This chapter focuses on the ceramic material recovered from the 2022 TYRAS survey. The aim is to consider the significance of survey data for capturing changes in settlement patterns across wider regions and identifying long term patterns of change. In this chapter, we discuss specific diagnostic examples from all sites with collected pottery, highlighting points of continuity and change in the recovered material. Similarities in ceramic form and ware are highlighted with material from the surrounding region – where possible – integrating a discussion of change and complexity in production and use beyond our surveyed area. The collected material shows continuity from the Early Bronze Age to the Roman period, with marked periods of abandonment and decline during the Middle Bronze and Late Bronze Age with reoccupation in the Iron Age. The presence of Early Bronze Age ceramics at all sites comes as a surprise, underlining the connection between early sites and later, fortified Iron Age tells.

Abstract This chapter explores the current position and future potential of agent-based modeling (ABM) within the field of classical archaeology, focusing on its methodological contributions to understanding societal dynamics in the classical world as part of a complexity science approach. Drawing on a dataset of fifty-one publications from 2005 to 2024, the chapter assesses the thematic focus, geographical scope, and methodological maturity of ABM applications in classical contexts. The chapter highlights ABM’s strengths in modeling emergence, formalizing theories, and hypothesis testing, while also identifying challenges such as limited model reuse, underdeveloped open science practices, and a lack of computational literacy in the discipline. The chapter argues for a more integrated and interdisciplinary approach to ABM, emphasizing its transformative potential not only for classical archaeology as a research discipline but also for improving pedagogy and fostering interdisciplinary collaboration as important ways forward.

This chapter focuses specifically on the pottery collected through excavations at two key sites in the region: Tall Ya’moun and Tall al-Assara. In this chapter, our goal is threefold: first, to highlight particular ceramic examples recovered from the 2022 Tall Ya’moun and Tall al-Assara excavations as a way of understanding the community’s place in the broader Iron Age landscape of northern Jordan; second, to situate these finds within a wider network of regional parallels and comparisons; and third, to use this evidence to reflect on broader patterns of settlement and changing social complexity in the first millennium. To do so, it is important to focus on the ceramic material prior to this period to give context to the development of the site through time. This material is central to this discussion as it connects both Tall al-Assara and Tall Ya’moun into longer-term regional trajectories and provide promising directions for future research, especially when integrated with survey data (see Chapter 3).

The study of connectivity and interaction in the Mediterranean world is a rich and vibrant topic. While most direct attestations of past interaction have been lost, we can use the ubiquity of material markers such as ceramic tablewares to trace the structures and underlying drivers of past networks. In this paper, we use an innovative combination of least cost path analysis and mutual information to explore the relative contributions of geographical proximity and potential social, economic, and political factors underlying the distributions of material culture. We apply this method to a case study using the ICRATES dataset of tablewares from the eastern Mediterranean in late Hellenistic and early Roman times (150 BCE - 50 CE). By exploring the multifaceted factors shaping these distributions, we enrich our understanding of ancient economies and trade networks, as well as provide further insight into broader questions of (cultural) exchange and power dynamics in the ancient world. Through this novel approach, we hope to pave the way for future research endeavours that seek to unravel the intricate threads of connectivity shaping past and present human societies.

Pottery studies constitute a core domain in archaeology. The establishment of typo-chronologies forms the backbone of most chronological inferences in Mediterranean archaeology in particular. Computational approaches such as network science can help us expand the interpretative and explanatory power of these material frameworks in our understanding of the past. Network science has increasingly become mainstream in archaeology, yet, its applications in Mediterranean archaeology remain uneven and highly differential in scope and depth. In this article, I explore the potential and limitations of network science using three case studies of network analysis from Mediterranean archaeology. Each case study relates to a different research specialization and covers a different time period. I then show some of the potential of network analysis for pottery studies using an example from my own research on late Hellenistic and early Roman pottery from the eastern Mediterranean. This article outlines a way forward in which material specialists closely collaborate with other specialists such as computer scientists to develop new forms of synergy between computational methods and domain knowledge that can lift research outcomes to a higher level.

The spread of Hellenic ideas, practices, and material culture has long been considered a major factor in the urbanization of Hellenistic Anatolia. While this assertion has been criticized and nuanced in recent decades, the importance of Hellenization in the urbanization of some regions remains an ongoing discussion. An example is Pisidia (southwest Anatolia), including the ancient city of Sagalassos. Mainly on the basis of architectural evidence, the Hellenization of Sagalassos began in the late third-early second century BCE. By the late second-early first century BCE, the process had resulted in a Greek-type polis comparable to those along the southern and western coasts of Anatolia. This article aims to reassess the Hellenization model of Sagalassos by comparing the stylistic architectural cross-dating underpinning its theoretical and methodological framework with recent stratigraphic datasets of Late Achaemenid and Early and Middle Hellenistic Sagalassos. Through this exercise, we look into the implications of this reassessment for the urbanization of Sagalassos and its potential impact on our understanding of Hellenistic Pisidia.1

This paper offers new insights from the petrographic and geochemical characterisation of 92 pottery samples from the archaeological site of Sagalassos in SW Anatolia (modern-day Turkey). The sampled table wares form part of the Hellenistic to Roman Imperial local pottery production lines. The aim of this study is to reconstruct in more detail the tableware production at the site and examine Sagalassos Red Slip Ware (SRSW) in comparison with the pre-existing Hellenistic tradition in slipped pottery. The results suggest that Hellenistic Colour Coated Ware (CCW) and Gray Ware with Black Slip (GWBS) were locally produced at the site using the same raw materials as the ones used for the subsequent mass-produced Sagalassos Red Slip Ware (SRSW), namely clays from the nearby NW parts of the valley of canakli. SRSW appears thus as a continuation of the Hellenistic tradition in slipped pottery at Sagalassos, at least as far as some choices for clay raw materials are concerned. At the same time, this study provides for the first time evidence of regional production of a type of eastern sigillata that appears macroscopically similar to SRSW, while the number of identified imported wares to the polis of Sagalassos contributes new evidence to the discussion on the production of GWBS in the wider region of Anatolia and the origin of Eastern Sigillata A (ESA). Using the site of Sagalassos as a case -study, this research aims to demonstrate the importance of the analytical examination of pottery in a longue dure ' e perspective in order to reconstruct ceramic traditions and better understand the local and regional sociocultural mechanisms behind them.

Three decades of interdisciplinary research within the Sagalassos Archaeological Research Project has provided extensive archaeological, environmental and geoarchaeological datasets. This paper seeks to bring together these datasets to explore diachronic socio-ecological dynamics within the Sagalassos Study Area, SW Türkiye. For this, we will use the Adaptive Cycles and Resilience Theory framework to explore socio-cultural development during changing climatic and environmental conditions. The paper aims to serve as an in-depth case study of these frameworks, integrating archaeological and environmental data, which – despite the increasing popularity of resilience theory – remains underdeveloped within the field of archaeology, especially within Mediterranean and Anatolian archaeology. We will explore the utility of the adaptive cycle framework for reconstructing diachronic human-environment interactions through changing settlement patterns documented during surveys conducted by the Sagalassos Project. Critical phases within the settlement record can be identified during the last 8000 years including apparent periods of ‘rupture’ during the Middle Chalcolithic, Middle-Late Bronze Age, Hellenistic and Middle-Byzantine periods; representing times of serious upheaval in ‘normal’ cultural traditions and lifeways. The adaptive cycle framework will help distinguish between the effects of environmental changes and social dynamics, as well as their potential interrelations in causing long-term social transformation in the Sagalassos Study Area.

As we stand on the precipice of unprecedented global challenges, understanding the deep-time patterns of sustainability and resilience is no longer just a scholarly endeavour but imperative for the future of our planet and its inhabitants. The collection of papers in this special issue brings together archaeologists, historians, and environmental scientists around four main topics: (1) social-ecological modelling, (2) long-term human-environment interactions, (3) modelling diachronic landscapes and (4) sustainability and resilience from past to future. Our aims are to come to a better understanding of socio-economic resilience and sustainability in past, present and future societies. Through interdisciplinary collaboration, we aim to forge new conceptual frameworks for understanding complex, long-term socio-ecological dynamics. Through the case studies, theoretical reflections and methodological innovations presented here, this special issue seeks to advance interdisciplinary scholarship on sustainability and resilience and offer fresh insights into the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead in building a sustainable future.

This article presents the results of a joint Finnish-Jordanian survey project that focuses on investigating the interrelations of the imperial heartlands and the Levantine region in the Late Bronze and Iron Ages. We used historical satellite images to identify potential sites on the northern Jordanian plateau, after which they were systematically investigated by archaeological survey. Of the sites discovered, the fortified site of Tell al-Assara stands out owing to its prominent location, as indicated by a visibility analysis, and its massive enceinte wall made of ashlars. One of the pottery sherds found at the site bears an inscription in Aramaic. Although Tell al-Assara is remarkably well preserved, many of the sites discovered were already badly damaged by looting and urban development. These alarming developments can only be countered by closely involving local communities in fieldwork projects working in the region.

This article presents the results of a joint Finnish-Jordanian survey project that focuses on investigating the interrelations of the imperial heartlands and the Levantine region in the Late Bronze and Iron Ages. We used historical satellite images to identify potential sites on the northern Jordanian plateau, after which they were systematically investigated by archaeological survey. Of the sites discovered, the fortified site of Tell al-Assara stands out owing to its prominent location, as indicated by a visibility analysis, and its massive enceinte wall made of ashlars. One of the pottery sherds found at the site bears an inscription in Aramaic. Although Tell al-Assara is remarkably well preserved, many of the sites discovered were already badly damaged by looting and urban development. These alarming developments can only be countered by closely involving local communities in fieldwork projects working in the region.

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It is well recognized that time-averaging of archaeological deposits results in significant biases in interpretations of the archaeological record. In this study, we investigate the biases introduced by time-averaging in the study of social and economic networks from the archaeological record. Using three different archaeological network datasets, we combine network slices from multiple periods to mimic the effects of time-averaging to understand how the palimpsest nature of the archaeological record affects our interpretations of the network. The results of our analysis indicate that time-averaging reduces the fidelity of network interpretations compared to the non-time-averaged networks when analyzing network or node properties. Our results also showed that the effects of time-averaging are highly dependent on initial network structures. This makes it difficult to establish general rules for how to interpret time-averaged networks in archaeology. However, our study shows that it is of paramount importance that archaeologists are aware of these biases and evaluate the reliability of their data accordingly.

All human societies need energy and resources in order to sustain themselves. Individual decisions on how to meet these needs necessarily impact on the possibilities of other nearby actors to meet their own. The range of exploitation possibilities thus becomes limited by the proximity to others in tandem with the (re)generative capacity of the local landscape. In this paper, we present results from SAGAscape, an agent-based model of resource exploitation and subsistence in the area of Sagalassos (southwest Turkey) from Middle Iron Age to Early Hellenistic times (900–200 BC). The model simulates the harvesting of food, wood and clay by individually-optimizing households, seeking to fulfil the collective needs of their communities. Our results show how the behavior of these households leads to distinct spatial patterns in land use and how sustainability depends simultaneously on a settlement’s environment as it does on its neighbors. The use of known, periodized sites generates new hypotheses with regards to observed settlement patterns as well as the nature of property regimes in these periods. Through the continued development of SAGAscape, we intend to bring the significant potential of agent-based modelling for archaeology to further fruition.

This article presents the results of a joint Finnish-Jordanian survey project that focuses on investigating the interrelations of the imperial heartlands and the Levantine region in the Late Bronze and Iron Ages. We used historical satellite images to identify potential sites on the northern Jordanian plateau, after which they were systematically investigated by archaeological survey. Of the sites discovered, the fortified site of Tell al-Assara stands out owing to its prominent location, as indicated by a visibility analysis, and its massive enceinte wall made of ashlars. One of the pottery sherds found at the site bears an inscription in Aramaic. Although Tell al-Assara is remarkably well preserved, many of the sites discovered were already badly damaged by looting and urban development. These alarming developments can only be countered by closely involving local communities in fieldwork projects working in the region.

Topics such as polis formation and synoikismos have a rich background in classical studies, history, and archaeology. Such studies have mainly focused on the attestations of synoikismos events in literary sources and inscriptions. The archaeological side of such processes has not always been given equal weight. This paper presents a more encompassing view on patterns of synoikismos and polis formation by incorporating and assessing archaeological evidence in a model of push-pull interactions between local communities and the Hellenistic kingdoms in southwest Anatolia. This model will be applied on a case study of the origin of polis at Sagalassos and its relation with the nearby settlement at Düzen Tepe during its formative years in the Early to Middle Hellenistic period (3rd–2nd centuries b.c.). It will then situate this case in its wider context of settlement patterns and community formation in southwest Anatolia, focusing on the ancient regions of Pisidia, Lycia, and Pamphylia. The paper suggests that interactions between local communities and overarching central administrations offered suitable stimuli that resulted in local communities starting to participate in wider dynamics of economic and political importance. This ultimately resulted in observed patterns of polis formation and a potential synoikismos.