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Geoarchaeological Relations between Architectural Space and Social Practices

Project description

Unearthing ancient lives through space and sediment

Archaeology is also about the recovery of how people lived, moved, and interacted. Studying this is especially challenging in Mediterranean prehistory, where ephemeral evidence and restricted methodologies render social dynamics difficult to trace. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the GRASSP project will focus on the Mycenaean settlement of Pylos in Greece. Through the study of cultural sediments (traces of day-to-day activities), GRASSP fills the gap between archaeology and social theory in a bid to reveal how space and society influenced one another. With its own dataset and inter-disciplinary method, the project seeks to rethink archaeologists’ conception of life in the past, uncovering the human narratives.

Objective

The understanding of architectural space is of fundamental importance in archaeology. However, to fully comprehend architectural space, both social practices and activities (as well as their temporality) should be taken into consideration as cultural groups not only create space but also define themselves through the activities that they perform within and around it. This reflexive relationship between space and society is challenging to study, especially in Mediterranean prehistory. While part of the problem lies with the way social theory is applied to archaeology and the understanding of space, the biggest challenge consist in the poorly preserved record regarding architecture and activities, and in the lack of methodology to implement the data resolution of archaeological deposits.
The proposed project, “Geoarchaeological Relations between Architectural Space and Social Practices” (GRASSP) seeks to propose a new theoretical and methodological approach to the study of space in archaeology. GRASSP propose to study the relationship between architectural space and social practices at the Mycenaean site of Pylos (Greece) by using cultural sediments as primary dataset.
GRASSP has access to a unique dataset of samples and it uses an interdisciplinary methodological and theoretical toolkit consisting of archaeological and social theory, and diverse geoarchaeological techniques in order to reveal the architectural characteristics of the buildings, identify the type of activities performed in these structures, their temporality (transformation/abandonment), and their associated knowhow. GRASSP will bring attention on aspects of material culture that are other than material while rediscussing the role played by cultural sediments in the understanding of space and practices. It will also advance the archaeological discipline by filling deficiencies in methodology and theory applied to the study of the active mutual relationship existing between space and social practice.

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

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HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2024-PF-01

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Coordinator

RIJKSUNIVERSITEIT GRONINGEN
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.

€ 232 916,16
Address
Broerstraat 5
9712CP Groningen
Netherlands

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Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

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