Conceptualizing Bronze Age Seascapes: Concepts of the Sea and Marine Fauna in the Eastern Mediterranean in the Second Millennium BCE

Conceptualizing Bronze Age Seascapes by Mari Yamasaki is a very informative and thought-provoking book. It is the revised version of Yamasakis’s doctoral thesis and has many of the merits and a few of the drawbacks of such volumes. The book’s stated aim is to investigate the conceptualization of maritime cultural landscapes and seascapes in the eastern Mediterranean during the second millennium BCE on the basis of sea-related material culture and also some written sources (11). This is an ambitious endeavor considering the project’s geographical and chronological breadth and the wide-ranging types of evidence under consideration. Yamasaki does a splendid job in harnessing both a huge amount of diverse data and an exceptionally rich and varied bibliography, and she also exhibits considerable skill in blending theory and archaeological evidence. This book is part of a currently burgeoning discourse on the tangible and intangible impacts of the Mediterranean Sea on the cultures that developed on its coasts in the past, especially in fields beyond navigation, trade, and cultural contacts. Several studies, including this one, have recently been undertaken as PhD projects (e.g., Safadi 2018; Nuttall 2021; Michael 2022). By reviewing the current state of knowledge on a regional level and testing out different approaches to the topic, these young scholars set the stage for fascinating future scholarship in this field.The book is divided into three parts comprising one, two, or three chapters each. The first part presents the history of relevant research and the methodological, theoretical, and other choices made by the author (Ch. 2); the second discusses the regional evidence (Chs. 3, 4, 5); and the third aims to offer an overarching analysis of the data (Chs. 6 and 7).Following the introduction, Chapter 2 brings together a wide range of theoretical approaches to the sea, seascapes, and the relationships developed between humans and the sea in antiquity. The scope of this review is wide, and the author presents each school of thought in a concise and lucid way. Apart from well-known and often-cited works, such as those by Westerdahl, Knapp, and even Braudel (13–16), Yamasaki introduces the reader to the notion of “concept” as a tool to interpret sea-related finds (16–21). She proposes using aspects of prototype and cognitive theories (both of which examine the process of thinking and category-building) to approach the conceptualization of Bronze Age seascapes. The author then implements these concepts in the following chapters to organize and understand her data. Although those approaches are not new to archaeological thought, Yamasaki’s take on them and her intent of testing this particular combination of ideas is exciting and definitely promising. This chapter also includes some discussion of the sources used, namely fish and molluscan remains, artifacts, and texts (23–26), but not much detail on the methodology adopted regarding their combined use. This gradually unfolds in later chapters.In this part of the book, Yamasaki would benefit by taking a closer look at research on seascapes in the Aegean (an area often mentioned in the book), where conceptualization approaches have been tested out for some time. Several of these works are cited in this book in relation to specific issues, but their significance and contribution has not been fully realized or properly implemented. This is probably due in part to a well-established and often counterproductive division between publications that emphatically use theoretical language and discussion of abstract concepts and those that refrain from it. Early work by Judith Powel (1996) and Mark Rose (1994), already cited in the book, as well as later work by Veropoulidou (2011) on fishing and shell gathering in the prehistoric Aegean world, offers concrete understandings of the way Bronze Age inhabitants of the Aegean perceived and experienced the sea and its resources, even though the research behind those works was built around the paradigm of processual archaeology and did not use the term “conceptualization.” Mylona’s work on experienced seascapes in Bronze Age southern Aegean (2020), also cited in the book, and on fishing and fish-eating in Classical Greece (2008), provides tested and clearly described methodologies for approaching the issue of conceptualization of the sea (again without using the term), some of which are also used by Yamasaki in this book. Similarly, Rose’s study on fish in cult in Classical Greece (2000) could offer a useful analogy from a region and a chronological period that benefit from detailed written sources and well-excavated and published fish bone assemblages. This criticism aside, Yamasaki’s review and proposed theoretical framework reflects the excitement and freshness of research on maritime aspects of the past, as well as the author’s enthusiasm for and strong grasp of theory.The second part of the book is particularly important, and I believe it will be a point of reference for anyone interested in fisheries and maritime material culture in the eastern Mediterranean of the Bronze Age for many years to come. In three chapters (Chs. 3, 4, and 5), 104 pages of text, and many detailed tables the reader meets the outcome of an immense amount of literature review and data organization. Sorted by region (Levant, Cyprus, southern Anatolian coast, Egypt), date (Middle Bronze Age, Late Bronze Age), and site, archaeoichthyological and archaeomalacological data are presented and discussed along with information on other sea-related finds (e.g., art or artifacts such as stone anchors). Where possible, some elaboration on archeological context is also provided. Important points and conclusions are highlighted as the presentation of the material unfolds. For each region, the written sources are covered in separate sub-chapters and presented in their cultural context. Certain broad themes are discussed in relation to them, namely fish and fish products, seafaring and navigation, and sea-related gods.The variety of data in this part of the book is immense, but the author masterfully harnesses these data and presents them in a coherent manner that is easy to follow. The strong potential of Yamasaki’s approach and the fascinating aspects of the Bronze Age maritime world often emerge vividly in this part of the book. Some qualitative discussion of the observations made and the conclusions reached would have benefited these chapters. For instance, the trends Yamasaki observes in artistic representations of the sea and sea creatures in the different geographical and cultural subregions of the eastern Mediterranean would be better appreciated if the readers were informed on how common or divergent the treatment of marine themes was across those contexts. Brief comparisons to artistic representations of other classes of animals and activities (such as game and hunting, domestic animals, or husbandry) would be enlightening and could put the marine iconography in perspective. Similarly, the presentation of the zooarchaeological data would be more meaningful if recovery method, analysis method, and publication type were systematically presented for each site, perhaps in the tables (see discussion below). Of course, a single study (especially a PhD project) cannot cover every topic, and issues like the ones mentioned above would certainly make interesting follow-up research. In this way, certain observations that appear to be quite significant, such as differentiation in the level of conceptualization of fish in the Levant in relation to other regions, the influence of Aegean iconography and possibly of Aegean ideas regarding marine life, and the underuse of marine mollusks in the regions under study, could be tested and discussed in more detail and perhaps with new and higher-quality data.The third part of the book delves into an overarching analysis of the data along the theoretical lines proposed at the beginning of the book. Here again, discussion develops around some large themes. Marine fauna is discussed from different angles in Chapter 6: as food or in dietary taboos, as offerings and in relation to concepts of purity, as status symbol, as commodity, and in visual culture. Leaving aside the unfortunate use of the term “fauna,”1 all these are very important issues and are often tackled archaeologically. Yamasaki’s analysis has many strong points but also suffers from some common misunderstandings of the strengths and weaknesses of fish bones and marine mollusks as archaeological evidence. The data originate from diverse publications: some short and with little information, and some detailed and comprehensive; some are preliminary reports of partial assemblages, while others are final publications. In very many cases, the fish bones under discussion were hand-collected, with the result that only bones of large fish are reported and those of smaller species are lost. In most cases, the original texts do not elaborate on the methodology used for the analysis of the fish and molluscan remains. The author comments on this shortcoming of the data in various instances throughout the book, but she nevertheless proceeds to treat all these data in a similar undifferentiated way. This, however, may lead to erroneous conclusions. We cannot be sure, for example, whether the preponderance of porgies, sharks and rays, gray mullets, groupers, and a few other large fish in most eastern Mediterranean Bronze Age sites, clearly illustrated in figures 6.1 and 6.2, is real or an artifact of a collection method that fails to recover any evidence for the exploitation of smaller fish.As research in the Aegean Sea has shown, our understanding of the intensity of fish consumption at any given period, region, or site is heavily influenced by the type of the fish bones collected during excavation and the analysis performed in the lab. Yamasaki comments on the richness of the Aegean record and the intense interest in fishing during the Bronze Age in that region (16). Thirty years ago, when Mark Rose attempted the first compilation of Bronze Age fish bone data in the Aegean (1994), the image that emerged from those data was not unlike what Yamasaki describes for the eastern Mediterranean. Today, after decades of painstaking soil sampling, water flotation, sorting and detailed analysis, including attention to find contexts, our understanding of Aegean Bronze Age fisheries and their cultural importance is completely different. The problem of suboptimal data is particularly important for this study because it is attempting to approach intangible and also culture- and time-specific notions, such as the conceptualization of the sea or the link between deities and elements of the marine world. The quality and refinement of the archaeological data used to do this is surely of paramount importance.The book concludes with the discussion of another large theme, which is the conceptual core of this book: the concept of the sea as a place, as a supernatural force, and as a divine entity (Ch. 7). As discussion gradually moves from the more conventional issues of the previous chapters to the more challenging realm of the abstract ideas and conceptualizations of past marine cultures, the link between ideas and material remains becomes weaker, as does the specificity of the discourse. This is not a weakness of this book, but a general feature of relevant research. It may be due to the limitations of the data available to date or to the fact that a methodology to reach a tighter link has not yet been fully developed. However, this final chapter of Yamasaki’s book has much value as a demonstration of the sorts of questions archaeologists could ask in the future. This study makes an excellent case for asking ambitious questions of the material record and looking for answers in a variety of sources.The book under review is certainly a very valuable addition to the discourse on maritimity, touching on issues that are relevant not only for Mediterranean archaeology but also more broadly. It provides a comprehensive database and a lucid review of theoretical approaches to the issue of humans’ entanglement with the sea in the past. Most importantly, it lays the groundwork for much fascinating research in the future, to which I am definitely looking forward.