Organisation
Sagalassos Archaeological Research Project
Research Institute
The Sagalassos Archaeological Research Project has interdisciplinary ambitions to study the far and less far past, and the near future of the region in which the ancient town of Sagalassos originated, flourished and came to its end. Its study region amounts to 1200 km2 in the Turkish Lake District. In chronological terms the challenge is even more encompassing: from Middle Palaeolitic times to the sustainable development of the actual region. Groups of people and communities are always placed centrally. The project aspires to elucidate how complex human behaviour adjusts to or causes changes in social-ecological systems, which changing factors can be or are instrumental, and which potential, constraints and drivers can be defined as part of such systems, through time. As a result, we need do it all: from the study of ancient architecture and sculpture to cultural heritage policies, from old crafts and production processes to the innovation of analytical procedures of materials, from climate reconstruction to actual forest management, from landscape evolution to the use of water as a commons, from past quality of life to social innovation. In more ways than one, the Sagalassos Project represents an unique and deliciously rich laboratory to approach the long-term evolution of the society-nature framework on a regional scale. In order to fully exploit this potential, the project is incorporating a range of visualisation and computational methods, in order to become a fully integrated digital project in the near future, ready to be shared with the world. Public outreach is part of the project's DNA.