EArTH

The ERC Starting Grant EArTH project aims to document the technical evolution of earthen architecture during the Neolithic period (12000-5000 BC) in Western Asia and its margins (Caucasus, Anatolia, Cyprus) in order to define the mechanisms underlying the evolutionary phenomena reflected in earthen architecture (invention, diffusion, adaptation) and the modalities of technical knowledge transmission. Earthen material represents a worldwide transhistorical heritage dating back to more than 11,000 years in Western Asia. Thus, commonalities are witnessed in all the geographical areas of genesis of earthen architecture, despite specific socio-cultural and historical contexts spread across the world (Central Asia, Americas, Africa, Europe and Western Asia). However, this project defends that the birth of these innovations covers a complex history that express themselves in multiple variants, depending on the availability of environmental resources, technical or cultural choices as well as social evolutions. The ERC Starting Grant EArTH project requires an ambitious program mobilising various socio-cultural and historical contexts to define cross-cultural architectural mechanisms. In this respect, this research intends to exceed the strict archaeological approach to gain an anthropological view of ancient and current populations through a comparative approach. I intend to carry out a multidisciplinary project based on a multi-scale approach combining fieldworks and laboratory analyses - through archaeological excavations in Iraq and Azerbaijan and archaeometric laboratory analyses of building materials and soils - with ethnographic surveys - through fieldworks in current populations in Eastern Africa (Djibouti, Ethiopia, Sudan), in Arabian Peninsula (Oman) and in North America (Mexico) - and the creation of an agent-based model based on empirical data collected in order to define the factors leading to the diffusion of architectural techniques as well as general exchange mechanisms. The ERC Starting Grant EArTH project targets the following objectives: 1) To provide an exhaustive study of the architectural remains in Western Asia and its margins supported by the implementation of a database and a unique GIS for the region; 2) To analyse resource supply routes and mobility dynamics with a multi-scalar perspective (site, territory, region) in order to interpret architectural changes over a large time span and to highlight regional and extra-regional interaction networks; 3) To explore transfers and social phenomena (population displacements, whole or partial acculturation processes, cultural diffusion or non-diffusion) in order to define the modes of structuring networks on ideas and architectural know-how exchange; 4) To understand the environmental, cultural and social impact of the technical choices made by each population. In view of the progressive disappearance of traditional knowledge and the replacement of raw earth by modern materials due to growing economic and social pressure, it is important to document and to preserve this common heritage of humankind which is increasingly threatened. The knowledge acquired by the ERC Starting Grant EArTH project will allow us to envisage sustainable solutions to current demographic and ecological challenges. In a time of climate change, sustainability of earthen architecture has fully to be part of the energy debate. In this context, safeguarding this living heritage and ancestral technical knowledge is a crucial social challenge of the globalisation of cultures.