Taranto, Sergio

Autonomous University of Barcelona & Sapienza University of Rome

Research Title: The Function of Late-Chalcolithic Coba Bowls from Eastern Anatolia Investigated by Way of trace Analysis 

Dr.Taranto is an archaeologist specialized in technological and functional trace analysis on ceramic material. He is mainly interested in investigating the eating behavior as a cultural aspect to better understand the ancient communities. To achieve this objective, he integrates different approaches: ethnography, experimental archeology and use-alteration analysis. He learns this methodology at the LTFAPA laboratory at the Sapienza University of Rome. In 2022, he obtains a PhD in Prehistoric Archaeology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona in joint research with Sapienza University of Rome. Throughout his doctoral research, he studies the production sequence and function of the Late-Neolithic ‘husking trays’ by analysing pottery samples in several laboratories such as those of the Istanbul University and the Koç University. As an ANAMED post-doctoral research fellow, he conducts a research on the function of one of the most distinctive pottery forms of the Late Chalcolithic period in South-Eastern Anatolia and Upper Mesopotamia: the coba-bowls. The research involves the experimental reproduction and use of coba-bowl replicas and the use-wear analysis of shards belonging to this pottery shape from the Turkish archaeological sites of Degirmentepe and Arslantepe.