Books in the British Archaeological Reports International Series series

Proceedings of the XVI World Congress of the International Union of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences (Florianopolis, Brazil, 4-10 September 2011), Volume 7, Session XVIAfrican Prehistory is at the core of UISPP concerns, namely due to its crucial role to understand the origins and evolution of humans, but also for the complexity of its cultural diversity, in all major issues that are focused by the Union: cultures, economy and environments; specific environmental contexts like deserts or coastal areas, artistic expressions, prehistoric technologies, related methods and theories, history of research or the interaction between archaeology and current society. This volume presents eight papers that cover some of the major debates in African contexts: the lower Palaeolithic of Western Africa (A. Camara), the interaction between human cultures and environment in the late Holocene (S. Ozainne), the rock art in western central and austral Africa (C. Martins, L. Oosterbeek and G. Heimlich), metallurgy (H. Kienon Kaboret and K.S. Kouassi), pottery (M. Sall) and archaeological knowledge socialization (S. Fonseca and E. Gil).

Experimental Archaeology as an hypothesis contrast method, focusing on technological studies, is not new in archaeological research procedures. Since the early 1970s, as a consequence of the application of châine-operatoire/reduction sequence concepts within the framework of Palaeoethnological investigation, or within the actualistics studies highly developed in the framework of Processual Archaeology, the experimentation and utilization of artefact replicas have been used in the search for answers regarding technological procedures and their functional aspects. However, since the 1990s the research interface between technology and experimentation, worldwide, has increased, resulting in a renewal of procedures and interest in the incorporation of such studies particularly in the field of techno-functional analysis of prehistoric artefacts. Nevertheless the criticisms on experimental procedures are abundant, questioning its theoretical fundamentals and explanation validity. These remarks result both from the morphotypological approaches to artefact assemblages, but also from a lack of understanding on the range and goals of such studies. Stefano Grimaldi discusses the epistemological implications of experimental approaches. Experimentation on lithics are discussed in the papers of S. Cura, P. Cura, S. Grimaldi and E. Cristiani; G. N. de Souza and Â. P. Lima; B. de S. Barreto and M. P. Cabral; M. J. Rodet, A. Prous, J. Machado and L. F. Bass; G. N. Poplevko. Other papers discuss experimentation in the production of beads (M. Gurova, C. Bonsall, B. Bradley, E. Anastassova and P. Cura), new protocols on ceramics experimentation (J. F. Cerezer), ethnographic ceramic technology (R. T. Bortolin and V. Fróis), bone industry (B. Santander; C. Costa, N. Almeida, H. Gomes, S. Cura and P. Cura) and rock art engravings (N. S. da Rosa, S. Cura, S. Garcês and P. Cura).

The organization of the UISPP XVI world congress in Florianópolis was the occasion to focus a certain number of themes that are preferably dealt with at a transcontinental scale. Several sessions discussed the issue of transition mechanism (technological, social, economic, and their climatic and environmental contexts). Marcel Otte opens the volume, focusing on the specific role of straits, a topic that is also at the foundation of Judith Carlin's et al. paper. Contributions by Fabio Parenti et al., Gustavo Wagner and Mercedes Okumura et al., discuss the human adaptations in different contexts in Brazil, during the early and middle Holocene. First farming societies in Southern America and in Europe are approached in the papers by Marcel Otte and Jorge Oliveira et al., while the transition into more complex societies, bearing metallurgical knowledge, is the focus of papers by Leonor Rocha et al., C¿t¿lin Laz¿r. Finally, classic contexts on both sides of the Atlantic are revisited by Erika Gómez andby Carolina Dias.

Proceedings of the XVI World Congress of the International Union of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences (Florianopolis, Brazil, 4-10 September 2011) Volume 11This volume brings together several papers delivered in different sessions that, for various reasons, were not completely published. Four major themes are involved: cultural interactions, rock art, theory and heritage. Papers by A. Meza and F. Vergara discuss intercultural issues in archaeological and ethnoarchaeological contexts. The paper by Albuquerque and Almeida on cognitive archaeology opens a sequence of five papers dedicated to rock art issues, including pigments studies (Gomes, Rosina and Santos), landscape analysis (Oliveira and Oliveira; Basille and Ratto) and methodology (G. Muñoz). The relations between New Archaeology and modern Russian research are the focus of discussion by I. Shucteleva. Urban and modern archaeology in the context of heritage management of contact are discussed in the papers by D. Costa, F. Borba and D. Bandeira, D. Pereiosta and R. Godoy.

Archaeology of Mounds clusters in West Africa aims to understand the dynamics that enhanced and sustained the settlement systems made of distinct but close mounds. Most of the mounds-clusters are found in low-lying and flat areas in West Africa sahel and savanna. It has been suggested that West-Africa mound-clustering resulted from patterns of residential segregation articulated on ethnicity, specialized occupation, and/or both. However, most of the archaeological research conducted so far on this kind of settlement has failed to test this hypothesis, and does not address the very issues of their processes of formation and patterns of development. The methodology adopted - single mound sampling approach - does not allow for such explorations. The comprehensive approach presented in this book is articulated on the implementation of complementary excavation strategies. This involves the test excavation of all the mounds of two of the largest mounds clusters found in the study area, and the sampling of a third one, located in a different environmental context. The fine-grained chronology obtained allows the probing of the patterns of growth and diversification of mounds clusters through time, showing the operations of a broad range of settlement location decisions. Bio-anthropological data points clearly to warfare during the scramble for land that took place during the first quarter of the second millenium AD. Depending on time-sequences, special purpose mounds - iron producers, weavers, karité-oil producers - are differentially integrated in each of the tested mounds-clusters. No single settlement strategy fits all.

This publication is the volume is the proceedings of the ICAZ Archaeomalacology Working Group which took place at the 11th International Conference of the International Council for Archaeozoology (ICAZ), held in Paris, France 23rd-28th August 2010. Twenty-three papers are published with evidences of human collection and modification of shells from all over the world and over a large scale of chronology (from Prehistory to Antiquity). The papers are organized in three sub-sessions. The section "Acquisition and use of shell raw materials in prehistory" focuses on patterns of acquisition and use of shell raw materials as well as on the production sequences of shell items in time and space. Specific themes of interest include the exploitation of shells as raw materials in relation to their dietary functions, or choices made to use particular shells along with or as opposed to other raw materials.The section "Shell middens and shells as a food resource" provides a venue to explore the relationships between human groups and molluscan resources and especially encourages the combination of information derived from multiple disciplines, as well as studies that seek to contextualise shell-gathering in a wider socio-economic context. The section "Shells as indicators of palaeoenvironment, site formation and transformation" aims to investigate the potential of the archaeological shell to answer questions not directly related to subsistence or material culture and especially welcomes contributions which mobilise the study of the archaeological shell in relation to modern resource management and environmental change.

Edited by Sarah Neate, David Howell, Richard Ovenden and A.M. Pollard.The book (in this context any portable object whose prime purpose is to convey documentary information, including both images and text) is, in the view of the editors of this interesting volume, a much-neglected artifact in the spectrum of objects which constitute the material cultural heritage. This collection of papers represents the work of a group of national and international researchers who have studied the various components of the book as object, with the aim of sharing expertise, generating new interactions, and promoting interdisciplinary collaboration between researchers from the arts and humanities and those from science and heritage science disciplines. This volume documents discussions which took place between March and November 2009 at workshops and symposia organized by the BookNET Research Cluster.

Alexander the Great's campaigns in the East brought the Greek and Eastern worlds in closer contact than was possible in previous centuries. While Greeks and non-Greeks had lived alongside each other for centuries before Alexander's conquest of the East, it was during the Hellenistic period that a more direct interaction of cultures occurred. The material evidence from the lands that formed part of Alexander's empire, in combination with contemporary theoretical approaches, can hopefully lead to attempts to answer why specific borrowings occurred as well as how such borrowings are interpreted by contemporary scholars. This volume is a direct result of the broader cross-cultural research interests of the editors.

This research examines formation processes of middens and the associated activities at the site of Çatalhöyük, Turkey. Using this site as a case study, this research has wider significance for understanding the Neolithic of the region and for the study of middens in general. Middens are a unique deposit in that they contain traces of activities that may not be found in cleaner contexts such as floors, and contain materials such as ash, animal dung, phytoliths and coprolites which can inform on plant resource use, diet and subsistence strategies at a high temporal resolution. In this research thin section micromorphology is used, combined with phytolith analysis of individual layers, to examine both the composition and associations of finely stratified midden deposits in situ. Additional analyses of mineral components using FT-IR and SEM-EDX has been carried out, along with biomolecular analysis of organic residues in coprolites by GC-MS, to further characterise material that is difficult to analyse by thin section alone. This integrated analysis contributes to the understanding of midden formation processes and activities, as well as environment, agriculture, plant resource use, diet and fuel use.

In 2006 and 2007, the editors of this volume organized sessions at the annual meetings of the European Association of Archaeologists (Cracow, Poland and Zadar, Croatia) entitled "The Roman Empire and Beyond" in response to the increasing amount of archaeological work being conducted in Central and Eastern Europe, areas where the Roman Empire met Barbaricum. The sessions concerned three general themes: the development of Rome's older Central/Eastern provinces, Roman-Native interactions within the Empire and along Rome's frontier zone, and Native-Roman interactions in Barbaricum. This book is based upon the two EAA sessions, whilst additional papers were solicited from several scholars who had not attended the EAA meetings, but whose work was deemed highly relevant for this volume.

An environmental and archaeological multiproxy study of burial mounds in the Eurasian steppe zoneThis volume presents a series of archaeological and scientific studies focusing on Kurgans in Hungary and Russia. Kurgans are the burial mounds of Bronze and Copper Age societies that can be traced back to the 4th Millennium cal BC. The Kurgans of the Eurasian steppe zone preserve palaeosoils and represent a fantastic resource for investigating Holocene environmental changes. The studies presented in this volume principally focus on the Lyukas-halom and Csíp?-halom kurgans in Hungary and the Skvortsovsky and Labazovsky kurgans in Russia, though there are also several papers that explore the 'wider world' of the Kurgans. On the whole, this volume brings together papers on a multi- and interdisciplinary scale, and sheds light on the current status and state-of-art of kurgan studies.

The churches of St John and St Mary at Ephesos, 'Building D' at Sardis, St John at Philadelphia, and the basilicas of Hierapolis illustrate the development of vaulted construction on the west coast of Asia Minor between the 5th and the 7th century AD. These churches, due to their dilapidated condition, constitute ideal sources of information about the materials and construction techniques employed in some of the most important building programs of the early Byzantine Empire. The ruined state of the monuments and the lack of written records have hindered attempts to reconstruct their original forms. Although the surviving load-bearing elements of most of the churches have been very well documented, the potential of their remains to offer information about the nature of vaults has not yet been fully appreciated. As a result, the vaulting practices of west Asia Minor remain enigmatic, though they clearly influenced the early development of Byzantine church architecture. The constructional analysis of these churches, along with the reconstruction of their vaults, constitutes the main thrust of the present study. The author's new documentation of their structural fabric, carried out in the field during 2007 and 2008, concentrates on the recording of a series of unexplored vault fragments and construction details. The graphic investigation of this evidence, aided by interpretation on the basis of formal comparisons, leads to reasoned revised reconstructions of each church. The resulting reconstruction drawings form the basis for the exploration of some of the most interesting early Byzantine vaulting patterns. Continuing efforts initiated by A. Choisy more than a century ago, this leads to a new typology of vault structures for the region. The latter embraces the structural tissue of vaults, and, thus, hopes to go beyond classifications based solely on geometrical forms, which are too restrictive to respond to the wide variety of solutions found in the region. This book reveals the diversity, elegance and sophistication that characterize some of the most important early Byzantine churches. The analytical study of these monuments highlights the role of the cities of west Asia Minor as centres for experimentation in the field of vaulted construction during the first centuries of the Byzantine period.

This volume contains a series of papers that had their origins in a symposium convened whilst the editor was a Research Fellow at the Bard Graduate Center for Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture, New York in May 2008.

This book on ethnicity in Mediterranean protohistory may well be regarded as the main and final result of the project on the ethnicity of the Sea Peoples as set up by Wim van Binsbergen as academic supervisor and worked out by Fred Woudhuizen who, in the process, earned himself a PhD from the Erasmus University Rotterdam (2006). The book is divided into four parts: I) Ethnicity in Mediterranean proto-history: explorations in theory and method: With extensive discussions of the Homeric catalogue of ships, the Biblical Table of Nations, and the Sea Peoples of the Late Bronze Age, against the background of a long-range comparative framework; II) The ethnicity of the Sea Peoples: an historical, archaeological and linguistic study; III) The ethnicity of the Sea Peoples: A second opinion; IV) The ethnicity of the Sea Peoples: Towards a synthesis, and in anticipation of criticism. It will soon be clear to the reader that the two authors differ considerably in their view on the matter, largely as a result of their different background and disciplinary allegiance. Thus Wim van Binsbergen (Parts I and III) - apart from providing an elaborate theoretical framework - , as a historicising anthropologist focuses on long-term processes and cultural features, whereas Fred Woudhuizen (Part II), as a historian by origin, is more occupied with the reconstruction (however difficult, in the protohistorical context) of the petty historical incidents. But however much the two authors may differ in detail and in overall disciplinary orientation, in the end they offer the reader a balanced synthesis, co-authored by both of them (Part IV), in which their respective views turn out to be complementary rather than diametrically opposed, and in which also a further methodological and linguistic vindication is offered for the more controversial points contained in the present book.

Edited by M.-C. Cauvin, A. Gourgaud, B. Gratuze, N. Arnaud, G. Poupeau, J.-L. Poidevin and C. Chataigner.Collection of papers concentrating on various aspects of obsidian, ranging from geology, petrology, various techniques of analysis, data handling, mathematical modelling, economic anthropology to text-aided ancient history.Maison de l'Orient Méditerranéen.

The papers collected in this volume were, with a couple of exceptions, presented at a conference on Celtic coinage held at the Ashmolean Museum and the Institute of Archaeology, Oxford, on 6th - 7th December 2001. With seventeen speakers and an audience of ninety, this was by far the largest gathering devoted specifically to Celtic numismatics since the 1989 Oxford, and indeed must have been one of the largest meetings devoted to Celtic coinage ever to have taken place.

Pottery Workshop or Pottery Style?Recent excavations in the region of Achaea in the northern Peloponnese (Greece) have brought to light new evidence on the Thapsos-class of vases. Their identification amongst the grave goods as well as the dedications in the two important sanctuary sites of the area provide a starting point for reassessing the question of this particular ware's identity and its main production centre. After a brief introduction on the aims and scope of the study, the history of the research, the distribution of Thapsos-class ware in Achaea, its technical features and a short discussion on chronological issues, the various fabrics of the Thapsos-class ware attested in Achaea are first presented and analyzed, and then examined and discussed with particular respect to their resemblance with the Achaean Late Geometric workshops producing the impressed and fine painted wares. Next the similarities, as well as the differences, of vases of this class recovered mainly from Ithaca, Delphi and Thera but also from other areas of mainland Greece are set out. A full catalogue of the Thapsos class ware data derived so far from Achaea is submitted with photographs and drawings of almost every sherd and vase. Finally the results of a non destructive elemental ceramic analysis using micro X-RAY fluorescence spectroscopy (m-XRF) applied to various fabrics and wares from Achaean pottery of the Late Geometric period is published in the Appendix. A more fundamental aim of the present study is to bring forward new aspects for investigation concerning this ceramic group, so closely associated as it is with the foundation and life of the Greek colonies in the west.With a contribution by A. Sakalis, D. Tsiafakis and N. Tsirliganis titled 'Non destructive elemental ceramic analysis from Achaea using X-Ray fluorescence spectroscopy (m-XRF)'.

This book sets out the evidence for burial practices in the southern and western Peloponnese of Greece during the middle Helladic and early Mycenaean periods (c. 2000-1400 BC), and to interpret the evidence in terms of human action. In the first section,the book details the scope of the research, whereas the remaining chapters present an analysis of the evidence to answer a range of generic questions on mortuary practices. The conclusions are interpreted in terms of the use of burial practices in the study of 'Mycenaean civilisation', confirming that variations in time and space suggest that a closer study of local and regional archaeologies should be a priority in future research aims. The Appendices contain detailed information on the sites that form the basis of the study. (This book will also appeal to those non-specialists with a serious interest in the region as a fascinating, archaeological reference work or 'guide'.)

Lithic analyses of all kinds have a long history in archaeological studies. For many years, morphological studies of tool-types and elaborate discussions of relative chronologies were a primary focus, but this has changed and the past few decades have witnessed a steadily growing interest in many other aspects of lithic studies. The 12 papers in the present volume provide a variety of perspectives on lithic exploitation patterns in late glacial and early postglacial Western Europe (from Poland to Portugal). The book grew from a symposium held at the 59th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology held in Anaheim in 1994, and the editors hope that the volume will stimulate more inter-regional discussions of data and ideas, as well as general interpretive problems regarding lithic raw material economy in late glacial and early postglacial.

Acts of the XIVth UISPP Congress, University of Liège, Belgium, 2-8 September 2001SECTION 6 : PALÉOLITHIQUE SUPÉRIEUR / UPPER PALAEOLITHICColloques / Symposia 6.2 & 6.5Upper Palaeolithic living sites and their associated buildings have seen an increase in studies over the last few years. The focuses of these studies have been on topics such as use-wear analyses, spatial analyses of the distribution of lithic fragments and associated bone remains, as well as hearth paving. There are also geoarchaeological studies of living floors and hearths, and particular attention has been paid to the ethnoarchaeological studies of hunter-gatherer habitation sites, with many different and elaborate models of Palaeolithic cultural behaviour and ritual being put forward. The main problem with the majority of these studies in the past has been that these analyses have been restricted only upon particular sites and the immediate areas around them. Therefore the bigger picture of Palaeolithic landscape archaeology in terms of their settlement patterns is an area of study which is at best cloudy. Previous European conferences on this subject were as far back as 1982 and 1983, therefore this symposium is of particular interest as it is able to shed new light on a neglected area of research. The importance of habitation sites in Palaeolithic archaeology is used to address a number of behavioural ideas and theories, including social and cultural life in this period, and subsistence strategies. The 16 papers in this BAR investigate the way spatial distributions of remains allow the functions of particular sites to be theorised, for instance whether these were seasonal hunting camps or permanent settlements. The first part of this study covers basic contributing factors to the study of Upper Palaeolithic Dwellings, with the second part focusing on the analyses of groups of sites at a local regional level.

Some time just after 900 BC a tool was introduced with a shaft of wood and a knife blade of flint. It was manufactured and used for cutting and reaping over a large geographical area. It was included in the ritual depositions of the age. Over time the original intention of making knife blades for a composite tool was renegotiated. The tool became part of a dynamic between old and new, for example, through manufacturing sites, use, and deposits. This original study discusses how interaction between actors and 'actants' during the Late Bronze Age in the area of modern southern Scandinavia created socio-technical networks of change and persistence. Flint technology was a palpable part of this, contributing to a technical shaping of society. At the same time, there was a social shaping of technology. By focusing on manufacturing sites and different ways of making large flint blade-knives the author emphasizes the dynamic between different claims in society, between two social groups - the institution of the transformer and the institution of the innovator. Large flint blade-knives were a point of reference to certain ideas about new technology in the form of the use of flint and iron. This was the dynamic that gradually marginalized older positions of power,and over a long time it had the effect of shaping society in a new way. The author's findings show that this was not to do with a direct change between 'Bronze Age' and 'Iron Age': there was something else in between. This 'something else' has not been formulated before and the results demonstrate how intentions and consequences do not necessarily follow straight lines. Nevertheless, a consequence was - just before 500 BC - that society changed: iron attained widespread distribution and the large flint blade-knives disappeared.

The book publishes the proceedings of the workshop held in Rome in March 2012 that was intended to bring together archaeologists, scientists and students involved in the study of use-wear traces on prehistoric stone tools and/or in the identification of micro residues that might be present in them in order to hypothesize their function. Use-wear analysis carried out with microscopic analysis at low or high magnification is, at present, a settled procedure. The individuation and identification of residues is attempted using morphological and chemical techniques, these latter divided between invasive and non-invasive. Each employed technique has its own advantages and limitations. Both traces and residues analysis require a comparison to useful replicas. Even with regard to the making of replicas, no shared protocol exists.The workshop underlined the necessity to outline the basis for developing a common protocol concerning both analysis procedures and replicas realization. The adoption of consistent methods will make it possible for data obtained by multiple researchers to become interchangeable.

This volume is a collection of the contributions to the Ethnoarchaeology Conference 'Ethnoarchaeology: Current Research and Field Methods' organized by the AIE-Onlus (Italian Society for Ethnoarchaeology) which was held in Rome in May 2010. Five different sessions were arranged: Ethnoarchaeology and Material Culture: Use, Function and Environmental Interaction; Ethnoarchaeology and Material Culture: Social Implications and Mental Patterns; Landscape Ethnoarchaeology: Interaction between Environment and Mechanisms of Choice; Ethnoarchaelogy and Pastoralism; Remote Sensing and Automatic Identification Techniques of the Archaeological Record; Ethnoarchaeology of Urban Environments. Different theoretical and methodological approaches were presented in the course of the Conference, testifying to the plurality of dimensions that traditionally characterize ethnoarchaeology.

Proceedings of the Borger Meetings 2009, The NetherlandsIn November 2009 an international conference on the Trichterbecher Kultur (Funnel Beaker culture; TRB) was held in Borger, the Netherlands. The conference was titled: From funeral monuments to household pottery - current advances in TRB research. The aim of this conference was to bring together TRB specialists from all over the world. In principle the entire TRB culture and all of its aspects were covered in the conference: from megalithic tombs, burials, ritual deposits and pottery, to settlements and recent megalithic excavations.

This volume is the culmination of a double symposium held in 2001 at the 66th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in New Orleans. The symposia were entitled "Bridging Formative Mesoamerican Cultures".

15 papers from Phase II of Red Sea Project held in the British Museum October 2004, representing a wide-ranging historical sequence, from the New Kingdom peoples to current semantics.

This study of legio XX Valeria Victrix combines a personal, historical and archaeological approach to the study of the legion (roughly the first four centuries after Christ) as a whole. Epigraphic and historical evidence is presented for all those individuals known to have served with the Twentieth Legion in their various capacities. Sources are quoted, with translation, for each of these and significant details of the careers discussed. Further aspects of careers generally are considered at the end of the relevant sections. This corpus is supported by a number of indices - of nomenclature, origins, ranks, service and posts held in other units etc., as well as an index of primary sources. Other inscriptions attesting to the presence of the Twentieth legion and its activities in various quarters of the Empire are also collected and presented. This epigraphic evidence is drawn together with that of the archaeological and historical sources, and with the copious modern literature on the subject of the Roman Army, to present a history of the Twentieth Legion from its formation out of the legions of the civil wars of the late Republic, to its uncertain end in the changing conditions of the late third and fourth centuries. Particular emphasis is placed on the role of individuals and the light that their careers can shed on the history and activities of the legion. Studies on a number of other aspects of the history and organization of the legion are appended.

21 papers from Section 15 (African Prehistory), Acts of the XIVth UISPP Congress, University of Liège, Belgium, 2-8 September 2001.

The Ritidian Site is located in the United States island territory of Guam, the largest and southernmost of the Mariana Islands in the western Pacific Ocean. The site holds a data-rich 3500-year record of natural and cultural history of the islands, now uniquely preserved and open for public access in the Ritidian Unit of Guam National Wildlife Refuge. The place means many things for people in different perspectives, together speaking volumes of Ritidan's powerful effects as a heritage landscape. Today, Ritidian is known as an archaeological site, as a place where important historical events occurred, as a home of preserved forest habitat, as a spiritual retreat, as an example of land-ownership struggles in Guam, and as much more. While research is ongoing, this book offers a summary update of findings by scholars who have studied different aspects of the profundity and complexity of Ritidian's integrated natural-cultural landscape history.

Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology 59Since 1996, the author has been involved with a cultural, archaeological, and geological survey of the Mukogodo Hills and Ewaso Ng'iro Plains in Central Kenya. Results of this research are presented herein, with a primary goal of providing an environmental chronology and describing patterns of human land use through the Late Pleistocene. This was accomplished through geoarchaeological and archaeological survey. The geoarchaeological study demonstrates how local environmental conditions, particularly fluvial geomorphology, have responded to East African climatic fluctuations. This, in turn, provides a comparative basis to interpret cultural change documented by the archaeological survey. While building on research that has already been conducted in the region, these investigations provide the context within which to make archaeological interpretations meaningful. This research addresses four main questions. First, did landscape changes affect the distribution of archaeological sites in the Mukogodo Hills-Ewaso Ng'iro Plains region? Second, are there significant differences in land-use patterns between the Middle and Later Stone Age inhabitants of the region? Third, did the arrival of pastoralism contribute to erosion and degradation of the landscape? Fourth, has ecological change correlated with changes in economic patterns observed in the archaeological record?