Search results for ""Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA""

California's northern Channel Islands have one of the longest and best-preserved archaeological records in the Americas, spanning some 13,000 calendar years. When European explorers first travelled to the area, these islands were inhabited by the Chumash, some of the most populous and culturally complex hunter-gatherers known. Chumash society was characterised by hereditary leaders, sophisticated exchange networks and interaction spheres, and diverse maritime economies. Focusing on the archaeology of five sites dated to the last 3,000 years, this book examines the archaeology and historical ecology of San Miguel Island, the westernmost and most isolated of the northern Channel Islands. Detailed faunal, artefact, and other data are woven together in a diachronic analysis that investigates the interplay of social and ecological developments on this unique island. The first to focus solely on San Miguel Island archaeology, this book examines issues ranging from coastal adaptations to emergent cultural complexity to historical ecology and human impacts on ancient environments.

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Winner of the 2009 Society for American Archaeology Book Award Chinese Society in the Age of Confucius is based on the most up-to-date archaeological discoveries. It introduces new data, as well as new ways to think about them - modes of analysis that, while familiar to archaeological practitioners in the West and in Japan, are herein applied to evidence from the Chinese Bronze Age for the first time. The treatment of social stratification, clan and lineage organisation, as well as gender and ethnic differences will be of interest to those involved in the general or comparative analysis of grand themes in the Social Sciences.

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Theory and Practice in Mediterranean Archaeology: Old World and New World Perspectives brings together leading scholars from the Old World and the Americas to discuss some of the most pressing issues facing archaeology today. These topics include archaeology and text, the future of large-scale archaeological fieldwork at individual sites, interpretation and preservation of archaeological sites and landscapes, past trajectories and new approaches to regional survey, and debates surrounding landscape and settlement archaeology. Essays by Old World archaeologists provide an overview of these themes, as well as a history of research over the last hundred years. These scholars review the major successes and shortcomings of that work, identifying critical issues that determine and define the field. These essays serve as a springboard for discussion and response by archaeologists working in the Americas and in other parts of the world. The combination of an Old World focus with responses from New World archaeologists provides a uniquely broad assessment of contemporary archaeological theory, methods, and practice throughout the world.

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This volume brings together the work of some of the most prominent archaeologists to document the impact of Jeffrey R. Parsons on contemporary archaeological method and theory. Parsons is a central figure in the development of settlement pattern archaeology, in which the goal is the study of whole social systems at the scale of regions. In recent decades, regional archaeology has revolutionized how we understand the past, contributing new data and theoretical insights on topics such as early urbanism, social interactions among cities, towns and villages, and long-term population and agricultural change, among many other topics relevant to the study of early civilizations and the evolution of social complexity. Over the past 40 years, the application of these methods by Parsons and others has profoundly changed how we understand the evolution of pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican civilization, and now similar methods are being applied in other world areas. The book's emphasis is on the contribution of settlement pattern archaeology to research in pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica, but its authors also point to the value of regional research in South America, South Asia, and China. Topics addressed include early urbanism, household and gender, agricultural and craft production, migration, ethnogenesis, the evolution of early chiefdoms, and the emergence of pre-modern world-systems.

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Excavations at Berenike, a Greco-Roman harbor on the Egyptian Red Sea coast, have provided extensive evidence for trade with India, South-Arabia and sub-Saharan Africa. The results of the 1999 and 2000 excavations by the joint mission of the University of Delaware, Leiden University, and UCLA, have been published in a comprehensive report, with specialists' analyses of different object groups and an overview of evidence for the trade route from the Indian perspective. The book is lavishly illustrated with photographs, drawings, plans, and a large foldout map of Berenike and Sikait.

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A dual strategy of systematic interval transect sampling and full-coverage survey of architectural features and artifact concentrations permits an evaluation of the relative effectiveness of these commonly employed methods. Auger testing in floodplain areas yielded evidence of extensive buried deposits. Distributional analysis of the surface and subsurface data documents the site's growth and decline from 900 BC to AD 900 in radiocarbon years and confirm that Tres Zapotes achieved its apogee during the Late and Terminal Formative periods (400 BC--AD 300). An attribute analysis of burned earthen artifacts discriminates between daub and probable kiln remains, helping to define ceramic production loci. Interpretive chapters discuss the organization of ceramic and obsidian craft production, concluding that craft activities were mainly household based with little elite control over production. The concluding synthesis argues for weak centralization of authority of Tres Zapotes and highlights variability in the political and economic processes affecting forms of urbanism in the lowlands of Mesoamerica.

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Set on a broad isthmus between the Black and Caspian Seas, Caucasia has traditionally been portrayed as either a well-trod highway linking southwest Asia and the Eurasian Steppe or an isolated periphery of the political and cultural centers of the ancient world. Archaeology in the Borderlands: Investigations in Caucasia and Beyond critically re-examines traditional archaeological work in the region, assembling accounts of recent investigations by an international group of scholars from the Caucasus, its neighbors, Europe, and the United States. The twelve chapters in this book address the ways archaeologists must re-conceptualize the region within our larger historical and anthropological frameworks of thought, presenting critical new materials from the Neolithic period through the Iron Age. Challenging traditional models of economic, political, cultural, and social marginality that read the past through Cold War geographies, Archaeology in the Borderlands provides a new challenge to long dominant interpretations of the pre-, proto-, and early history of Eurasia, opening new possibilities for understanding a region that is critical to regional order in the post-Soviet era. This collection represents the first attempt to grapple with the problems and possibilities for archaeology in the Caucasus and its neighboring regions sparked by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of independent states.

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A collection of essays put together by colleagues, friends, and students of William M. Sumner to honor his contribution to Iranian archaeology and archaeological field methodology. Topical contributions emphasize the methodological aspects of analysis of survey data, while regional contributions focus on two of the main geographical areas studied by archaeologists in Iran: the southwest and the northwest. This volume is published in association with The American Institute of Iranian Studies and The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

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This volume includes the results of a five-year excavation (1983-1987) at Pacatnamu, Peru, combining archaeological excavation with physical anthropology, botany, zoology, textile analysis, ethnography, and ethnohistory. Focuses on the period of Moche occupation. Bilingual in English and Spanish.

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This volume presents the results of the first three years (1983-1985) of a five-year excavation at Pacatnamu, Peru, combining archaeological excavation with physical anthropology, botany, zoology, textile analysis, ethnography, and ethnohistory. Focuses on the period of Lambayeque occupation. Bilingual in English and Spanish.

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The Neolithic in Egypt is thought to have arrived via diffusion from an origin in southwest Asia. In this volume, the authors advocate an alternative approach to understanding the development of food production in Egypt based on the results of new fieldwork in the Fayum. They present a detailed study of the Fayum archaeological landscape using an expanded version of low-level food production to organize observations concerning paleoenvironment, socioeconomy, settlement, and mobility. While domestic plants and animals were indeed introduced to the Fayum from elsewhere, when a number of aspects of the archaeological record are compared, a settlement system is suggested that has no obvious analogues with the Neolithic in southwest Asia. The results obtained from the Fayum are used to assess other contemporary sites in Egypt.

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This is a final report of the excavation of Tell Umm el-Marra in northern Syria, conducted in 1994--2010. It is likely the site of ancient Tuba, capital of a small kingdom in the Early and Middle Bronze periods, in the Jabbul plain between Aleppo and northern Mesopotamia.

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The Archaeology of Political Organization is an examination of settlement in the rich coastal plain of lowland Mesoamerica, a region which was wealthy by Mesoamerican values, with fertile soil and tropical commodities such as jaguars, cacao, avian species with bright plumage, and cotton. The book provides basic archaeological data about regional settlement from three decades of survey research in south-central Veracruz in the western lower Papaloapan basin, a region with low density urbanism. The data reveals political and social change, with consolidation of wealth by elite families during the Late Classic period. The political analysis considers archaeological evidence related to several organizational principles: collective versus autocratic, corporate versus exclusionary/network, and segmentary (unspecialized versus specialized). Many variables related to these principles used by other scholars are either suited to historically documented states, not archaeological ones, or ambiguous. Many published studies either focus on a particular city or use documents or other evidence drawn from the top of the settlement hierarchy, characterizing the whole society politically from a biased sample. This political analysis is regional in scope and attentive to variation in the settlement hierarchy, providing a guidepost to analysis of political principles with archaeological data.

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Grotta Scaloria, a cave in Apulia, was first discovered and explored in 1931, excavated briefly in 1967, and then excavated extensively from 1978 to 1980 by a joint UCLA-University of Genoa team, but it was never fully published. The Save Scaloria Project was organized to locate this legacy data and to enhance that information by application of the newest methods of archaeological and scientific analysis. This significant site is finally published in one comprehensive volume (and in an online archive of additional data and photographs) that gathers together the archaeological data from the upper and lower chambers of the cave. These data indicate intense ritual and quotidian use during the Neolithic period (circa 5600-5300 BCE). The Grotta Scaloria project is also important as historiography, since it illustrates a changing trajectory of research spanning three generations of European and American archaeology.

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This book presents the results of the extensive excavation of a small, rural village from the period of emerging cities in upper Mesopotamia (modern northeast Syria) in the early to middle third millennium BC. Prior studies of early Near Eastern urban societies generally focused on the cities and elites, neglecting the rural component of urbanization. This research represents part of a move to rectify that imbalance. Reports on the architecture, pottery, animal bones, plant remains, and other varieties of artifacts and ecofacts enhance our understanding of the role of villages in the formation of urban societies, the economic relationship between small rural sites and urban centers, and status and economic differentiation in villages. Among the significant results are the extensive exposure of a large segment of the village area, revealing details of spatial and social organization and household economics. The predominance of large-scale grain storage and processing leads to questions of staple finance, economic relations with pastoralists, and connections to developing urban centers.

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The Soconusco region, a narrow strip of the Pacific coast of Mexico and Guatemala, is the location of some of the earliest pottery-using villages of ancient Mesoamerica. Mobile early inhabitants of the area harvested marsh clams in the estuaries, leaving behind vast mounds of shell. With the introduction of pottery and the establishment of permanent villages (from 1900 B.C.), use of the resource-rich estuary changed. The archaeological manifestation of that new estuary adaptation is a dramatic pattern of inter-site variability in pottery vessel forms. Vessels at sites within the estuary were about seventy percent neckless jars --"tecomates"-- while vessels at contemporaneous sites a few kilometers inland were seventy percent open dishes. The pattern is well-known, but the the settlement arrangements or subsistence practices that produced it have remained unclear. Archaeological investigations at El Varal, a special-purpose estuary site of the later Early Formative (1250-1000 B.C.) expand possibilities for an anthropological understanding of the archaeological patterns. The goal of this volume is to describe excavations and finds at the site and to propose, based on a variety of analyses, a new understanding of Early Formative assemblage variability.

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Lake Titicaca - the world's highest navigable lake - was home to some of the greatest civilizations in the ancient world. This lavishly illustrated book provides an indispensable guide for any visitor who has an interest in archaeology, history and culture, and for any reader wnating to know more about this fascinating place.

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Case study of excavations at an early (ca. 2800 B.C.) pastoral site in the Negev, providing detailed analyses and a synthetic overview of a seasonal encampment from this early period in the evolution of desert pastoral societies. The first detailed analysis of this culture and includes materials previously unreported for the region and period.

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The Soconusco region, a narrow strip of the Pacific coast of Mexico and Guatemala, is the location of some of the earliest pottery-using villages of ancient Mesoamerica. Mobile early inhabitants of the area harvested marsh clams in the estuaries, leaving behind vast mounds of shell. With the introduction of pottery and the establishment of permanent villages (from 1900 B.C.), use of the resource-rich estuary changed. The archaeological manifestation of that new estuary adaptation is a dramatic pattern of inter-site variability in pottery vessel forms. Vessels at sites within the estuary were about seventy percent neckless jars --"tecomates"-- while vessels at contemporaneous sites a few kilometers inland were seventy percent open dishes. The pattern is well-known, but the the settlement arrangements or subsistence practices that produced it have remained unclear. Archaeological investigations at El Varal, a special-purpose estuary site of the later Early Formative (1250-1000 B.C.) expand possibilities for an anthropological understanding of the archaeological patterns. The goal of this volume is to describe excavations and finds at the site and to propose, based on a variety of analyses, a new understanding of Early Formative assemblage variability.

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Over the last decades, considerable effort has been directed towards the study of early complex societies of northern Peru, and in recent years archaeologists have expressed a strong interest in the art and archaeology of the Moche, Lambayeque and Chimu societies. Yet, comparatively little attention has been paid to the earlier cultural foundations of north coast civilization: the Gallinazo. In the recent years, however, the work of a number of north coast specialists brought about a large quantity of data on the Gallinazo occupation of the coast, but a coherent framework for studying this culture had yet to be defined. The present volume is the result of a round table, which gathered some thirty scholars from Europe and North and South America to discuss the Gallinazo phenomenon. In fourteen chapters, authors with different perspectives and backgrounds reconsider the nature of the Gallinazo culture and its position within north coast cultural history, while addressing wider issues about the development of complex societies in this area and within the Andean region in general. The contributions reveal a diversity of perspectives on north coast archaeology, something that is likely to stimulate methodological and theoretical debates among Andeanists, pre-Columbian specialists and New World archaeologists in general.

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This volume, the second in a series of studies on the archaeology of the Titicaca Basin, serves as an excellent springboard for broader discussions of the roles of ritual, authority, coercion, and the intensification of resources and trade for the development of archaic states worldwide. Over the last hundred years, scholars have painstakingly pieced together fragments of the incredible cultural history of the Titicaca Basin, an area that encompasses over 50,000 km2, achieving a basic understanding of settlement patterns and chronology. While large-scale surveys will need to continue and areas will need to be revisited to further refine chronologies and knowledge of site-formation processes, the maturation of the field now allows archaeologists to fruitfully invest energy in single locations and specialized topics.

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This book, the first of a projected three, reports on excavations at Formative-period sites in the state of Tlaxcala, Mexico. The transition to the Formative in the relatively high-altitude study region is later than in choice regions for early agriculture elsewhere in Mesoamerica. From 900 BC, however, population growth and sociopolitical development were rapid. A central claim in the research presented here is that a macroregional perspective is essential for understanding the local Formative sequence. In this volume, excavations at three village sites (Amomoloc, Tetel, and Las Mesitas) and one modest regional center (La Laguna) are reported. Ceramics are described in detail. An innovative approach to the classification of figurines is presented, and a Formative chronology for the region is proposed based on seriation of refuse contexts and radiocarbon dates. The work concludes with a macroregional framework to be used in the analysis of subsistence, social relations, and political economy in forthcoming volumes 2 and 3.

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Warfare, ritual human sacrifice, and the rubber ballgame have been the traditional categories through which scholars have examined organized violence in the artistic and material records of ancient Mesoamerica and Central America. This volume expands those traditional categories to include such concerns as gladiatorial-like boxing combats, investiture rites, trophy-head taking and display, dark shamanism, and the subjective pain inherent in acts of violence. Each author examines organized violence as a set of practices grounded in cultural understandings, even when the violence threatens the limits of those understandings. The authors scrutinize the representation of, and relationships between, different types of organized violence, as well as the implications of those activities, which can include the unexpected, such as violence as a means of determining and curing illness, and the use of violence in negotiation strategies.

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Moche civilization flourished on the north coast of Peru from AD 200 to 800. Although the Moche had no writing system, they left a vivid artistic record of their beliefs and activities on intricately painted ceramic vessels, several thousand of which are scattered in museums and private collections throughout the world today. Unfortunately, nearly all were looted by grave robbers so their origin and context are unknown. In recent years, however, through a combination of archaeological excavation and stylistic analysis, it has been possible to identify more than 250 painted vessels from the site of San Jose de Moro. To date, this is the largest sample of Moche art from a single place and time. Thus it provides a unique opportunity to identify a distinct sub-style of Moche ceramics, and to assess its range of artistic and technological variation. Moreover, within the sample it is possible to identify multiple paintings by 18 different artists, thus elucidating the range of subject matter that an artist would paint, as well as the variation in the way he would portray the same scene. By discussing and illustrating more than 200 painted vessels from San Jose de Moro, this volume provides insights about a community of ancient Peruvian potters who shared a distinctive painting style and left a fascinating record of their achievement.

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This volume brings together exciting new field data by more than two dozen Andean scholars who came together to honor their friend, colleague, and mentor. These new studies cover the enormous temporal span of Moseley's own work from the Preceramic era to the Tiwanaku and Moche states to the Inka empire. And, like Moseley's own studies -- from Maritime Foundations of Andean Civilization to Chan Chan: The Desert City to Cerro Baul's brewery -- these new studies involve settlements from all over the Andes -- from the far northern highlands to the far southern coast. An invaluable addition to any Andeanist's library, the papers in this book demonstrate the enormous breadth and influence of Moseley's work and the vibrant range of exciting new work by his former students and collaborators in fieldwork.

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A wide spectrum of scholars, historians, art historians, anthropologists, students of performance, students of religion, archaeologists, cognitive scientists, and linguists were all asked to think and comment on how ritual can be traced in archaeology and which ways ritual research can go in that discipline. The product is a fairly accurate representation of research on ritual and the archaeology of ritual: scholars from various disciplines, backgrounds and agendas, arguing mostly in the most logical fashion, yet with little agreement between them. So this book should not be seen as presenting one unified attitude towards ritual and its study in archaeology. It should rather be seen as a reflection of what the discourse in the archaeology of ritual is today. The outcome has been extremely thought-provoking, often controversial, but always of extremely high quality.

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Recipient of the Jo Anne Stolaroff Cotsen Prize This volume publishes the excavation and analysis of the Early Iron Age cemetery at Torone in Chalkidike, in the north Aegean, Greece. Spanning the period between the twelfth or eleventh century down to ca. 850 BC, the cemetery represents one of the few burial grounds of the period in Greece to have been excavated virtually in its entirety (yielding 134 tombs, of which 118 were cremations and 16 inhumations).

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Settlement archaeology in the Maya area has focused much of its attention on the polar extremes of the settlement continuum. As a result of this urban/rural bias, a whole range of complex rural settlements remain under-explored. The chapters in this volume highlight the variable quality of these"middle level settlements".

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As the center for the religious cult of Quetzalcoatl, Cholula played a prominent role in shaping events of central Mexico's Postclassic period. Yet confusion over historical events in Cholula itself have limited its place in recent archaeological considerations of Mesoamerica. Since ceramic sequences are the backbone of archaeological chronologies, this confusion ultimately relates to problems in previous attempts to order archaeological time with ceramics. This book provides an innovative new classification of Cholula ceramics, based on artifact assemblages from primary depositional contexts recovered from the UA-1 excavations. A detailed and well-illustrated description of ceramic types is provided to construct a new classification system. These types are then seriated using collections from house floors and trash middens to suggest a new sequence spanning the Tlachihualtepetl (700-1200 CE) and Cholollan (1200-1550 CE) periods. The polychrome ceramics of Cholula have been described as among the most beautiful of Mesoamerica, employing vibrant colors to represent complex religious iconography of the Mixteca-Puebla stylistic tradition. By defining type and subtype variations in the polychrome ceramics, a foundation is created for a refined chronology as well as for recognizing intra-societal variability.

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Studies of Pompeian material culture have traditionally been dominated by art historical approaches, but recently there has been a renewed and burgeoning interest in Pompeian houses for studies of Roman domestic behaviour. This book is concerned with contextualised Pompeian household artefacts and their role in deepening understanding of household behaviour at Pompeii. It consists of a study of the contents of thirty so-called atrium houses in Pompeii to investigate the spatial distribution of household activities, both within each architectural room type and across the house. It also uses this material to investigate the state of occupancy of these houses at the time of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.

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For over half a millennium, the megalithic ruins of Tiwanaku in the highlands of the Andes mountains have stood as proxy for the desires and ambitions of various empires and political agendas; in the last hundred years, scholars have attempted to answer the question"What was Tiwanaku?"by examining these shattered remains from a distant preliterate past. This volume contains twelve papers from senior scholars, whose contributions discuss subjects from the farthest points of the southern Andes, where the iconic artifacts of Tiwanaku appear as offerings to the departed, to the heralded ruins weathered by time and burdened by centuries of interpretation and speculation. Visions of Tiwanaku stays true to its name by providing a platform for each scholar to present an informed view on the nature of this enigmatic place that seems so familiar, yet continues to elude understanding by falling outside our established models for early cities and states.

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Images in Action presents interpretations of a large corpus of art and iconography from the Southern and South-Central Andes, bringing together some of the most esteemed scholars in the field. More than thirty authors, all with extensive experience in the Southern Andes, examine artifacts, artworks, textiles, archaeology, and architecture to develop creative new insights on the cultural interactions between people in prehistoric western South America. The volume’s nearly seven hundred images are fully referenced in the text and are archived in a comprehensive, searchable online database.

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This book brings together the perspectives of leading anthropologists, archaeologists, historians, linguists, philologists, and sociologists on how value was created, defined, and expressed in a number of ancient societies around the world.

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This edited book describes the multi-disciplinary research conducted by the Körös Regional Archaeological Project in southeastern Hungary from 2000-2007. Centred around two Early Copper Age Tiszapolgár culture villages in the Körös Region of the Great Hungarian Plain, Vészto-Bikeri and Körösladány-Bikeri, the research incorporated excavation, surface collection, geophysical survey and soil chemistry to investigate settlement layout and organization. The transition from the Neolithic period to the Copper Age in the northern Balkans and the Carpathian Basin was marked by significant changes in material culture, settlement layout and organization, and mortuary practices that indicate fundamental social transformations in the middle of the fifth millennium BC. Prior research into the Late Neolithic of the region focused almost exclusively on fortified 'tell' settlements. The Early Copper Age, by contrast, was known primarily from cemeteries such as the type site of Tiszapolgár-Basatanya. The Project’s results yielded the first extensive, systematically collected datasets from Early Copper Age settlements on the Great Hungarian Plain. The two adjacent villages at Bikeri, located only 70 m apart, were similar in size, and both were protected with fortifications. Relative and absolute dates demonstrate that they were occupied sequentially during the Early Copper Age, from ca. 4600-4200 cal B.C. The excavated assemblages from the sites are strikingly similar, suggesting that both were occupied by the same community. This process of settlement relocation after only a few generations breaks from the longer-lasting settlement pattern that are typical of the Late Neolithic.

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The Wari State was the first expansionistic power to develop in the Andean highlands. Emerging in the area of modern Ayacucho (Peru) around AD 650, the Wari expanded to control much of the central Andes by the time of their collapse at AD 1000. This book describes the discovery and excavation (2010-2012) of a major new Wari site (Espiritu Pampa), located in the subtropical region of Vilcabamba (Department of Cuzco). While it was long believed that the Wari established trade networks between their highland capital and the Amazonian lowlands, the identification of a large Wari site in the Vilcabamba region came as a surprise to most Wari specialists. This book covers the first three years of excavations at the Wari site of Espiritu Pampa. It describes the identification of a central plaza surrounded by a series of D-shaped structures, that are believed to be the loci of special activates for the Wari. It also describes the contents of more than 30 burials, many of which contained finely crafted silver, gold, bronze and ceramic objects.

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This volume is one of the most important works on ancient Athens in the last fifty years. The focus is on the early city, from the end of the Bronze Age—ca. 1200 BCE—to the Archaic period, when Athens became the largest city of the Classical period, only to be destroyed by the Persians in 480/479 BCE. From a systematic study of all the excavation reports and surveys in central Athens, the author has synthesized a detailed diachronic overview of the city from the Submycenaean period through the Archaic. It is a treasure-trove of information for archaeologists who work in this period. Of great value as well are the detailed maps included, which present features of ancient settlements and cemeteries, the repositories of the human physical record. Over eighty additional large-scale, interactive maps are available online to complement the book.

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The first English-language monograph that describes seasonal and permanent Late Bronze Age settlements in the Russian steppes, this is the final report of the Samara Valley Project, a US-Russian archaeological investigation conducted between 1995 and 2002.

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Altera Roma explores the confrontation of two cultures, European and Amerindian, and two empires, Spanish and Aztec. In an age of exploration and conquest, Spanish soldiers, missionaries, and merchants brought an array of cultural preconceptions. Their encounter with Aztec civilization coincided with Europe's rediscovery of classical antiquity, and Tenochtitlan came to be regarded a"second Rome,"or altera Roma. Iberia's past as the Roman province of Hispania served to both guide and critique the Spanish overseas mission. The dialogue that emerged between the Old World and the New World shaped a dual heritage into the unique culture of Nueva Espana. In this volume, ten eminent historians and archaeologists examine the analogies between empires widely separated in time and place and consider how monumental art and architecture created"theater states,"a strategy that links ancient Rome, Hapsburg Spain, preconquest Mexico, and other imperial regimes.

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The burial tumulus of Lofkend lies in one of the richest archaeological areas of Albania (ancient"Illyria"), home to a number of burial tumuli spanning the Bronze and Iron Ages of later prehistory. Some were robbed long ago, others were reused for modern burials; few were excavated under scientific conditions. Modern understanding of the pre- and protohistory of Illyria has largely been shaped by the contents of such burial mounds. What inspired the systematic exploration of Lofkend by UCLA was more than the promise of an unplundered necropolis; it was also a chance to revisit the significance of this tumulus and its fellows for the emergence of urbanism and complexity in ancient Illyria. In addition to artifacts, the recovery of surviving plant remains, bones, and other organic material contribute insights into the environmental and ecological history of the region.

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Case study of excavations at an early (ca. 2800 B.C.) pastoral site in the Negev, providing detailed analyses and a synthetic overview of a seasonal encampment from this early period in the evolution of desert pastoral societies. The first detailed analysis of this culture and includes materials previously unreported for the region and period.

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The last quarter century has seen extensive research on the ports of the Red Sea coast of Egypt, the road systems connecting them to the Nile, and the mines and quarries in the region. Missing has been a systematic study of the peoples of the Eastern Desert--the area between the Red Sea and the Nile Valley--in whose territories these ports, roads, mines, and quarries were located. The historical overview of the Eastern Desert in the shape of a roughly chronological narrative presented in this book fills that gap. The multidisciplinary perspective focuses on the long-term history of the region. The extensive range of topics addressed includes specific historical periods, natural resources, nomadic survival strategies, ancient textual data, and the interaction between Christian hermits and their neighbors. The breadth of perspective does not sacrifice depth, for all authors deal in some detail with the specifics of their subject matter. As a whole, this collection provides an outline of the history and sociology of the Eastern Desert unparalleled in any language for its comprehensiveness. As such, it will be the essential starting point for future research on the Eastern Desert. Includes a CD of eleven audio files with music of the Ababda Nomads, and six short videos of Ababda culture.

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Recipient of the Jo Anne Stolaroff Cotsen Prize The product of ten years of fieldwork at Little Lake Ranch in the Rose Valley, the southern gateway to the Owens Valley, this book presents the results of intensive rock art analyses carried out by the interdisciplinary research team of the UCLA Rock Art Archive. The research attempts to establish a connective web of associations to break down traditional but artificial barriers between rock art and the rest of archaeology. Through time-honored methods of stylistic analysis, the focus is on recent breakthroughs in the analysis of meaning and religion in the context of landscape attributes and ecological opportunities. Regional or ethnic differences suggested by the rock art record has made it possible to create a flexible analytical framework containing previously unpublished or overlooked archaeological excavation and object data. This book describes the occurrence, concentration, distribution, and formal variation of pecked and painted motifs. Scratched, pecked, and painted patterns are analyzed separately. Full-color illustrations throughout enhance the physical appeal of this beautiful book.

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Christopher Donnan's Chotuna and Chornancap: Excavating an Ancient Peruvian Legend, explores one of the most intriguing oral histories passed down among ancient Peruvians: the legend of Naymlap, the founder of a dynasty that ruled the Lambayeque Valley of northern Peru centuries before European contact. Naymlap is said to have built his palace at a place that many now consider to be the archaeological sites of Chotuna and Chornancap. In an effort to test the validity of the Naymlap legend, Donnan directed extensive archaeological excavations at Chotuna and Chornancap--completing plans of the monumental architecture, mapping and excavating most of the major structures, and developing a chronology for the sites. This book presents the results of these excavations and demonstrates the extent to which the archaeological evidence correlates with the sequence of events described in the Naymlap legend.

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Over the last decades, considerable effort has been directed towards the study of early complex societies of northern Peru, and in recent years archaeologists have expressed a strong interest in the art and archaeology of the Moche, Lambayeque and Chimu societies. Yet, comparatively little attention has been paid to the earlier cultural foundations of north coast civilization: the Gallinazo. In the recent years, however, the work of a number of north coast specialists brought about a large quantity of data on the Gallinazo occupation of the coast, but a coherent framework for studying this culture had yet to be defined. The present volume is the result of a round table, which gathered some thirty scholars from Europe and North and South America to discuss the Gallinazo phenomenon. In fourteen chapters, authors with different perspectives and backgrounds reconsider the nature of the Gallinazo culture and its position within north coast cultural history, while addressing wider issues about the development of complex societies in this area and within the Andean region in general. The contributions reveal a diversity of perspectives on north coast archaeology, something that is likely to stimulate methodological and theoretical debates among Andeanists, pre-Columbian specialists and New World archaeologists in general.

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The world's most artful and skillful stone architecture is found at Tiahuanaco at the southern end of Lake Titicaca in Bolivia. The precision of the stone masonry rivals that of the Incas to the point that writers from Spanish chroniclers of the sixteenth century to twentieth-century authors have claimed that Tiahuanaco not only served as a model for Inca architecture and stone masonry, but that the Incas even imported stonemasons from the Titicaca Basin to construct their buildings. Experiments aimed at replicating the astounding feats of the Tiahuanaco stonecutters--perfectly planar surfaces, perfect exterior and interior right angles, and precision to within 1 mm--throw light on the stonemasons' skill and knowledge, especially of geometry and mathematics. Detailed analyses of building stones yield insights into the architecture of Tiahuanaco, including its appearance, rules of composition, canons, and production, filling a significant gap in the understanding of Tiahuanaco's material culture.

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Honoring Jane Buikstra's pioneering work in the development of bioarchaeological research, the essays in this volume stem from a symposium held at the annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Multiple generations of Buikstra's former doctoral students and other colleagues gathered to discuss the impact of her mentorship. The essays are remarkable for their breadth, in terms of both the topics discussed and the geographical range they cover. The contributions highlight the dynamism of bioarchaeology, which owes so much to the strong foundations laid down over the last few decades. The volume documents the degree to which bioarchaeological approaches have become normalized and integrated into anthropological research: bioarchaeology has moved out of the appendix and into the interpretation of archaeological data. New perspectives have emerged, partly in response to theoretical changes within anthropology, but also as a result of the engagement of the broader discipline with bioarchaeology.

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In AD 1438 a battle took place outside the city of Cuzco that changed the course of South American history. The Chanka, a powerful ethnic group from the Andahuaylas region, had begun an aggressive program of expansion. Conquering a host of smaller polities, their army had advanced well inside the territory of their traditional rival, the Inca. In a series of unusual maneuvers, the Inca defeated the invading Chanka forces and became the most powerful people in the Andes. Many scholars believe that the defeat of the Chanka represents a defining moment in the history of South America as the Inca then continued to expand and establish the largest empire of the Americas. Despite its critical position in South American history, until recently the Chanka heartland remained unexplored and the cultural processes that led to their rapid development and subsequent defeat by the Inca had not been investigated. From 2001 to 2004, Brian Bauer conducted an archaeological survey of the Andahuaylas region. This project represents an unparalleled opportunity to examine theoretical issues concerning the history and cultural development of late-prehistoric societies in this area of the Andes. The resulting book includes an archaeological analysis on the development of the Chanka and examines their ultimate defeat by the Inca.

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Recipient of the Jo Anne Stolaroff Cotsen Prize During the Late Intermediate period (AD 1100-1470), the lower Canete Valley of Peru was controlled by the walled Kingdom of Huarco. While inland sites produced irrigated crops, the seaside community of Cerro Azul, 130 km south of Lima, produced fish for the rest of the kingdom. Cerro Azul's noble families lived in large, multipurpose compounds with tapia walls. Their pottery had its strongest ties with valleys to the south, such as Chincha and Ica. During the course of excavation, the University of Michigan Project excavated two tapia buildings in their entirety, saving every sherd from every room, walled work area, feature, and midden. This remarkable volume is the final site report on the architecture and pottery of Late Intermediate Cerro Azul.

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