Skip to main content
Go to the home page of the European Commission (opens in new window)
English English
CORDIS - EU research results
CORDIS

Life between houses: A multiscalar interdisciplinary investigation into the creation and use of settlement open spaces by the first sedentary communities

Project description

Open spaces in Neolithic transition

The development of mudbrick architecture is associated with the rise of human settlements some 13 000 years ago. It’s also marked by plant and animal domestication. However, although built areas are widely studied, open spaces remain less investigated. The EU-funded PATIOS project will explore the establishment of open spaces to study how the earliest sedentary communities have worked at supra-household levels. By focusing on early Holocene communities in the Near East, the project will develop a multiscalar and interdisciplinary method to improve the identification of organic microscopic and molecular residues in open sequences. PATIOS will qualify the diversity of forms and taphonomic processes influencing open areas and deliver further insight into the concepts and transformations of open spaces.

Objective

The emergence of sedentary life ca. 13,000 years ago marked the development of mudbrick architecture and the transition to new forms of human ecology based on plant and animal domestication. In this context, settlement open areas played a vital socio-economic role as the loci of discard practices, outdoor activities, and human-animal-environment interactions. However, while built environments are a recurrent research theme for this period, open spaces remain less studied. This oversight is partly due to the methodological and interpretative problems posed by open areas, often displaying complex stratigraphies consisting of superimposed microlayers and excavated in arbitrary units that do not represent units of deposition. The aim of PATIOS is to explore the constitution of open spaces to investigate how the earliest sedentarising and sustained sedentary communities operated at supra-household levels. The specific project goals are: 1) to develop a new multiscalar and interdisciplinary methodology for an improved identification of microscopic and molecular residues of organic nature in open sequences; 2) to characterise the variety of formation and taphonomic processes affecting open areas; and 3) to provide a wide diachronic and geographical understanding of the concepts and transformations of open spaces and the socio-cultural aspects related to their use. PATIOS will focus on early Holocene semi-mobile and sedentary communities in the Near East, one of the core areas of the Neolithic Transition. Through a multi-proxy methodological approach that combines spatial analyses, geoarchaeology, plant science, biochemistry and ethnoarchaeology, this project will explore the heterogeneity of the earliest settlement open areas, opening up a much-needed comparative path for the examination of local trajectories in their creation, transformation and use. Thus, PATIOS will contribute new insights into the rise and evolution of anthropogenic landscapes and ecologies.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.

You need to log in or register to use this function

Keywords

Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)

Programme(s)

Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)

See all projects funded under this funding scheme

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) H2020-MSCA-IF-2020

See all projects funded under this call

Coordinator

AGENCIA ESTATAL CONSEJO SUPERIOR DE INVESTIGACIONES CIENTIFICAS
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 241 398,72
Address
CALLE SERRANO 117
28006 MADRID
Spain

See on map

Region
Comunidad de Madrid Comunidad de Madrid Madrid
Activity type
Research Organisations
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 241 398,72
My booklet 0 0