Bücher der Reihe British Archaeological Reports International Series

This conference in honour of Randi Haaland was held in Bergen in September 2001. Although the title of the conference was ambitious, the aim was to highlight current research problems in fields where Randi Halaand has been particularly active. The current volume contains the proceedings of the conference, thus fulfilling its aims. The largest session was reserved for "Approaches in African Archaeology" since Africa is the continent where the majority of Randi Halaand's work has been conducted.

The 14 papers in this volume are taken from a conference held in Edinburgh in 2004. When the organisers called for papers for a conference on Games and Festivals they had no idea the response would be so varied-ranging from Minoan bull leaping to Samoan kilikiti-or that the papers would turn out to be so thematically interrelated. The response has shown that it is not so much the mechanics of the games or the actions carried out at ancient festivals that fascinate modern scholars as their social and political significance and the way the theme could be manipulated by writers and artists. Games and festivals were at the heart of Classical societies, playing a much more important role than in modern western societies (even taking football into account). Festivals structured the year and were inextricably bound up with the structures of society. Games and festivals are also closely linked, as most competitive games took place at a festival, or at least in a religious context, even, it seems, cock fighting and dicing, and many festivals contained elements of competition. Competitiveness pervades Greek and Roman life-and this is reflected in literature and art. In this, an Olympic year, a new selection of papers on Classical games and festivals is especially welcome.

Why another book on violence in prehistory? Do we have enough evidence to draw meaningful conclusions on the importance and meaning of violent interactions among sedentary and semi-sedentary hunter-gatherers of Europe? What methodological and theoretical questions do we hope to answer with this volume? Many questions on the evidence and meaning of confirmed violent interactions remain unresolved even as more and more books appear on the topic. This volume was prompted by the editor's research in the Iron Gates Gorge and the 8 papers presented here reflect a similar puzzlement felt by each of the participants while examining the evidence of trauma and possible or probable interpersonal violence. As a framework for this volume, Mesolithic societies are defined as sedentary or semi-sedentary prehistoric hunter-gatherers with no temporal or geographical limitations usually associated with this term, allowing for comparisons between temporally and geographically remote regional groups. While the number of societies presented could have been much larger, the 8 articles in this volume present a number of different approaches, focuses and expertise. What seems to unite them is the call for minute examination of osteological evidence and broad understanding of contextual data.

This is a study of the Christianisation of the built environment: the physical manifestation of the transition from paganism to Christianity in the Greek East. The core of the work comprises an archaeological exploration of temple conversion in terms of structural mechanics, logistics, chronology and socio-political implications. The author provides a re-assessment of the fate of the temples - their deconsecration, destruction, preservation, abandonment and re-utilisation - by supplementing and questioning the historical record through reference to the wealth of available archaeological evidence. Detailed chapters on the mechanics and chronology of particular forms of conversion scenario illustrate the emergence of an architectural vocabulary of temple conversion from the middle of the 5th century. In order to assess the impact of change on a local level, these primary issues are addressed through the archaeology of provincial Cilicia. Archaeological, historical and epigraphical evidence from over 250 structures in which the influence of a pre-existing temple has been detected, have been incorporated into a highly detailed database, providing a platform for information management and the analysis of trends in the fate of the temples. By looking beyond the subjective narratives of the primary historical sources, this study demonstrates that the archaeological evidence can provide us with a deeper understanding of the complexity and variability of temple conversion as it occurred in individual urban contexts. This has enabled the formulation of a more coherent picture of its significance and situation in the cultural and physical transformation of the late antique city.

Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology 63This study determines the possible connections between the various ceramic traditions of Senegal and Gambia, with special references to identities and histories of the current populations. A meticulous analysis of the current contexts of manufacture permits a fresh look at the evolution of ceramic traditions and builds an interpretative model of technical variations applicable to former populations.

This book investigates the lives of servile dependants, and their role in the large households of the elite Romans. In parallel to the public and political lives of the aristocracy under constant public gaze, there had been other lives led that were totally different but closely connected to them as if the other side of the coin - the usually unseen world of servile dependants. An uneasy proximity created by the cohabitation of the two opposite status groups (aristocratic masters and slaves) brought conflicts and contradiction. In attempting a new inquiry into such historically anonymous individuals and their res publica, the domus, this present work confines itself to analysis of a particular group of inscriptions from Rome (1st/2nd centuries AD), commonly referred to as the columbaria inscriptions. The 'columbarium', a dovecote-like burial structure, was designed to accommodate a number of epitaphs and urns of ashes and became particularly popular during the Julio-Claudian period. Such a communal burial structure appears to have been shared by people with a common background, in many cases the slaves and freedmen staff of a noble family. In other words, the set of epitaphs from a given columbarium is arguably representative of the familia urbana of a certain noble family. Once the group of individuals is thus given an identity, it opens the way to systematic examination of their lives and status from multiple angles. These inscriptions, relatively unexplored until recent decades, offer researchers unique insights into otherwise anonymous people.

This book examins native Matt-Painted pottery from Iron Age and Classical Southern Italy within the context of native social change and of the relationship between the Greeks and the natives. This is the first attempt to move away from a purely typological approach to Matt-Painted pottery and to study it within its social context, casting light upon ceramic innovation and wider social development.

The book describes a series of experiments carried out in order to replicate the working environment of a Roman blacksmith, by using tools and equipment as close to originals as possible. The results provide a database that will enable archaeologists to compare evidence found in archaeological records with the experiment results.

Mesopotamian houses excavated at Ur and Nippur represent a unique archaeological context for the analysis of the interaction of verbal and nonverbal sign systems in that archaeologists can combine archival evidence of the III-II millennium BC with well-preserved house layouts. This work provides a general framework for the interpretation of other sites where textual evidence is absent or not in context. Although the aims of the book are multiple, the main objective is theoretical: The author goes beyond the interpretation of Mesopotamian domestic sociology and offers a semiotic theory of verbal and nonverbal meanings, useful for archaeology in general.

This book examines the transformations occurring in the cities of Latin North Africa in the Roman Empire in the course of the late third, fourth and early fifth centuries AD. These developments have been assessed through a series of case studies of North African cities using archaeological, epigraphical and literary, source material. The study examines the continued vitality of municipal life in Africa by examining the evidence for the maintenance and construction of judicial, religious, defensive and entertainment structures in the late Roman period. The book also tackles the nature of the Christianisation of the North African cities within the wider urban context. It considers the appropriation of elements of the classical urban heritage for Christian use and the construction of new Christian buildings. It reassesses the nature of the Donatist and Catholic Churches, examines their differing ideologies and indicates how these could impact upon the built environment. The study also considers the effect of the changes in the urban area on the population and movement within the city as well as demonstrating the distinctive nature of late Roman North African urbanism and its setting within an Empire-wide context. The book concludes that North African city-life was generally flourishing in this period but that a set of processes were producing a new, African cityscape.

This study deals with the form and development of a single type of architectural ornament, ubiquitous from the late eleventh to the early thirteenth centuries in northwestern Europe. Chevron ornament, or three-dimensional zigzag, has been described as the single most characteristic moulding, or indeed feature of any kind in Norman architecture in England. It is the most enduring of the decorative motifs that formed part of the so-called style géométrique, current in those areas in the earlier part of the twelfth century, and is found most typically decorating arches, string courses and columns in a wide variety of structures, from castles, to cathedrals to parish churches to the extent that for a period during the twelfth century its absence is more notable than its presence. Among the major preoccupations of scholarship in medieval art and architecture are the issues of authorship and chronology. Given the potential for a type of ornament such as chevron to reveal etymological characteristics it is surprising that studies of the apparent formal grammars of Romanesque ornament have not been more commonplace. It is with these issues in mind then that the current study sets out to explore the degree to which an architectural motif like chevron can be 'read' in a meaningful way.

This study focuses on the distribution of early Dong Son bronze drums, from their centres of production in north Vietnam throughout Mainland and Island Southeast Asia, as evidence of cultural contact and cross-regional exchange along river and maritime routes from the late Metal Age to the proto-historic period. This is the period just prior to, and overlapping with, the first Chinese and Indian influences in the wider region. The exchange of bronze drums established alliances between early centres favouring the trade of other goods. Such early centres allow us to identify early cultural spheres which set the stage for the process of state formation in the historic period. Adopting a synoptic view over the entire distribution across present national boundaries, the author analyses the implications of what types of drums are found where. As a working tool towards this goal, she identifies specific regional clusters. Each cluster of drums highlights and clarifies specific questions regarding chronology, routes of transmission, the geographical extent of trade networks, and new local bronze casting traditions arising from the influence of the imported bronze drums.

This study surveys the evidence for beekeeping in the Prehistoric Aegean, from references in later literature to archaeological remains of beekeeping paraphanalia, symbolic depictions in jewelry and on seals, and the evidence of folklore and mythology.

This book includes papers stemming from a session at the EAA conference held in Zadar in September 2007.

Edited by Lucy Blue, John Cooper, Ross Thomas and Julian Whitewright.This book includes papers from the conference Connected Hinterlands (Proceedings of Red Sea Project IV) held at the University of Southampton in September 2008.

A detailed study of north Umbrian pre-Roman inscriptions in the Valle di Ospitale, which lies in the Appennino Modenese region of Italy's northern Apennines.Con DVD contenente 1230 files fotografici, di cui 322 da foto di Mauro Colella, 42 da fotodi Giancarlo Sani, 4 da foto di Gabriele Bonino.

Contributions by Roberto Bixio, Andrea De Pascale, Nak¿¿ Karamäaral¿, Alessandro Maifredi and Mauro Traverso.The 'Ancient Ahlat City Excavation' in Ahlat, a province of Bitlis, located at the North West of Lake Van, is the largest excavation site of Turkey, spread on an area of 50 km2 and it is one of the most important city excavations in the country.

Over the past decade there has been substantial progress in understanding Maya hieroglyphic writing. This development led to the reconstruction of Classic Maya (AD 300-900) political history. Epigraphers suggested a major influence of Teotihuacan during the Early Classic Period (AD 300-600), and some even argued for a direct Teotihuacan conquest of the Maya lowlands. The Late Classic Period (AD 600-900) was interpreted as a constant hegemonic struggle between Tikal and Calakmul, which in different ways influenced Classic Maya political relations. These reconstructions of political history were directly tied to the interpretations of political organisation, ranging from peer polity interaction models to more bureaucratic polities. In this work the author examines and analyses inscriptions from the Western Maya Region, which are especially rich in information concerning interaction of polities and interpolity organisation. The author reconstructs the historical development of the region, examining the influence of Teotihuacan and that of the hegemonic states Tikal and Calakmul.

This book includes papers presented at a conference at Aix-en-Provence, 23-24 April 2010.

Based on the author's thesis, this study analyses a series of lithic assemblages from the region of Chaseen in eastern Languedoc. Vanessa Lea sets out the background context and methodology of her research before looking in detail at assemblages from eight sites.

The contributors to this volume seek to understand migrations and invasion on their own terms, the strengths and weaknesses of migration and invasion models as explanatory models of cultural change. Papers are written by David Anthony, John Chapman, Sally Crawford, Helena Hamerow, James Milroy and Lesley Milroy.

Proceedings of a conference covering many aspects of human use of caves: from Palaeolithic carvings in France to present-day man-made cave dwellings in Baranja, Croatia.

This book is an attempt to reconstruct a Mesolithic framework around a little-known artefacts that express probable social complexity within a so-called functional hunter/gatherer system. Artistic representation in the form of decorated bone, antler and amber portrays a society that not only hunted, fished and gathered, but also believed in totemics.

This book, based on reviews of existing evidence and on original ethnographic and archaeological data, addresses the issue of when, how and why food production emerged in Ethiopia. This problem is examined through both cultural and economic context. The conclusion is that significant phases of development can be identified in Ethiopian Holocene prehistory. The suggestion is that the introduction of domesticated animals in Ethiopia occurred as early as the 6th millennium BP, and domesticated temperate crop plants were introduced from the 5th millennium BP. The book includes appendices featuring Ethiopian resources, pollen diagrams and archaeological evidence.

The so-called Coligny Calendar was discovered in November 1897 by a Monsieur Roux in a field north of Coligny (Ain, France). He came across the fragments of a buried statue of a young male deity and, with it, the broken-up remains of what had once been alarge bronze plaque. The more than 150 individual fragments, most of which bore writings and numerical values aligned to vertical lines of holes, were quickly recognized as pieces of a calendar, written in Roman capitals. The language was later recognized as Gaulish. Archaeological analysis showed that the fragments had been collected in a container made from a vegetal fibre. Archaeologists have suggested several hypotheses for this strange circumstance. The most accredited of them is that a druid wanted to save the remaining fragments of the calendar, burying them underground in a wood, and for the statue, evidently a sacred object, that it had been broken up for some dramatic event. The analysis proposed in this volume is that the plaque does not bear a solar calendar, but shows essentially the structure of a lunar calendar, based on a given yearly lunation pattern, and adapted to the solar course by means of two intercalary months. Therefore it could be a scientific instrument, the result of a cognitive study that perhaps was not used alone, but together with the solar Julian Calendar.

An investigation of the relations between heterogeneity in the material world and variations in human behaviour, particularly landscape settlement and stone tool fabrication, in the European Lower and Middle Palaeolithic. A theoretical approach termed ecological geography is developed.

This book presents the proceedings of Red Sea Project III held in the British Museum, London, in October 2006.

This book presents eleven papers from a session held at the EAA conference in Cork, Ireland, in 2005.

With a definite economic focus, this work utilises a broad spectrum of information, including structural, artefactual, environmental, technological and documentary to examine the economy of early medieval Ireland and the domestic life of the non-elite population.

Interest in studying historical environments expanded quite rapidly parallel to a passion for romantic landscapes in the 19th century and the knowledge of natural resources among the ecologists of the 20th century. From the point of view of geomorphology, this interest has generated a wealth of research on coevolution between relief and human population. Later, with the study of recent sediment deposits in the Mediterranean Basin, the concept of parallel development between the spread of the Oikumene anderosive phenomena has emerged. Since then, numerous and sometimes contradictory studies have highlighted the diversity of the Holocene sedimentation and morphogenic response to human settlement and population growth according to the geographical variety. With the present work, the author contributes to this line of research by studying a semi-arid Mediterranean environment, the island of Cyprus. The work focuses on the Gialias River watershed which extends from the piedmont of the Troodos range to the Eastern Messaoria plains. The goal is to reconstruct the history of the Holocene morphogenesis in connection with the forms and structures of fluvial landscapes. This work is inscribed in a both geomorpholigical and geoarchaeological perspective and adds to recent advances on the evolution of sub-arid and semi-arid environments in the oriental part of the Mediterranean Basin.