Search results for ""Archaeopress""

Rock Art Studies: News of the World VI, like the previous editions in the series, covers rock art research and management all over the world over a five-year period, in this case, the years 2015 to 2019 inclusive. The current volume once again shows the wide variety of approaches that have been taken in different parts of the world and reflects the expansion and diversification of perspectives and research questions. One constant has been the impact of new techniques of recording rock art. This is especially evident in the realm of computer enhancement of the frequently faded and weathered rock imagery. As has been the case in past volumes, this collection of papers includes all of the latest discoveries, including in areas hitherto not known to contain rock art. While relatively little has happened in some areas, a great deal has occurred in others. Rock art studies continue to go through a period of intense scientific and technological development, but at the same time – due to the problems of preservation and vandalism – it is crucial to educate local people and the young about the importance of this fragile heritage.

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Between the 3rd and 2nd Millennia BC: Exploring Cultural Diversity and Change in Late Prehistoric Communities is a collection of studies on the cultural reconfigurations that occurred in western Europe between the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC. It brings together seven texts focusing on the evidence from the West of the Iberian Peninsula, and one on the South of England. The texts have their origin in a landmark meeting held at the University of Coimbra in November 2018, where scholars explored the grand narratives explaining the differences between what are traditionally considered Chalcolithic (or Late Neolithic) and Bronze Age communities. The contributions look at key aspects of these grand narratives through regional perspectives, asking the following questions: is there clear data to support the idea of an intensification of social complexity towards the emergence of the Bronze Age chiefdoms? What is the role of monumental architecture within this process? How do we best discuss the different levels of architectural visibility during this period? How can we interpret collective and individual burials in relation to the emergence of individual/territorial powers? In answering these questions, the papers explore regional diversity and argue that regional specificities resist a general interpretation of the historical process at stake. In light of this resistance, the book emphasizes that cultural singularities only become visible through contextual, medium, or low-scale approaches. The recognition of singularities challenges grand narratives, but also carries the potential to expand our understanding of the changes that occurred during this key moment of Late Prehistory. The book thus offers readers the opportunity to think about the diversity of archaeological evidence in combination with an exploration of the available range of approaches and narratives. The critical intertwining of multiple points of view is necessary, because it gets us closer to how elusive the cultural differences of prehistoric communities can be. This elusive dimension is precisely what can force us to constantly rethink what we see and what questions we ask.

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Current Research in Egyptology 2019 presents the papers and posters from the twentieth meeting of the prestigious international student Egyptology conference, on this occasion held at the University of Alcalá, Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, Spain. The conference took place 17–21 June 2019 at the Major College of San Ildefonso, the historic centre of the University of Alcalá, with almost 200 participants from various countries and institutions all over the world. The conference addressed a wide range of topics including all periods of ancient Egyptian History and different aspects of its material culture, archaeology, history, society, religion and language. Fifteen wide-ranging papers are published here with wider information on the scientific and cultural programme of the conference.

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Ex Asia Minor et Syria: Religions in the Roman Central Balkans investigates the cults of Asia Minor and Syrian origin in the Roman provinces of the Central Balkans. The author presents, analyzes and interprets all hitherto known epigraphical and archaeological material which attests to the presence of Asia Minor and Syrian cults in that region, a subject which is yet to be the object of a serious scholarly study. Thus the book both reviews previously known monuments and artefacts, many of which are now missing or are destroyed, and adds new finds, exploring their social and geographical context from all possible angles, and focusing on the thoughts and beliefs of the dedicants and devotees of the particular cult in question. New conclusions are presented in a scientific framework, taking account of the latest theoretical developments.

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Aquatic Adaptations in Mesoamerica explores the subsistence strategies that ancient Mesoamericans implemented to survive and thrive in their environments. It discusses the natural settings, production sites, techniques, artifacts, cultural landscapes, traditional knowledge, and other features linked to human subsistence in aquatic environments. The study is based on analyses of fishing, hunting, gathering, and manufacture (among other activities), all of which were integral elements of aquatic lifeways. In addition to the aquatic lifeways themselves, salt-making, and intensive agriculture developed and practiced in lakes and marshes are also examined. The study adopts a perspective based on ethnoarchaeology and ethnohistory, complemented by archaeological field data.

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Iron Age marsh-forts are large, monumental structures located in low-lying waterscapes. Although they share chronological and architectural similarities with their hillfort counterparts, their locations suggest that they may have played a specific and alternative role in Iron Age society. Despite the availability of a rich palaeoenvironmental archive at many sites, little is known about these enigmatic structures, and until recently, the only acknowledged candidate was the unusual, dual-enclosure monument at Sutton Common, near Doncaster. Assessing Iron Age Marsh-Forts considers marsh-forts as a separate phenomenon within Iron Age society through an understanding of their landscape context and palaeoenvironmental development. At the national level, a range of Iron Age wetland monuments has been compared to Sutton Common to generate a gazetteer of potential marsh-forts. At the local level, a multi-disciplinary case-study is presented of the Berth marsh-fort in North Shropshire, incorporating GIS-based landscape modelling and multi-proxy palaeoenvironmental analysis (plant macrofossils, beetles and pollen). The results of both the gazetteer and the Berth case-study challenge the view that marsh-forts are simply a topographical phenomenon. These substantial Iron Age monuments appear to have been deliberately constructed to control areas of marginal wetland and may have played an important role in the ritual landscape.

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Thorvald’s Cross. The Viking Age Cross-Slab ‘Kirk Andreas MM 128’ and its Iconography provides an in-depth analysis of one of the Isle of Man’s most important and intriguing monuments. The Manx Crosses are a unique collection of Scandinavian-style grave stones unequalled in the medieval Viking World. Their carvings and inscriptions offer a window into Viking Age society and spirituality at a time when the Celtic Manx and Scandinavian settlers in the Island came to terms with each other. Among these stones, the iconic ‘Thorvald’s Cross’ (MM 128) in St Andrew’s church in the village of Andreas demands particular attention, as it features figural scenes with humans and animals deriving from both pagan Norse mythology and Christian religious imagery. According to the prevailing view, the triumph of Christianity over paganism is shown in the two preserved reliefs, but differing opinions have been put forward. This book brings together all available information about Thorvald’s Cross and discusses and analyses former and current hypotheses regarding the stone’s iconography, weighing their respective merits and shortcomings. Based on in-depth research and an ‘autopsy’ of the stone on-site, it considers the images in their spiritual, cultural, and chronological context and presents a new interpretation of this remarkable monument, arguing that the depiction of religious confrontation was not its original purpose, but that both scenes convey a common, much more subtle and comforting Christian message.

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Life, Death and Rubbish Disposal in Roman Norton, North Yorkshire: Excavations at Brooklyn House 2015-16 reports on excavations in advance of the development of a site in Norton-on-Derwent, North Yorkshire close to the line of the main Roman road running from the crossing point of the River Derwent near Malton Roman fort to York (Eboracum). The Brooklyn House site provided much information on aspects of the poorly understood ‘small town’ of Delgovicia. The area came to be used for apparently widely-dispersed burials in the mid-3rd century AD. Among these was the bustumtype burial of a soldier, or former soldier, which produced a well-preserved assemblage of military equipment and incorporated some ‘non-standard’ features. In addition, evidence was found for a possible mausoleum. During the late third and fourth centuries the burial activity was succeeded by occupation in the form of substantial stone-founded, or in some cases possibly stone-built buildings fronting onto the Roman road which was the main approach road to the town from the south. These structures could have been related in some way to the Norton Roman pottery industry, the core area of which was located to the east of the site, although no evidence from them suggested this. Following the fairly short-lived occupation, much of the site was used for the disposal of large quantities of rubbish and structural debris that presumably originated from locations closer to or beyond the river crossing, including possibly the Roman fort. The Roman pottery assemblage incorporated in excess of 21,000 sherds and adds considerably to our knowledge of pottery use and production in Roman Malton/Norton. Similarly, the substantial and well-preserved Roman-period finds assemblage provides insights, not only into the bustum burial but also wider aspects of life in Delgovicia. Within the assemblage, there were some unusual and rarely found individual items such as a pair of iron-working tongs, a two-link snaffle bit and a bone needle case, as well as a wide range of other material including military equipment, jewellery, styli and a possible scroll holder. The medieval and later pottery from the site provides a baseline for work on assemblages recovered from Malton/Norton in the future.

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In the centuries that preceded the European conquest in 1521, the central-northern region of the state of Michoacán, West Mexico, was a place of significant socio-political changes materialized by important transformations of settlement pattern and material culture. The archaeological site of El Palacio (also known as La Crucita or Mich. 23), located in the Zacapu Basin, constituted a major center throughout these regional events. The site has been mentioned in the archaeological literature as early as the end of the nineteenth century, and dispersed subsequent research has documented changes in site morphology, function, and degree of integration into interregional networks of cultural interaction. The present volume offers the first monographic publication about El Palacio. It is composed of a series of eleven contributions looking at both legacy and archive data (1896–1995) and results derived from recent archaeological investigations (2012–2017). The systematic review and analysis of the chrono-stratigraphy, material culture, urbanism, and economic and ritual practices at the site yields critical information that allows discussion of the role of El Palacio and the context of its development at both local and extra-local scales, between A.D. 850 and 1521. Beyond this central concern, this volume provides extended material for cultural comparisons with West, Northwest and Central Mexico during this time period, as well as for broader discussions about the complex social mechanisms involved in the rise, transformation, and fall of premodern urban centers.

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Kitāb al-ʾifādah wa al-ʾiʿtibār fī al-ʾumur al-mušāhadah wa al-ḥawādiṯ al-muʿāyanah bi-arḍ Miṣr, by ʿAbd al-Laṭīf al-Baġdādī (1162-1231 AD) is a fascinating work; it represents one of the best known and most important manuscripts concerning Egypt during the period between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries AD. The author, through his gaze and with a clear and shrewd use of language and style, describes several characteristic aspects of the Nile country: the landscape, the animals, the plants, the monuments, the boats, the peculiar dishes, without forgetting the effects of the famine, or the misery caused by the ailments and hunger that hit the country between 1200 and 1202 AD. Translated into German (1790), Latin (1800), French (1810), and more recently into English (1965), there was, until now, still no translation into Italian of this masterful work. This omission prompted the authors to work over a period of several years on the present volume which, in addition to providing the first Italian translation (accompanied by the transcription of the original Arabic manuscript), provides essential and necessary commentary notes aimed at explaining different passages of the manuscript. Some preliminary chapters also attempt to focus on themes, the author and his philosophy in order to provide the reader with a wider image of the conceptions of the period in which he lived and what this description represented and still represents: a masterpiece of realism which continues to stir the imagination in the modern age.

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During the Seminar for Arabian Studies held in Leiden (July 2019), a special one-day session on the stone tools of prehistoric Arabia was held. Stone tools are generally associated with the oldest archaeological periods of human existence, the Palaeolithic, and are the most lasting vestiges of our ancestors’ productive activities. In Arabia, stone tools (or lithics) are found on the deflated surfaces close to raw material outcrops, high on the top of mountains and deep within valleys and terraces, on lake relics at the heart of the many sand seas, and even under water. For a long time, however, stratified archaeological records were rare and developing chronological frameworks was therefore a challenge. The discoveries made by international archaeological projects conducted across Arabia in recent years have made vital contributions to the field; the archaeological investigation of human origins in the Arabian Peninsula and a better understanding of cultural diversification throughout prehistory are good examples. The interpretation of the new finds provides alternative scenarios for how prehistoric human populations interacted with the diverse landscapes of Arabia, suggesting the Peninsula was not merely a crossroads or superhighway of expansion for anatomically modern humans but also functioned as a human habitat throughout the Pleistocene. The present Supplement to Volume 50 of the Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies addresses these and many particularly emerging interests on the deep past of the Arabian Peninsula.

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This volume is in honor of the American scholar Rev. H. Richard Rutherford, C.S.C, Ph.D (University of Portland). It contains the papers presented at the Archaeometry Symposium in the 74th Northwest Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society (NORM) which took place in Portland (Oregon), June 18th 2019, covering a wide range of topics. The volume includes papers about the application of different techniques in archaeology in order to comprehend some aspects during and after the excavation, for instance, physics, chemical analysis, remote sensing, LiDAR, etc. This work compiles papers about sites from different places around of the world, Spain, Canada, Thailand, Lithuania or Russia. The aim of the symposium was to facilitate communication between scholars from different places, to present current work in the field, and to stimulate future research.

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Historical Archaeology and Heraldry on Chios presents the results of research into the island’s medieval period, a terra incognita in the contemporary scholarly record. It is the first to be devoted to this topic in more than 100 years, following the publication of the seminal History of Chios by G. Zolotas in the 1920s. The book discusses the archaeology and history of Chios during the Byzantine and Genoese periods, focusing on Mount Amani, the region on the north-western part of the island. Harsh, remote, and poor, Mount Amani is nevertheless surprisingly rich in material for the landscape archaeologist and the student of historical topography, yet unknown in scholarly literature. Different types of evidence—both tangible and intangible—are used to discuss aspects of the local history and culture, from the evolution of the Byzantine settlement pattern, the rural economy, communications by land and sea and the chain of watchtowers, to the genealogy, the prosopography and the insignia of the local aristocracy, with many stone carvings illustrated for the first time.

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This volume presents the entire assemblage of fine wares (terra sigillata, lamps and thin-walled wares) from Ammaia, a Roman and Late Antique town located in the hinterland of southern Lusitania (presently in Portuguese territory). Despite its distance from the Atlantic coast, Ammaia took advantage of its proximity to Augusta Emerita, the capital of Lusitania. This aspect is particularly strong between c. AD 50 and c. AD 150, when the local market imported large quantities of fine wares from the capital. The Late Antique phase reveals a balanced capacity of importation at Ammaia, whose fine wares, essentially related to terra sigillata, were provided by wares from northern Hispania (Douro and Ebro valleys) and North Africa (Tunisia). Moreover, recent research at Ammaia has provided excellent stratigraphic contexts dated to between c. AD 50 and c. AD 150, crucial for the understanding of the chronological evolution of Italian, South-Gaulish and Hispanic terra sigillata. In the final chapter, the author undertakes a wide-ranging analysis of southern Lusitania with regard to the consumption of fine wares and amphorae. Several chronological phases have been established, based on stratigraphic and typological evidence, for the period between c. AD 50 and c. AD 550: that is the Early Empire (from the Claudio-Neronian period onwards) and its transition into the Late Roman period and the post-Roman phase. In the final sub-chapters, this analysis focuses on the problematic 5th century and up to the latest Lusitanian stratigraphic evidence of around the middle of the 6th century AD.

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Henry Hunter Calvert died at his family house at Çannakale in 1880 a few months after escaping from the rioting in Alexandria where he was British consul. The consulate was sacked and his collections destroyed. He had however sent an annotated list of his Greek amphora stamps to the British Museum, presumably to Charles Newton, with whom he and his brother Frank had frequent correspondence. This list was forgotten until the present writer ‘found’ it in a box-file in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities (its title at the time). Henry Hunter Calvert’s Collection of Amphora Stamps and that of Sidney Smith Saunders publicly presents that material.

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The numerous rescue excavations conducted in Athens and Attica by the Archaeological Service during and after the major construction projects of the 2004 Olympic Games brought to light significant new prehistoric finds which have transformed our understanding of the region in prehistory. However, despite their importance, the new discoveries had remained mostly unnoticed by the international community, as the results were scattered in various publications, and no synthesis was ever attempted. The goal of the 2015 international conference Athens and Attica in Prehistory, which was organized by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, the University of Athens (Department of Archaeology and History of Art), the Museum of Cycladic Art and the Ephorate of Antiquites of East Attica (Hellenic Ministry of Culture) was to gather scholars working in the region and present for the first time a survey of Attic prehistory which would include the most recent discoveries and integrate over a century of scholarship. The 668- page conference proceedings include over 66 papers in Greek and English with sections dedicated to topography, the palaeo-environment, the Neolithic, the Chalcolithic transition, the Early Bronze Age, the Middle and Late Bronze Age, as well as the contacts between Attica and its neighbouring regions. A series of new detailed maps, derived from an exhaustive GIS-related database, provide the most up to date topographical and archaeological survey of Prehistoric Attica. Athens and Attica in Prehistory provides the most complete overview of the region from the Neolithic to the end of the Late Bronze Age. Its importance goes beyond the field of Aegean prehistory, as it paves the way for a new understanding of Attica in the Early Iron Age and indirectly throws new light on the origins of what will later become the polis of the Athenians.

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Masters of the Steppe: the impact of the Scythians and later nomad societies of Eurasia consists of 45 papers presented at a major international conference held at the British Museum in 2017 on the occasion of the BP exhibition Scythians: warriors of ancient Siberia, both conference and exhibition being jointly organised with the State Hermitage Museum. There are 58 contributors and co-authors from 16 countries, mostly from Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, but also America, Britain, France, Germany, China and Mongolia. The papers range from new archaeological discoveries, results of scientific research and studies of museum collections to reconstructions of social elites, the phenomenon of monumental tomb construction, and ‘Animal Style’ art. Most results are presented for the first time in the English language and they throw a completely new light on a huge range of aspects of the lives of Scythians and other ancient nomads of Eurasia, their horses, rock art and the working of precious metals, textiles and other materials.

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Places of Memory takes a new look at spatialised practices of remembrance and its role in reshaping societies from prehistory to today, gathering researchers representing diverse but complementary fields of expertise. This diachronic outlook provides important insights into the great variety of human and social reactions examining memory, encompassing aspects of remembering, the loss of memory, reclaiming memories, and remembering things that may not have happened. The contributions to this volume expand upon Pierre Nora’s concept of lieux des memoire (places of memory) and the notion that memory is not just stored in these places but activated through human engagement. The volume presents a reflection on the creation of memories through the organisation and use of landscapes and spaces that explicitly considers the multiplicity of meanings of the past. Thus, social identities were created, reaffirmed, strengthened, and transformed through the founding, change, and reorganization of places and spaces of memory in the cultural landscape.

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Distinguishing between the bones of sheep and goats is a notorious challenge in zooarchaeology. Several methods have been proposed to facilitate this task, largely based on macro-morphological traits. This approach, which is routinely adopted by zooarchaeologists, although still valuable, has also been shown to have limitations: morphological discriminant traits can differ in different sheep/ goat populations and a correct identification is highly dependent upon experience, as well as the availability of appropriate reference collections and the degree to which a researcher is prepared to ‘risk’ an identification. The Neglected Goat provides a new, more objective and transparent methodology, based on a combination of morphological and biometrical analyses, to distinguish between sheep and goat post cranial bones. Additionally, on the basis of the newly proposed approach, it reassesses the role of the goat in medieval England. There are several historical and archaeological questions concerning the role of this animal that have so far remained unanswered: why is the goat commonly recorded in the Domesday Book, when it appears to be so scarce in the contemporary archaeological record? Is the goat under-represented in the archaeological record or over-represented in the Domesday Book? Why is this animal, when identified in English medieval animal bone assemblages, almost exclusively represented by horncores? Through the investigation of a number of English sheep and goat medieval assemblages, this study sheds light on these questions, and suggests that the goat was indeed rarer than the Domesday Book suggests.

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By presenting case studies from across eastern and western medieval Europe, Ecclesiastical Landscapes in Medieval Europe aims to start a Europe-wide debate on the variety of relations and contexts between ecclesiastical buildings and their surrounding landscapes between the 5th and 15th centuries AD. The book contains 16 papers dealing with 11 very diverse regions: Transylvania, Western Bohemia, Switzerland, Tuscany, the Po Valley, Central Spain, Galicia, England, Scotland, the Isle of Man, and Ireland. The volume is divided into two main thematic sections. ‘Ecclesiastical Topographies’ comprises works exploring the spatial dimension of ecclesiastical architecture during the Middle Ages, particularly regarding the creation of the parish system and the relationship between churches and cemeteries. In ‘Monastic Landscapes’ medieval monasteries provide an especially interesting case study because of their recognised capacity to modify the surrounding environment. As a result of the convergence of these perspectives, the hope is that this book will offer researchers ample comparative evidence for understanding the universal elements of ecclesiastical landscapes which transcend both chronological and geographical limits.

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Conversations in Human Evolution is an ongoing science communication initiative seeking to explore the breadth and interdisciplinarity of human evolution studies. This volume reports twenty interviews (referred to as ‘conversations’ as they are informal in style) with scholars at the forefront of human evolution research, covering the broad scientific themes of quaternary and archaeological science, Palaeolithic archaeology, biological anthropology and palaeoanthropology, primatology and evolutionary anthropology and evolutionary genetics. This project features academics at various different stages in their careers and from all over the world; in this volume alone, researchers are based at institutions in seven different countries (namely the United Kingdom, Australia, the United States of America, Germany, Denmark, India, and China), covering four continents. Having arisen at the start of the COVID19 pandemic, Conversations in Human Evolution aims to encourage engagement with both human evolutionary studies and the broader socio-political issues that persist within academia, the latter of which is particularly pertinent during this time of global uncertainty. The conversations delve deeply into the study of our species’ evolutionary history through the lens of each sub-discipline, as well as detailing some of the most current advances in research, theory and methods. Overall, Conversations in Human Evolution seeks to bridge the gap between the research and researcher through contextualisation of the science with personal experience and historical reflection.

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The Urban Landscape of Bakchias: A Town of the Fayyūm from the Ptolemaic-Roman Period to Late Antiquity summarises the results of field research conducted on the archaeological site of Bakchias, located in the north-eastern part of the Fayyūm region. Historical, historico-religious and papyrological studies are also presented. The book provides a clear and comprehensive overview of the rise and fall of the kome of Bakchias. The settlement was a thriving centre from at least the 26th dynasty up until the ninth or tenth centuries CE, although with differing levels of economic prosperity and urban development. Equal weight is given not only to the archaeological and topographical aspects but also to the historical and the religious, whilst never forgetting the relationship between the urban settlement and other villages of the Arsinoite nomos, which is famously a peculiar exception in Egyptian geography.

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Discussions on consanguineous marriage within Egyptology usually focus on brother-sister marriages recorded in census returns from Roman Egypt, or royal sibling marriages amongst the ruling Ptolemies. However, no wide-ranging review exists of non-royal consanguineous marriage in ancient Egypt despite the economic and biological implications of such relationships. This is the first time that evidence for nonroyal consanguineous marriage in ancient Egypt has been collated from select sources spanning the Middle Kingdom to the Roman Period and a method created to investigate the potential economic and biological outcomes of these unions, particularly beyond the level of sibling and half-sibling unions. The working definition of consanguineous marriage used throughout this study is that used by clinical geneticists: unions contracted between cousins biologically related as second cousins or closer biological kin. This research argues that for some families, and under certain conditions, consanguineous marriage was a preferred economic strategy in terms of gifts given at marriage and in inheritance, and that families who married consanguineously may have received greater levels of intra-familial support without the expectation of reciprocity. Although there may have been adverse biological outcomes arising from congenital anomalies and genetic disorders in the offspring of consanguineous marriages, the research suggests that it is unlikely that these physical or cognitive disorders were distinguished from other medical disorders in the general health environment of ancient Egypt. The investigation focuses primarily on ancient Egyptian documentary and archaeological sources, including human remains, and is informed by research on consanguinity from a range of disciplines including anthropology, demography, economics and pathology.

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This volume is in honour of the Austrian scholar Prof. Dr Hannsjörg Ubl. It contains a tabula gratulatoria, a bibliography and 24 contributions covering a wide range of topics. The focus being Greek and Roman, the volume includes papers about the Langobards, renaissance replicas of classical sculpture, and the archaeology of World War I. The 'classical' papers deal with Greek and Roman art and art looting; dogs in Greek and Roman warfare; Roman looking-glasses; erotic inscriptions of Gaulish spindle whorls; military equipment and dress accessories; Roman military history and the non-military archaeology of Raetia, Noricum and Pannonia.

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Carving a Professional Identity: The occupational epigraphy of the Roman Latin West presents the results of long-term research into the occupational epigraphy from the Latin-language provinces of the Roman Empire. It catalogues stone epigraphs of independent professionals (thus excluding state workers, imperial slaves, freedmen and military personnel), comprising some 690 people, providing quantitative as well as qualitative analyses of the raw data. A glossary translating the occupational titles is also included. The book reveals a very lively work market, where specialisation responded to demand and brought social and economic status to the worker. The coherence of epigraphic habits and manifestations within a professional group, along with all the other existing clues for a rather unitary use of symbols, endorse once more the existence of a Roman provincial, commercial, middle class.

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The Etruscan character of the city of Pisa has been questioned for a long time. However, thanks to a thriving period of archaeological investigations undertaken in the mid-1980s, it was possible to definitively confirm the ancient Etruscan origin of the settlement. One of the main excavations was carried out between 1985 and 1988 a few steps away from the Leaning Tower (saggio D), where a complex and uninterrupted stratigraphy dating from the middle of the 6th century BC and the end of the 5th century AD was brought to light. The anthropic installations and wall structures unearthed share the same alignments and the same orientation, within an apparently orthogonal urban network designed at least from the end of the 5th century BC and knowingly respected until the end of the Roman imperial age. Uno sguardo su Pisa ellenistica da piazza del Duomo, dedicated to the Hellenistic period documented in the excavation of saggio D, presents a substantial catalogue of the ceramic repertoire therein recovered, most of which are still not attested in the city. Due to the results of this work, it is now possible to redefine the role of Pisa in this period as one of the major trade centres of northern coastal Etruria.

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This special edition of Aramazd: Armenian Journal of Near Eastern Studies is dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the Republic of Armenia and summarises the studies conducted in Armenia in the field of archaeology (1991-2016). Contributions included in this volume cover a significant time span, from Lower Palaeolithic to the Middle Ages. The articles summarise the archaeological surveys conducted by joint international expeditions and partly by Armenian archaeologists. The volume also introduces the bio-bibliography of several outstanding representatives of Armenian archaeologists of the past whose activities enhanced the establishment and development of the Armenian archaeological school.

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Archaeologists have yet to consider seriously the impact of slaving and enslavement on socio-cultural developments in Iron Age Europe. Commonly treated as a mere byproduct of incessant tribal warfare, it is generally held that slavery was not a significant phenomenon in temperate Europe before the Roman era. This is a curious state of affairs considering the clear cross-paradigmatic recognition of competition and conflict as prime movers of historical transformation. How is it that prehistorians see evidence for social stratification and inter-group conflict in so many contexts, yet grant slavery so little attention? If slaving and enslavement can be shown to have been a significant transformative phenomena in Iron Age Europe, how would this affect the interpretation of (old and new) archaeological evidence, and how would this change ideas about broader socio-cultural developments that have long been considered known by those who have looked at these things through the lens of ‘acculturation’ or ‘complexification’? Comparative research shows how slavery is a multifaceted phenomenon with complex interrelated material, behavioral, and ideological dimensions. Therefore, any meaningful archaeological study has to take a multi-thread approach whereby a wide range of material categories and domains of social practice are examined, contextually, relationally, and comparatively. In taking such an approach, this exploratory study of the dynamics of Iron Age slaving and enslaving in Northwest Europe contributes to a complex but neglected topic.

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This report outlines investigation of the early manor at Guiting Power, a village in the Cotswolds with Saxon origins, lying in an area with interesting entries in the Domesday Survey of 1086. Excavation has shown that, during the later Saxon period, a lightly defended compound contained a principal area of habitation, with an adjacent, more open ‘working area’ partly divided by ditched sub-enclosures, perhaps related to subsidiary settlement, or other economic activity. This complex may have formed the main estate-centre for a more extensive land-holding, scattered over the northern Cotswolds, and leased from the king, its last Saxon tenant being one ‘Alwin’, as sheriff of the county a thegn of some standing. During the major economic and social changes following the Conquest, under a change to Norman lordship, the manorial perimeter was reinforced, and a small apsidal church was constructed within it, now restored as a standing monument. Subsequently, a new complex of manorial buildings was established on a fresh site within the enclosure, the precursor of the present parish church was constructed nearby, with further development of manor and village into the full medieval period.

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Invisible Archaeologies: hidden aspects of daily life in ancient Egypt and Nubia brings together eight of the papers presented at a conference held in Oxford in 2017. The theme aimed to bring together international early-career researchers applying novel archaeological and anthropological methods to the ‘overlooked’ in ancient Egypt and Nubia – and included diverse topics such as women, prisoners, entangled communities and funerary displays. The papers use a range of archaeological and textual material and span from the Predynastic period to the Late Period. By applying methodology used so successfully within the discipline of archaeology over the past 20 years, they offer a different perspective on Egyptological research, and demonstrate how such theoretical models can broaden scholarly understanding of the Nile Valley.

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How can the built environment help in the understanding of social and economic changes involving ancient local communities? Arab Settlements aims to shed light on the degree to which economic and political changes affected social and identity patterns in the regional context from the Nabatean through to the Umayyad and Abbasid periods. Settlement analysis is understood to be a crucial tool for accessing the local material culture and characterising the specific identities of the concerned societies. For this purpose, the author compares eight case studies across the Middle East, considering their spatial organisation over a long period (2nd – 9th centuries AD). For the interpretation of the remains, the anthropological concepts of ‘segmented societies’ and ‘pastoralism’ are fundamental, providing possible explanations of some spatial patterns attested in the case-studies. The idea of ‘Oriental’ settlements underscores the marked continuity in the organisation of the buildings and the use of space revealed on different levels between the Byzantine and Early Islamic periods. Furthermore, the label of ‘Arab settlements’ is proposed in this context, highlighting the direct connection between social identities and built environment, with a direct reference to the development of an ‘Arab’ identity.

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A Classical Archaeologists’s Life: The Story so Far shows that a scholar’s life is not all scholarship, though much of this book is devoted to the writing of books and, especially, travel to classical and other lands. Boardman is a Londoner, born in Ilford and attending school in Essex (Chigwell). His teenage years were spent often in air raid shelters rather than with ‘mates‘ (all evacuated). There are distinctive ‘aunties’, the rituals of daily life in a London suburb. The non-scholarly figures live large in this account of his life, marriage, children, new houses. At Cambridge he learned about classical archaeology as a necessary addition to reading Homer and Demosthenes, even being obliged to recite the latter. And those were the days of Bertrand Russell’s lectures in a university reawakening after the war. Thence to the British School at Athens to learn about excavation (Smyrna, Knossos, later Libya). His return from Greece was to Oxford, not Cambridge, at first in the Ashmolean Museum, then as Reader and Professor. A spell in New York gives an account of the city before the troubles, when Petula Clark’s Down Town was dominant. There is much here to reflect on university life and teaching, and on the reasons for and problems with the writing of his many books (some 40), with reflection on the university, colleges and their ways. Travels are well documented – a notable trip through Pakistan and China, in Persia, Egypt, Turkey – with comment on what he saw and experienced beyond archaeology. A lecture tour in Australia provides comment beyond the academic. He visited Israel often, lecturing and publishing for the Bible Lands Museum. Several tours in the USA took him to most of their museums and universities as well as many other sights, from glaciers to alligators. This book is a mixture of scholarly reminiscence, reflection on family life, travelogue, and critique of classical scholarship (not all archaeological) worldwide, illustrated with pictures of travels, friends, home life, and, for a historian, a reflection on experiences of over 90 years.

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Three theories vie to explain the causes, characteristics and chronology behind the emergence of Iron Age Cypriot city-kingdoms: Achaean, Phoenician and autochthonous. Privileged by scholars until as recently as the 1980s, the first linked the emergence of the Cypriot city-state to the great Achaean migrations at the end of the second millennium. Epic foundation myths, telling of cities founded by Achaean heroes returning from Troy, were seen as fabled versions of events unfolding ostensibly at the outset of the Iron Age. The writings of D.W. Rupp cast doubt on the Achaean theory, by placing these developments at a much later date (8th c. BCE) and tracing their origins to the growing influence of the Phoenicians. This hypothesis was hotly contested, giving rise to a third theory, according to which the Cypriot Iron Age was essentially a continuation of the island’s Bronze Age civilisation. The latter theory now holds sway and is scarcely ever contested. The Cypriot city-kingdoms that we observe in the historical period (7th-4th c. BCE) are said to have arisen, after a few decades of instability, as early as the 11th century. Their political and administrative structures would have undergone little more than consolidation in the 8th century, before enjoying their floruit during the Archaic and Classical periods and finally disappearing amid the Wars of the Diadochi at the start of the Hellenistic period. By recasting these developments within the broader context of the re-emergence of state structures in the eastern Mediterranean, La naissance des cités-royaumes cypriotes reassesses the arguments advanced by champions of the received theory. It likewise situates the phenomenon within a firmer theoretical (i.e. anthropological) framework, intended to establish well-defined distinctions. Furthermore, it proposes a shared typology that can accommodate other political entities, traces of which are found throughout the Geometric period (11th-8th c. BCE). Not only does the archaeological evidence compel us to question whether events unfolded as suggested, it reinforces a more nuanced variant of the Phoenician theory. Various state markers, though abundant in the 8th century (Cypro-Geometric III), seem indeed conspicuously absent during Cypro-Geometric I and II. Excavations at one such city-state, the palace of Amathus, have yielded compelling indications as to when a lasting dynasty originally arose. From them, we can surmise that the Kingdom of Amathus was the first of its kind. While the process no doubt took several decades, under no circumstances did it occur before the 9th century BCE. This coincides, moreover, with the wave of resurgent state-building that swept the eastern Mediterranean and engulfed even more westerly regions like the Aegean.

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On the Borders of World-Systems: Contact Zones in Ancient and Modern Times draws on a diverse set of disciplines to explore historical, archaeological, and political interpretations of world-systems theory and geocivilizational analysis. The monograph has a prospective character, the main goal of which is the solution of a major problem – the study of worldwide practice, oriented towards the problems of the modern social world as a system. The principal focus is on the borderland - limes, which has been perceived variously as an impenetrable cordon, and as an open, interactive environment. In this locus of inter-world encounters, different civilizations developed, and an exchange of goods and ideas took place. Macrosociological issues of ancient and modern history are analyzed through five case studies of the Taurus-Caucasus region and its role as a contact zone in different periods.

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Using archaeological data to examine the development of Han dynasty Chinese art (206 BC-AD 220), Sources of Han Décor focusses on three major iconographies (the animal master, the tree of life, and animal predation), together with a series of minor motifs (particularly the griffin and a number of vegetal forms). All of these are combined in what may be considered the most important iconographic creation of the Han: images of paradise. While influence from the Chinese Bronze Age (especially, c. the 14th-3rd centuries BC) on Han art is expected, a surprisingly profound debt to Greece, the Near East, and the steppe is evident not only in the art of the Han era, but in that of the preceding Eastern Zhou (c. 771-221 BC). Initial Eastern Zhou incorporation of this largely-Western influence appears concentrated in chronological parallel to the Orientalization of Greek art (c. the 7th century BC) and the eastern spread of Hellenism (c. the 4th century BC), followed by repeated introduction of foreign motifs during the Han, when these influences were fully integrated into Chinese art.

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The area corresponding to the modern city of Rome is usually known for the magnificent remains of the Roman civilization and the myths of its foundation in 753 BC. Less known is evidence of the prehistoric occupation occurring until the Bronze Age along the territory corresponding to the city of Rome and the surrounding area, called "Campagna Romana". Indeed, until a few years ago, the archaeological evidence relating to the phases of recent prehistory, from the Neolithic to the beginning of the Bronze Age, were completely, or almost completely, unknown. Recent excavations, mainly related to preventive archaeology, led to the identification of settlements and necropolises associated with a complex cultural scenario and shed light on the social and cultural aspects of daily life of the human groups who occupied this territory before the Latium civilization.

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Turtles, ibexes, ships, inscriptions... Thousands of engraved and painted figures intrigue visitors in the wadis of Al-Hajar Mountains. Who created these enigmatic figures and when were they made? What are their hidden meanings? For the first time, this volume tries to answer these questions. It is the result of the archaeological surveys and investigations undertaken by the author over the last ten years under the patronage of the Ministry of Heritage and Culture. In this book, the author takes the reader on an in-depth journey into the various themes present in the rock art of Oman. He offers theories on the chronology and interpretation, while exploring the landscape setting of the decorated panels and how best to research these. Several beautiful photographs and scientific tracings of the rock art accompany the text. The volume closes offering to enthusiasts and tourists a series of guided visits with GPS maps to the most interesting and visible rock art sites protected by Royal Decrees of the Sultanate.

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Megaliths of the Vera Island in the Southern Urals presents the results of the study of the largest megalithic complex in the Urals, located on Vera Island. The complex is represented by three chambered megaliths and sanctuaries dated to the Eneolithic period (mid-4th - 3rd millennium BC). The book discusses the features of the architecture and building technologies, their astronomical orientation, chronology, religious context, and explores their relation to social organisation and the possible migration of peoples. Small finds – especially the ceramic assemblages – are presented. The authors discuss problems associated with the origin of megaliths, the approaches of European researchers and the possibilities of applying these approaches to the Ural megaliths. Against the background of the lack of agriculture – in contrast to Europe – there was no demographic basis in the Urals for the emergence and existence of the megalithic phenomenon. In addition to the megalithic complex, there are many unexplored objects on the island, the purpose of which remain, as yet, unclear. Ancient settlements of the same period have also been discovered on the island. The complex on Vera Island is unique precisely due to the combination of objects with so many different functions found within a relatively small area (6 ha).

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The Nebrodi mountains run along the central-northern part of Sicily. It is an area characterised by high ground that rises abruptly from the Tyrrhenian coast, separated by narrow valleys crossed by creeks and a few flat areas. Human presence there is very old due to the abundance of natural resources (water, wood, fertile land) and a favourable climate. In classical times, many cities prospered here, usually on well-defended hilltops; the archaic indigenous settlements encountered Greek culture from the 6th century BC, but they can be defined as totally Hellenized only after the middle of the 4th century BC. The phase of greatest prosperity was the Hellenistic age, especially following the Roman conquest of Sicily. Important centres were, among others, Tyndaris, Halaesa, Kale Akte and Herbita. Their wealth derived from the great availability of natural resources and from direct or indirect trade with the rest of the island, the Italian peninsula and other areas of the Mediterranean, especially those overlooking the sea. The birth of many of these settlements often dates back to prehistory and the existence of some of them has continued until today. The physical characteristics of this mountainous part of Sicily, along with its remoteness from the main cities of antiquity, affected the forms of human occupation and the growth of an autonomous culture. The Nebrodi have long remained archeologically unexplored: research and excavations were few and concentrated mainly on certain sites (particularly Tyndaris and Halaesa). Therefore, the history of these districts is still almost unknown. This volume presents the author’s many years of research, hoping to increase the knowledge of many aspects of this part of the island: the meeting between indigenous and Greek cultures, their coexistence, the types of settlement and the organization of cities, the trade and the local productions.

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Este volumen colectivo recoge diferentes contribuciones sobre la historia y la arqueología de las islas Baleares durante la Antigüedad tardía. En su conjunto, estas aportaciones ofrecen una visión general entre el siglo III y X d. C., un período considerado tradicionalmente como uno de los peor conocidos de la historia insular. La escasez de fuentes escritas y, en cierta forma, de investigación arqueológica, pero también la influencia historiográfica de las “dark ages”, habían suscitado una percepción negativa de estos momentos de la historia insular y relegado al archipiélago a un papel marginal. Cabe recordar, no obstante, que las Baleares estaban situadas en un lugar estratégico en las rutas comerciales del Mediterráneo occidental. Fue precisamente esa ubicación la que las convirtió en objetivo de Roma, que ocupó las Baleares (Mallorca y Menorca) en el 123 a. C. En el siglo IV d. C. llegaron a constituir una provincia independiente dentro del Imperio romano, para ser conquistadas sucesivamente por vándalos (455 d. C.) y bizantinos (534 d. C.) y terminar en manos islámicas a inicios del siglo X. El volumen reúne, sin ánimo de exhaustividad, algunos ejemplos de investigación histórica y arqueológica que han permitido una mejora notable en el conocimiento de este período. Sin duda, la investigación desarrollada en estos últimos decenios, tanto desde la academia como desde la arqueología preventiva o de urgencia, ha contribuido a mejorar sustancialmente nuestro conocimiento de este dilatado período de transición, un período en el que las islas del archipiélago balear se transformaron y se adentraron, finalmente, en la Edad Media.

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Members of the Association for the Study of Travel in Egypt and the Near East (ASTENE), founded in 1997, continue to research, hold international conferences, and publish books and essays in order to reveal the lives, journeys and achievements of these less well-known men and women who have made such a contribution to the present day historical and geographical knowledge of this region of the world and who have also given us a better understanding of its different peoples, languages and religions. The men and women from the past who are written about in this volume are a mixture of the incredibly rich or the very poor, and yet they have one thing in common, the bravery to tackle an adventure into the unknown without the certainty they would ever return home to their families. Some took up the challenge as part of their job or to create a new business, one person travelled to learn how to create and manage a harem at his house in London, others had no choice because as captives in a military campaign they were forced to make journeys into Ottoman controlled lands not knowing exactly where they were, yet every day they were looking for an opportunity to escape and return to their homes, while hoping the next person they met would guide them towards the safest route. Apart from being brave, many of these men and women travellers have something else in common: they and others they encountered have left a collective record describing their travels and their observations about all manner of things. It is these forgotten pioneers who first gathered the facts and details that now fill numerous modern guidebooks, inflight magazines and websites.

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Alexandria is located on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt, bordered by Egypt’s Western Desert and the fertile Nile Delta. For many centuries, Alexandria was the major port city in the Eastern Mediterranean and it has been repeatedly struck by natural disasters, such as earthquakes, tsunamis and land subsidence, in its ~2400-year history. This book focuses on the geomorphological and archaeological evidence on the coastal zone of Alexandria, attempting to provide a comprehensive review of its evolution, taking into consideration long-term and short-term factors. The book provides an extensive background on the geomorphology and recent geoarchaeological history of Alexandria, discussing historical maps and natural disasters. In the coastal area of Alexandria there is numerous archaeological evidence, such as burial sites, quarry activities and ancient building remnants, as well as geomorphological features, all revealing a complex evolution of the coastal zone. New evidence, such as fish tanks and ship wrecks in order to discuss the Late Holocene evolution of the coastal zone. Detailed illustrations and maps accompany the book chapters providing the reader the opportunity to gain an extensive view of Alexandria’s features.

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Ceramics in Transition focuses on the utilitarian ceramic traditions during the socio-political transition from the late Byzantine into the early Islamic Umayyad and ‘Abbasid periods, c. 6th–9th centuries CE in southern Transjordan and the Negev. These regions belonged to the Byzantine province of Palaestina Tertia, before Islamic administrative reorganisation in the mid-7th century. Cooking ware and ceramic containers were investigated from five archaeological sites representing different socio-economic contexts, the Jabal Harûn monastery, the village of Khirbet edh-Dharih, the port city of ‘Aqaba/Aila, the town of Elusa in the Negev, and the suburban farmstead of Abu Matar. The ceramics were typo-chronologically categorised and subjected to geochemical and micro-structural characterisation via X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (ED-XRF) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM-EDS) to geochemically ‘fingerprint’ the sampled ceramics and to identify production clusters, manufacturing techniques, ceramic distribution patterns, and material links between rural-urban communities as well as religious-secular communities. The ceramic data demonstrate economic wealth continuing into the early Islamic periods in the southern regions, ceramic exchange systems, specialized manufacture and inter-regional, long-distance ceramic transport. The potters who operated in the southern areas in the formative stages of the Islamic period reformulated their craft to follow new influences diffusing from the Islamic centres in the north.

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There is a growing recognition within Anglo-Saxon archaeology that farming practices underwent momentous transformations in the Mid Saxon period, between the seventh and ninth centuries AD: transformations which underpinned the growth of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and, arguably, set the trajectory for English agricultural development for centuries to come. Meanwhile, in the field of archaeobotany, a growing set of quantitative methods has been developed to facilitate the systematic investigation of agricultural change through the study of charred plant remains. This study applies a standardised set of repeatable quantitative analyses to the charred remains of Anglo-Saxon crops and weeds, to shed light on crucial developments in crop husbandry between the seventh and ninth centuries. The analyses demonstrate the significance of the Anglo-Saxon archaeobotanical record in elucidating how greater crop surpluses were attained through ecologically-sensitive diversification and specialisation strategies in this period. At the same time, assumptions, variables and key parameters are presented fully and explicitly to facilitate repetition of the work, thus also enabling the book to be used as a source of comparative data and a methodological handbook for similar research in other periods and places. It constitutes a specialist, data-driven companion volume to the author’s more general narrative account published as ‘Farming Transformed in Anglo-Saxon England’ (Windgather, 2018).

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This anthology is a collection of works from the Europa Postmediaevalis conference held in Prague in the spring of 2018. As the name of the conference suggests, the subject of interest is the Early Modern period (15th to 18th century) and the manner in which this relatively young discipline within the field of archaeology is approached in Europe. The first year of the conference set the goal of searching for topics in post-medieval archaeology that reflect their current situation while simultaneously addressing a broader group of scholars. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that the central theme pursued by generations across Europe proved to be Early Modern ceramics, the large assemblages of which are, for many of us, the bread and butter of our daily lives – a delight and often a headache resulting from their further processing. Since this issue is the one perceived most acutely in the Czech Republic, the organisers decided to share their current quandaries in this field with both domestic and foreign colleagues. The long-term objective of the conference is to create a professional platform with a uniform communication language (English) and a biennial periodicity allowing scholars to meet regularly to exchange experience gained in their study and work in post-medieval archaeology. The articles published in this anthology reflect the current state of research of Early Modern pottery in individual European countries (the Czech Republic, Croatia, Italy, Hungary, Germany, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Switzerland), including both successes and possible shortcomings. The individual studies should serve as impulses for further study, ideas for thought and discussion and, last but not least, as study material for those who come into contact with Early Modern material culture as part of their work.

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Excavations at the Castillo de Huarmey archaeological site brought to light the first intact burial of female high-elite members of the Wari culture. It was found beneath a large adobe mausoleum, a landmark and focal point of the lower Huarmey Valley. Abundant grave goods, among which were precious metal artefacts, luxurious pottery, beautifully decorated bone and wooden objects, as well as spinning and weaving utensils, leave no doubt about the social status of individuals buried within the main chamber. The very unique character of the find was additionally emphasized by the fact that all of the buried individuals were women, accompanied by two grave guardians, and the remains of ancestors. This book presents the results of bioarchaeological analyses performed to date, and focuses on reconstructing the funeral rite and social status of the deceased.

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When Ferdinand Magellan first anchored off the island of Guam in 1521, the inhabitants of the small Chamorro village at Afetna Point on the southwest coast of Saipan were likely unaware. Archaeological investigations of the traditional village yielded Latte Period burials, ceramics, stone and shell tools, microfossils from food remains, and charcoal from cooking features dating between A.D. 1450 and 1700. No direct evidence of Spanish Contact before forced abandonment of the island circa 1730 was encountered, after which time Saipan remained virtually unpopulated until the arrival of Carolinian and Chamorro settlers from Guam nearly a century later. Spanish settlement in 1668, the German occupation from 1898-1914, and the Japanese sugarcane period from 1914-1944 left few traces at the site until WWII and subsequent American administration. Afetna Point and Saipan have therefore been a contested landscape for centuries, but the island’s prehistory has deep roots that tie the Mariana Islands and its modern culture to ancestral SE Asia.

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Located at the margins of the Rub Al-Khali desert, a place of interactions between settled and nomadic populations, the Adam oasis occupies a pivotal role in the history of Oman. However, almost nothing was known about its foundation and early developments. In 2006, the French Archaeological Mission in Central Oman began the exploration of the area. After ten years of field research using innovative methods and technologies, much is now revealed about the importance of Adam in the prehistory and early history of Oman. This is the first monograph about the research carried out at Adam and it includes seven chapters written by specialists directly involved in the field activities. Each major period is described in detail, including evidence of Palaeolithic occupation, Neolithic settlements, Early and Middle Bronze Age necropolises, Iron Age ritual sites and also an ethnographic study of the traditional water sharing within the oasis.

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