Earthen Construction Technology: Proceedings of the XVIII UISPP World Congress (4-9 June 2018, Paris, France) Volume 11 Session IV-5(Proceedings of the UISPP World Congress)

Earthen Construction Technology presents the papers from Session IV-5 of the 18th UISPP World Congress (Paris, June 2018). The archaeological study of earthen construction has until now focused on typology and conservation, rather than on its anthropological importance. Earth is the permanent building material of humankind, and was used by the world’s earliest civilizations for their first urban programmes. The architectural and engineering know-how required to carry out these monumental achievements can only be obtained through archaeological research: extensive excavations with attention to architectural and structural features, and their collapse, coupled with typological, mineralogical, micromorphological, botanical, chemical, and mechanical studies of building materials. This line of research is recent, starting in the 1980s in Europe, but is rapidly growing and illustrated in this volume.

Table of Contents:
Introduction to the session – Annick Daneels ;
Earthen architecture on archaeological sites: sustainability principles vs decay processes – David Gandreau, Chamsia Sadozaï and Sébastien Moriset ;
Spread and Independent Technical Invention of the Earthen Material in the Southern Caucasus and Northern Mesopotamia during the sixth Millennium BCE – Emmanuel Baudouin ;
Climatic conditions and technical choices in earthen architecture: the example of Late Neolithic Dikili Tash (Eastern Macedonia, Northern Greece) – Paul Bacoup and Sandra Prévost-Dermarkar ;
Earth construction procedures in the Arslantepe domestic architecture from the Late Chalcolithic to the Early Bronze Age – Giovanna Liberotti ;
Minoan mudbricks: earth and fire in Bronze Age Crete – Marta Lorenzon ;
The construction techniques in the middle basin of the Douro between the 3rd and 2nd millennium BCE – Héctor Juan Fonseca de la Torre ;
The problematic conservation of adobe walls in the open-air site of El Castillar (Mendavia, Navarre, Spain) – Héctor Juan Fonseca de la Torre, Leyre Arróniz Pamplona, Clara Calvo Hernández, Laura Cañada Sirvent, Lorena Meana Medio, Xavier Bayer Rodríguez and Daniel Pérez Legido ;
Earthen architectural diversity at an early village in the U.S. Southwest – James R. Allison and Joseph A. Bryce ;
Earthen mounds and political centres: the rise and fall of the Izapa Kingdom, Chiapas, Mexico – Robert M. Rosenswig ;
Monumental earthen architecture in Teotihuacan, Mexico – Maria Torras Freixa

About the Author :
Annick Daneels, archaeologist, PhD (UGent, Belgium, and UNAM, Mexico), senior researcher at the Institute of Anthropological Research of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico City. Director of four interdisciplinary projects on Mesoamerican Earthen Architecture since 2009. ;

Maria Torras Freixa, archaeologist, PhD (UB, Spain), independent researcher. Team member of an interdisciplinary project in Teotihuacan since 2018, including fieldwork and geophysical surveys.