Bücher der Reihe British Archaeological Reports International Series

A study of the Neolithic in Macedonia.

South American Archaeology Series No 17Analyses of animal finds and remains from sites around Lago Cardiel, Patagonia.

This research centres on the ideology and socio-economic practices of the communities in the Argolid and the Methana Peninsula (Peloponnese, Greece) that existed during approximately 1200 BC through 900 BC. A thorough examination of mortuary practices, the built environment, ceramic material and metal objects demonstrate that during this transitional period an ideological shift took place alongside complex socio-economic developments. An analysis of the material evidence indicates the active formation of a new ideology and socio-economic practices that privileged the individual and the domestic unit over the larger corporate group. After presenting the geographic and research background for these two regions, the author discusses the concept of the Greek"Dark Ages" and analyses the mortuary evidence and built environment, demonstrating that, following the collapse of the Mycenaean palatial administration, the remaining communities maintained and developed practices that promoted the individual or the domestic unit. Analysis of specific examples from the ceramic material and metal objects dating to this period are used to discuss specific activities, such as production and exchange. Evidence from this data illustrates that these activities had, in all probability, taken place outside the direct control of the Mycenaean palatial administration and continued without substantial interruption throughout this period. This re-appraisal of the material culture dating from the Late Helladic IIIB 2 through Early Geometric period combines new theoretical approaches to collapsed societies and attempts to reconstruct the ideology and socio-economic practices of Iron Age communities in the Argolid and the Methana Peninsula.

The development of settlement in the region between Chiusi and Volterra (northern Etruria, corresponding to the modern territory of Siena), from the Iron Age to the end of the Romanization period (9th-1st century BC), is a much-debated subject among Etruscan archaeologists. This comprehensive study attempts to analyse all the available information on the Etruscan settlements of the area to produce a coherent development model that can be adapted to cover the long time period under consideration.

Excavations at Late Neolithic Toumba Kremastis Koiladas, near the modern town of Kozani in north-western Greece, have yielded one of the largest faunal assemblages of this period from Greece (and probably also from Europe). This assemblage is important not only because of its large size, but also because of the character of the site and the apparently distinctive nature of bone deposition. Although near to a settlement mound or tell, the excavated area from which the assemblage is drawn appears to be of the 'flat/extended' type of site. As such, much of the bone assemblage is derived from clearly defined pits and ditches cut into the bedrock, offering much greater opportunities for contextual analysis than is usually possible on tell sites with complex vertical stratigraphy. Furthermore, the excavator's observation of complete animal skeletons in some pits suggested the possibility of structured deposition of a sort that, though well known from the Aegean Bronze Age, is as yet rare in the Neolithic of Greece. The assemblage studied here thus offers unusually high potential for investigation of patterns of bone deposition and animal consumption and also for exploration of the extent to which these processes may have obscured or distorted the evidence commonly used to infer patterns of animal management and land use. The questions addressed in this book are centred within four main contexts: Types of Neolithic settlements (tells vs. 'flat/extended' sites); The Neolithic household in Greece; Neolithic husbandry regimes in Greece; Scales and contexts of consumption during the Greek Neolithic.

This work examines a group of clay figurines representing porters carrying sacks (saccarii) recovered from Ostia and other harbours. The saccarii were responsible for the loading and unloading of goods from ships to river boats and warehouses. Contextual and iconographic analyses of the statuettes suggest they represented the religious symbol (genius) of the workers' guild (collegium). Their probable location in shrines and niches in streets, taverns and workshops, frequented by saccarii and the heterogeneous community, gives an insight into the exhibition of social identity and religious beliefs through material culture by a group of overlooked workers in Roman Imperial Ostia.

with English abstract

Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Meeting of Postgraduate Researchers, The University of Liverpool, 23-25 February 2001The Symposium on Mediterranean Archaeology is a conference designed to offer the opportunity to postgraduate students to present their research and discuss ideas and methods in archaeological practice. The success of the conference lies in the diversity and the amalgamation of culture found in this particular part of the world. Furthermore, this symposium is unique in its synthetic character of space and time, and thus allows researchers to promote and demonstrate new lines of thought, theory and methodology. This volume contains 30 papers on the conference's main topics - Surveying; Landscape and Topography; Sacred Space; Symbolic Architecture; Movement and Social Dynamics; Body, Gender and Space; Iconography; Heritage.

This book addresses the relationship between state-managed archaeology and control of the past, with particular attention to the rigid association of administration and identity, i.e. nationalism, as manifest in the nation-state. A critical approach is feasible because the management of archaeology underwater is implicated in the reproduction of two fundamental aspects of the nation-state - territoriality and nationality - by virtue of the frequent location of ancient material underwater on the fringes of territory, and of the inter-'national' character of ancient material of maritime origin. Empirical material is drawn from a comparative analysis of managing archaeology underwater in France, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, the UK and Ireland and from a historical analysis of the development of management in the UK from the mid 1960s to the mid 1970s. The theoretical basis is drawn from Anthony Giddens' work on modernity, structuration and locale.

The aim of this book was to develop a method for analysing the seasonality of the European Oyster, Ostrea edulis. Patterning, in the form of growth breaks or bands in the shell micro-structure, has been shown to occur in other molluscs and has sometimes been used to ascertain the season of gathering for archaeological samples, but until now this has never been attempted on Ostrea edulis. The objective was to apply the method to oysters from Danish shell middens (køkkenmøddinger) in order to obtain information on the season of gathering at these sites. This is a particularly interesting area of Mesolithic studies as it is believed that the Ertebølle culture was a socially complex society of hunter gatherers, living off abundant coastal resources which enabled them to lead a sedentary existence. What is also of major importance is that through objects found, such as pottery and axes, it can be demonstrated that the Ertebølle people had contact with the farmers in the south, and yet agriculture was not adopted for 1000 years. Why such a long time lag exists has fired many debates and oysters have played a significant role in some of these.

This work is an archaeological investigation of the Moche culture of northern Peru (ca. AD 100-800). It is a study of Moche burial patterns and social structure. One of the main objectives of this research was to bring together information available on Moche burials from different settlements and from contexts dating to the Early, Middle, and Late Moche periods as well as the Transitional period. General patterns regarding burial context and energy expenditure are identified. The nature of social status is explored and some general principles of social structure are detailed. Issues regarding funerary rites of passage, delayed burial, grave re-entry, and funerary specialists are also discussed with regard to Moche representation of death.

This study looks at Greece (or the province of Achaia) during the period of Late Roman Antiquity with regards to new evidence, both textual and physical, as well as new archaeological opinion. Kosso is concerned with how Roman colonialism and imperialism affected the conquered Greek economy. This study is particularly interested in how this new information sheds light on the imposed socio-economic patterns in Greece during this period. Kosso looks at evidence for imperial policies from literary sources,and also states how the main basis for economic and social life for Roman citizens was land. Classical rhetoric is looked at, as well as Roman and Greek historians of the time, but more importantly Roman law and tax legislation give an excellent source of evidence for economic, social and agricultural policies. This evidence suggests that the imperial government widely encouraged the cultivation of rural areas, giving special attention and protection to small landholders. Archaeological evidence is used in this study to illustrate the transition in settlement patterns in Achaia during the Late Roman Period. The surveys in this study show how there was a change from large, less-intensely farmed agricultural estates, to smaller, more-intensively farmed isolated farmsteads. This would suggest that land became more widely owned and accessible at this time, with an increase in overall settlement patterns, especially in the rural areas. Kosso states how during this period there was an increase in population, urbanisation, and market demand, but she also states that these would have changed the nature of the Greek countryside only in conjunction with Imperial public policies. The literary evidence of a policy to increase cultivation is backed up by a decentralisation and subsequent intensification of land use. Kosso concludes that in Late Roman Greece, and in the Late Empire as a whole, the government implemented policies that would control elite landowners and local government/officials, but also protect small landowners, discouraging patronage due to its almost slave-like nature. Therefore this study helps us to better understand the connection between the Late Roman Imperial centre and source of legislature, and the surrounding provinces. Fundamentally it can be seen how Late Roman Imperial policy had a major impact on the landscape and demographics of the entire empire.

Paris Monographs in American Archaeology 12Campeche state and Quintana Roo, and more generally the area south of the Yucatan peninsular, afford rich fields of study in terms of our understanding of Mayan relations in the region. This volumes concentrates on major research projects undertaken at key sites such as Calakmul, Becán, Balamku, and Nadzca'an, during which considerable advances were made in specific areas of research including analysis of the complexities of architectural styles and the iconography of the region during Mayan times. The sum of the information and results obtained adds a wider perspective on the southern Yucatan peninsular of the time as a whole. This large-scale work is presented in three sections. Section one concentrates on natural factors such as climate, soils, and vegetation, detailed summaries of large-scale excavation projects by season to 1998 (including seasons at "La Tulane", Xpuhil, Becán, Chicanná, Hormiguero, Calakmul, Río Bec, etc.), and methodology. Section two provides a gazetteer of smaller sites by zonal regions. Section three deals with the major zone of Kaynikte-Manos Rojas, including analyses of occupation, architecture and ceramics. Section four covers the evolution and chronology of sites in the south of Yucatan.

Proceedings of the Third Annual Meeting of Postgraduate Researchers, The University of Liverpool, May 2002The Liverpool Interdisciplinary Symposium in Antiquity (LISA) was envisaged as a forum for postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers to present their research and engage in discussion in an informal manner. The theme for LISA 2002, the potent combination of Cult and Death, attracted delegates from several universities in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. The interdisciplinary nature of the symposium was amply fulfilled by the presentation of papers from the fields of archaeology, ancient history and classics, adopting a wide range of approaches, which are reflected in the articles presented in this volume. Contents: The Greek Neolithic Figurines (Gerasimos Vallerios Stergiopoulos); The Abode of the Ancestors: tomb design, ritual and symbolism In Late Helladic IIIA-B Greece (Chrysanthi Gallou); The Burial Ritual Tradition in the South-eastern Aegean during the Mycenaean Period (Mercourios Georgiadis); The 'hellenisation' of Isis among the Greek deities (Danai-Christina Naoum); Priests and Priestesses in the Mycenaean period (Christina Aamont); Nostos (= homecoming) and death in Greek tragedy (Marigo Alexopoulou); To kill or not to kill? Human sacrifices in Greece according to the Euripidean thought (Polytimi Oikonomopoulou); Adopted by Persephone. Adoption and initiation ritual in A1-A3 Zuntz and Pelinna 1-2 (Georgia Petridou); The death of Daphnis (Evangelia Anagnostou-Laoutides).

A study of the lithic series in the Vigne-Brun region of France. This was originally presented as an academic dissertation to the Universite de Paris. In French."

This work is one of the first in-depth mollusc studies of the French coastal regions. It has direct implications for our understanding of the way of life of early Atlantic (France and adjacent countries) cultures.

This work, for the first time, makes a systematic review of all the C 14 dates available for the prehistory of the Balearic Islands. Apart from an inventory of all the dates with precise contextual information from where the sample actually comes and discussion of the implications of the data, the study includes a statistical analysis of the good quality dates, and a final proposal of the archaeological sequence of the islands.

In the spring of 1993, two Mycenaean (14th-12th centuries BC) chamber tombs were discovered by accident at Pylona, not far from Lindos on the southern coast of Rhodes. Excavations uncovered a cemetery site of six tombs and a series of remarkable finds: human remains, pottery, bronze objects and jewellery. The excavation reports are published here with a complete catalogue of finds, including the extensive and especially fine pottery discoveries. Chapter six is a detailed illustrated study by P.J.P. McGeorge of the skeletal remains from the tombs, presented as a catalogue of finds and a concluding summary on the general health, living conditions, and customs of the community. The work also includes a further three specialist appendices: an ICP-AES analysis of some of the Pylona vessels (M.J. Ponting and the author); a review of the textile remains (D. de Wild); and chemical analyses of glass beads and the copper sword find (H. Mangou).With contributions by P.J.P. McGeorge, M. Ponting, H. Mangou, and D. de Wild

Al Mina, at the mouth of the Orontes, some 75 km SW of Chatal Hüyük, has long dominated Greek-Levantine discussions in the Geometric Period (c. 1000-700 BC); the site was the first to reveal an abundance of Greek pottery generally, and still is the findspot of the greatest quantity of Greek Geometric pottery in the Levant - about 1500 sherds. In this volume, the author undertakes an analysis and review of this 'Greek emporion', taking as her main topics for discussion - Al Mina as a 'port of trade', the evidence for Greek residence on the site, Greek geometric pottery in the Levant, and Geometric pottery in Greek-Levantine trade.

The Garawa Aboriginal people of the southern inland Gulf of Carpentaria, Northern Australia were, until relatively recently, hunter-gatherers. The three principal objectives of this volume are to provide an ethnography of Garawa land-use and settlement, to develop the methodological and theoretical strategies for studying hunter-gatherer settlement patterns in a way that will yield information useful to archaeologists, and, thirdly, to identify the main variables contributing to the regional and long term structure of subsistence and settlement patterns. The core study area is centred on three contiguous river catchments (Wearyan, Foelsche, Robinson Rivers) within the Robinson River Land Trust, representing approximately 11,000 square kilometers. Garawa institutions and strategies of land tenure, land-use and site location are compared, with each other and with environmental phenomena, to identify the phenomena and processes that structured the macro-scale spatial, temporal, and demographic characteristics of Garawa settlement patterns.

Sudan Archaeological Research Society, Publication Number 10In December 1952, the new Egyptian Government decided to construct the Aswan High Dam. In the late 1970s and 1980s the construction of a dam at the Fourth Cataract, known as the Merowe Dam, was again mooted (Hakim 1993, 1-2), while another was proposed at the Kajbar rapids a little downstream of the Third Cataract. In response to the threat posed to the antiquities of the Fourth Cataract region the Sudan Archaeological Research Society undertook a single season of survey (November/December 1999). Although the concession granted included the whole of the left bank, over a distance of 40km, and the islands between the two forts at Dar el-Arab (Suweiqi) and Jebel Musa (Kirbekan), at the downstream end of Boni Island, the wealth of archaeological sites coupled with the difficulties of travel in the region meant that only small areas were examined in detail (1km along the left bank in the vicinity of the village of Gereif; Birti Island and four other small islands; the left bank from a little upstream of Birti; ten islands immediately downstream of el-Tereif). Most of the sites located were described, sketch plans were made where appropriate and many were also surveyed in detail, plans being produced at a scale of 1:500 or 1:100. Artefacts were also collected either from each feature or from transects across the sites and this material was studied by the pottery, lithics and small finds specialists. Many of the rock pictures were traced onto acetate and their locations plotted by GPS or in relation to their local environment by total station. A detailed description of the sites surveyed is contained in the gazetteer which is followed by an analysis of the pottery, small finds and lithics. The results detailed in this volume are advanced tentatively and it is fully expected that further survey work and excavation will modify the conclusions arrived at here. However, in the light of the current situation where it seems likely that the dam will be built in the very near future, and of the need for the archaeological community to seriously address the loss of a vast number of archaeological sites along one of the least known stretches of the Nile Valley, it was felt to be desirable that this work be brought to publication as soon as possible. It offers a glimpseof the richness and diversity of the remains of human activity in what is generally considered one of the most inhospitable regions of the valley, over many millennia.Written by Derek A. Welsby with contributions by Pam Braddock and Donatella Usai.

Section 9: Néolithique au Proche Orient et en Europe / Neolithic in the Near East and EuropeColloque / Symposium 9.310 papers (8 in English, 2 in French) from the lithic materials session of the UISPP Congress in Liège in September 2001. The areas of discussion focussed on lithic production in the Linearbandkeramik (LBK) communities of Europe, including: exploitation and processing of siliceous rocks; the characterization of different strategies for knapping blanks for tools at site level and of their mode of production (domestic, specialized, surplus production); the differentiation of settlements (producers, users);the networks of regional and extra-regional exchange (of raw materials, cores, blanks or tools); the modes of distribution, geographical and chronological evidence; and the problems involved in reconstructing the socio-economic context of lithic production.

Until recently it was thought that West Mexico was isolated from the cultural region defined as 'Mesoamerica', especially during the apogee of the city of Teotihuacan, Central Mexico. Studies on the exchange network of Teotihuacan have not considered the relations between Teotihuacan and West Mexico despite the existence of a number of artifacts in West Mexico that either originated in Teotihuacan or were locally reproduced copies of Teotihuacan artifacts. In this work the author investigates relations between Teotihuacan and the Cuitzeo Basin, Michoacán, from a world systemic perspective. Ideological factors seem to have been particularly important for the structure of the Teotihuacan world-system that extended over a broad area in Mesoamerica. The polarizing dichotomy between 'centre' and 'periphery' has impeded understanding of the dynamics of change for both the Cuitzeo Basin and Teotihuacan. This work examines whether dependency can be inferred by the local and imported material culture with references to other parts of the Teotihuacan world-system. An attempt is made to redefine the concept of complexity regarding peripheral areas and the role of important denominators such as trade, crafts specialization and symbolic complexity as manifested through specific cognitive concepts.

In temperate eastern North America, steatite vessels have an unusual distribution - widespread (ranging from New Brunswick, Canada to Louisiana) but apparently short-lived (approximately 1800 - 800 B.C.). Consequently, they have been of unusual interest to archaeologists and commonly used to date assemblages typologically. This study examines the veracity of this distribution and why steatite vessels display this distribution. Why did steatite vessel manufacture occur when and where it did? Why did steatite vessel manufacture not occur sooner or last longer? Why do steatite vessels occur in the frequencies they do across space and through time? The larger issue addressed in this study is technological change. By taking a scientific approach, the results of this investigation are able to be independently tested. A scientific approach allows knowledge to accumulate precisely because the results or conclusions can be shown to be wrong or incomplete. This study provides an example of how technological changecan be examined in the archaeological record from a scientific perspective.

This work examines the interrelationship between technology and society, using as its cultural-historical focus the Early and Middle Bronze Age periods among the Maros group villages of south-eastern Hungary. To claim that technology is social is not new, but to document how it is social has been difficult and this research aims to provide such documentation, using a ceramic archaeological example. As a result, the author's emphasis is on technological activities and the human actors that performed them. Practice theory, with its focus on conscious social actors, provides the major theoretical direction. Methodologically, to examine a wide range of ceramic technological activities, the author embraces the concept of the 'operational sequence', following ceramics from the procurement and preparation of raw materials, through their forming, finishing and firing, to their use. Through the potter's eye, the author tries to understand the choices made at each step of the production sequence and consider the ways in which they could have organized their labour. To obtain such diverse information, diverse sets of methods, borrowed from archaeology, geology and materials science are employed.

This study arranges in chronological order approximately 450 ceramic artefacts known as chalices found in more than 50 excavations in Late Bronze and Iron Age strata within Canaan and Ancient Israel. The study also proposes a typology for these chalices.

This work explores the contribution of the peoples of the Barbaricum to the shaping of early medieval technology in Europe, with a particular reference to iron-making. Within this general cultural framework, the case of Lombards is analyzed in more detail, tracing the way their iron-making technological heritage developed: first, during their settlement on the Lower Elbe (first centuries AD) characterized by a Western Germanic technical culture, then, in Central Europe (AD 3rd/4th-6th), where they came into contact with a Celtic and provincial Roman substratum, and finally in Italy (second half of AD 6th to 8th). At this stage, Lombard craftsmen, who possessed the full range of technical-artisanal skills of iron-production that were integral to western Germanic culture, would have come into contact with practitioners embodying the technical knowledge of the Mediterranean heritage. This encountering of material cultures seems to have resulted in reshaping of the entire economic structure of the peninsula.

Paris Monographs in American Archaeology 21To the Mochica civilization, a pre-Inca society that developed on the north coast of Peru from the 1st to the 9th century AD, mural art represented an important form of artistic expression. Mainly reserved for cultural buildings and following a codified narrative language, these monumental painted scenes created a privileged means of communication that allowed the rulers to deliver to the people a symbolic message of the established political power and of the social order. The iconographic study of these paintings and reliefs on adobe has allowed us to understand that they were illustrating an ideological discourse essentially dedicated to the worship of divinities and to the associated ritual ceremonies. The identified mythical representations were, in this way, devoted to the Mochica religion and to the political power held by the elite. Thus, mural art not only had a decorative function but also a much more symbolic role: one of ideological vector, which was essential for this civilization without any textual writing. The importance of mural decoration within Mochica society inspired previous research on these rare relics further. In addition to the iconographic interpretations, it seemed essential to take an interest in the creation and elaboration process of these murals. By using archaeometry, rarely employed in Peru, the author has been able to answer not only archeological but also preservation problems. Thus, through the physicochemical study of the polychromy of the Huaca de la Luna on the site of Moche, of the Huaca Cao Viejo on the site of El Brujo, of the monumental complex of Castillo de Huancaco, and of the funeral platform of Sipán, it has been possible to obtain clues to the pictorial techniques used by the Mochicas artists. It was therefore possible to reconstitute the whole process followed in order to manufacture these mural paintings, from the extraction of raw materials to the final panel. By comparing the results from each site, it was possible to work on the spatiotemporal evolution of this artistic technology, to consider the organization of this handcrafted activity and to better understand the social status of Mochicas painter craftsmen. Finally, by following a multidisciplinary approach, carried out jointly in the laboratory and in the field, the author has evaluated the efficiency of the preservation treatments applied today on these relics, in order to optimize the durability of this exceptional painted heritage.

A comprehensive study of cowries and other shells, including fossilised material.With malacological identifications by Gyula Radócz.

This book contains papers in French and papers in English.