Bücher der Reihe British Archaeological Reports International Series

This volume records contributions made at the Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archæology UK Chapter Meeting at the University of Liverpool, 6th and 7th February2009 (CAA UK 2009).

A study of Late Roman iron artefacts from the north east of the Iberian Peninsula.

This study looks at the settlement site of Arjourne, situated on a low rise overlooking the Orontes River just South of Lake Homs in Syria. This site was first settled in the middle of the 6th millennium BC. The majority of the pottery and stone objects from this period link this site to other 'peripheral Halaf culture' sites, and this consisted of a mix of Levantine and northern Mesopotamian influences. This shows that the settlers at this site may well have come from nearby culturally-related sites, but this cannot be proved. The archaeozoological evidence shows that these settlers must have kept domesticated livestock, and they must also have been farmers judging by the various plant remains, suggesting that they were at least partly sedentary. A number of pits were excavated at this site, and these were generally filled with rubbish from the occupation of the site, but the nature of this rubbish was in horizontal layers, indicating a gradual build up on habitation floors rather than as part of rubbish-filled pits. These are interpreted as the emplacements for small shelters which served only the temporary needs of the seasonal farmers who used this site. This site was therefore very small in terms of population at any one time, although the radiocarbon evidence suggests that each 'pit' could have been in use for up to 200 to 250 years. Judging from the number of pits this means that the settlement could have been inhabited for at least 700 years or more. After abandonment the site was again inhabitedin the 5th millennium BC, and was similar in nature to before, except for a few new pottery types. However, one major difference was the effect of the secondary products revolution, increasing the amount of cattle and sheep, but reducing the amount of goats present at the site, as wool and dairy products became more important. Donkeys and Horses also became more important at this time. Arjourne seems to have been abandoned for several thousand years following this phase, and it may have been used as a burial ground during the 3rd millennium BC. However, the site was not permanently resettled until the 4th or early 3rd century BC, and this was only on a small scale and was not occupied for very long. Much later a Muslim cemetery was placed on the highest part of the site, but this is no longer in use. The evidence from the excavations at Arjourne is presented in this book in fourteen papers, and these are as follows: (1) Synopsis; (2) The environmental setting; (3) The site and its excavation; (4) The resistivity survey; (5) The AMS radiocarbon dates: an analysis and interpretation; (6) The prehistoric pottery; (7) The lithic industries; (8) The groundstone objects; (9) Other prehistoric artefacts; (10) The prehistoric burial; (11) Animal husbandry in the Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic at Arjourne: the secondary products revolution revisited; (12) Wild and cultivated food plants and the evidence for crop processing activities; (13) The Persian-Hellenistic occupation; (14) Concluding remarks.With contributions by L. Barnetson, S. Campbell, L. Copeland, † P.G. Dorrell, J.A.J. Gowlett, C. Grigson, J. Hackman, L. Marfoe, V.T. Mathias, A.R. Millard, L. Moffett, P.J. Parr and C.S. Phillips.

In this work, the author reconstructs the Mesopotamian land tenure system as it may have existed at or near the beginning of history. The major focus is on the texts from Souruppak, which are the first that can be comprehended reasonably well. These are supported by detailed analysis of two later archives, the more recent of which is Sargonic. Altogether, the substantive study period covers about four hundred years in the middle of the third millennium. Introductory consideration is given to Sumerian Mesopotamia from the end of the fourth millennium until about 2200 in the Old Akkadian period and identifies some components of the tenure system during this time. The chronological focus of the study is extended to provide a broader sweep through the history of urbanisation on the alluvial plains of the Euphrates to provide a context for the development of irrigation, associated agricultural land and its tenure. The research is concerned with the city-states of the area known for the latter part of this period as ki-en-gi, the limits of which regularly varied with the shifting channels of the Tigris to the east and the Euphrates to the west. The texts, which are the database of this study, originate from Souruppak towards the south and Nippur and Isin in the north of Sumer. The primary evidence for types of land tenure in third millennium Sumer is adduced from cuneiform text archives from Early Dynastic Souruppak (Fara), pre- or early Sargonic Isin and Nippur of the classical Sargonic period. These archives are, arguably, administrative and economic records from palace, temple and private households. The study incorporates and emphasises transactions concerning real property from the genre of texts usually represented as sale documents or sale contracts. A principal and essential objective is to integrate these sale documents or contracts with administrative records related to land in a reconstruction of the tenure system. It is almost entirely the case that this synthesis has been absent from studies of sale contracts.

Caesarea Maritima is located on the eastern Mediterranean coast about 50 kilometres north of Tel Aviv, Israel. Between 1992 and 1997, large-scale excavations took place on the site, conducted by the Combined Caesarea Expeditions (CCE) and the Israeli Antiquity Authority (IAA). Thousands of pottery vessels from Post Byzantine levels, either intact or fragmental, were unearthed. Many were retrieved from sealed and homogeneous loci accompanied by coins, inscriptions and other dateable items. The selected samples represent the various types related to the Post Byzantine occupation levels. These are divided into two main historical eras: The Early Islamic (640-1101 C.E.), and the Crusader and Mamlûk periods (1101-1291). 16 strata and 10 phases were identified and each of these can be almost precisely dated and contain an exceptionally rich repertory of local and of imported pottery vessels. The data in this volume is presented consistent with chrono-typological appearance, the assemblages within each stratum being divided into three main categories: table ware, containers, and cooking ware.

Wine is a beverage that belongs to the Mediterranean culture. A study of the origins of wine shows how deep vineyards are rooted in this area from West to East and since antiquity. The oldest and most extensive documentation about viticulture and winemaking comes from Egypt. Vineyards have been grown in the Nile Delta for five thousand years. The historical and archaeological study of documents and paintings related to winemaking coming from walls of Egyptian tombs, still presents nowadays unknown aspects. Thanks to the development of analytical techniques, we are now able to shed light on a new aspect known to us from the first Mediterranean civilization: the wine culture in Egypt. This present study has three objectives: To provide a bibliographical study of viticulture and oenology in ancient Egypt; to verify, in an analytical way, the presence of wine in amphorae of ancient Egypt; and to investigate what kinds of wine were produced in ancient Egypt.

This research focuses on the area known as the mining district of Linares-La Carolina, located on the eastern foothills of the Sierra Morena, N/NE province of Jaén, Andalucia, Spain. Geologically, this area is located in the southern border of the hesperic massif, a lithologic area with a prevailing presence of metamorphic rocks. This area is rich in mineralized faults grouped in high-density networks of veins abounding in copper minerals. Remains of mines and settlement ascribed to the Copper Age and Bronze Age on the basin of the Rumblar river show that extractions in this area started in late Prehistoric. It extended over the Iberian period and survived under the Punic period. However, after the Roman conquest, in the context of the II Punic War, there began intensive exploitation of plumb-silver and copper mines in the mining area of the western Sierra Morena. The author began investigations in 2004, comprising archaeological prospecting, literature reviews and source analyses, and a study of inscriptions and coins. So far 69 ancient mining-metallurgy sites (mines, slagheaps, smelting sites, etc.) have been explored, allowing the author to draw a range of conclusions regarding the administrative, fiscal, political and social organisation of mining within the Romanization process in the Iberian Peninsula.

This study investigates the form, function, and organization of features at the Late Paleoindian through Middle Archaic site of Dust Cave, Alabama (US), using a multidisciplinary approach combining macromorphological, micromorphological, and chemical analyses. Previous studies have relied on observations made at the macroscopic level using morphological and/or content attributes, severely masking the diversity of activities they represent. A more robust method conceptualizes features as sedimentary deposits and reconstructs their depositional history as a means of identifying feature function. At Dust Cave, an integrated method combining micromorphology and geochemistry with more traditional studies of morphology and content highlights the importance of several activities not previously recognized, including broiling, smoking, nut processing, storage, and refuse disposal. Use of Dust Cave as a place in the hunter-gatherer landscape of the Middle Tennessee Valley did not remain constant through time, but rather changed over the millennia. During the Late Paleoindian and early Early Archaic, Dust Cave functioned as a short term residential camp which was occupied fairly intensively during the late summer through fall. During the late Early Archaic, the site shifted to a residential base camp. During the Middle Archaic, the site shifted again to a logistical extraction camp where groups processed hickory nuts on such a large scale that the copious amounts of refuse generated give one the impression of a longer term base camp. The changes seen at Dust Cave mirror changes at other regional cave and rockshelter sites at which numerous nut processing pits, nutting stones, and enormous quantities of nut charcoal indicate a general shift in site use as plant extraction camps-sites where nuts were boiled and parched for transport to base camps located at lower elevations. The increased reliance on mast resources corresponds to warming and drying associated with the middle Holocene. These vegetation changes played a key role in the increasingly logistical mobility strategy of Middle Archaic hunter-gatherer groups.

A study of the political and religious situation in the province of Valencia in eastern Spain, focusing primarily on the 6th century AD.

This book studies the royal festivals in the Egyptian Late Predynastic period and the First Dynasty. (The chronological beginning here is the Naqada IId period and the author includes a brief account of royal festivals in the contemporary Lower Nubia andthe Second Dynasty.) The Egyptian kings developed a complex system of ceremonies and rituals that served them as a form of expression before society. The ways were complex and varied, but so effective that most of these festivals continued to be performed for more than three thousand years. The author begins with an historical outline of the unification process and the First Dynasty before exploring the main themes of kingship and festivals. The points of discussion include temple structures (Abydos, Saqqara, Hierakonpolis), festival traditions, the 'sed' festival, 'victory festivals', the festival of 'Sokar', and symbolic topography.

This very full study of Prehistoric (Neolithic-Chalcolithic transition, Chalcolithic, Middle Bronze Age, Pre-Orientalizing Late Bronze Age, Orientalizing) mining and metallurgy in the south west Iberian Peninsula, details sites from Cerro Jesús in the east to Joao Marques in the west. The book offers a rare monograph in English on this important aspect of metals and material culture. The author surveys and analyses hundreds of Prehistoric era sites and finds, and the result is a 400-page work in seven parts. The chapter headings include Mining-metallurgical surveys; Analytical methods; Geological background and mineral resources; Archaeological register and analysis: Bases for the archaeo-metallurgical investigation; Isotopic characterisation of the south west Iberian peninsula; Mining and metallurgical technology; Evaluation and dynamics of mining and metallurgy during the recent prehistory in the south west Iberian peninsula.

Our conception of the Mycenaean economy has been considerably altered in recent times. The palatial administration has gone from being conceived of as a centralized, almost totalitarian bureaucracy that collected and subsequently redistributed goods to the society at large, to one that is conceived of as predominantly interested in mobilizing resources almost solely for the purpose of producing its own elite goods. Alternative foci of economic power have been recognized, the damos and the religious sector. In this work the author thoroughly explores the clues to the latter's economic activities as they appear in the Linear B tablets and the archaeological record in order to better understand the economic role of the religious sector in Mycenaean society. In addition, the author bears in mind that economic power can bring social and political power. Indeed, they are very often intertwined; therefore she also examines, where possible, the indications that the religious sector wielded some influence within their communities and with respect to the palatial authority. The early chapters, before delving into the archaeological and Linear B evidence concerning the economic activities of the religious sector, explore exactly what the author means when referring to a site as a workshop or a sanctuary, and the methods used in identifying such places. Chapter 3 is a discussion of the workshop-shrine connection as it is manifested in archaeological contexts outside of Mycenaean Greece. Chapter 4 turns to one of the bodies of evidence that has proved most useful for this study: the Pylos land tenure tablets which deal with the landholdings of Pa-ki-ja-ne. Chapter 5 focuses on the religious sector's involvement in other economic activities, including shepherding, textile production, bronze working, perfume production, and chariot and armor production. Chapter 6 investigates the Mycenaean archaeological material that appears to support the evidence found in the tablets for the involvement of the religious sector in industrial production.

Proceedings of the XI Symposium on Mediterranean Archaeology, Istanbul Technical University, 24-29 April 2007This book includes papers from the 11th Symposium on Mediterranean Archaeology held at Istanbul Technical University, 24 to 29 April 2007.

Proceedings of the XV World Congress UISPP (Lisbon, 4-9 September 2006), Volume 13, Session WS21This book includes papers from the Session 'WS21 Fuel Management during the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic Periods: New tools, new interpretations' presented at the XV UISPP World Congress in September 2006.

Durante los días 23,24 y 25 de octubre de 2014 se desarrolló en Mérida (Yucatán, México) dentro de Festival de Cultura Maya (FICMAYA) el congreso Cultura y Patrimonio Mexicano del siglo XXI orientado a reflexionar en torno a diferentes aspectos tipos de patrimonio (arqueológico, arquitectónico, documental), aspectos a tener en cuenta en su gestión, formas diferentes tratar el patrimonio desde perspectivas institucionales o bien privadas en algunos casos. Así mismo, se han presentado propuesta de ejemplos de gestión de carácter comunitario. El volumen Patrimonio tangible e intangible mexicano: una reflexión tiene por lo tanto como objetivo el análisis y la reflexión en torno a diferentes aspectos vinculados con el patrimonio: educación, sociedad y cultura como ejes vertebradores de la realidad actual de un país como México y una sociedad como la Yucateca jalonada de evidencias del pasado en todos sus pueblos y ciudades.On the 23rd, 24th and 25th of October 2014, a conference on Mexican Culture and Heritage in the Twenty-First Century was held in Merida (Yucatán, Mexico), as part of the Festival of Mayan Culture (FICMAYA). The purpose of this conference was to reflect on different aspects and types of heritage (archaeological, architectural, documentary), on the factors to be taken into account in its management, and on different ways to treat heritage from institutional or, in some cases, private perspectives. At the same time, examples of community management were proposed. The volume Patrimonio tangible e intangible mexicano: una reflexión thus has as its objectives both the analysis of and reflection about various issues related to heritage, education, society and culture as the backbone of the contemporary reality of a country like Mexico and of a society such as that of the Yucatán, which shows evidence of the past in all its towns and cities.

Urban space constitutes a place where people and animals live together in close proximity with each other, creating changing landscapes of co-existence, conflict, mutual dependencies and exploitation. The medieval animals found in the articles of Animaltown: Beasts in Medieval Urban Space, appear in text and image, as well as archaeological find materials in the form of butchery waste, kitchen refuse, debris from manufacturing osseous objects, and the objects themselves. This multiplicity of sources sheds light on the ways towns fed themselves, protected themselves and created their personal landscapes and views of themselves through the power of metaphor and symbol involving the array of beasts, great and small, surrounding them.The general theme uniting the papers in this volume is the range of factors influencing the mutual relationship between humans and the animals that surrounded them within the densely built and occupied spaces created by people in towns and their hinterlands. Animals are found as urban symbols, decorative motifs and representations. They appear as key elements in food traditions and meat-processing, economic and trade structures, hygiene and disease, as well as craft activities that exploited a variety of animal products. Beasts of all kinds played many different roles in the lives of people in the Middle Ages, from the highest levels of society to the lowest of the low. Conversely, intimate contact with humans in these environments also shaped the lives and behaviour of both wild and domestic animals in many profound ways, both evident and subtle. The volume will be a valuable addition to the library of anyone interested in the connection between urban animals and people in medieval times.

Historical, Artistic and Archaeological Studies on Medieval Europe (1000-1400 A.D.)Serie Ibérica I / Iberian Series IEste libro pretende contribuir al esclarecimiento de propiedades materiales, disposiciones visuales y aptitudes ceremoniales de una selección representativa de catedrales medievales, entendidas como patrimonio vertebral de la construcción de la compleja y plural identidad europea. Los análisis contenidos en estas páginas examinan los contextos históricos y artísticos en los que surgieron diferentes catedrales. Los estudios aquí reunidos nacen de la conciencia de que algunos de nuestros monumentos catedralicios aún requieren una relectura bajo ópticas diferentes y complementarias. Hemos pretendido ensanchar vías de estudio relativas a la fabricación de los marcos arquitectónicos, pero también del uso ritual de las catedrales operadas entre los siglos IX y XIII. Así, partiendo de los datos disponibles sobre la historia constructiva de cada edificio, se razonan algunas de las morfogénesis y metamorfosis que registra la misma. Para allanar ese conocimiento, se ha indagando sobre los motivos cultuales, devocionales, funcionales o de visualización teológica que pudieron, de un modo u otro, alterar la configuración originaria y dirigir las actuaciones reformadoras. El resultado ha sido elocuentemente plural.This book is intended to help shed light on the material properties, visual layouts and ceremonial attributes of a representative selection of medieval cathedrals - the buildings that provide a physical foundation for the construction of the complex and plural European identity. The analyses in this collection examine the historical and artistic contexts in which different cathedrals emerged. The papers collected here were born of the realisation that some of our cathedral monuments still require further examination, under different and complementary lenses. The authors have tried to expand the channels of enquiry relating to both the architectural influences and the ritual uses of cathedrals built from the 9th to 13th centuries. They have used the data available on the construction history of each building to attempt to explain the reasons behind its morphogenesis and metamorphosis. To strengthen this knowledge, they have investigated the theological imagery and the devotional and functional motives that, taken together, altered each cathedral's original configuration. The results have been tellingly diverse.

Archaeolingua Central European Series 6Méhtelek lies in the easternmost corner of County Szabolcs-Szatmár (Carpathians, eastern Hungary). The importance of this archaeological site is manifold. The finds from the 1973 excavation and the fresh archaeological information provided by the site confirmed earlier speculations that the broader region had been part of the Early Neolithic world. The finds enabled the separation of the Méhtelek group, a variant of the Körös culture of the Alföld (the Hungarian Plain), as well as the precise cultural and chronological attribution of several assemblages of stray finds, which had earlier simply been classified as Neolithic, to the Méhtelek group of the Alföld Körös culture. Assemblages related to or identical with the finds from Méhtelek came to light in the north-easterly region of the Alföld (principally in County Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg) and in the neighbouring regions of Romania and the Ukraine. Although the number of known sites is low, the currently known fourteen sites outline the boundaries of the group's distribution. The number of sites will undoubtedly increase in the future. Owing to various technical and other reasons, many decades have elapsed between the site's excavation and the publication of the final report on the Méhtelek site and its finds. No more than a few preliminary and incomplete reports have been published to date, some of them leading to misunderstandings and erroneous conclusions. The time is more than ripe for the publication of this report.

This study compares evidence for medieval ships and shipbuilding from archaeological sources with contemporary depictions in manuscripts. Traditionally evidence in illuminated manuscripts has been treated with caution and scepticism when it comes to medieval maritime study, and Joe Flatman attempts to assess more accurately their accuracy.

In addition to feminist studies, this work uses epigraphy, archaeology and classical sources, as well as recent developments in historiography, to understand Nabataean society and Nabataean women in particular. The author has highlighted to main study areas. The first is to investigate whether Nabataean women enjoyed a high status that was particular to their society and history. The second related enquiry is to investigate what made it possible for Nabataean women in the first century BCE-CE to become visible in inscriptions and numismatics (i.e. prominent in that period, place and time)? In other words what are the factors that allowed women such status? And were they factors particular to Nabataean women, their society or history? A further interesting objective of this book is to question the assumption of subordination of women in pre-Islamic Arabia.

Papers presented at EMAC '05, 8th European Meeting on Ancient Ceramics, Lyon 2005This volume presents a selection of papers delivered at the 8th European Meeting on Ancient Ceramics (EMAC) which took place in Lyon (France) in 2005. The EMAC series of conferences, initiated in Rome in 1991, meets every two years in a European city andbrings together specialists carrying out research on ancient ceramics using archaeological sciences. EMAC provides the opportunity to present and debate recent advances in this field of research, from methodological aspects to archaeological studies withfully integrated laboratory approaches.

Proceedings of the IX Symposium on Mediterranean Archaeology, Chieti (Italy), 24-26 February 200584 papers.Introduction by S. Trinchese.Preliminary editing by L. Cherstich.Castel Manfrino excavation edited by S. Antonelli.

A volume of 26 contributions related to: The ancient world and modern perceptions: the invention of antiquity in modern times; Ancient economy, politic and society: evidences and interpretive models; Ancient representations: subjectivities and identities in interpreting gender, ethnicity, religion, literature and arts. The result is an innovative collection of chapters, from different standpoints, revealing how classics in general, and classical archaeology in particular, has reacted to the challenges of the recent past in forging a socially relevant study of the ancient world.

This volume deals with the prehistoric human groups and their environments that occurred during the early and middle Holocene (roughly 10 - 6 thousand years before present) in a huge segment of the Eurasian continent forming the East European Plain, which predated the early manifestations of food-producing economies: agriculture and stock-rearing. In archaeological terms widely accepted in the West, this period corresponds to the Mesolithic, panoply of hunter-gathering communities that evolved in the aftermath of the Last Ice Age.

The Upper Tisza Project. Studies in Hungarian Land.Book 4 in the reports series on the Upper Tisza Project, north-eastern Hungary. This volume covers the summer 1995 excavations at the Neolithic site of Polgár-10.Written by John Chapman, Mark Gillings, Robert Shiel, Bisserka Gaydarska and Chris Bond.Contributions by Eniko Magyari, David Passmore, Eniko Félegyháza, Ian Lumley, Rhodri Jones, Jerome Edwards, Karen Hardy, Denise Telford, David Brighton, Keith Dobney, Ferenc Gyulai, Edina Rudner, Beth Rega, Keri Brown and Tom Higham.Illustrations by Sandra Rowntree, Chris Bond and Yvonne Beadnell.

The Upper Tisza Project. Studies in Hungarian Landscape Archaeology.Book 5 in the reports series on the Upper Tisza Project, north-eastern Hungary. This volume covers the summer 1995 excavations at the multi-period site of Regéc 95, located in an upland basin in the South Zemplén Mountains.Written by John Chapman, Magdolna Vicze, Robert Shiel, Steve Cousins, Bisserka Gaydarska and Chris Bond.Contributions by Eniko Magyari, David Passmore, Denise Telford, Ferenc Gyulai, Edina Rudner, Keri Brown and Alan Biggins.Illustrations by Sandra Rowntree and Chris Bond.

Ancient Maya ceramic economy during the Late to Terminal Classic Period (800-900 A.D.) is the focus of this book. The author employed ceramic thin section petrology, raw materials sourcing, and contextual archaeological analyses and samples from a variety of excavated sites in the Belize River Valley region were included: Pacbitun, Cahal Pech, Baking Pot, El Pilar, Xunantunich, Blackman Eddy, Floral Park, and Ontario Village. Standardized petrofabric descriptions enabled the definition of distribution spheres for the ceramics and the study uses intersite comparison of distributional patterning to explore issues such as the scale, integration and disposition of the ceramic economy. A number of economic models were used heuristically to examine the possible meaning of the distributional patterning observed.

Proceedings of the XV World Congress UISPP (Lisbon, 4-9 September 2006) Volume 32This book includes papers from Session WS28 'Defining a Methodological Approach to Interpret Structural Evidence' edited by Fabio Cavulli and papers from Sessions C69, C70 and C71 'Archaeometry' edited by Maria Isabel Prudêncio and Maria Isabel Dias.

The Late Chalcolithic is a period of far-reaching changes in many aspects of life in Mesopotamia. On the southern alluvial plain (present day Iraq) the first city states appear, among them the city of Uruk, which grows to become the largest of the citiesin the south. The growth of cities coincides with evidence for elaborate ritual building complexes, an increasingly class-stratified society, industrial specialisation, and multi-tiered administration, which includes the invention of writing. The present volume focuses on the agricultural developments in Late Chalcolithic northern Mesopotamia from the perspective of a major settlement in the region, Tell Brak in modern northeast Syria. Agriculture formed the basis of the economy of ancient Near Eastern communities; a study of the crop husbandry practices of Tell Brak can potentially identify the plant economy of the site, including the crops present in the settlement, and methods of crop processsing and use. Any agricultural responses to changes in the socio-political system, known from the archaeological evidence to have taken place during the Late Chalcolithic, can also be assessed. These responses may be able to give us an indication of the wider economic responses to societal change during the Late Chalcolithic.