Bioarchaeology, which encompasses the study of human, animal, and plant remains as well as environmental reconstructions, provides a comprehensive framework for understanding the complex interactions between past populations and their environments. Based on often multi-disciplinary approaches, bioarchaeology offers unique insights into how ancient societies adapted to and shaped their environments. The different disciplines inform us about subsistence strategies, ecological resilience, health and disease, mobility, and socio-cultural practices, allowing for a holistic reconstruction of ancient lifeways. The Levant, Mesopotamia, and Iran are regions of immense importance for the development of agriculture, early urbanism, and state formation. The Levant, a major crossroads for human migration and technological diffusion, features early farming communities and rich biodiversity. Iran’s diverse ecosystems and highland-lowland dynamics fostered multiple human-environment interactions and supported unique subsistence strategies. Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilisation, provides evidence of early urban societies whose development was closely linked to their manipulation of the landscape through irrigation and agriculture. This session brings together multidisciplinary bioarchaeological research to examine how ancient communities in these regions adapted to environmental pressures such as climate variability and resource scarcity, and how they interlink in complex social and economic networks. Topics include human health and dietary transitions, animal domestication and management, plant cultivation, and environmental change over time. By integrating data from human, animal, and plant remains, landscape reconstructions, and environmental studies, this session will illuminate the complex factors and relationships that shaped ancient civilisations in these key regions, offering new perspectives on their adaptation or resilience.
EAA 2025 - Session 57 Reconstructing the Past: Bioarchaeological Approaches in the Levant, Mesopotamia, and Iran / Giaccari, Matteo; Göhring, Andrea; Sołtysiak, Arkadiusz. - (2025). (Intervento presentato al convegno 31st European Association of Archaeologists (EAA) Annual Meeting tenutosi a Belgrade, Serbia nel 2 settembre - 6 settembre 2025).
EAA 2025 - Session 57 Reconstructing the Past: Bioarchaeological Approaches in the Levant, Mesopotamia, and Iran
Matteo Giaccari
Primo
;
2025
Abstract
Bioarchaeology, which encompasses the study of human, animal, and plant remains as well as environmental reconstructions, provides a comprehensive framework for understanding the complex interactions between past populations and their environments. Based on often multi-disciplinary approaches, bioarchaeology offers unique insights into how ancient societies adapted to and shaped their environments. The different disciplines inform us about subsistence strategies, ecological resilience, health and disease, mobility, and socio-cultural practices, allowing for a holistic reconstruction of ancient lifeways. The Levant, Mesopotamia, and Iran are regions of immense importance for the development of agriculture, early urbanism, and state formation. The Levant, a major crossroads for human migration and technological diffusion, features early farming communities and rich biodiversity. Iran’s diverse ecosystems and highland-lowland dynamics fostered multiple human-environment interactions and supported unique subsistence strategies. Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilisation, provides evidence of early urban societies whose development was closely linked to their manipulation of the landscape through irrigation and agriculture. This session brings together multidisciplinary bioarchaeological research to examine how ancient communities in these regions adapted to environmental pressures such as climate variability and resource scarcity, and how they interlink in complex social and economic networks. Topics include human health and dietary transitions, animal domestication and management, plant cultivation, and environmental change over time. By integrating data from human, animal, and plant remains, landscape reconstructions, and environmental studies, this session will illuminate the complex factors and relationships that shaped ancient civilisations in these key regions, offering new perspectives on their adaptation or resilience.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
