Dr%20Nathaniel%20Erb-Satullo: List of publications

Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2019. The South Caucasus has been largely absent in broader discussions of prehistoric population aggregation in Greater Eurasia. The authors use remote sensing, surface collection and magnetometry to investigate two hilltop fortress settlements at the margins of the Kura River Basin, with a particular emphasis on satellite settlements around the main hills. The results support a model of settlement growth in which previously mobile groups settled around the fortress, while maintaining a degree of spatial and social separation. The use of multiple survey techniques reveals a complex picture of settlement organisation, with implications for comparative analysis of prehistoric population aggregation models.

© 2017 Elsevier Inc. Studies of metal production frequently show a correlation between scale and organizational complexity. The remarkably rich landscapes of metal-producing sites of late 2nd-early 1st millennium BC Colchis provide an unprecedented opportunity to reexamine this apparent correlation. Investigations of copper smelting sites show that industries with a large aggregate output can be the result of numerous small groups of metalworkers acting independently. Spatial data on site distributions, estimates of productive output, and archaeometric data on ore procurement patterns were integrated to reconstruct the organization of production. Judicious use of a portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometer (pXRF) showed that not only were smelting sites highly dispersed, but also that metalworkers at different sites were using ores from geologically distinct deposits. This innovative approach helped to reconstruct the organization of production in a distinctive metal production landscape, bridging an enduring divide between landscape-scale and microscopic investigations of craft production.

Many of the arguments for how and why people began to use iron in Southwest Asia rely on assumptions about the technology and relative organization of copper and iron smelting. However, research on the technological transformations of the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age suffers from a lack of investigation of primary metal production contexts, especially in regions outside the Levant. The current research examines metal production debris from a large number of smelting sites in western Georgia, and addresses questions of technology and resource utilization through detailed examination of few select sites. Through the chemical and mineralogical analysis of slag samples, we demonstrate the existence of an extensive copper-production industry and reconstruct several key aspects of the smelting technology during the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age. Combining a statistical analysis of slag mineralogy with other lines of evidence, we argue that copper was extracted from sulfide ores through a process of roasting and smelting in deep pit furnaces. The data also suggest that metalworkers at different sites exploited different ore sources within the same ore body. These results form a fundamental basis for further examination of spatial and chronological patterns of technological variation, with implications for models of Near Eastern copper production in this crucial period. Intriguing evidence of bloomery iron smelting, though currently undated, reinforces the region's potential to provide data on a key technological transformation. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd.

In order to investigate the nature and organization of high-status ceramic production in the Late Bronze Age, samples of Nuzi Ware from four different sites were analysed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM-EDS) and inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES). Chemical and mineralogical evidence suggests that Nuzi Ware was produced in at least two distinct regions, one probably in the Adhaim Basin in northern Iraq and another possibly in the Orontes catchment in southeastern Turkey. The existence of individual production units probably developed in response to the local elites' desire to imitate the tastes of the Mitanni aristocracy, resulting in a mapping of political relationships on to material culture. © University of Oxford, 2011.

This paper presents oxygen, strontium and neodymium isotopic analysis from a series of Late Bronze Age glasses from Egypt and Mesopotamia. It was found that oxygen and neodymium isotopes alone cannot readily distinguish between glasses from the various sites. However, combined Sr and Nd isotope analysis separate the data into three groups: an Egyptian group with relatively low Sr and Nd ratios; a Late Bronze Age (LBA) Nuzi group with high Sr and low Nd ratios; and an intermediate Sr and high Nd ratio grouping of glasses from Tell Brak. These findings suggest that most of the glass from Nuzi and Tell Brak had different raw materials and hence the glass was probably produced at different manufacturing sites. However, one glass ingot found at Tell Brak (TB1) appears to have Nuzi-type Sr-Nd characteristics. This is the first positive identification of multiple production sites in LBA Mesopotamia and an exceptional example of a glass that may have been exchanged from one LBA site to another. © University of Oxford, 2009.