Books in the British Archaeological Reports International Series series

The main indicator for the presence of an ancient settlement at a certain location is the find of pottery fragments. With regard previously to the sites of continental Croatia, it has been the practice to date fragments to a broad period of 'medieval times'. This volume marks the first full-scale attempt to closely examine 10th to 13th Croatian pottery typologically and chronologically. As well as pottery analysis, data obtained from cemeteries and Romanesque architectural remains, as well as other types of finds such as coin hoards and swords, were included in the study. This, and information taken from historical sources, has considerably increased the available knowledge on the organization of settlements in the Sava-Drava interfluves during the period of 10th to 13th centuries.

Four skeletal samples comprising a total of 500 skeletons, dated to the Bronze and Iron Ages, were examined. Investigated were health, morbidity and mortality. Parameters included measures of mortality, growth, growth disturbances, joint disease, trauma and dental health. The information was integrated with archaeological and ethnographic evidence. The results indicated a general improvement in health through the time periods studies.

with contributions by Anthony Johnson and David WilliamsThis work details one of the 6th-century Byzantine wrecks located at Dor, off the Carmel coast, Israel. The anchorages of Dor have attracted much recent interest and the discoveries form part of a vast and highly informative body of maritime heritage. Wreck D provides significant insights, especially as regards amphorae finds, into the trade in wine of the period.

with contributions by C.S. Lightfoot, E.A. Ivison and M.T. WypyskiThe site of Amorium is located in western Turkey, some 168 km southwest of Ankara, and some 70 km to the northeast of the modern provincial capital of Afyon. Its strategic position explains in part its prominence in Byzantine times, when Amorium served as the provincial capital and military headquarters. This first volume in the series of excavation monographs details the glass finds from this important site. After a detailed introduction, the author describes in two sections the finds made between 1987-1992 and 1993-1997. In each section the glass is presented according to category and type, and is followed by context concordances. A short section of concluding remarks completes the volume. The Amorium monograph series will present the definitive final results of the Amorium excavations, which have been the subject of detailed preliminary reports since 1988. In planning the series, the editors decided to adopt the model set by other excavations by designating volumes for categories of excavated materials and for trench histories. These volumes will also contain technical reports on distinct groups of materials, such as textiles, pigments, human remains, flora and fauna. This first volume marks a substantial contribution to the study of Roman and Byzantine glass in Anatolia.

The Aeolian Islands, though a small archipelago, figured prominently in ancient civilisation. Their centrality in the south Tyrrhenian sea attracted the attention of outsiders, from the neighbouring regions in the eastern Mediterranean world in the proto-history period, to the Cnidians and Rhodians in the Archaic period and to the Romans afterwards; these groups controlled the islands as a whole or merely used them to exploit their strategic position together with the natural resources. When the proto-historic peoples or the Greeks or the Romans settled in the islands or even sailed off the islands they left highly distinctive remains of ancient maritime activity that came to light in the extensive excavations by Bernabò Brea and Cavalier. These archaeological remains either from land or underwater research have provided a wealth of maritime data, which has been exposed to partial analysis. Systematic work on Mediterranean seafaring society has greatly improved our knowledge of the maritime world that left such valuable data. These advances have occasioned a fresh context in which to plot the maritime activity data provided by the Aeolian Islands, and the time seems ripe for a re-examination of these data. This book intends to provide a detailed account of the Mediterranean maritime routes crossing the south Tyrrhenian through the Aeolian Islands from prehistory to Roman period. Within a chronological approach it presents a systematic study of archaeological sites found on the seabed around the Aeolian Islands and their relationship with historical events, as well as a view of the economy of the societies involved. In view of the variety of types of sites now lying below the sea's surface, a study of maritime archaeology requires a research strategy combining archaeological, geological, and marine meteorological data in order to identify the ancient coastlines and link the various finds to them. The archaeological sites involved in this work consist predominantly of wrecks of ancient ships and their cargoes. These are indisputable witnesses to the precise movements of the commercial activity of the times. Furthermore, they represent an important and unique sample of Mediterranean underwater heritage, which document almost four millennia of history. This book takes as its focus not only the wrecks of ancient ships and their cargoes, but also, wherever possible, the topography of maritime landing places, areas of anchorage and of shelter from prevailing winds, and thus of those sites related to ancient shipping and to the most heavily travelled routes of the Lower Tyrrhenian sea. The research strategy adopted is the result of a combination of archaeological, geological, and marine meteorological data, seeking to evaluate the interaction between two main maritime components, either in terms of the ancient economy or of the maritime landing places involved in the ancient seafaring world.

This research is a study of the development of weapon technologies in Early Egypt (the interval from earliest times until the end of the 2nd Dynasty of the Egyptian state) through the examination and interpretation of material remains. This includes a detailed assessment of the relevant artefacts from prehistoric and Early Dynastic sites. Weapons are evaluated to determine whether they had a military, hunting or ritual function or indeed combinations of these. The earliest depictions of warriors and warfare are then assessed to determine the influence of military aspects upon Early Egyptian society. Cross-cultural research is used to identify possible anthropological parallels that may lead to a better understanding of the Egyptian evidence. The contribution of warfare during the formation of the Egyptian state is discussed and the possibility of a peaceful origin is assessed. For the purposes of this study the territory occupied by the Egyptian Nile valley culture(s) defines Egypt. Throughout the periods examined the Egyptian culture essentially occupied the Nile valley, extending from the First Cataract in the south to the mouth of each branch of the Nile as it disgorged into the Mediterranean Sea in the north. The author develops a model for warfare in Egypt from its earliest times to the end of the 2nd Dynasty, by reviewing current trends in the archaeology, anthropology and history of warfare. Particular emphasis is placed on the role of warfare during the rise of the Egyptian state. Aspects of warfare in Early Egypt are examined through interpretation of pictorial narratives, fortifications and settlement patterns, cultural expansion and predynastic invasions, and wars from Dynasty 0 to Dynasty 2.

This volume represents the final product of a three-day conference organized by the editors and sponsored by the American Academy in Rome and the École Française de Rome. Archaeological Methods and Approaches: Ancient Industry and Commerce in Italy, April 18-20, 2002, involved 29 papers authored or co-authored by 43 scholars from 24 institutions.

The opportunity to systematically study the prehistoric buildings of Cyprus was presented in the 1970s with the emergence of the Lemba Experimental Project.

A study of the pluralistic community at Cerro Baul, Peru, offers the opportunity to explore the complex factors that effect the composition of social groups. The observations contribute to understanding of the socio-economic dynamics between the Wari and Tiwanaku cultural groups in the Middle Horizon (c.600 - 1000 AD).

South Asian Archaeology Series No. 3

This work defines Neolithic Near East 'Dark Faced Burnished Ware (DFBW)', on the basis of new data, taking into account areas of production, analyses of architectural, economic and environmental information, and the verification of the existence of a specific DFBW region and its characteristics. The distribution of DFBW to external areas is also investigated, with the goal of explaining relations between these regions during this Neolithic phase. This research was prompted by the renewed excavations at Yumuktepe-Mersin, one of the central sites of the so-called 'Syro-Cilician' culture, and by the possibility of analyzing two of the main contexts of DFBW - Judaidah, in the Amuq and Ain el-Kerkh, in the Rouj Basin. The study is presented in three main phases: the technical and typological definition of the DFBW; its distribution and characteristics within the horizon of DFBW producers; and its 'external' distribution. A chapter is devoted to a chronological summary of the analyzed developments, as reconstructed from comparisons in the ceramic assemblages from all the sites, and in correlation with available radiocarbon dates.

This book addresses the issue of the temporal origins of transhumant pastoralism in temperate southeastern Europe (northern half of the Balkan Peninsula). In recent years, several hypotheses have been suggested to explain when and why transhumant pastoralism with domestic animals appeared across the southern Mediterranean. Each hypothesis proposes a different point in time when transhumance would appear, ranging from the appearance of the earliest domestic animals (advent of the Early Neolithic), to the appearance of secondary product exploitation (advent of the Post Neolithic), and to the appearance of complex societies (advent of the Iron Age). The hypotheses are tested by examining the tooth remains from three domestic animal taxa (Ovis/Capra, Bos taurus and Sus scrofa) from archaeological sites in the central part of the northern Balkans (also known as the Central Balkans). Data from eleven sites in the region, with statistically sufficient samples and spanning the period from the Early Neolithic through to the Early Iron Age, were tabulated to test the hypotheses.

The purpose of this book is to help the archaeologists in obtaining proper information on shells and their utilisation. The subject has been divided into chapters on history of malacological research, on shells as archaeological material and as part of the palaeoenvironment, as well as on different uses of molluscs (fishing, nutrition, tools, ornaments, etc). The last chapter summarises various interpretations of shells found in the Aegean area from the Palaeolithic to the Late Bronze Age.

This book includes papers from the Historical Archaeology Symposium held in Seville, Spain in 2006.

Hypogean Archaeology No 10Il decimo libro della serie Hypogean Archaeology è dedicato alla storia dell'Acquedotto Civico di Milano (costruito a partire dal 1889) e alle architetture per l'acqua prelevata dal sottosuolo: i pozzi e le stazioni di pompaggio. L'acqua, elemento fondamentale per la vita, ha richiesto fin dall'antichità la creazione di sistemi per captarla e condurla nelle aree abitate. Il testo offre al lettore diversi spunti di riflessione per cogliere l'importanza di questo elemento e per conoscere le architetture adottate per la sua presa dalle falde acquifere profonde. Abbiamo inoltre esempi italiani di pozzi ordinari e di acquedotti antichi studiati e rilevati dalla Federazione Nazionale Cavità Artificiali (F.N.C.A.). Non mancano riferimenti a testi classici (Cesare Cesariano, Sesto Giulio Frontino, Vitruvio e altri) che tracciano un "percorso" di Archeologia dell'Acqua e introducono l'argomento principale.The tenth volume of the Hypogean Archaeology subseries is dedicated to the history of the Civic Aqueduct of Milan (built starting in 1889) and to those architectures designed to draw water from the subsoil: wells and groundwater pumping stations. Water, the fundamental element of life, has since ancient times demanded the creation of systems to capture it and lead it to habited areas. The text offers the reader various cues for thought for understanding the importance of this element and to know the architectures adopted for its grip from the deep aquifers. Furthermore, it presents Italian examples of ordinary wells and ancient aqueducts studied and surveyed by the National Federation of Artificial Cavities (F.N.C.A.), together with a wealth of references to classical texts (Cesare Cesariano, Frontinus, Vitruvius and others) that, trace the 'path' of Water Archaeology, and introduces the main topic.

The general purpose of this book is to help in the building and refining of theory and methods for studying the past. In one sense, empirical results about the past are by-products of theory construction, part of the iterative process in which we evaluate how well our explanatory system can account for the material world. This study presents just one part in the overall sequences of studies that address the processes that produce variability in stylistic frequencies. It is through this kind of continued experimentation that we will enjoy the fruit of knowledge building: archaeology as an historical science.

The book examines the use of pottery by late pre-European contact Cree people occupying a site on the bank of a river in east-central Saskatchewan (Canada). The site of Bushfield West yielded an unusually complete ceramic assemblage which was part of a rich archaeological component representing a possibly asynchronous human occupation. The intact site provided information on the vessel function, which could be correlated not only with the activities which were interpreted to have taken place on the site, but also with certain aspects of the social structure exhibited by the site's inhabitants. An opportunity arose to explore the relationship between pottery use and Selkirk Composite site occupation. Such a relationship can in fact be correlated with certain kinds of social organization, including gender-specific pottery use. The book includes a catalogue of the vessels examined.

This volume is the result of the Prehistoric Society conference, held at the University of Sheffield in 1999, which concentrated on the ethnoarchaeology of hunter-gatherers and the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition. The 13 papers (representing sites from all over the world) are themed in terms of space, social change, and material culture, and reflect the conference's aim of presenting an 'exhibition' on the current state of ethnoarchaeology and the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition. The event was very much an open exhibition and the pictures - the papers presented here - are offered unabridged for the reader's enjoyment.

The 34 islands that comprise the Marshall group lie in the Pacific Ocean some half way between Hawaii and New Guinea. This study, incorporating landscape, habitation sites, chronologies, and material culture, is a detailed archaeological survey of Utrôk Atoll (in the Northern Marshall Islands) by the former Chief Archaeologist for the Historic Preservation Office, Republic of the Marshall Islands. Low coral atolls are the most precarious of Pacific island landscapes. Utrôk Atoll was colonized and settled for nearly 2000 years, and that resource depression and extinctions were not more visible archaeologically may signal that human populations lived in a sustainable manner. Future investigations may reveal different patterns of resource use, and it is with this comparative approach that we may come to understand the breadth of atoll adaptations - technological, economic, and social.

This study is an important contribution to the knowledge of the published (and much un-published) fifth- and fourth-century BC pottery imported into Cyrenaica (present day Libya), and especially into the region's great cities of Cyrene, Apollonia, Ptolemais, Barka, and Berenice/Euhesperides. The volume sheds great light on the historical relationship between Cyrenaica and the rest of the Greek world in terms of trade and agriculture, civil and domestic life, and myth, cult and religious practices (including references to the ever-fascinating 'Garden of the Hesperides' and accounts of the Panathenaean Festivals). A full catalogue and 160 plates of photographs (of superb and rare vessels from Libya and great collections from Europe and the US) are central to Dr Elrashedy's study, providing a significant resource for future reference.

The Nabataean period represents the flowering of a unique culture before it was conquered by Rome. It is conventionally dated from the fourth century B.C. to the Roman conquest in 106 A.D. The Nabataean Kingdom was located in an area between the great cultures of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Phoenician lands. This book focuses on describing terracotta figurines in shapes of humans and animals found on the Nabataean sites in South Jordan and Palestine and provides a detailed catalogue with respect to their shape, ware, possible date, technique of production, meaning and function, to provide important information about the Nabataean culture.

Israel is, and always has been, a geographical, historical and most importantly cultural crossroads, linking three continents, three of the great ancient religions, and thousands of years of history and culture. Archaeology in this region has always been interested in urban areas, in ancient sites such as Jerusalem, but the rural area of this country has always been neglected. This is suprising considering that this has always been a region of small settlements, villagers, and herdsmen, such as those depicted in biblical sources. This study is aimed at depicting the wide ranges of rural lifestyles that have been present in Israel over the various periods of history. There are reports beginning with the Early Bronze age, passing through the Iron Age, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, and ranging as far forward as the period of occupation under the Mamlukes. This effectively spans the periods from the late Prehistoric through to Modern times. There are 10 reports in this study, and they deal with various artificial aspects of the rural way of life in ancient Israel in terms of the history and archaeology of various sites, and these reports deal with a number of sites or areas during a specific time-span. Studies focus upon particular themes such as Economic Activities (e.g. agriculture or trade), Settlement Patterns and Processes, and the Physical Construction of rural sites (e.g. village layout, architecture, roads and communications). The ten studies present do not cover the area that so wide-ranging a general title would suggest, but they do cover a large range of topics and archaeological methods. The first topic in this report is one giving an overview of Landscape Archaeology in the Southern Levant Region, going over various methods and practices carried out. This gives a good introduction to the report, and subsequent reports gradually build up a picture of the rural landscape of Israel. One interesting and unusual approach is taken by the contribution of J.Schwartz, whose report on "Dogs in Ancient Rural Jewish Society" is of particular interest. This perspective of study focuses on rural Israel in terms of sheep/herding dogs, hunting dogs, guard dogs, and the kufri-dogs (a sort of tamed wild dog or Jackal). This is a good example of how this study tackles life in rural Israel and gives an interesting and approachable account.

The objective of this monograph is to elucidate the nature of the health, diet and lifestyles of the two Iron Age populations buried at the cemetery complex of Aymyrlyg, Tuva, south Siberia, through an osteological and palaeopathological examination of their skeletal remains. A multidisciplinary approach was adopted which saw the integration of archaeological, documentary, and environmental evidence with the data derived from the skeletal analysis. During this work a rich array of traumatic lesions were identified among the remains, injuries which shed light on the everyday activities, occupations and warfare practices of the two population groups. The current text provides an in-depth account of the palaeopathological evidence for trauma, while placing it in its archaeological context. Appendix 1 contains data pertaining to the preservation of the remains and the minimum number of bone values that were employed during their examination, while Appendix 2 consists of a gazetteer of the skeletal remains included in the analysis which displayed evidence for trauma. South Siberia and Mongolia are amongst the regions of the Old World with the most ancient traditions of pastoralism. The analysis of the skeletal remains from Aymyrlyg provided a rare opportunityfor the examination of a substantial corpus of skeletal remains of semi-nomadic pastoralists from the vast Eurasian steppe-lands. The research represented one of the first palaeopathological studies of an archaeological population from south Siberia to have been undertaken and, as such, it has made a major contribution to our understanding of life and death in Iron Age Central Asia.

From obscure beginnings at the end of the Bronze Age to the award of the Ius Latii to all the inhabitants of Iberia by the Emperor Vespasian (AD 73-74), winds the long and uneven path of the 'Castros Culture' in the Iberian Northwest. A castro is a fortified village and it has given its name to the Iron Age Culture (or group of related cultures) in general, which occupied the region of the Iberian Northwest between the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the second century AD. Such sites were characterized by small settlements in their early phases, gradually evolving into urban structures under Roman influence. The period under study in this volume is bounded by the point of emergence of fortified sites during the final stages of the Bronze Age (c.1200-1000 BC) and the Flavian period, at the end of the first century AD. The principal area of study lies within the region confined by the Atlantic coast to the west, the Tâmega-Corgo river line to the east, the Minho river to the north and the Douroriver to the south. The main theme of this book is warfare in the Castros Culture. A fresh approach has been adopted, to evaluate the importance of warfare at this time and to see how it shaped the development of Castros society as a result. For this, warfare is examined in terms of the total environment in which it occurs, i.e. in terms of the geographical, economic, social and ritual landscapes in which it exists. The author's intention is to contribute a fresh and integrated approach to the subject of warfare and its social significance in the Castros Culture of the first millennium BC. A further intention is that his wide-ranging treatment of the subject will open up new directions for future research and detailed analyses.

In this work the author explores the pre-historic and historic influences on two Cypriot forests in order to compile a definitive record of the evolutionary ecology of the forest environments in response to human impact and utilisation since antiquity. The scope included the following: An extensive field survey of the afforested landscape to record species types and specific site ecology and to assess the impact of historic settlement patterns within the forest; To correlate changing forest patterns discerned from the palaeobotanic record with known human associations; To define species habitat in relation to ore bearing geological material and archaeological sites; To ascertain the current level of biodiversity; To propose a base-line for the rehabilitation of the forest environment. The information provided has been collated from observations recorded during a systematic survey of the Makheras and Adelphi Forests, Cyprus, over a period of seventeen months. An important aspect of the data recorded was a number of ancient archaeological sites, previously not thought to exist in the forest areas.

This book is based on new archaeobotanical data retrieved during the last fifteen years from prehistoric sites located in the regions of Macedonia and Thrace in northern Greece. More than two thousand samples from Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age deposits from Makriyalos, Mandalo, Arkadikos, Dikili Tash and Marki form the basis for a consideration of prehistoric people-plant relationships in the region. The various sources contributing plant remains in the archaeobotanical assemblages are examined in order to address issues of intentional uses of plants and management of plant resources. The crops and plants harvested from the wild underline the variety in plant foods used during the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age in the region, at the same time pointing towards preferred staples and later crop introductions. The contribution of animal dung in the archaeobotanical assemblages is demonstrated by the assemblages considered by the book providing an insight into animal feeding and grazing patterns, revealing a variability in the strategies adopted among the archaeological sites considered, strategies that diverge from proposed models concerning animal husbandry in prehistoric Greece. The archaeobotanical data is also examined in relation to the current discussion on the co-existence of tells and extended sites in northern Greece and directions for future archaeobotanical research on the issue are pointed out.

The decline of ancient Maya civilization has resonated in both the popular and archaeological imagination. Over the years archaeologists have questioned this "collapse" with increasing detail in some parts of the Maya area, but in the Belize Valley the era remains virtually unknown.

Chandima Wickramasinghe provides the first comprehensive overview of historical slavery in Sri Lanka, and from a comparative perspective looks in detail at this and at the history of slavery in ancient Greece.

Roman 'small towns' were an important link between the urban civitas capitals and the rural population and offer an ideal case study for examining the extent of Roman influence permeating into the rural provinces.

This book attempts to bring an anthropological perspective to the historical archaeology of a complex period in the Greek past. Traditionally, discussion of the transition from Late Antiquity to the Early Byzantine period in the Aegean region has focused on the fate of Classical urban culture. Scholarly opinion is divided as to whether the Classical polis and its constituent institutions emerged intact from the disruptive events of the third to sixth centuries A.D. Over the past two decades a consensus has emerged that argues that the break between Classical and Byzantine occurred in the seventh, not the fourth or fifth centuries A.D., and that it was a more gradual process than previously believed. The present study examines the Byzantine Fortress at Isthmia in the Peloponnese with an eye to understanding social change in this critical period, at the level of the site and then the region, in terms of an evolutionary perspective . This study focuses on three problems at different levels of abstraction: (1) A descriptive problem - gathering more information about the Medieval occupation at Isthmia; delineating the structural features of the Byzantine Fortress with the ultimate intent of comprehending site functions through time. (2) A methodological problem - the use of geophysical techniques to examine the subsurface of the Fortress and other selected spots to obtain the data necessary for proper description. (3) A broader historical problem - how best to reconstruct the key events pertaining to the transition from Late Antiquity to Early Byzantine. The methodological element becomes the link between the gathering of site-specific data and the wider historical implications for that information.