet and Maurice Lambert in the 1960s the theory was put forward that tokens, or calculi, represent an early cognitive attempt at recording. This theory was taken up by Denise Schmandt-Besserat who studied a large diachronic corpus of Near Eastern tokens. Since then little has been written except in response to Schmandt-Besserats writings. Most discussions of tokens have generally focused on the time period between the eighth and fourth millennium bc with the assumption that token use drops off as writing gains ground in administrative contexts. Now excavations in southeastern Turkey at the site of Ziyaret Tepe — the Neo-Assyrian provincial capital Tushan — have uncovered a corpus of tokens dating to the first millennium bc. This is a significant new contribution to the documented material. These tokens are found in association with a range of other artefacts of administrative culture — tablets, dockets, sealings and weights — in a manner which indicates that they had cognitive value concurrent with the cuneiform writing system and suggests that tokens were an important tool in Neo-Assyrian imperial administration.

Teaching Archaeogeophysical Survey and Mapping any Time of the Year: An Interdisciplinary Course

One of the fastest-growing areas of archaeological fieldwork is the use of subsurface geophysical survey techniques to map ancient remains without excavation. Growing interest in this technology, coupled with the availability of commercial data collectors tailored to archaeological needs, presents a challenge to educators. Specifically, this challenge is to create an integrated, interdisciplinary, active learning curriculum, providing students with: (1) a competent theoretical understanding of basic geophysical processes underlying these survey techniques; (2) an appreciation of the implications these technologies have for research design and methodology and (3) a working knowledge of appropriate mapping and imaging theory and technology. We designed and implemented a course focusing on these outcomes that was taught at the University of Akron for the first time in Spring 2002. This course was offered to advanced undergraduate and graduate students through a cooperative effort between the Geology, Archaeology and Geography programs. Positive outcomes were measured in terms of overall student responses to course content, a dynamic teaching environment for faculty, successful field studies and the placement of students in post-course research projects. At the same time, course logistics, managing student group dynamics and the difficulty in selecting “real” but appropriate test sites warrant further discussion and modification of the course syllabus for future offerings.