Abstract

In an East Mediterranean context, the work of Renfrew et al in the 1960s set the bench mark not only with regard to archaeometric innovation, but also in terms of the grand social science questions being asked through the material. Subsequent critiques of Renfrew's (substantiavist) position and the alleged significance of fall-off patterns led to something of an abandonment of characterisation work in the Aegean and Near East until a new wave of analyses in the recent decade. It is argued here that these new characterisation studies represent far more of a geo-archaeological and archaoemetric success story than they do with regard to a social archaeology, i.e. while we now have high precision techniques to source our artefacts, archaeologists have fallen short in their interrogation of the results. Drawing upon recent work at Neolithic çatalhöyük (central Anatolia) and Bronze Age Malia (Crete), this paper explores some of the ways that we might maximize our investment in characterisation studies, through the adoption of a chaîne opératoire / contextual analytical framework, considerations of the 'samples' material attributes and the potential of GIS as not only sophisticated means of integrating and analyzing spatially variable data but also as a way of charting some of the bodily experiences associated with procurement from afar. While the case studies will be East Mediterranean, it is believed that the critiques and responses have a far wider application.