FROM DEPOSIT TO SOCIAL PRACTICES: INTEGRATED MICROMORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF FLOORSEQUENCES
Channel: European Association of Archaeologists
Date: 09/01/2021

Floors are key data-set of cultural evidence in archaeological contexts as they offer potentials for detecting and interpreting the spatial conventions, through which economic and social relationships are represented and negotiated during the life-history of buildings and settlements. In this study, floor sequences from the Middle Bronze Age site of Erimi-Laonin tou Porakou (c. 1950-1650 BC), in the southern region of Cyprus, have been analysed though an interdisciplinary approach based on integration of stratigraphic, micromorphological, spectroscopic (FTIR) and geochemical (XRF) analyses. The methodological framework applied in this study is aimed at generating an interdisciplinary data-set with which to analyse the study context at different spatial and temporal scale and to investigate the socio-cultural and economic transformations at Erimi-Laonin tou Porakou during Middle Bronze age Cyprus by analysis of:

- source materials, properties and technologies in the manufacture of floors as indicators of accessibility and selection to natural resources, labour organisation and technological specialisation;
- impact of environment, activities and events on floor surfaces as indicators of continuity and change in use of space and related socio-cultural and economic implications.
The multi-scalar data-set provided an effective framework to reconstruct every-day practices in the construction, use and maintenance of floor plasters within buildings, and to examine the importance of these routine activities in the formation and reproduction of socio-cultural identities, roles and relations at Middle Bronze Age Erimi-Laonin tou Porakou.


Author(s): Amadio, Marialucia (University of Reading, School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Science; Italian archaeological
project at Erimi-Laonin tou Porakou)