Bücher der Reihe British Archaeological Reports International Series

The ability to age animals accurately is of great importance both to archaeologists and to wildlife managers. Archaeologists are also particularly interested in the ability to determine the season of death of mammals, in order to reach a greater understanding of how man was exploiting or responding to his environment. A number of methods of age determination are available to wildlife managers, who have the advantage of having an entire animal in good condition at their disposal. Archaeologists, however, have more limited resources, and often wish to attempt age, and even seasonality, assessments using only bones and teeth. Teeth survive very well in the ground, and can often reveal information that would otherwise be lost, such as the species, which were available, and whether they were being hunted, scavenged, or farmed. The principal aim of this research was to examine the scientific basis and methodology of incremental analysis in order to arrive at increased understanding of the British Mesolithic. The approach includes an examination of every aspect of incremental analysis: the scientific basis, the methodology of thin section production, microscopical techniques, and interpretation, in order to obtain the greatest possible amount of information from a rather specialised technique. The species chosen was Red deer, a common animal on archaeological sites in British prehistory.

Ancient Egyptian bronze sculpture appears in many major European and North American museum collections, but its inadequate study makes the sculpture very difficult to analyze. The aim of the present study is to analyze and organize the corpus of priestly bronze statuary, a rather large subgroup of non-royal ancient Egyptian bronze statuary. To this end, the author utilizes several factors intrinsic to each three-dimensional figure: epigraphical, stylistical, contextual, and technical, to show the temporal development of the ancient Egyptian priest and priestly figure in bronze. With this study the author provides a foundation for further study in the area of non-royal bronze statuary in general and a clearer view of the artistic contribution of priestly bronze statuary in particular, as well as a better understanding of the role and development of priestly bronze statuary.

Volume 2: Finds from the excavations 1999-2003University of Southampton Series in Archaeology No. 6Between 1999 and 2003 the University of Southampton conducted excavations on the site of Quseir al-Qadim (western shores of the Red Sea), a place that had not been examined since the excavations by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicagoended in 1982. The new work was prompted by the discovery that the site of Quseir al-Qadim was, in all probability, not that of the minor port of Leucos Limen, as had been previously thought, but none other than Myos Hormos. This port, together with its sister harbour Berenike, articulated Rome's trade with India and the East. This second volume concentrates on the finds made during the excavation period and the volume concludes with an overview of what we now know of the nature and function of the ports of Myos Hormos and Quseir al-Qadim and a discussion of outstanding problems which can only be resolved by further work.With contributions by Lucy Blue, Rebecca Bridgman, Penny Copeland, Alison Cox, Rowena Gale, David Graf, Sheila Hamilton-Dyer, Fiona Handley, John Healey, Anne Macklin, Jacob Morales, David Peacock, Jill Phillips, Anne Regourd, Wilfried Van Rengen, Steven Sidebotham, Ross Thomas, Roberta Tomber, Marijke van der Veen and Julian Whitewright. Illustrations by Penny Copeland and Julian Whitewright.

Cette recherche de doctorat est le fruit d'une analyse innovante de l'architecture méso-américaine, et plus précisément de la planification urbaine et du temple mayas. Elle touche aux domaines de l'archéologie, de l'anthropologie, de la symbolique et de la sémiologie. L'auteur montre, grâce à une documentation extensive, que l'architecture maya répond à un modèle d'ordre sémantique, où chaque construction anthropique est réalisée selon une codification particulière respectant la forme du glyphe, créant ainsi un espace urbain scriptural , et par conséquent, hautement symbolique. Cette étude mène non seulement à une nouvelle interprétation de la fonction du temple et à la création d'un modèle de caractérisation des édifices non pyramidaux comme temples, mais également, par l'acquisition d'une perspective anthropologique interne, à une relecture des concepts-clés de la cosmologie méso-américaine.This book, based on the author's PhD research, is the result of an innovative analysis of Mesoamerican architecture, and especially of the temple and the urban planning concept of Maya ceremonial centres. The study draws on the fields of archaeology, anthropology, symbolic and semiology. The author shows, thanks to an extensive corpus, that Maya architecture responds to a semantic code. In fact, each human construction is built according to a particular glyph-shaped arrangement, creating in this way a 'writing urban space', and is, therefore, highly symbolic. This analysis leads not only to a new model for characterising as temples buildings which are not pyramidal, but also, through the acquisition of an internal perspective, to a reinterpretation of some of the key concepts of Mesoamerican cosmology.

The Bono Manso region of central Ghana was occupied from the late 12th to mid-18th centuries CE, spanning much of the zenith of the sub-Saharan and Atlantic Trade eras. Bono Manso was a nascent urban centre near a primary trade route that linked the Malian city of Jenne with the Akan goldfields. By integrating new archaeological data with oral, historical and archival data, the author discusses how the satellite village of Kranka Dada and its domestic economies were shaped by regional, continental and global trade and interaction. A household-oriented focus allows for discussion of how daily life at Kranka Dada, the economic, political and religious organization, were shaped by interaction with Bono Manso.

Papers from a session held at the European Association of Archaeologists Fourth Annual Meeting in Göteborg 1998The contents of this volume are largely made up from papers delivered at The Prehistory and Early History of Atlantic Europe session held on the 25th of September 1998 at the 4th Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists in Göteborg, Sweden. The aim of this volume, in common with the original aim of the session, is quite simply to promote wider discussion on the existence, scale, and significance of maritime communications between Atlantic communities.

Section 11: Âge du Bronze en Europe et en Méditerranée / Bronze Age in Europe and the Mediterranean.Acts of the XIVth UISPP Congress, University of Liège, Belgium, 2-8 September 2001.16 papers (13 in English, 3 in French) on the study of early tin from the UISPP Congress in Liège in September 2001.

The growth of the city of Rome was dependent on its ability to exploit successfully the human and natural resources of its hinterland.

The term khan can refer to urban and rural hostelries, relay stations of the Mamluk royal mail, fortresses, farmhouses, warehouses, and others. This multiplicity of meanings naturally complicates a study that aims at analysing only one of these functions - in this case the rural hostelries. The first comprehensive study on Near Eastern inns (Die Karawanserai im vorderen Orient) was published by K. Müller in 1920. Since then relatively few works have been dedicated to the subject of en route architecture in the Islamic lands and the road inns in particular. This study focuses mainly on an integrated survey of historical and archaeological evidence, presented in three sections, dealing respectively with issues of terminology, patronage, and architecture. These discussions relate to the gazetteer of surveyed buildings, presented in chapter 5. The danger lies in the inclusion of invalid samples in the research environment. Chapter 2 aims to avoid taking misinterpreted structures into consideration by establishing clear parameters before commencing a proper classification of the structures. Chapter 3 deals with the period and region under discussion. Against the background of patronage, this chapter treats the probable reasons, as well as patterns, for a relative boom in the construction of such monuments. Chapter 4 summarises the main architectural issues of the khans of Syria, both in the course of the archaeological survey undertaken between 1998 and 2002. The Gazetteer in chapter 5 approaches the same issues, i.e., architecture, history and patronage, but treats each site separately. It combines field, library and archival work, and aims at a comprehensive corpus of Mamluk khans in the southwest of Greater Syria. This work is intended to be part of a long-term study of the inns of Greater Syria, encompassing sites dating from early Islamic to Ottoman times and dealing, among others, with their architectural and functional transformations.

The aim of this work is to study the issue of agriculture on hillsides through the use of terraces, according to a multidisciplinary and multiscalar approach (in time and space). Mediterranean hillsides are frequently covered with terraces. These are generally dedicated to agriculture, whatever the sociocultural contexts are. All Mediterranean regions are subject to the same regime of rainfall, often violent and very localized in time. Therefore, farmers face the problem of soil erosion and management of their water resources. Questions concerning the causes, techniques and chronology of these constructions are considered. Recent researches carried out in several Mediterranean countries underline the part played by terracing in the shaping of Mediterranean landscapes from the Neolithic period to the present time, and its importance among ancient societies. These researches show that the emergence of the agricultural terracing technique originated in not one but several locations, that this technique was put into practice at least from as early as the Bronze age in the western as well as in the eastern Mediterranean, and that the variety of techniques employed are not mainly connected to chrono-cultural factors but are first bound to environmental conditions. The author selects for her researches areas from Spain, France, Italy, Greece, the Near East and North Africa.

This collection of essays look at the availability and use of lithic raw materials across the Near East. The essays each cover a particular region, with an introductory article which sets out the key issues in the study of chert exploitation in the Near East, and reviews the hitherto available research.

This study surveys sites across southern France and Spain to shed more light on lithic industries, in particular on assemblages rich with denticulates. It looks at issues of dating, the position of such tools in the stratigraphy, at production and usage.

Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Meeting of Young Researchers on Cypriot Archaeology, Department of Classics, Trinity College, Dublin, 21-22 October 2005The fifth Postgraduate Cypriot Archaeology (POCA) workshop took place from the 21st to 22nd October 2005, hosted by the Department of Classics, Trinity College Dublin. POCA is a workshop originally designed to provide postgraduate researchers in Cypriotarchaeology with a forum in which to present their work, discuss some central themes of their research, meet people who work in the same area and exchange ideas and information in a friendly and collegial environment.Edited by Giorgos Papantoniou in collaboration with Aoife Fitzgerald and Siobhán Hargis

This work presents the development of a theoretical model of land management (with its resources and inhabitants) for Thinite Egypt (the period when the kings coming from the city of This and buried in Umm el-Qaab cemeteries ruled most of Egypt). This volume is divided into three parts: textual analysis of Thinite inscriptions ; the second part is a synthesis of the data achieved with the former analysis, delineating a historical model of Early Egyptian State. The third part includes an appendix containing 28 tables with a further complete analysis of all the inscriptions in a tabular and really easy-consulting format. Finally there are 33 plates with the figures of almost all the inscription used in the volume.

Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology 74This work presents and evaluates internal perspectives on the profile of archaeology in the University of Ghana, Legon, internationally, and nationally, and also its future.

Selected papers of the 'Ritual Americas' conferences organized by the Société des Américanistes de Belgique in collaboration with the Red Europea de Estudios Amerindios Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium), 2-5 April 2008

This book presents the results of work at Shallale on Mount Carmel, Israel.Chief Field Supervisor: Yigael Ben-EphraimWith contributions by Einat Ambar-Armon, Shua Amorai-Stark, Miriam Avissar, Shimon Avivi, Yigael Ben-Ephraim, Ariel Berman, Leah Di Segni, Michael Dvorachek, Liora Kolska Horwitz, Gusta Lehrer Jacobson, Nili Liphschitz, Henk K. Mienis, Patricia Smith, Varda Sussman and Anna de Vincenz

The present volume is the outcome of a session held at the 12th European Archaeological Association conference at Krakow in Poland, in September 2006. The purpose of this volume is to present several studies related to the issues of memory, tradition and identity, and highlight different dimensions. The aim is to offer fresh views with up-to-date approaches on specific examples which follow different theoretical and thematic paths. The papers in this volume are chronologically diverse, covering prehistory, the classical period, the middle ages and as well as modern times, and are presented in this order. Spatially, they are concentrated in the Aegean and Scandinavia, offering different geographical contexts.

Beirut, Sidon and Tyre have been occupied by human societies since the third millennium BC. The sites grew up around easily defendable promontories, for Beirut and Sidon, and an offshore island, as in the case of Tyre. All three possessed natural low energy basins that could be exploited as anchorage havens with little or no need for human artificialisation. In spite of their former maritime glories, however, the evolution of these three important Phoenician citystates has remained largely enigmatic. Chapter 1: Although innumerable studies have addressed the various aspects of ancient harbour geoarchaeology, there is no single monograph that treats the subject in its entirety. The aim of this first chapter is therefore to comprehensively review the present literature, and set ancient harbour geoscience within the wider context of Mediterranean coastal archaeology Chapter 2: The most pronounced coastal changes of all three sites have been observed at Tyre and this chapter analyses the role of various natural and anthropogenic forcings to reconstruct the Holocene accretion and progradation of Tyre's 'tombolo', a peculiar sand isthmus linking the former offshore bastion to the continent. Chapter 3: The exact location of Tyre's ancient anchorages has been a source of archaeological speculation since the sixteenth century and this chapter reviews this earlier literature before moving on to precisely relocate the ancient northern harbour, the city's principal transport hub during antiquity, and its phases of evolution. Chapter 4: At Sidon, coastal stratigraphy has been used to reconstruct where, when and how the city's ancient anchorages evolved. During the Bronze Age, the city's southern bay, or 'Crique Ronde'. Chapter 5: At Beirut, redevelopment of the central business district during the 1990s exposed great tracts of the city's archaeology. Often dubbed as the 'largest archaeological dig in the world' the author and his team were called upon to link the historical data with the coastal stratigraphy and reconstruct the ancient harbour's history. Chapter 6 draws together the data from all three sites to propose a general model of Phoenician harbour evolution since the Bronze Age.

A biostratinomic study of the cadaver association scattered the Donana Biological Reserve (Huelva, SW Spain) to learn more of the general conservation dynamics and to deduce possible patterns that might be applied to the taphonomic study of archaeological sites. The work presents a methodology to analyse organic deposits in a natural ecosystem, studying formation dynamics of osseous assemblages in both natural and human cultural conditions.

Richard Pococke, Robert Pashley and Thomas Spratt, and their contribution to the island's Bronze Age archaeological heritageThis work focuses on three important British travellers to Crete during the 18th and 19th centuries to establish whether or not they made any significant contribution to the field of research with regard to the archaeological heritage of Bronze Age Crete. It brings these 'lost pioneers' of antiquity to the fore and to recognize their efforts as part of the foundation of the discovery of the island's Bronze Age archaeology prior to the groundbreaking excavations of Sir Arthur Evans. They are Richard Pococke (1704-65), Robert Pashley (1805-59) and Thomas Spratt (1811-88). Having dealt with the terms that these travellers used in describing ancient remains, the work looks briefly at the background to Bronze Age Crete itself. Thereafter the development from antiquarianism into archaeology is followed to establish the motives behind these travellers' wanderings in Crete. Consideration is given to whether any sites they described might have been of the Bronze Age and, in addition, various views of the mythical Labyrinth are looked at in an attempt to compound the theory that there may have been a certain belief in a period prior to the known Classical era (of the 5th century BC Greece). Questions answered include: How do the travellers' 'field surveys' and discoveries compare with what is now known today from excavation? Were some of their references to 'Cyclopean' stonework an identification of Bronze Age architecture? Do they deserve recognition for the identification of a prehistory of Crete? Why are their names missing from so many books on the history of archaeology and the discovery of Cretan archaeology? This work brings together, for the first time, an understanding of the views and comparative discoveries of three 18th and 19th century travellers of the, then, unknown ancient pre-history of Bronze Age Crete.

The scientific objectives of this research are to study the technological processes during the Middle and initial Upper Pleistocene in the northeastern Iberian Peninsular and southwestern France, and their implications for the behaviour of prehistoric human societies. The research studies of the lithotechnical records of archaeological sites located in different ecosystems (the Corbières Massif, the river basins of Roussillon, the river Ter terrace system, la Selva depression, and lacustrine basin of Banyoles), and their industries found in the sedimentary deposits preserved in caves (G level of the Caune de l'Arago), rock-shelters (lower levels of Mollet I), or in ancient paleosoils (Puig d'Esclats, Casa Nova d'en Feliu and Can Burgés), fluvial flood plains (Domeny Industrial), the deposits dismantled by erosional action on slopes (Costa Roja, Mas d'en Galí and Puig d'en Roca III), and in ancient fossil fluvial terraces/open-air sites (Mas Ferréol, Plane d'en Bourgat and Butte du Four-Llabanère). The results of the lithotechnical analyses allow for the documentation of the differentiated adaptive patterns of mesopleistocene hominids, reflected in the industries' level of technological variability between the geographical areas. The data obtained is assessed within three parameters: the areas where the necessary raw materials for knapping were obtained; the study of the technical production systems characteristic of each regional unit; and the diachronic interval of these settlements obtained both by relative chronology as well as through the application of absolute dating techniques.

This book derives from a seminar series held at the Oxford University Institute of Archaeology in 2003-2004 and a second brief series in spring 2005. The idea was to bring the students together with academic and professional archaeologists engaged in doing interesting work in landscape archaeology, who could present recent thinking about ancient landscapes from a variety of perspectives, using various approaches, and with a number of different aims.

Modern ecological studies are unable to examine long-term processes operating on the order of hundreds of years. Because of the limited length of modern and historic records, questions about long-term interactions between people and the environment can only be answered using paleoecological and archaeological information. This volume presents prehistoric records that span over a millennium to examine issues of human paleoecology on the Columbia Plateau of Washington State, USA. Unlike many previous studies, this study (1) quantifies past human population, (2) compares relative inputs of humans, climate, fire, and vegetation using multivariate statistics, (3) examines relationships between variables when leads and lags of different lengths are introduced, and (4) identifies multicollinearity, allowing variables of no unique explanatory value to be eliminated. This study indicates that research on human impacts that focuses on bivariate patterns, such as simple comparisons of coeval human population and fire, can suffer from the problem of equifinality. The multivariate statistical procedures employed in this work avoid these problems, however, and can be used in any study that employs observations taken at equally-spaced time intervals. Additionally, the protocols developed and used in this volume can be easily adapted and applied in new geographical areas -the methods and research design used need not be tied to this particular location.

This book is concerned with social stability and change. Despite continuing interest in both aspects by various disciplines of the social sciences they are still not fully understood. Unlike the natural sciences, where Darwin's principles of random variation and selection are commonly accepted as mechanisms of change, the social sciences still lack a paradigm of cultural evolution and the explanation of social change remains a crucial question. This is not an ordinary archaeological case study based on expertise in one area, but rather an attempt at truly interdisciplinary research. It tries to bridge the gap between quantitative and discursive methods as well as the boundaries of modern disciplines because it is felt that social change affects all aspects of human society and cannot be fully investigated from any one-sided perspective. Specifically, the research: 1) Finds a definition of innovation that can be applied with equal facility in different branches of the social sciences namely: archaeology, social geography, economics and policy-research; 2) Explores the process of innovation in the archaeological record of Europe especially on the Romanization of the North-Western Provinces and its attendant social changes. The application of the conceptual model of innovation to the archaeological record provides new insights into pre-historical processes as well as testing the definition's applicability for all four scientific domains mentioned above; 3) Extends techniques from Time Geography that have been developed in an EU funded project on time geography to the study of innovation in the historical and archaeological record.

Society for Arabian Studies Monographs No. 10This volume represents the proceedings of the conference entitled 'Death, Burial and the Transition to the Afterlife in Arabia and Adjacent Regions' that was held at the British Museum from November 27th to 29th, 2008.

A representational survey of sites of religious architecture in the present Czech Republic using geophysics and non-destructive archaeological methods.

The study of Greek ritual practice throughout the LH III B to Protogeometric periods is the central theme of this research. Chapter Two acknowledges the work of previous Aegean archaeologists and their methods for classification of the features which should be present in order for a site to be categorised as cultic in nature. The chapter goes one step further with the creation of new criteria specifically adapted to be relevant to all types of sanctuaries, be they palatial cult centres, settlement shrines, or isolated open-air shrines throughout the period. Chapter Three is a Site Gazetteer and begins firstly by introducing a scoring system which allows each site to be placed in one of the categories of 'possible', 'probable' or 'proposed' cult sites. Chapter Four considers both the allocation of space immediately within and outside the shrine buildings, as well as taking into account the location and setting of the shrine within its wider surroundings and environment. Chapter Five examines the type of votive offerings that are dedicated at shrines throughout the period in question. In addition, the areas at which the offerings are found along with their built features are identified and discussed. Chapter six is reserved for Ritual Actions throughout the period of study. The closing chapter is initially separated into three sections to clearly highlight the main findings of the research; these fall into the categories of A Systematic Methodology, Shrine Surroundings through time, and Ritual Practice through time. After which a short section is dedicated to the Characteristics of Society through time, to compare the sacred and secular spheres alongside, and attempt to understand what changes may have occurred in society, by the analysis of the shrine areas.

This study explains the social development of archaeological settlements and artefacts related to the first sedentary societies (1400 BC- AD 350) of the Northern Titicaca Basin, Peru. Such societies passed through a very wide event horizon, but a major influence was the qualitative and quantitative changes in the way these archaeological settlements and objects evolved. This deep change in historical trajectory is related to the existence of a society that produced an unusual complex of buildings and artifacts that are distinguished from others of the Andean area and known under the name of Pukara (400 BC-AD 350). The research is divided into five chapters. Chapter 1 analyzes recent archaeological discourses focused on an objective knowledge of social reality, recognizing the impact of ideologies on the interpretations of archaeologists. Chapter 2 looks at the relationship between dominant ideologies and archaeologies in Peru in the 20th century in Peru. Chapter 3 explores the archaeological discourses on the North Titicaca Basin and it relationship with different ideologies. Chapter 4 is focused on the archaeological settlements and objects of the first sedentary societies of the North Titicaca Basin which help define more appropriate archaeological representations through an objective knowledge of the prehistoric reality. The chapter helps explain the archaeological settlements and objects known from the researches conducted in the 20th century so as to allow an overview of the archaeological objects within contexts of production and use. Chapter 5 describes the author's programme of archaeological researches into the settlements and artefacts of the first sedentary societies (1400 BC - AD 350) in the area of study (Quilcamayo-Tintiri valley, Puno).

Until the 1960s, early medieval religious architecture suffered from a general lack of interest by the field of archaeology resulting in a real need for the improvement in knowledge of this often-misinterpreted art. Initially considered as outmoded or backward, early medieval architecture is actually dynamic, particularly the transition period between the 9th and the 11th centuries marked by its themes of transference and novelty. One of the features of this architecture is the use of ceramic building materials in the masonry, a technique from the Antiquity that can be observed continuing into the 11th and 12th centuries. This architectural characteristic is visible in areas touched by Roman traditions and particularly in north-western France and south-eastern England, which also benefit from a substantial concentration of early medieval buildings. One of the aims of this work is, therefore, to identify similar architectural tendencies and examine the technological choices made in the construction of the buildings under analysis. In order to achieve this, it is necessary to accurately position key-buildings in the architectural chronology. Amongst methods for this, luminescence dating applied to ceramic building materials is particularly attractive. Not only does it contribute to building archaeology through more precise dating, but its use in this specific aim also presents an opportunity to thoroughly test the method and essentially improve its potential. The first part of the study examines aspects of the political and religious contexts of the period between the 9th and the 11th century, as well as the associated architecture and its components. The second part is devoted to the presentation and the definition of the luminescence dating method. Bringing together these elements enables the twelve case studies from French and English sites selected for this chronology research work to be addressed in detail. Finally, a detailed study of the mode of use of ceramic building materials is presented and an interpretation of this architectural choice will be attempted.