Bücher der Reihe British Archaeological Reports International Series

This monograph examines the deposition of precious metal artefacts in the late Roman and early Byzantine periods (from c. AD 200 to AD 700) within and beyond the frontiers of the Roman Empire and its successor states. The primary foci of the study are the size, date range and spatial distribution of these finds, with less emphasis on specific aspects of artefacts themselves and the specific contexts in which individual deposits were found. The immense chronological and regional scope allows broad changes in deposition patterns to be presented and examined. And a variety of possible interpretations of these patterns are offered in the final chapter.

The aim of this research is to record the presence of human skeletal remains found in spatial and functional contexts which were not usually used as common burial locations. This study focuses on Northern Italy in the 1st millennium BC and, in order to offer a complete picture of the evidence, addresses this topic from both an archaeological and anthropological perspective.

A detailed study of ceramics from the Iberian sites commonly known as 'Las Motillas' - arguably the most singular form of prehistoric settlement on the Iberian Peninsula. Located in the central area of Spain called 'La Mancha' they date to the Bronze Age (2200-1500 cal. BC), with the sites characterised by artificial tells produced by the destruction of complex fortifications with concentric stone walls. These sites were believed to be funerary barrows until the 1970s, when the systematic excavation of La Motilla del Azuer (near Daimiel (Ciudad Real), on the left bank of the Azuer River) was undertaken. From the beginning of the fieldwork, the nature of the fortified settlement quickly appeared, clearly defined thanks to the documentation of a central fortification surrounded by a small settlement and its necropolis. This study assesses the Bronze Age pottery assemblages from the site, presenting a typological and technological classification.

Byzantium cannot be reconstructed, but its art provides an intensely vivid picture of its official and everyday life. The author of this volume has chosen two great works to illustrate this. The illuminated manuscript of the Skylitzes Chronicle in the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid is unique. It is the most important preserved document illustrating particular historical events in a secular framework, and a study of this manuscript transports us to a mid-Byzantine historical context, with all its drama, triumphs, and ceremonial life, as well as its darker side, disasters and persecutions. The other great work chosen by the author to illustrate the artistic legacy of Byzantium is the famous church of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, the principal monument of Christian architecture of Justinian times and fundamental to the history of architecture.

Aegean-type pottery has been found in the West Mediterranean for more than a century and several publications have tried to explain the phenomenon from an Aegeancentric point of view. The search for metals, the arrival of Mycenaean people after the LH III B destructions in Mainland Greece and the hypothesis that Mycenaeans had to sail westwards because of the dominance of the Minoan thalassocracy on the eastern routes are only some of the proposals. Yet, what do we know about the Italics, the people who consumed, and eventually produced, Aegean-type pottery? This question is at the centre of this study. The state of research on this topic, in spite of almost a century and a half of studies is disappointing. The phenomenon is still seen in terms of economic exchange, where the Aegeans are the primary players. There has been no attempt to research methodically the reasons why the Italics accepted and used Aegean-type pottery. In the last few decades, many anthropologists have concentrated their efforts on ethnographic studies of patterns of consumption and several theoretical models have been published as a result. In particular, globalisation has provided the stimulus for research focussed on cross-cultural consumption of standardised products. Using these studies, this research has tried to provide the Italic perspective, one of consumption as well as production. The results of this research demonstrate the independence of the Italics in their choices as consumers and provide insights on the social and cultural processes of these Bronze Age populations. As a result, while the role of the Aegeans in the phenomenon appears less important, the complexity of the regional Italic processes associated with the presence of Aegean-type pottery in the West Mediterranean becomes more apparent.

This book includes eight papers from a workshop held at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, in 2001.

The Tihamah plain extends some 500km down the western coast of modern Yemen and about 100km along its southern coast. This publication presents the first long-term culture-history of the Tihamah, through the exploration of socio-economic, cultural and political developments and of the region's relation to the rest of South West Arabia to its east, and to the Horn of Africa lying to its west, across the Red Sea. This research assimilates and analyses all of the available data for an archaeological understanding of the pre-Islamic Tihamah. This comprehensive study, taken in a long-term perspective, enables the identification of patterns, discontinuities, changes and current interpretive problems related to the development of the Tihamah in its relation to neighbouring regions. The analysis is based on published and unpublished archaeological research - including field research undertaken by the author - and on a range of historical sources, which include South West Arabian pre-Islamic inscriptions and Graeco-Roman sources. It also draws on a disparate range of relevant data from the rest of South West Arabia and the Horn of Africa over an equivalent period. This publication demonstrates the importance of the Tihamah to wider cultural, economic and political developments within the rest of South West Arabia and the Horn of Africa. It adds to the emerging pre-Islamic history of other regions of South West Arabia that have been studied more fully elsewhere.

The positioning of the legions of the Imperial Roman army provides a window into both the thinking and the course of events during the period from 30 B.C. to 300 A.D. When one can identify the locations and date the redeployments of the legions, it is possible to recreate the planning that caused the army to be so placed. Redeployments, of necessity, shows a major shift of events or a significant refocussing of the strategic thinking of the then ruling emperor at that particular moment. This book starts from the assumption that a legion's headquarters remained at a base until that legion was permanently posted to another base. A legion might temporarily serve in another province, even for more than a year, perhaps with its eagle present, but know that it would return to its permanent base. At any moment in time, a legion might have detachments serving in a variety of locations. Some of these detachments, or vexillations, might be separated from the parent legion for long periods of time at great distances from its permanent headquarters. A great number of scholars have addressed the subject of legion locations, usually one legion or one province at a time. This book attempts to formulate a seamless web of legion locations, deducing from the evidence where the legions must have been during the period. It is a synthesis of what has been written before, and is written with the expectation that in the future new archeological evidence will further refine the information it contains.

This volume derives from a symposium held at the University of Wales, Lampeter, in April 1998. The 24 papers cover a wide range of archaeological and ethnographical interests.

The Aurignacian is one of the Upper Palaeolithic techno-complexes that has generated much literature in recent years. One of the least known aspects of this period is the question of the exploitation of bones materials. The research presented in this volume shows a techno-economic approach to the bone, antler, ivory, tooth, and shell evidence from the Iberian Peninsula. The author presents a characterization of the principles guiding bone raw material exploitation in the specified chronological and geographical area. From the results, the management strategies of these different raw materials are assessed in terms of how they were integrated into the different systems (technical, economic, social, cultural) on which hunter-gatherers societies were structured during the Early Upper Palaeolithic.

The object of this research is to register, analyse, understand and interpret the presence of Portuguese faience in the British Isles. The search for such purpose went through an archaeological, historical and anthropological interdisciplinarity. The production, consumption and the exportation of faience involved several processes, for which all of them the archaeological record fails in providing all the answers, although it is essential in a work where trade and economic relation patterns translated in material culture are sought. The purpose was to understand how occasional those exportations were, or if they could well be part of all the regular and immense trade between Portugal, England and Ireland. A full catalogue of the locations and the materials are presented so that future investigators can indirectly access those materials, thus complementing or forwarding new theories regarding the presence of Portuguese tin glazed ware in the British Isles.

This book investigates the practical and ritual dimensions of trees and timber in the Bronze Age and Iron Age of Scandinavia. The arguments are developed through the study of a broad range of materials including rock-art images depicting trees, charcoal from archaeological contexts identified to species, and prehistoric long-houses. The archaeological remains are related to a wider discussion in anthropology and historical ecology concerning the multifaceted relationship between humans and trees.

This research deals with the coin circulation in Hispania in the 2nd century AD, and is based on the numismatic findings compiled in many and varied works and researches. Chronologically, it covers the period between the government of Nerva and the death of Commodus, from AD 96 to 192. Geographically, it spans the Roman territories of the Iberian Peninsula, which includes the modern countries of Spain and Portugal.

Although the earliest known literary evidence for a dual-sexed divinity on Cyprus dates to the fifth century BCE, archaeological evidence indicates there was a tradition on the island of sexually ambiguous imagery which predates the literary sources. This information prompted the present research, which traces the tradition back to the earliest known examples on Late Neolithic Cyprus, and tracks its evolution through to the Cypro-Archaic period. Rather than rely upon descriptions, photographs and drawings presented in consulted publications, the various international museums that house the figures were visited by the writer in order to physically examine the images. A catalogue of the sexually ambiguous imagery for Cyprus from the Neolithic to the Cypro-Archaic period has been compiled and is included in this work. It is proposed that the imagery is of Cypriot innovation, and consists of proto-anthropomorphic, anthropomorphic and half-animal, half-human representations. The genre is influenced from its earliest period by the figurative art of the Syro-Anatolian mainland, but from the Late Bronze Age onwards, influences from the western Mediterranean and Aegean are also evident. Despite the periods in which there is little evidence for figurine production, sexually ambivalent imagery re-emerges when figurative evidence is once more apparent in the archaeological records. Furthermore, stylistic continuity of the genre from one period to the next is also apparent. This continuity is regardless of the cultural changes which occur intermittently during the seven millennia period relevant to this study. Although it is not until the Cypro-Geometric period that there is firm evidence to support a religious interpretation of sexually equivocal imagery, it is suggested that the genre from the earliest period was at least associated with fertility, and perhaps religious cult.

Molise, southern Italy, formerly linked with the region of Abruzzo, has recently attracted further archaeological interest since becoming the newest Italian region in 1963. The history of the discoveries and studies of Late-Antique Molise is a recent one. The history of Roman discoveries in the large Samnitic hinterland begins from the second half of the 19th century. In this period a network of local researchers linked to the Archaeological Institute of Correspondence in Rome (founded in 1829) recorded ad hoc information about ruins and inscriptions that proved most helpful for the newly founded administrative institutions of the new Kingdom of Italy. In the second half of the 20th century the archaeological data concerned not only inscriptions, but also monuments and the urban and rural topography of the Roman-Hellenistic period. Recently, the stratigraphic excavations of the Soprintendenza of Molise, and some university projects, have provided a significant amount of archaeological data about the Late Antique and Early Medieval history of this regional territory (Molise), as presented by the historical and archaeological data. Focusing on Late Antiquity, the author in this study looks specifically at the Roman towns of Larinum, Buca, Terventum, Fagifulae, Aesernia, Bovianum, Venafrum, and Saepinum.

This monograph is concerned with understanding the behaviours and land use practices associated with earlier Palaeolithic hominins in Syria, through consideration of key archaeological assemblages from two important regions: the Orontes and Euphrates Valleys. The focus here is on three temporal bands - Earliest occupations (1.50 mya - 0.80 mya); the Lower Palaeolithic (800 kya - 350 kya); the Middle Palaeolithic (350 kya - 50 kya. The areas of the Orontes and Euphrates Valleys possess some of the most significant artefact collections from Syria, and indeed, the wider Near East. This is due to the fact that fluvial archives - such as those represented by the terrace staircases of the Rivers Orontes and Euphrates - are major repositories for earlier Palaeolithic material, and have historically been a primary research resource. They therefore provide a combination of an abundance of archaeological evidence and a significant archive of research activity.

This study re-evaluates the previous understanding of the Later Village Period in Greater Susiana (southwestern Iran) by focusing mostly on settlement and landscape. This is addressed from the perspective of the small and previously least explored plain known in this study as the Eastern Plain. By providing a picture of the previously unknown prehistoric human occupations in the Eastern plain through an examination and assessment of recent survey and excavation results and contextualizing this information with the results of previous research carried out in the Greater Susiana plains, it is hoped that this study will contribute to our understanding of human occupation and settlement pattern between ca. 5000 and 3500 B.C. in southwestern Iran. After the Introduction, Chapter 2 consists of a general review of the available evidence on the Later Village period (Middle Susiana to the Uruk period), its characteristics and interpretation. Chapter 3 looks at the geographical and geomorphological characteristicsof the Eastern Plain. Chapter 4 reviews the new evidence of human occupation in the Eastern Plain from LMS to the Islamic era. Chapter 5 focuses on Tall-e Abu Chizan, an extensive settlement in the Eastern Plain and its place in the wider context of the Naft Sefid alluvial fan system. Chapter 6 presents the summary and conclusions. Appendices: 1. Excavation Pottery Collection; 2. Archaeobotanical Analysis at Tall-e Abu Chizan (Margareta Tengberg); 3. Observations on the Faunal Remains of Tall-e Abu Chizan (Marhjane Mashkour and Azadeh Mohaseb); 4. Chipped Stone from Tall-e Abu Chizan; 5. Radiocarbon Dates from Tall-e Abu Chizan.

The subject of this study is an examination of the resources at the disposal of the elite class of Old Kingdom officials who administered the state on behalf of the crown. Their assets included one or more rural estates either owned outright or held in usufruct and/or enjoyed according to a land-owning system referred to as the pr Dt (estate), and all that the estate produced: a workforce if in some way bound to the estate, buildings, means of transport, household and personal effects. The resources available to these officials were the products of the estate: livestock, annually grown field crops and what could be procured from the desert margins, waterways and marshlands. Their assets and resources contributed to officials' status and authority and provided the crown with an elite class of administrators available for state service. This examination of Old Kingdom estates is based on a study of funerary images and inscriptional material that may throw light on the economic basis of high officials and on the value that they attached to the different resources at their disposal.

This book includes papers from an international Egyptological conference entitled Evolving Egypt: Innovation, Appropriation, and Reinterpretation in Ancient Egypt held in February 2006 at BYU-Hawaii (Oahu).

This study aims to identify patterns of warfare in the southern French Iron Age through examination of the documentary, settlement, iconographic and osteological evidence for warfare in this region, each within its chronological context and in tandem with one another. The Iron Age of southern France remains relatively unknown in the English-speaking archaeological world. The best known aspects of the archaeological material suggest a society in which warfare was an overriding preoccupation. Major, fortified centres, such as Entremont and Saint-Blaise, and the tradition of 'warrior statues' like those from Entremont and Roquepertuse, suggest that conflict was a recurrent theme. Literary sources, such as Poseidonius have described the indigenous populations of this area as a volatile and warlike people who took the heads of their enemies from the battlefield and displayed or preserved them in their settlements. Finds of skulls, some with nails still embedded in the bone, appear to verify such reports. The pattern of warfare which emerges from this analysis is then discussed within some of the more prominent models of social-anthropological study. This case study offers a more nuanced and contextual interpretation of warfare in the southern French Iron Age and demonstrates how, if treated as a form of social interaction, rather than a breakdown in social norms, might be integrated into wider archaeological interpretations of social and political change.

This study examines in depth the pugio (pl. pugiones), a short dagger-sword and one of the weapons of choice of the Roman army - it was the weapon that killed Julius Caesar. Its rich decoration and the use of precious metals have given it legendary status, which has been enhanced by a scarcity of literary sources and the lack of a clear explanation of its function or the specific use soldiers made of it. This work tries to fill this gap, basing its finds exclusively on undisputed data and sources. This study of the pugio takes us through the history and evolution of the Roman army itself.

The city of Nicopolis (Epirus, northern Greece) was founded by Augustus to mark his victory over Mark Antony and Cleopatra in 31 BC at the nearby Battle of Actium. The city flourished during the period of the Roman empire and its civic coinage was one ofthe most important and most interesting of the empire. It continued in production for over 250 years from the reign of Augustus to that of Gallienus. It has many unusual features, such as the very rare silver coins produced for the emperor Antoninus Piusand his wife Faustina, and, more particularly, the long series of coins with the name and portrait of Augustus. It was originally thought that they were all produced during Augustus' reign, but it is now known that, even though their exact chronology is difficult, they were minted for most of the time that the mint was active. This new study builds on existing scholarship but establishes a new level of understanding of the mint. The author has been able to find many new specimens of the coinage, often with previously unknown designs, and has found much new important material which was previously unknown in both Italian and Greek museums. The new collection of material is incorporated in a new and well-illustrated catalogue. The catalogue is accompanied by a series of analytical chapters that place the coinage very securely in the context of our literary and archaeological knowledge of Nicopolis, and which analyse how it can contribute to our understanding of Roman provincial coinage - its rhythm of production, its extent of circulation, its pattern of denominations and its iconography. The discussion is based on a very full understanding of the coinage and of the literature concerning other provincial coinages and will make a very lasting contribution, not just to the understanding of the coinage of Nicopolis and of ancient Achaea, but also of the problems and issues of the Roman provincial coinage more generally. [Taken from the Preface by Andrew Burnett, British Museum]

Studies in Early Medicine 2The series Studies in Early Medicine was established to allow scholars from all disciplines a forum for presenting new, groundbreaking or challenging research into aspects of disease, disability, health, medicine and society in the ancient and early medieval world, from prehistory to the Middle Ages. This present volume is the second in the series and presents some recent research into disability and impairment in Antiquity.

The aim of this book is to understand the development of the social structure of Germanic society in selected parts of "Germania Libera" in Europe from around c. 200 AD to 600 AD. Social structure here is primarily defined as the way the Germanic tribes perceived and expressed themselves and their worldview through their texts, their person, gender, family, lineage, tribe, and internal social and religious relations in the material culture. This book incorporates a relatively large time span which highlights aspects of Germanic social structure not identified in traditional shorter studies dictated by arbitrarily defined periods and areas. The focus is especially on the way Migration period cemeteries are differently or similarly structured within Germanic society. The Migration period is defined widely as the time from c. AD 200-600. In England, the equivalent time period is called late Roman and Early Saxon. When the cemeteries are analysed, other find categories are discussed in broader terms, together with analogies from social anthropology and from written sources, in this case, contemporary and later sources. One of the aims of the work is to look more closely at the singularity of the archaeological material in south-eastern Europe as a means of assessing the relevance of the written sources in the same area about social structure in both Southern and Northern Europe, especially in Scandinavia. (It also involves exploring the controversial source of Beowulf). The nine chapters focus on Germanic social structure; theoretical and methodological approaches to burials; south Scandinavian and Central European archaeology; social analysis of South Scandinavian cemeteries; a survey of the Sintana de Mures/Chernyakhovo culture; social analysis of Gothic cemeteries; survey of Anglo-Saxon scholarship; analysis of Anglo-Saxon graves, with special reference to Spong Hill; and conclusion.

Contents: 1) Fori Imperiali: la storia di un paesaggio urbano attraverso i contesti ceramici (Monica Ceci); 2) La ceramica d impasto del Foro di Cesare (Marina Ricci); 3) I materiali rinvenuti nell insula della salita del Grillo nell area dei Mercati di Traiano (con premessa di Roberto Meneghini) (Daniela Tabo); 4) Un contesto ..."

The first section of this volume presents previously unpublished and other finds from museums and collections, included on the basis of their importance in relation to Roman Siscia (Croatia). The second part of the volume encompasses recent finds from the excavations performed in 2003 at the site of St. Quirinus in Sisak (central Croatia). These Roman era finds are kept in the Municipal Museum of Sisak, the Archaeological Museum in Zagreb, in the Zagreb collection of Matej Pavleti¿, the Sisak collection of Marko Golan, and in one anonymous numismatic collection in Zagreb. 216 finds are catalogued.

This study is primarily concerned with computer-generated reconstruction models of architecture. It offers a collection of possible methodologies for dealing with individual problems concerning visualisation aims and highlights methods of adding value to virtual models in archaeology. Several avenues of enquiry are therefore explored, such as: What use have virtual models in archaeology?; How are they perceived?; Who is the intended audience?; Which applied ethical issues exist?; How can ethical awareness lead to added value? How are these models created? There is no easy answer to any of these but this work approaches the issues through a series of projects. These are international, but exhibit a European focus, which is also mirrored by the three case studies. The three case studies were selected because of their differences but they also have two properties in common: they were all begun at approximately the same time (2001) and they all pay attention to ethical issues. Otherwise an effort was made to find projects which were produced and concerning sites in three different countries: Casa del Centenario in Pompeii (Italy), Ename (Belgium) and Avebury (U.K.). The projects are concerned with architecture from three different periods, i.e. a Roman house, a medieval settlement (with the focus on St. Lawrence's church) and a Neolithic monument complex. The projects also had different aims: while the Casa del Centenario was primarily intended as a museum application and as a visualisation tool for the restorers, in the Ename 974 project the reconstructions were to illustrate the work and interpretation in progress for the local population while the church was closed due to excavation and building research. The model of Avebury was designed for research purposes and not intended for public display. So far, no comprehensive synopsis of different approaches with a critical stance on computer-generated visualisations has ever been attempted and this work provides a detailed and stimulating overview and analysis and serves as a foundation for further research.

This study concerns Early Bronze Age burials excavated on the mound of Tell Bi'a (northern Syria). Following the introduction, the author discusses the material evidence, the theoretical basis, and the methods used for inferring the structure of a living society from funerary remains. This is followed by an overview of the chronological framework as well as a historical outline of the Syrian Bronze Age in accordance with the current state of epigraphic and archaeological research, and finally by a formulation of the questions raised in this study.

Contents: Introduction (Alex Gibson); Earthen Enclosures in Britain & Ireland: An Introduction to the study of henges: time for a change? (Alex Gibson); Henging, mounding and blocking: the Forteviot henge group (Kenneth Brophy & Gordon Noble); Henges in Ireland: new discoveries and emerging issues (Muiris O'Sullivan, Stephen Davies & Geraldine ...