Search results for ""archaeopress""

In 2011 and 2012, Dr Gerry Wait (then Nexus Heritage) and Dr Ibrahima Thiaw (Institute Fundamental d’Afrique Noire: IFAN, Dakar) undertook an Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) project in Kouilou Department in the southwest region of the Republic of the Congo. The initiative had been commissioned by SRK Consulting UK for Elemental Minerals Ltd relating to a proposed potash mine. These landscapes were little known in terms of the sites and monuments from the distant and more recent past. That the area was important in the understanding of migrations along the African coast had been demonstrated in a pioneering set of excavations by Denbow (2012 and 2014). This base line study was undertaken to identify and evaluate cultural resources which might need further investigation. The second part of the study reports on ethnographic surveys undertaken in the same defined area, treating intangible cultural heritage as equally as important parts of the Congo’s cultural heritage and identity. The baseline studies were systematic in that they employed standard best-practice survey techniques but structured on a landscape level. By building upon Denbow’s extensive surveys and small-scale investigations from 30 years earlier the studies have enabled a richer and more nuanced understanding of the Atlantic Coast of Congo during the past millennium.

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In a break away from the traditional mono-disciplinary scope of academic enquiry, this volume sets forth a challenge for practitioners within, and outwith archaeology to develop multi-disciplinary approaches in the study of identity in general and aspects in the formation of national identity in particular. The entanglement of identity and nationhood is explored from the prehistory of northern Britain; the establishment of a proto-Scottish identity in the early Middle Ages; facets of Scottish identity at home and in the wider diaspora of Empire; and the more recent heralding of Scottish identity as a multiethnic construction. Set against the backdrop of a groundswell change in the Scottish political landscape and the unprecedented, and largely unexpected, energised and proactive politicisation of the Scottish electorate in the lead up to and aftermath of the 2014 Independence Referendum, the volume is a timely and relevant contribution to discussions of national identities. By bringing together specialists covering a wide array of time periods and subject specialisms, we transcend the concept of identity. This is achieved by exploring the links of nationhood and Scottish identity in the early 20th and 21st Centuries in the ongoing quest for independence demonstrating the political manipulation of history, imagery and mythology entangled in political propaganda.

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The flourishing civilisations of Mesopotamia, nowadays Iraq and Syria, imported all kinds of materials from the surrounding regions. Iron oxide rock (hematite, goethite and magnetite) was very popular for weight stones and cylinder seals around 2000 BC. This research aims to determine the region of origin for the raw material, what made people start using iron oxide rock, and what led them to stop using it. To answer these questions, a multidisciplinary approach was applied. Geology and archaeology were combined to identify Northern Syria as the region of origin. Archaeometric research of the production process showed that technological change concurred with the start and end of the use of iron oxide rock. Cuneiform texts yielded, among other information, the earliest description of magnetism known to mankind. Furthermore, element and mineral composition of 50 artefacts from three Dutch collections were determined with modern, non-destructive analysis techniques.

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Dosariyah: Reinvestigating a Neolithic coastal community in eastern Arabia' describes the work carried out at Dosariyah, located in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, which took place between 2010 and 2014. It was conducted by the joint German-Saudi Dosariyah Archaeological Research Project (DARP). A wealth of material remains was found during excavations within almost three metres of anthropogenic deposits. Radiocarbon dates and comparative studies of artefacts securely date the occupation of the site into the first centuries of the fifth millennium BC. The co-occurrence of locally produced artefacts that are technologically and typologically rooted in the local Arabian Middle Neolithic, and imports from southern Mesopotamia is characteristic of Dosariyah. However, the mechanisms behind this distribution of foreign materials along the Arabian Gulf coast, in particular, are still poorly understood. It is the central proposition of this book that the local societies living along the shores of the Arabian Gulf coast played an active role in the acquisition of Ubaid pottery and other objects originating in southern Mesopotamia. A predominance of imported objects, considered as ‘exotic items’, are understood as integral components of rituals that were part of temporary gatherings of larger groups of people at Dosariyah. Based on the material evidence from the site, such collective social events were embedded in everyday life during the fifth millennium BC.

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The prehistoric site of Le Placard, located in Southwest France, was discovered and first explored 150 years ago at a time when prehistory was just emerging as a scientific discipline. Through this century and a half of explorations this site has been involved in numerous debates of prehistoric research; it has also yielded an extraordinary amount and diverse range of archaeological materials (i.e. lithics, fauna, osseous industry, body adornments, pigments, human remains, mobiliary and parietal art, hearths, etc.). Yet this site appears now poorly valued due to the devastating 19th-century excavation techniques that almost completely emptied the cavity. Subsequently it is surprisingly ill-known. This 150-year milestone gives us an opportunity to look back at this exceptional site and its associated materials in order to demonstrate that it still holds a unique potential in the debates about these Late Pleistocene hunting and gathering societies. The various chapters cover multiple aspects of the history of research and of the collections, present detailed studies on the material culture (osseous industry, spearthrowers, musical instruments), and address specific issues related to parietal art, social networks and the political nature of these prehistoric communities. The best hypothesis and explanation to account for this exceptional diversity of remains would argue that Le Placard has been a village occupied by various groups of complex (transegalitarian) hunter-gatherers.

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Symposium in Stamna both as a concept and as a process involved the presence of prominent citizens of the social establishment as testified by the large cauldrons, the tripod jars and the tripod vessels present. To Die in Style! The residential lifestyle of feasting and dying in Iron Age Stamna, Greece re-examines the cemeteries studied to date, isolating tombs with unique architecture or peculiar structures with individual features, in order to investigate the complex identity of the elite group ideologies. The finding and studying of such a large number of PRG tombs (c. 500), presents a remarkable representative example for the discussion on the perception of death, confronting it through the mourning ritual, but also examining the creation of an individual and collective memory of the population that operated in this privileged geographic installation, redefining as such the cultural landscape of the Protogeometric era. The pre-existing theoretical framework, the methodology of managing and displaying of grief and their correlation with already studied and exalted geographical parallels, integrate Stamna into the cultural chain of the populations ruled by an overall-systematic design of a particular cultural ideology.

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Syria has been a major crossroads of civilizations in the ancient Near East since the dawn of human kind. Until the current crisis began in 2011, Syria was one of the foremost pioneers in the investigation of past human knowledge, diversity, and identity. However, due to the ongoing war, archaeological excavations came to an abrupt halt. Since then, there have been countless alarming reports of damage or destruction inflicted on archaeological, historical, and museum sites. The International Syrian Congress on Archaeology and Cultural Heritage (ISCACH), held December 3-5, 2015 in Beirut, Lebanon, was designed to bring together international scholars who have directed or participated in archaeological expeditions in Syria, and colleagues from Syria. By doing so, not only could the results of years of archaeological investigations and cultural heritage management in Syria be shared and discussed, but also a spirit of friendship and collaboration could be fostered and strengthened during this turbulent period. The Congress focussed on the scientific aspects of each explored site and region allowing researchers to examine in detail each heritage site, its characteristics and identity. Archaeological Explorations in Syria 2000-2011: Proceedings of ISCACH-Beirut 2015 consists of two parts. The first part presents the results of archaeological investigations conducted between 2000 and 2010. The second part comprises abstracts of papers and posters presented during the Congress. It is hoped that this book will represent an important contribution to the scientific dialogue between international and Syrian scholars, and will appeal to the general public interested in the culture and history of Syria.

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In a cultural area where geography conspires against ease of exchange, Mesoamerican societies discovered technical answers adapted to their needs. At a time when the exchange of merchandise and goods relied mainly on human transport, some civilizations turned to a mystical aquatic environment: lakes. This research focuses on the practice of lake navigation and specific facilities that are associated with it. Due to the need for a wholistic approach, this research is situated in a multidisciplinary framework that combines archaeology, ethnology and ethnohistory. Its primary objective is to elaborate the framework of a new research field from the analytical and systematic study of a corpus of eclectic data, about the exploitation of water as a means of transport. In Mesoamerica, the greatest concentration of lake systems lies in the Mexican highlands. However, only the Mexico and Pátzcuaro Basin were converted into real political economic and cultural centres, with the emergence of the Mexica Empire and Tarascan State in the Late Postclassic period (1350-1521). Why then do archaeologists, ethnologists and historians persist in ignoring the true importance of navigation in their study of the formation and organization of these two civilizations? To what extent can we extract, from the study of boats and lake installations, data that can open new research perspectives? | Dans une aire culturelle où la géographie conspire contre la fluidité des échanges, les sociétés mésoaméricaines ont su trouver des réponses techniques adaptées à leurs besoins. À une époque où l’acheminement de marchandises et de biens s’effectue principalement à dos d’homme, certaines civilisations vont se tourner vers un milieu aquatique mythique : les lacs. Ce travail de recherche s’intéresse donc à la pratique de la navigation lacustre et aux installations spécifiques qui lui sont associées. De par la nécessité d’une approche transversale, ce sujet se positionne dans un cadre pluridisciplinaire, entremêlant archéologie, ethnohistoire et ethnologie. Son objectif premier est de délimiter le cadre d’un nouveau champ de recherche à partir d’une étude analytique et systématique d’un corpus de données éclectiques, autour de l’exploitation d’un mode de transport aquatique. En Mésoamérique, c’est dans les hautes terres mexicaines que seuls les lacs des Bassins de Mexico et de Pátzcuaro ont été convertis en de véritables centres politiques, économiques et culturels à l’origine de l’émergence de l’Empire mexica et du Royaume tarasque à la période Postclassique (1350-1521). Pourquoi archéologues, historiens et ethnologues continuent donc d’ignorer la véritable importance de la navigation dans l’étude de la formation et de l’organisation de ces deux civilisations ? Dans quelle mesure les données que nous pourrons extraire de l’étude des embarcations et des installations lacustres peuvent-elles ouvrir de nouvelles perspectives de recherches ?

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The unique site of Mersa Gawasis was a base for seaborne trade along the Red Sea coast during the Middle Kingdom. The Egyptians’ purpose was to trade with Punt for incense and other exotic materials. There is little evidence of any permanent structures at the site apart from man-made caves in which shipping equipment was stored between expeditions. The pottery is, therefore, amongst the most significant evidence for human activity here. Vessel types include many marl C jars, but other kinds of vessels including significant foreign material also occur, some in large quantities. This variety of vessels and the careful reuse of potsherds is central to an understanding of specific and day to day domestic activities and of how the site operated. Mersa Gawasis has many vessel forms of the 12th and Early 13th dynasties. Epigraphic evidence closely dates the site, helping to confirm and underpin an understanding of vessel types and technologies within the ceramic chronology of the period. This volume presents the site’s wide variety of ceramic material, offering also an interpretation of what pottery reveals about activities at the site. The author and excavation photographer have worked together to enhance details of the text with specific photographs.

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The 19th annual meeting of the Symposium on Mediterranean Archaeology (SOMA) was held in Kemer/Antalya (Turkey) from the 12th to the 14th of November, 2015. As has been the case in the past, this symposium continues to provide an important opportunity for scholars and researchers to come together and discuss their academic studies in a friendly and supportive atmosphere. The proceedings of SOMA 2015 contain eighteen interdisciplinary articles on themes from underwater archaeology to history, archaeometry and art history, and chronologically, the subjects of these articles range from the Bronze Age to the 20th century.

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In scholarly literature, there is much attention given to the Hittites and the Mycenaean Greeks, but the Luwians of Western Anatolia are notoriously neglected. Therefore, a study focussing on the latter is desirable. In this book, the presently available information on the western Luwians is assembled. This entails, primarily, the epigraphic evidence in the form of Luwian hieroglyphic inscriptions from the region and the historical information which can be deduced from it, as well as historical Hittite sources. As a prerequisite for the reconstruction of the history of the western Luwians during the Middle and Late Bronze Ages, the thorny question of the geography of their habitat needs to be tackled. This can now be done in an adequate manner owing to the most recent discoveries. Apart from Luwian hieroglyphic, the Luwians of Western Anatolia also used cuneiform script. Based on the linguistic data from both categories of evidence, a sketch of their language is presented. It must be realized, though, that not all inhabitants of Western Anatolia were speakers of the Luwian language. Thus, it will be argued that their northern neighbours in the Troad spoke a different language, of Thraco-Phrygian type. Finally, the Luwians were not autochthonous in the region, but preceded by speakers of a different Indo-European tongue, most adequately defined as Old Indo-European in Hans Krahe’s terms.

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Buildings in Society: International Studies in the Historic Era presents a series of papers reflecting the latest approaches to the study of buildings from the historic period. This volume does not examine buildings as architecture, but adopts an archaeological perspective to consider them as artefacts, reflecting the needs of those who commissioned them. Studies have often failed to consider the historical contexts in which the buildings were constructed and how they were subsequently used and interpreted. The papers in this volume situate their interpretation in their social context. Buildings can inform us about past cultures as they are responsive and evolve to meet people’s needs over time. The buildings examined in this volume range from the twelfth to the twenty-first century and cross continents including case-studies from America, Australia and Europe, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Scandinavia and the Mediterranean. Themes include: Approaches to the study of buildings, Buildings of Power, Buildings in Identity, Domestic Space and Urban and Village Spaces. The essays consider building design, role, and how the buildings were altered as their function changed to coincide with the needs and aspirations of those who owned or used the buildings. This collection of papers emphasizes the need for further international multidisciplinary approaches including archaeology, architectural history and art history in order to understand how ideas, styles, approaches and designs spread over time and space. Together, these papers generate valuable new insights into the study of buildings in the historic period.

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Everyone who investigates pre-modern concepts of nature cannot avoid a critical reflection on the ancient understandings of it. Here, “nature” is understood in the sense of a seemingly untouched space, largely independent of human culture. While this concept of “nature” is prevalent in modern times, the reconstruction of ancient ideas is difficult in that concepts of nature, if at all present, emphasize other aspects. For example, the Greek term φύσις in pre-Hellenistic times defines the nature of a thing rather than an untouched environment. A word for “nature” in this sense has not been handed down to us in the remaining texts of the Ancient Near East and Classical Antiquity. Nevertheless, such concepts can certainly be reconstructed from descriptions of nature to be found in literature and the representations of natural elements in art. The present volume aims at identifying these concepts of nature in texts as well as in archaeological remains of the Ancient Near Eastern and the Greek culture from the Archaic to the Hellenistic period. Contributions from the fields of archaeology and philology are juxtaposed for each time period in chronological order. This arrangement provides a good overview of the concepts of nature prevailing throughout different period and cultures. | Der Begriff „Natur“ wird in modernen, mitteleuropäischen Gesellschaften meist im Sinne eines vermeintlich unberührten Raumes verstanden, der weitgehend unbeeinflusst von menschlicher Kultur ist. Für vormoderne Kulturen lassen sich solche Vorstellungen bzw. Konzepte sehr viel schwieriger nachweisen, da beispielsweise ein Wort für „Natur“ mit der eben genannten Bedeutung in den erhaltenen Texten des Alten Orients und der griechischen Antike so nicht überliefert zu sein scheint. Gleichwohl werden durchaus Naturelemente in der antiken Literatur, der Flächenkunst sowie in antiken Monumenten beschrieben bzw. abgebildet sowie als integrative Bestandteile genutzt und funktionalisiert. Daraus lassen sich Konzepte von „Natur“ herausarbeiten und rekonstruieren. Der vorliegende Band möchte solche „Naturkonzepte“ in Texten, Artefakten und Denkmälern des Alten Orients und des griechischen Kulturraumes von der Archaik bis in den Hellenismus identifizieren und einen Überblick über die jeweils in einem bestimmten Zeit- und Kulturraum vorherrschenden Vorstellungen sowie deren diachrone Entwicklung geben.

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The Bouros-Kastri peninsula at the south-eastern tip of the Greek island of Euboia has previously been overlooked in the archaeological literature. This survey by the Southern Euboea Exploration Project, conducted under the aegis of the Canadian Institute in Greece, now provides a wealth of intriguing information about fluctuations in long-term use and habitation in this part of the Karystia. While the peninsula is agriculturally poor, its coast is blessed with several small coastal inlets and one important ancient port, Geraistos. These provide access to vital maritime routes and connect the peninsula to Athens and other Aegean ports. The survey revealed modest use of the peninsula during the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age; it was then virtually abandoned for the following two and a half millennia. Occupation resumed in the Late Archaic–Early Classical period, followed by near desertion in the 3rd century BC of all but some coastal sites, a resurgence of activity in the Late Roman period, and modest use in Byzantine and Ottoman times. The authors analyse the ways in which the peninsula's use was connected to that of the main urban centre at Karystos, and how the peninsula and the greater Karystia were integrated into the political, economic, and cultural spheres of Athens and the broader region.

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The potential of tomb mosaics as an academic resource has often been underestimated and consequently they have only been partially analysed not only in Italy but also throughout the Western Mediterranean. This work is intended to shed a new light on these finds, which are often incomplete, lost, or little studied. The first part of the book presents the history of previous studies on the subject and briefly explains the structure of the corpus. The corpus, in turn, is organised according to current Italian administrative regions, specifically: Sardegna, Sicilia, Puglia, Campania, Lazio, Marche, and Friuli Venezia Giulia. Every region is then further divided following current provinces and municipalities. This work does not aim to present merely a compilation of data in a catalogue; thus the second part of the book focuses specifically on tomb mosaics found in the Italic peninsula and major islands, and provides information on their geographic distribution, dating, typology, place of discovery and iconography, and considers the potential identification of individual workshops. The purpose of the book is to bring tomb mosaics to greater consideration, since they have not survived in academic literature to the same extent as did their rich villa or domus counterparts. This work does not therefore aspire to be a complete analysis of the subject, but rather a starting point which can be both useful and a stimulus for future studies. ITALIAN DESCRIPTION: Il mosaico funerario è una particolare tipologia musiva spesso sottovalutata e poco studiata. Le origini sono da ricercarsi, probabilmente, nell’antica regione della Bizacena, attuale Tunisia, a partire dagli ultimi decenni del III secolo d.C. Nel IV secolo iniziò l’esportazione dei cartoni musivi funerari nel resto del Mediterraneo occidentale, raggiungendo l’Italia e la Spagna; in entrambi i casi però il mosaico funerario non riscosse particolare successo. La richiesta maggiore di questo nuovo monumento funerario avveniva da parte dei cristiani, e solo in minima parte dai pagani. In questo libro si cerca di fare ordine sui mosaici funerari presenti nell’odierno territorio italiano, catalogando tutte le evidenze musive, sia oggigiorno scomparse che ancora in situ, per cercare di delineare un’analisi sul fenomeno che ha, in maniera seppur ridotta, investito la Penisola italiana e le sue Isole maggiori. Infatti le testimonianze musive si concentrano in zone dove particolari condizioni hanno permesso la loro messa in posa. La prima parte è dedicata al repertorio dei sessanta mosaici funerari dell’attuale Italia, ognuno catalogato secondo una scheda pensata e studiata per rendere più agevole possibile la consultazione. La seconda parte è invece incentrata sullo studio d’insieme del fenomeno dei mosaici funerari in Italia, nella quale si cerca di fare chiarezza e dare dei punti fermi su questa categoria di mosaici. L’analisi conclusiva cerca di spiegare il perché in Italia, pur essendoci condizioni apparentemente favorevoli alla produzione delle coperture tombali musive, non si siano trovati che poche testimonianze musive funerarie se paragonate a quelle ritrovate nel Nord Africa e in special maniera in Bizacena.

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The Roman Bridge between Dolni Vadin (Bulgaria) and Grojdibodu (Romania) presents all the available data on the Roman bridge over the Danube which connected Dacia and Moesia at this point. The toponyms Vadin and Grojdibodu themselves mean ‘ford’, a crossing over water, in this case over the Danube. There have been no archaeological excavations at the feet of the bridge but the author has been able to propose positioning, scale and full reconstruction on the basis of a survey of existing remains, known road alignments, old maps and drawings as well as comparison with better-known parallels. The book also includes a catalogue of small finds deriving from the area of the bridge. This bridge has been ignored for centuries primarily due to the absence of any mention of it in ancient sources, literary or otherwise. It was probably eclipsed by the fame of the bridge from Drobeta, which was constructed by Emperor Trajan between the two Dacian wars, and by the bridge from Sucidava-Oescus which was built later, in the time of Emperor Constantine the Great. Additionally, the bridge is located in a rather obscure place, hardly accessible in the modern era. This work restores this river crossing to its proper significance.

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Augustus: From Republic to Empire is the product of a conference entitled AUGUSTUS. 23 September 63 BC – 19 August 14 AD – 2000 years of divinity organised on 12 December 2014 by the Institute of Archaeology of the Jagiellonian University, the Centre for Comparative Studies of Civilisations at the Jagiellonian University and the National Museum in Krakow. The conference was hosted by the Emeryk Hutten- Czapski Museum – a branch of the National Museum in Krakow – and commemorated the anniversary of Augustus’s death. The volume offers readers articles that deal with a variety of topics ranging from architecture, urban issues and painting to fine art represented by glyptics and numismatics. It includes papers devoted to the publication of previously unknown objects, articles presenting iconographic research, deliberations on propaganda, and analyses of the political situation and source texts. Chronologically, some of the papers go beyond the age of August, yet are relevant to the understanding of the transformations that took place in art and architecture during the reign of the first princeps, the widely-understood middle and late periods of the Republic, and the early Empire. The geographic scope of the articles covers the entire territory of the Empire. This diverse topic allows a variety of research themes on the epoch of August to be presented from a broad perspective.

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Discussed here is the landscape of western Bavaria in the early-medieval period, between about 750 and 850. The title of the study derives from several indications that a noble genealogia, the Huosi, were particularly influential there during the period. Huosiland may be the best documented European landscape of this time. This is due to the extraordinary cartulary or register of deeds prepared for the diocese of Freising by the monk, Cozroh, in the second quarter of the ninth century. The first part of the study (Contexts) describes Cozroh’s codex and Huosiland and then analyzes the main political, ecclesiastical, social and economic structures and features there, based upon the available historical and archaeological evidence. The second part (Connections) explores a selection of particular issues raised by specific documents or related groups of documents from Huosiland. The third part provides all of the voluminous and highly-informative documentary evidence for Huosiland, both from Cozroh’s codex and other sources, complete in full English translation. As a result, the reader is able to construct his or her own Contexts and Connections. A full annotated Bibliography of the relevant secondary literature is included as is a complete Gazetteer of the translated documents. The publication will provide a valuable resource both for advanced teaching and for scholarly research.

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The East African coast and the Western Indian Ocean are regions of global historical significance. This volume contains papers first presented at the conference, Early Maritime Cultures of the East African Coast, held at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on October 23-24, 2015. Rather than limiting publication to the proceedings of the conference, additional contributions were solicited to expand the scope of the research presented and to place East Africa in its broader geographic and cultural contexts. The resulting volume focuses broadly on East Africa and the Western Indian Ocean and unites the papers under the general themes of movement and connection. These papers represent a multi-disciplinary effort to examine East Africa and the Western Indian Ocean. Multiple lines of evidence drawn from linguistics, archaeology, history, art history, and ethnography come together in novel ways to highlight different aspects of the region’s past and offer innovative avenues for future research. The papers cover a diverse array of topics, including but not limited to: subsistence, watercraft traditions, trade and exchange (especially concerning the Silk Routes), migration, food ways, and familial relationships. This volume is unique in that it includes some speculative research as well, intended to present novel methods to deal with data-poor topics and to start important conversations about understudied topics. The goal of this volume is to showcase aspects of the complex cultures and histories of this vast region and to emphasize its importance to world history. Ideally, it will generate scholarly and popular interest in the histories and cultures of the region and bring to the fore Africa’s and the Western Indian Ocean’s important (yet often overlooked) role in world historical narratives. It may also serve as a more advanced introduction to East Africa’s and the Western Indian Ocean’s history of interaction with other regions of the Old World and as a survey of methods used to understand the region’s past.

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The present volume originated in session A25b (‘Current Approaches to Collective Burials in the Late European Prehistory’) of the XVII World Congress of the International Union of the Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences (UISPP), held in Burgos in September 2014. Collective burials are quite a common feature in Prehistoric Europe, with the gathering of multiple individuals in a shared burial place occurring in different types of burial structures (natural caves, megalithic structures, artificial caves, corbelled-roof tombs, pits, etc.). Such features are generally associated with communities along the agropastoralist transition and fully agricultural societies of the Neolithic and Chalcolithic. For a long time, human skeletal remains exhumed from collective burials were dismissed as valuable sources of information, their studies being limited mostly to morphological assessments and subsequent classification in predefined ‘races’. They currently represent a starting point for diversified, often interdisciplinary, research projects, allowing for a more accurate reconstruction of funerary practices, as well as of palaeobiological and environmental aspects, which are fundamental for the understanding of populations in the Late Prehistory of Europe and of the processes leading to the emergence of agricultural societies in this part of the world. The articles in this volume provide examples of different approaches currently being developed on Prehistoric collective burials of southern Europe, mostly focusing on case studies, but also including contributions of a more methodological scope.

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Bridging Times and Spaces is composed of papers written by colleagues of Professor Gregory E. Areshian on the occasion his 65th birthday reflecting the breadth and diversity of his scholarly contributions. The range of presented papers covers topics in Near Eastern, Mediterranean and Armenian archaeology, theory of interpretation in archaeology and art history, interdisciplinary history, historical linguistics, art history, and comparative mythology. The volume opens with an extensive interview given by Gregory Areshian, in which Gregory outlines the pathways of his academic career, archaeological discoveries, different intellectual quests, and the organic connections between research questions that he explored across different social sciences and the humanities, stressing the importance of periodizations in interdisciplinary history as well as his views on holism and interdisciplinary studies.

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The reliefs of the column of Marcus Aurelius in Rome are used extensively for the illustration of Roman soldiers. However, despite the fact that in the last decades a number of sites at the Danube Limes have been analyzed, where numerous militaria from the Markomannic Wars have emerged, there is no comparison between this work of official Roman art and the archaeological finds. This book aims to address this lacuna. Each piece of equipment of the Roman soldier is analyzed in its sculptural representation and compared with the existing finds as well as supplementary comparisons with secondary sources. The result is a broad picture of the Roman army under Marcus Aurelius and of Rome's depiction of their forces in state propaganda. In addition, the present work comprehensively separates the antique parts of the frieze from the additions made during the late Renaissance for the first time and thus provides a solid basis for future archaeological and art historical evaluations.

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Stones can serve an infinite array of functions both when they are worked and when they are left in a ‘raw’ state. Depending on their function, stones can also be meaningful objects especially when they act as vehicles of ideas or instruments of representation. And it is, therefore, in their functional context, that the meaning of stones can be best grasped. The stones dealt with in this study are non-figural (or aniconic) or, sometimes, semi-figural. They come from ritual contexts and, as such, act as a material representation of divine presence in their role as betyls. But it is not mainly the representational aspect of these stones that this study seeks to highlight. As material representations of divine presence that are also worshipped, these particular stones form part of a phenomenon that seems to know no geographical or temporal boundaries. They are of a universal character. It is this universal character of theirs that seems to qualify these stones as elements forming part of the phenomenon of continuity: continuity across different cultures and in different places along several centuries. It is this phenomenon which this study seeks to highlight through a study of these stones. The Maltese islands are presented as a case study to demonstrate the phenomenon of continuity through a study of these stones. Worship of stones in representation of divine presence is found on the Maltese islands since prehistoric times. But the practice survived several centuries under different cultures represented by unknown communities during the islands’ prehistory and the Phoenicians / Carthaginians and the Romans in early historic times.

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Richard Hodges is one of Europe’s preeminent archaeologists. He has transformed the way we understand the early Middle Ages, and has put the past to work for the present, through a sequence of paradigmatic excavations in England, Italy and Albania. Encounters, Excavations and Argosies pays tribute to him with a series of reflections on some of the themes and issues which have been central to his work over the last forty years. The contributors are colleagues, many his students, above all friends of the man whose ideas, example, trust, and loyalty have touched and inspired us all.

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The Ritidian Site in Guam contains multiple layers and components that together reveal the full scope of traditional cultural heritage in the Mariana Islands in the northwest tropical Pacific since 1500 B.C., dating from the beginning of human settlement of the Remote Pacific Islands. The material records of changing artefacts, sites, and landscapes here have been incorporated into a cohesive narrative in chronological order, mirroring the experience of visiting a museum to learn about the profound heritage of this special site and its larger research contributions. The primary data findings are presented as a translation or visitor’s guide of encountering a complex, multi-layered, and multi-vocal past.

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Northamptonshire Archaeology, now MOLA Northampton, was commissioned by Opportunity Peterborough (Peterborough City Council) to undertake archaeological work ahead of an improvement scheme centred on Cathedral Square, the historic centre of Peterborough. The construction of two triangular arrays of fountains in the central part of Cathedral Square formed the core of the archaeological investigation, which was undertaken from November 2008 to August 2011. The archaeological work identified a succession of stone surfaces from the creation of the market square in the 12th century through to the 19th century. The cobbled surface of the original market square was overlaid by an accumulation of dark organic silts, containing finds dating through to the 16th century. At the start of the 15th century the parish church of St John the Baptist was constructed over the western half of the medieval market square with a cemetery immediately to the west of the church. Following the closure of this cemetery by the later 16th century, a small area of floor surfaces were the probable remains of a building, perhaps the Sexton’s house, at the north end of Butchers Row. On the south side of the market square there were the remains of a rectangular stone building, dated to the late 15th to 17th centuries, perhaps containing shops. Between this building and the church, a raised area of rubble was probably a remnant of the plinth for the recorded market cross. The late 17th century saw the construction of the still extant Guildhall to the east of the church. The raising of the ground level and resurfacing of the square was probably contemporary with the Guildhall. This would have involved the removal of all existing buildings on the south side of the square, as well as the removal of the market cross. In the late 18th or early 19th centuries the square was again raised and resurfaced, now with pitched limestone. Shallow gutters between the pavement and the road facilitated drainage. A surface of granite sets of the 19th-century survived in a few places below the late 20th-century slab pavement, which has now been replaced by the fountain development.

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In this book, Dr Vyron Antoniadis presents a contextual study of the Near Eastern imports which reached Crete during the Early Iron Age and were deposited in the Knossian tombs. Cyprus, Phoenicia, North Syria and Egypt are the places of origin of these imports. Knossian workshops produced close or freer imitations of these objects. The present study reveals the ways in which imported commodities were used to create or enhance social identity in the Knossian context. The author explores the reasons that made Knossians deposit imported objects in their graves as well as investigates whether specific groups could control not only the access to these objects but also the production of their imitations. Dr Antoniadis argues that the extensive use of locally produced imitations alongside authentic imports in burial rituals and contexts indicates that Knossians treated both imports and imitations as items of the same symbolic and economic value.

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This book reassesses the apparent collapse of Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka, through explicit reference to the archaeological record. The study of Anuradhapura’s terminal period has long been dominated by an over-reliance upon textual sources, resulting in the establishment of a monocausal and politically charged narrative that depicts a violent eleventh century invasion by the South Indian Chola Empire as the primary cause of Anuradhapura’s collapse, bringing to an end over a millennium of rule from Sri Lanka’s first capital. Such is the dominance of this narrative that few alternative explanations for the abandonment of Anuradhapura have ever been posited, with just two alternative models ever described; epidemic malaria, and an imperial economic model. Synthesising and analysing archaeological data from over a century of investigation, this book first tests whether or not Anuradhapura can truly be said to have “collapsed” at all, before moving on to then test the existing explanations for this apparent collapse through reference to the physical archaeological record of Anuradhapura, before finally proposing a new synthetic model for the polity’s collapse.

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Recycling is a basic anthropological process of humankind. The reutilization of materials or of ideas from the Past is a process determined by various natural or cultural causes. Recycling can be motivated by a crisis or by a complex symbolic cause like the incorporation of the Past into the Present. What archaeology has not insisted upon is the dimensional scale of the process, which operates from the micro-scale of the recycling of the ancestors’ material, up to the macro-scale of the landscape. It is well known that there are direct relations between artefacts and landscapes in what concerns the materiality and mobility of objects. An additional relation between artefact and landscape may be the process of recycling. In many ways artefact and landscape can be considered as one aspect of material culture, perceived at a different scale, since both have the same materiality and suffer the same process of reutilisation. This book invites archaeologists to approach the significant process of recycling within the archaeological record at two different levels: of artefacts and of landscape.

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Athenian governance and culture are reconstructed from the Bronze Age into the historical era based on traditions, archaeological contexts and remains, foremost the formal commensal and libation krater. Following Mycenaean immigration from the Peloponnesos during the transitional years, changes in governance are observable. Groups under aristocratic leadership, local and immigrant, aspired to coexist under a surprisingly formal set of stipulations that should be recognized as Athens’ first constitution. Synoikismos did not refer to a political union of Attica, sometimes attributed to Theseus, but to a union of aristocratic houses (oikoi). The union replaced absolute monarchy with a new oligarchical-monarchy system, each king selected from one of the favoured aristocratic houses and ruling for life without inheritance. The system prevailed through the late eleventh to the mid-eighth c. and is corroborated by Athenian traditions cross-referenced with archaeological data from the burial grounds, and a formerly discredited list of Athenian Iron Age kings. Some burial grounds have been tentatively identified as those of the Melanthids, Alcmeonids, Philaids and Medontids, who settled the outskirts of Athens along with other migrant groups following the decline of the elite in the Peloponnesos. While the Melanthids left during the 11th c. Ionian Migration other aristocratic houses remained and contributed to the evolution of the historical era polis of Athens. One noble family, the Alcmeonids preserved their cemetery into the Archaic period in a burial record of 600 years’ duration. Incorporated into this work is a monograph on the Athenian formal krater used by these primarily Neleid aristocratic houses in assembly and ritual. Some Homeric practices parallel those found in Athens, so the Ionic poets may have documented customs that had existed on the Mainland and were transferred to Ionia during the Ionian Migration. The demise of both the constitution and the standard, ancestral krater in Athens following a mid-eighth c. watershed is testimony to an interval of political change, as noted by Ian Morris, before the systematized establishment of annual archonship in the following century. The support this research has given to the validity of the King List has resulted in a proposed new chronology, with an earlier onset for the Geometric period at 922 BC, rather than the currently accepted 900 BC. The relative chronology of Coldstream based on style is generally accepted here, but some intermediate stages are revised based on perceptible break data, such as the onset of a new kingship, a reported war, or the demise of a governance system.

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Magallania defines the region between the Santa Cruz river basin to the north and the Fuegian expression of the Andes to the south. It is one of the southernmost spaces in the world and the last to be occupied by humans, a process that occurred at least at the end of the Pleistocene (11,000 to 9,000 AP) and before the complete formation of the Strait of Magellan (ca. 8000 AP). Thereafter, the Strait functioned as a biogeographic barrier, creating conditions for divergent cultural evolution between the populations of the mainland and Tierra del Fuego. For this reason, the archeology of Magallania offers a unique possibility to inquire about the relationship between the environmental dynamics and the spatial organization of populations of hunter-gatherers settled on both sides of the Strait of Magellan. Spanish Description: En su versión original, Magallania es el nombre acuñado por Martinic para definir la región comprendida entre la cuenca del río Santa Cruz al norte hasta la expresión fueguina de la cordillera de los Andes al sur. Es uno de los espacios más australes del mundo y de los últimos en ser ocupados por humanos, proceso que ocurrió al menos a fines del Pleistoceno (11.000 a 9.000 AP) y antes de la completa formación del estrecho de Magallanes (ca. 8000 AP). A partir de entonces el Estrecho funcionó como una barrera biogeográfica, creando condiciones para que ocurra la evolución cultural divergente entre las poblaciones del continente y la Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego. Por este motivo, la arqueología de Magallania ofrece una posibilidad única para indagar acerca de la relación entre la dinámica ambiental y la organización espacial de las poblaciones de cazadores recolectores asentadas a un lado y otro del estrecho de Magallanes.

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Archaic humans were present for over a million years in western Mediterranean Europe where they left very many traces of their early stone-age activities and behaviour, and sometimes even human skeletal remains. This book evaluates archaeological findings about their life-ways at many important sites in Italy, southern France, and Spain, from the earliest ones 1,300,000 years ago, to those of Neanderthals fifty-thousand years ago, just before they were superseded by skeletally-“modern” humans. The cognitive and manual skills of archaic humans in western Mediterranean Europe are considered in the Pleistocene contexts of major climatic fluctuations and changing environmental circumstances. The book focusses on their remarkable capacity to adapt, frequently reinvent themselves, and persist for long periods of time, even though finally they did not endure. Their achievements and abilities withstand comparison to those of ancient humans in Africa or Asia during Early, Middle, and early Late Pleistocene times.

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The Nordic Bronze Age Symposium began modestly in 1977 with 13 participants, and has now expanded to over 120 participants: a tenfold increase that reflects the expanding role of Bronze Age research in Scandinavia, not least amongst younger researchers. From having taken a back seat in the 1970s, it is now in the driver’s seat in terms of expanding research themes, publications and international impact. This collection of articles helps to explain why the Bronze Age has come to hold such a fascination within modern archaeological research. By providing new theoretical and analytical perspectives on the evidence new interpretative avenues have opened, it situates the history of the Bronze Age in both a local and a global setting.

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This volume illustrates lamps from the Byzantine period excavated in the Holy Land and demonstrates the extent of their development since the first enclosing/capturing of light (fire) within a portable man-made vessel. Lamps, which held important material and religious functions during daily life and the afterlife, played a large role in conveying art and cultural and political messages through the patterns chosen to decorate them. These cultural, or even more their religious affinities, were chosen to be delivered on lamps (not on other vessels) more than ever during the Byzantine period; these small portable objects were used to ‘promote’ beliefs like the ‘press’ of today. Each cultural group marked the artifacts / lamps with its symbols, proverbs from the Old and New Testaments, and this process throws light on the deep rivalry between them in this corner of the ancient world. The great variety of lamps dealt with in this volume, arranged according to their various regions of origin, emphasizes their diversity, and probably local workshop manufacture, and stands in contrast to such a small country without any physical geographic barriers to cross, only mental ones (and where one basket of lamps could satisfy the full needs of the local population). The lamps of the Byzantine period reflect the era and the struggle in the cradle of the formation of the four leading faiths and cultures: Judaism (the oldest), Samaritanism (derived from the Jewish faith), newly-born Christianity – all three successors to the existing former pagan culture – and the last, Islam, standing on a new threshold. Unlike during the former Greek and Roman periods of rule, the land of Israel during the Byzantine period did not really have a central government or authority. The variety of the oil lamps, their order and place of appearance during the Byzantine period can be described as a ‘symphony played by a self-conducted orchestra, where new soloists rise and add a different motet, creating stormy music that expresses the rhythm of the era’. This volume, like the author’s earlier books on this subject, is intended to create a basis for further study and evaluation of the endless aspects that lamps bring to light and which are beyond the capacity of any single scholar.

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The Hellenistic society of the Rhodian metropolis, a naval aristocracy (Gabrielsen), dedicated bronze statues of their members in the sanctuaries and public buildings and used marble and -occasionally-lartios lithos to carve portrait-statues originally for funerary use and in a later period also for honorific purposes, figures of deities and decorative sculpture for the houses and the parks. The artists, local and itinerant, from Athens, the islands and the Asia Minor, established artistic workshops on Rhodes, some of them active for three centuries and for more than one generation. The impact of Rhodian art is evident on the islands of the Aegean and the cities of Asia Minor, due to the expansion of the Rhodian Peraia. Together with Pergamon, Rhodes emerges as a productive artistic centre of the Hellenistic era, creating statuary types and combining them with landscape elements. The radiance of its art is evident in the late Hellenistic period in Rome, the new capital of the world, where the Rhodian artists create mythological statuary groups set in grottoes. This volume presents the large-scale Rhodian sculpture of the Hellenistic and Roman period through the publication of sixty unpublished sculptures of life size or larger than life size, together with forty-five sculptures already published. The sculptures are grouped according to their statuary type (gods, mortals and portraits), while those unable to be firmly identified due to their fragmentary condition are grouped under the category ‘uncertain identification’. The presentation of the sculptures is further supplemented by a technical description and an analysis of stylistic characteristics according to chronological development. Excavation data, wherever available, are also provided.

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Studies of Iron Age artefacts from Britain tend to be dominated either by the study of metalwork, or pottery. This book presents a study not only of a different material, but also a different type of object: glass beads. These are found in a range of different sizes, shapes, colours, and employ a variety of different decorative motifs. Through an analysis of glass beads from four key study regions in Britain, the book aims not only to address regional differences in appearance and chronology, but also to explore the role that this object played within the networks and relationships that constructed Iron Age society. It seeks to understand how they were used during their lives and how they came to be deposited within the archaeological record, in order to establish the social processes that glass beads were bound within. The results indicate that glass beads were a strongly regionalised artefact, potentially reflecting differing local preferences for colour and motif. In addition, glass beads, in combination with several other types of object, were integral to Middle Iron Age dress. Given that the first century BC is often seen as a turning point in terms of settlements and material culture, this supports the possibility of strong continental exchange during an earlier period for either glass beads or raw materials. However, by the Late Iron Age in the first century BC and early first century AD, their use had severely diminished.

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Scholars who will study the historiography of the European Neolithic, more particularly with regards to the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, will observe a progressive change in the core understanding of this period. For several decades the concept of ‘culture’ has been privileged and the adopted approach aimed to highlight the most significant markers likely to emphasise the character of a given culture and to stress its specificities, the foundations of its identity. In short, earlier research aimed primarily to highlight the differences between cultures by stressing the most distinctive features of each of them. The tendency was to differentiate, single out, and identify cultural boundaries. However, over the last few years this perspective has been universally challenged. Although regional originality and particularisms are still a focus of study, the research community is now interested in widely diffused markers, in medium-scale or large-scale circulation, and in interactions that make it possible to go beyond the traditional notion of ‘archaeological culture’. The networks related to raw materials or finished products are currently leading us to re-think the history of Neolithic populations on a more general and more global scale. The aim is no longer to stress differences, but on the contrary to identify what links cultures together, what reaches beyond regionalism in order to try to uncover the underlying transcultural phenomena. From culturalism, we have moved on to its deconstruction. This is indeed a complete change in perspective. This new approach certainly owes a great deal to all kinds of methods, petrographic, metal, chemical and other analyses, combined with effective tools such as the GIS systems that provide a more accurate picture of the sources, exchanges or relays used by these groups. It is also true that behind the facts observed there are social organisations involving prospectors, extractors, craftsmen, distributors, sponsors, users, and recyclers. We therefore found it appropriate to organise a session on the theme ‘Materials, productions, exchange networks and their impact on the societies of Neolithic Europe’. How is it possible to identify the circulation of materials or of finished objects in Neolithic Europe, as well as the social networks involved? Several approaches exist for the researcher, and the present volume provides some examples.

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Amphorae in the Eastern Mediterranean has been designed to share the subject of amphorae which were found on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey with the wider scholarly community. Amphorae from the shipwrecks discovered during underwater research, as well as the amphora specimens held in the region’s largest museum, Antalya Museum, are examined. To widen the scope of the book, the Aydın Aytuğ collection, which consists of amphorae collected in the region, is also included. Mediterranean amphorae which have not been found during excavations and underwater research undertaken by the author’s team up to now, are also presented. The amphorae and amphora-laden shipwrecks that are examined derive from the research carried out between 2011 and 2015, conducted in Antalya province in Lycia, Pamphylia and Rough West Cilicia regions, and off the coast of Silifke, which is a part of Rough East Cilicia. This research has obtained a wealth of new information, leading to a fresh look at the archaeology in this area.

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Collections management practice is an often ignored aspect of archaeological research and salvage activities in many Middle Eastern countries, yet literally thousands of artefacts are recovered every year with no real strategies for managing them sustainably into the future. In this guide, archaeologist Dianne Fitzpatrick sees archaeological collections management not in terms of a last-ditch effort to solve on-site storage crises and preservation problems at the end of a project, but as a means of integrating achievable good-practice strategies into research designs and site management plans from the start, or for that matter, at any time that assist project directors and local Antiquities Directorates. Strategies designed to protect and preserve ensure the cultural significance and research potential of artefacts is maintained throughout the archaeological process and encourages those creating, managing and preserving archaeological collections to work toward the same goals. Merging together conservation-led principles with current on-site practice in a practical manner, Managing Archaeological Collections in Middle Eastern Countries aims to be a good practice standard or checklist.

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The transfer, in 1981, of the town Museum collections in Sens (Yonne) to the old Archbishop’s palace required great discretion and an underground passage was planned between the two buildings. Preventive archaeological excavations unearthed 22 Gallo-Roman bone combs, as well as a further 17 pieces when the excavation area was expanded. This exceptional concentration of bone artefacts incited the author to start on an experimental search at a time when bone artefacts were not finding much interest among specialists. However, it was extremely adventurous to piece together a bone-worker production line and create a never before archaeologically discovered appliance used in Roman times. Obviously, the first reproductions have been directed towards combs. Those replicas pointed towards the material constraints, but also defined the constructions of necessary tools to take slabs off and conceive objects. Moreover, matrix origin – small sized compact bone – explained why bone workers used to juxtapose elements to get suitable surfaces. Various complications during free hand denture sawing led them to perfect another operating system, plausible and more reliable. Logical follow up would have been to extend experimental investigations, perhaps not to all the bone artefacts, but to a typical class of them, in order to complete the reconstructions of the equipment and suggest a general bone worker’s workshop arrangement. (French Description: French description: Le transfert, en 1981, des collections du Musée municipal de Sens (Yonne) dans l’ancien palais des Archevêques a nécessité le terrassement d’une jonction souterraine entre deux des bâtiments. Des fouilles archéologiques préventives ont notamment permis de découvrir 22 peignes en os d’époque gallo-romaine, puis 17 autres lors de l’extension du secteur. Cette exceptionnelle concentration a incité l’auteur à entreprendre une démarche expérimentale à une époque où l’on n’accordait que peu d’intérêt au mobilier osseux. On comprendra qu’il était alors aventureux de vouloir reconstituer la chaîne opératoire d’un tabletier et matérialiser l’appareillage dont on n’a aucun témoignage archéologique. C’est évidemment sur la mise en œuvre de peignes qu’ont porté les premières reproductions. Ces répliques montraient déjà certaines contraintes liées à la matière elle-même, mais permettaient également de cerner les outils nécessaires au prélèvement des plaquettes et à la conception de l’objet. Par ailleurs, l’origine des matrices - os compact dimensionnellement limité - expliquait pourquoi les tabletiers juxtaposaient les éléments pour obtenir la surface adéquate. Diverses complications, lors du sciage à main levée de la denture, ont amené à mettre au point un autre mode opératoire plausible et plus assuré. La suite logique voulait que les recherches expérimentales s’étendent sinon à l’ensemble du mobilier osseux, du moins à des catégories d’objets d’une même typologie permettant de compléter l’outillage et suggérer l’agencement de l’atelier d’un tabletier généraliste.)

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The papers collected in this book correspond to the lectures held during session B34 of UISPP conference in Burgos (June 2014) where the presentation of multidisciplinary works were encouraged. The main goal of bringing together specialists from various disciplines (humanities and natural sciences) was to debate, from different perspectives, the networks in raw materials and technological innovation in Prehistory and Protohistory, involving investigation topics typical of archaeometry: archeometallurgy, petrography, and mineralogy.

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What is considered masculine is not something given and innate to males but determined by cultural ideas and ideals constructed through performative practices – today and in the past. This book questions whether androcentric archaeology has taught us anything about prehistoric men and their masculinities. Starting from broad discussions of feminist theory and critical men’s studies, this study examines how notions of masculinity are expressed in cremation burials from the Late Bronze Age to the end of the Roman Period (1100 BC - 400 AD) in Eastern Norway and Funen in Denmark. It is argued that notions of masculinity were deeply intertwined with society, and when central aspects like war systems, task differentiation, or technology changed, so did gender and ideas of masculinity and vice versa. In the Late Bronze Age, an idealisation and sexualisation of the male body related to warrior esthetic was probably essential to the performance of masculinity. In the Early Roman Period, masculinity became bounded by what it was not – the unmanly. Warrior capabilities were the most prominent ideals of masculinity and concepts of unmanliness structured society, highlighting divergences between men and women. In the Late Roman Period, society grew more complex and multiple contemporary, possibly complementary masculinities associated with the rising class of free peasants, specific roles and regional differences developed and the warrior lost the dominant position as masculine ideal.

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This work seeks to understand the process of monetization within the economy of the Galicians and Asturians and the cultural ways in which the phenomenon occurred. Numismatic remains are studied in depth, found in four of the roads crossing the northwestern territory of the Iberian peninsula in Roman times; the tracks studied, as referenced in the Itinerary of Antonino, were XVII, XVIII, XIX and XX. All the coins discovered were imported, and so it was possible to mark precisely where the greatest influx of individuals and materials came from, as well as areas and zones of different speeds of monetization and, thus, Romanization. -Spanish Description: A través de este trabajo hemos pretendido comprender el proceso de monetización de la economía de galaicos y astures y las vías culturales por las que el fenómeno se produjo. Para ello hemos estudiado en profundidad los restos numismáticos aparecidos en cuatro de las calzadas que atravesaban el territorio noroccidental de la península ibérica en época romana, las vías XVII, XVIII, XIX y XX del Itinerario de Antonino. Debido a que toda la moneda que encontramos en este territorio es importada, hemos podido marcar con precisión cuáles fueron los horizontes de mayor entrada de individuos y materias, así como áreas y zonas de diferentes velocidades de monetización y con ello de romanización. Seguramente las zonas cercanas a campamentos, dónde se alojaron miles de soldados cuya única economía posible era la monetaria, conocieron y dependieron pronto del valor de la moneda. Igualmente los nuevos núcleos romanos administrativos hubieron de ser centros focales de monetización, aunque desconocemos el por qué no se abrieron cecas de moneda en estas ricas ciudades con importante tráfico de mineral y de gentes, como pueda ser el caso de Astorga o Braga.

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This volume presents the long history of Syria through a jouney of the most important and recently-excavated archaeological sites. The sites cover over 1.8 million years and all regions in Syria; 110 academics have contributed information on 103 excavations for this volume. Based on these contributions the volume offers a detailed summary of the history of Syria, a history as important as any in terms of the development of human society. It is hoped that this knowledge will offer not only an increased understanding of the country but also act as a deterrent to the destruction of Syrian cultural heritage and facilitate the protection of Syrian sites. The following paper(s) are available to download in Open Access: Dja’de el-Mughara (Aleppo) - Eric Coqueugniot: Download

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This book is an essay on architectural drawings of the Greek and Roman world. The first chapter is focused on the possibility that ancient treatises of architectures were endowed with drawings in order to make clear expositions which sometimes were not easily explainable only with words. Then the drawings which once clarified the treatise of Vitruvius are considered. The problem concerning the possible presence of drawings in post-Vitruvian architectural treatises is also discussed. The issue as to whether descriptive literary compositions sometimes contained illustrations as well is also examined. Then representations of architecture in Roman treatises on divisions of land (the so called gromatic treatises) are considered. The references to architectural drawings in literary and epigraphical testimonia are collected and a catalogue of the surviving Greek and Roman drawings of buildings or of parts of them is given. Thus this research offers all the basic data for the study of an important tool in the context of architecture in antiquity.

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From March 2009 Statistical Research Inc. (USA), Nexus Heritage (UK) and the Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noire (Dakar, Senegal) jointly undertook an integrated programme of cultural heritage research and investigation in the Sabodala area of Senegal. This was part of an environmental and social impact assessment in compliance with Senegalese law and international best practice. The principal investigators were Jeff Altschul (SRI) Gerry Wait (Nexus) and Ibrahima Thiaw (IFAN). This report is the outcome of those investigations and makes a significant contribution to the archaeology and ethnography of eastern Senegal. Combining ethnographic and archaeological data yields a picture of a period of intense social change that occurred at the end of the nineteenth century and extended well into the mid-twentieth century. This involved the overturning of previous norms by social groups of mixed ethnicity, who proceeded to create new social work-arounds for previous ethnic prohibitions. It also probably involved the final end to slavery, but possibly only within living memory. It seems likely that some sites—archaeological as well as traditional sacred properties—provide tangible links between the current villages and a highly contested and emotionally charged past. To paraphrase the American novelist, William Faulkner, the past in Sabodala is never dead; in fact, it’s not even past.

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This book presents a collection of papers from the Symposium on Cultural Dynamics and Production Activities in Ancient Western Mexico, held at the Center for Archaeological Research of the Colegio de Michoacán on September 18-19, 2014. While these thought-provoking essays on key topics in Western Mexican archaeology will spark debate among scholars interested in this cultural area, they will also be of interest to students of ancient Mesoamerica as a whole. The time is ripe for insightful discussions and new syntheses of archaeological research in Western Mesoamerica, and this volume represents, undoubtedly, a valuable contribution to this urgent task. These papers are grouped into three thematic areas. The first, Cultural dynamics in Western Mexico, includes essays on: The challenges of archaeology in flood-prone areas; Exploitation of local resources and imported products; Settlement systems of the Tarascan state; and Stone tools as indicators of task specialization. The second section, Production of strategic resources, analyzes the following topics: The obsidian jewelry of the Teuchitlán Tradition; Differing obsidian economies in Teuchitlán culture; Source areas and obsidian exploitation in Michoacán; The history of pottery production in Capula, Michoacán; Ethnoarchaeology of Tarascan pottery: domestic production and decoration styles; Ceramics, social status, and the Tarascan state economy; and Copper as a strategic resource in pre-Hispanic Western Mexico; while part three focuses on Trade and exchange: Circulation of goods and communication routes between Western and Central Mexico; Contrasting models of ceramic production in the Tarascan state; and Ceramic evidence of contact between Teotihuacan, the Bajío, and southern Hidalgo.

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This volume brings together all the successful peer-reviewed papers submitted for the proceedings of the 43rd conference on Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology that took place in Siena (Italy) from March 31st to April 2nd 2015. Altogether, within the four days of the conference 280 papers were presented in 48 sections divided into ten macro topics, 113 posters, 7 roundtables and 12 workshops. That number, in itself, has prompted a thought or two. Above all it says that CAA is very much alive and kicking, that it is in robust good health, and that it remains a wholly relevant force in the scientific community, fully engaged with the questions of the day, and a continuing focal point for the profession. All of that speaks well for the motto of CAA 2015: KEEP THE REVOLUTION GOING. Although the significance of the motto is obvious, it is worth some thoughts. Few would deny that in the past 30 years or so, digital technologies have profoundly revolutionised archaeology – in the office and laboratory, in the field and in the classroom. The progressive introduction of digital techniques in the archaeological process has of course led to a general increase in efficiency. But perhaps more importantly it has provided a spur to the discussion of methodology and through that has strongly influenced not only the way we go about things but also the outcomes that we have been able to achieve. The pioneering phase in the application of digital techniques in archaeological research has clearly been fruitful and today computer applications such as GIS, databases, remote sensing and spatial analysis as well as virtual and cyber archaeology are deeply embedded within our universities. This is all good, of course, but we must not assume that the task has been completed. An intrinsic revolutionary instinct towards technological development has been awakened. But it will only survive by virtue of the results that it brings about. Or using the words of our Chairman Prof Gary Lock: ‘Computers not only change the way we do things, but more importantly they change the way we think about what we do and why we do it’. The general thrust of this statement can be summed up and reinforced by recalling a quote from the philosopher Don Ihde, who has argued we should never forget that all technologies should be regarded as ‘cultural instruments’, which as well as strategies and methodologies implemented in our researches are also ‘non-neutral’. So KEEP THE REVOLUTION GOING! is a motto that lays stress on the need to maintain innovation in archaeology through technological advances. But innovation must have at its root the fostering of critical thought and the framing of new archaeological questions. So there is much work still to be done, and fresh challenges to be faced in the months, years and decades ahead. -from the introduction by Stefano Campana and Roberto Scopigno

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