Books in the British Archaeological Reports International Series series

Proceedings of a colloquium held at Potenza, Acerenza and Matera, Italy (May 2005)This book includes papers from a colloquium held at Potenza, Acerenza and Matera, Italy (May 2005), entitled The Late Roman Army in the Near East from Diocletian to the Arab Conquest.Edited by Ariel S. Lewin and Pietrina Pellegrini with the aid of Zbigniew T. Fiema and Sylvain Janniard

On the specific level, this work is an enquiry into Karia (south-western Turkey) and the Hekatomnids in the 4th century BC, a Persian satrapy and its political strategies expressed in its state monuments. On the general level, this is a study of divine kingship, on the creation of a national or shared identity, on acculturation and colonialism: thereby also on globalization. The result may be characterized as an ethnological dissertation on a topic of ancient history elucidated through archaeological analyses. The monograph examines how the Hekatomnids created a successful and prosperous dynasty, providing a lesson on how to enact, stage, and maintain power, by an active use of style and cultural affiliations. It is a study of the formation of an iconography of royal ideology (in its broadest sense) in the Hekatomnid dynasty of the 4th century BC, exploring the nature of power, ethnicity, and acculturation. Above all, the study narrates the story from the perspective of Karia as Karian - a landscape and people like other landscapes and peoples formed by its geographical, geopolitical, and cultural position.

Proceedings of the XV UISPP World Congress (Lisbon, 4-9 September 2006), Volume 35.C74 edited by Marc Groenen and Didier Martens.C81 edited by Jane Kolber; John Clegg and Alicia Distel.C85 edited by Kevin Sharpe and Jean Clottes.S02 edited by Mila Simões Abreu.S07 edited by Giriraj Kumar and Robert Bednarik.WS37 edited by James Keyser and Mavis Greer.Volume edited by Claudia Fidalgo and Luiz Oosterbeek.

The convergence of a number of research groups with common interests in an area little favored by the traditional hypotheses of the interpretation of Peninsular Prehistory made a group of scholars aware of the necessity of periodic meetings to evaluate current thinking. The first took place at Santiago de Alcántara. The contents of these meetings has centered on the analysis of the undervaluing paradigms that have shaped an image of the peninsular interior void of population and subject to late and little compact impulses of more civilizing cultures, always settled on the Iberian coasts, both in the east and the west. The previous volume (BAR S1765 2008) demonstrated the coexistence of open air engravings and paintings, as an exhibition of traditional languages associated with the megalith builders: forms, techniques and environments that fit perfectly with what is known for the whole of the South of the Peninsula, the classical area of Schematic Art. The title of the meeting held at Romangordo in 2008 intends to insist on another of these paradigms: the inexistence of early populations in the interior basins of the Iberian Peninsula.

'La Garma A' is a small cave located in the lower third of La Garma Hill (Cantabria, Spain), at 80m above sea level. It is situated near the village of Omoño, in the municipal district of Ribamontán al Monte, near the eastern shore of Santander Bay, about 12km to the southeast of the city. To undertake this research the author examined the lithic archaeological record of part of the Palaeolithic stratigraphy of the archaeological deposit at La Garma A, covering the period between 15,100 and 12,200 years ago in calibrated chronology, corresponding to the periods known as middle and upper Magdalenian. The starting point in the development of the objectives of this study was to determine the extent to which the lithic assemblage at La Garma A matches previous expectations based on the geographical location of the site, in Cantabrian Spain, and its chronology. In addition, the author looks at how the lithic technology evolved over three thousand years and the contribution its study can make to the overall interpretation of the site. At the same time, more specific and technical objectives are related to the definition of knapping processes, the raw materials chosen for retouching in its different formats and size modules, and for the manufacture of different types of implements. The end result of the research is an attempt to understand the evolution in the use of the lithic assemblages in the sequence at La Garma A, corresponding to the time segment of 15,000-12,000 cal BC, and to provide a platform for further investigations into the identification of the raw materials and quarries involved. Further analysis of some of the cave's features will be fundamental for the understanding of the hunter-gatherers' way of life in the region, whereas the study of other sites of similar chronology will complete the regional panorama.

This volume collates 99 papers in honour of Maurizio Tosi's 70th birthday. Contributions by diverse authors, on very diverse and sometimes unrelated topics reflect the breadth of Maurizio's own exceptional scientific investigations that took him through America, Asia, Arabia and India to follow a career path at times truly unique in his research. This book, as one can see running through many of the contributions presented here, offers a unique opportunity for all of us, as it will be for him too, to read directly in the words of his friends and colleagues, near and far, alongside the results of original research presented in the various papers, the many impressions, memories, criticisms, disappointments and joys of paths which crossed with his.

The book presents finds from twenty-four Late Iron Age graves excavated between 2001 and 2003 on the hillfort Dragiši¿ located in the middle Dalmatia, Croatia. The graves yielded a large number of finds including fibulae; pins; rings and other circlet-shaped jewellery; bracelets; pendants; elements of attire and toiletry accessories; buttons and appliqués; temple-rings, hair-pins, and earrings; glass beads; cowry shell; Roman glass vessels and pottery finds. The published grave assemblages cover the chronological period dated from the fifth century BC until the middle of the second century AD.

Expresiones artísticas en la arquitectura maya: Técnicas de análisis y documentaciónPrehispanic Maya architecture features a large variety of artistic expression, from reliefs and sculptures made of stone or stucco to mural paintings and graffiti found on the plastered surfaces of their walls and façades. All of this constitutes both an important artistic component which complements the architecture, and a new source of information about the people who built these buildings and those who lived within them. In order to preserve them it is vital that innovative techniques are used during archaeological excavations and explorations which allow detailed records to be made immediately after the discovery of such ancient vestiges. This book presents selected studies about the techniques for documentation and analysis of architectural decorative remnants in use by a variety of research teams currently working in the Maya area as well as interesting discussions about the symbolism of the artistic elements on the façades of Maya buildings.

This work deals with Neanderthal subsistence behaviours during the Middle Palaeolithic in Hungary, through the example of Érd site. Very discreet, hunting and mainly scavenging, activities are shown by zooarchaeological study for meat procurement. This is different for carnivores, except for cave bears. The latter, using the place for hibernation, meant a high number of their remains are associated with "Charentian" lithic industry and with those of cave hyena. This carnivore has a significant impact on bone accumulations, herbivores and bears, and shows signs of cannibalism on its congener's remains. Human activities are visible only on a few bones belonging to large ungulates and cave bear. However, no proof supports the proposition of a clear specialization in cave bear hunting on acquiring meat resources (as written by V. Gábori Csánk in the monography on Érd published in 1968); a contrario, on scavenging carcasses and/or visiting (actively?) dens for weakened wintering/hibernating bears. These results attest the contemporaneity of a part of the bear carcasses with human installation or presence on the site.

Papers from a session held at the European Association of Archaeologists Sixth Annual Meeting in Lisbon 2000

8 papers from Section 16 (Asian and Oceanic Prehistory) Acts of the XIVth UISPP Congress, University of Liège, Belgium, 2-8 September 2001.

"In the fall season of A.D. 536 Cassiodorus sat at his writing table....." So Joel D. Gunn begins this interesting and unusual topic of study. Fifteen further papers discuss the climatic events and ramifications of that year, when the absence of sunlight turned the grapes bitter and gaunt faces walked the streets of Rome and all of Europe. This book examines the first millennium A.D. worldwide context of Cassiodorus and the situation he and his contemporaries experienced. Can we draw any comparisons with today's global changes?

19 papers presented at the Proceedings of a Prehistoric Society conference at Sheffield University in February 2001.

Exekias inscribes his signature on several of his vases, and so he is one of the relatively few archaic painters whose real name is known to us. He is arguably one of the most accomplished and innovative of all black-figure vase-painters working in Athens in the sixth century BC, and also one of the most intriguing. Although his corpus of extant works is rather small, his impact on his contemporaries and immediate successors can be judged to have been disproportionately large. His painting style is not idiosyncratic, and so may be described as distinguished rather than distinctive; it is nevertheless readily identifiable as much for its technical quality as for the creative conceptualization of the scenes. His range of subjects, the exquisite precision of his execution, and above all his technical and conceptual innovation are the hallmarks of his personal style, and there is scarcely a book on Greek vase-painting that does not use one of his vases to illustrate the peak of achievement in the black-figure technique, yet there is a dearth of monograph studies of his work. This extensive work pays homage to this great artist, including the construction of a persuasive chronology of Exekias' extant paintings through a comprehensive process of comparative analysis.

Our picture of Iron Age and Archaic Crete is constantly changing due to the increasing number of field investigations that reveal new information on these centuries. Results from many recent excavations (at sites like Azoria in Eastern Crete and Thronos/Kephala (ancient Sybrita) in the Western region of the island) will eventually transform our view of the period. The focus of this particular study is centred on sites with a long-established history of research. Sites like, for example, Phaistos, Knossos, Praisos, Axos, Dreros, Gortyn, Vrokastro, Kavousi, Kato Syme and Aphrati have thus received a large amount of attention in the analyses. However, the author has also tried to introduce lesser well-known sites of a rural character in order to obtain a more varied rendering of Iron Age and Archaic Crete. As the title indicates, she is interested in site variations within the different site-categories and how these change during the 8th, 7th and 6th centuries.

Society for Arabian Studies Monographs No. 9In the centuries around the turn of our era, long distance trade based on the monsoon winds connected all coasts of the western Indian Ocean. Ships from India, Arabia, Egypt, East Africa and Mesopotamia conveyed luxuries such as silk, spices and slaves, but also subsistence goods including grain and inexpensive textiles between coasts separated by thousands of kilometres of water. In the same period the first complex societies emerged in parts of Africa and Southern India. In other regions existing states reorganised or were replaced or marginalised by new polities. This study aims at exploring the significance of maritime commerce to societies on the Indian Ocean rim, by examining how rulers adjusted their policy in order to control and profit from trade. The point of departure is the anonymous Greek first century AD Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. This is a guide to navigation and trade on the Indian Ocean, covering the coasts of the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, East Africa and India. The unknown author, who to a large extent relied on personal experience, included not only sailing directions, but also a wealth of information on local products, markets and political conditions. Chapter 1 introduces the subject and the setting. Chapter 2 discusses how to measure the impact of trade on complex societies. Chapter 3 deals with the content and reliability of the Periplus. Other chapters survey the situation along the coasts of Arabia, Africa and western / southern India in detail, and argue that rulers and states utilised a range of policies in order to profit from the monsoon trade.

A feast is a sensory, sacralised and social occasion. Its multiple resonances and experiences extend far beyond the nutritive consumption of food and drink by a group of people. To understand a feasting event more comprehensively, it is necessary to analyse the whole series of experiences that the original participant would have undergone during the course of a feast, and to trace the footsteps of the diner through each stage of what was presumably a major event in his/her calendar. While the author examines the totality of feasting occasions in this book, her principal focus lies on how feasts serve as an arena for social negotiations: the creation of obligations to a powerful host, the cohesion augmented between companions, the privileging of high-status individuals, the emphasised inferiority of those of lesser status, and the creation of new connections through shared emotive experiences. This work thus explores on a broad scale the multi-faceted use of feasting in mainland Greece by placing it in a diachronic perspective, commencing at the beginning of the Early Mycenaean period (MHIII/LHI) and continuing to the end of the Early Iron Age (EIA). This long-range study is given focus by viewing it specifically from the angle of social changes, developments and negotiations, in order to analyse how socio-political events in Greece throughout the nine centuries under consideration both affected commensal events and were directly or indirectly produced by them.

Ar Rasfa is a Middle Paleolithic open-air site located in the Rift Valley of Northwest Jordan excavated between 1997-1999. This book presents a detailed technological, typological, and paleoanthropological analysis of the stone tool assemblage from Ar Rasfa. Artifacts reflecting the initial preparation and exploitation of local flint sources dominate the Ar Rasfa assemblage. Typologically, the assemblage is most similar to Levantine Mousterian assemblages such as those from Naamé, Skhul and Qafzeh. Patterns of lithic variability and contextual evidence suggest Ar Rasfa was visited intermittently by human populations circulating between lake/river-edge resources in the Rift Valley bottom and woodland habitats along the ridge of the Transjordan Plateau.

In this paper the authors study a specific type of pottery from the northwest Iberian Peninsula, known as the Wide Horizontal Rim (WHR) vessel. One of its distinctive aspects is precisely the fact that it is exclusively found in this region, which now comprises the Spanish region of Galicia and northern Portugal, as far south as the River Duero. This type of pottery, of which there are only scarce references in literature, has a greater impact than its presence in the archaeological record. For this reason, the authors carried out the first systematic global study for the region, consisting on identifying the WHR pottery type from an extensive catalogue of 76 vessels, some of which are little-known or completely unknown, characterising the pottery as the first step. Four formal groups were identified, only two of which can be referred to as WHR vessels (WHR1 or the 'classic' shape, and WHR2), while the other two groups are referred to as vessels with WHR. They then contextualise the different groups classified in the different types of sites to which they are associated, in three main spheres where WHR vessels are found: the funerary sphere (the best known), domestic sphere and undetermined, in a total of 49 archaeological sites. In the north of Portugal, the archaeological record points towards a preferred distribution of these sites in the interior, on the contrary to the situation found in Galicia, where there seems to have been a preference for coastal areas. After examining the contexts the authors offer a summary and review of the available datings associated with WHR vessels to date in order to propose a chronological table, indicating the distribution of WHR vessels and vessels with WHR over time, based on an analysis of the absolute and relativechronology.

Archaeological investigations of the systems of agriculture and irrigation at two sites in Northwest Argentina: El Shincal and Los Colorados.

South American Archaeology Series No 23Reliable sex and age estimate on human bone remains is a fundamental aspect in bioarchaeological investigation since such estimates represent the basis on which supplementary studies aiming at contributing to the knowledge of biological and cultural aspects of prehistoric populations are structured. However, since many features, both metrical and morphological ones are specific for each population, and knowing that growth and development patterns as well as sexual dimorphism vary among groups, this work aims at understanding sex and age biological markers on archaeological osteological collections from the Northwest of Argentina. These collections are made up of different sets of skeletons belonging to native populations and fitting different time periods. The fundamental objective of this work has been to study the behavior of sex and age variability general pattern inside and among the collections observed, and, therefore, basic information concerning age and sex patterns of the whole population set they belong to can be provided.

This book investigates the archaeological evidence for crafts and production in early medieval Ireland, AD 400-1100, with a particular focus on the extensive excavated evidence from rural secular and ecclesiastical settlements. The volume firstly provides an overview of the social and ideological contexts of crafts and technologies in early Ireland. It then outlines the extant evidence specifically for iron-working, non-ferrous metalworking, glass, enamel and millefiori, bone, antler and horn, and stone working, and characterises each craft practice in terms of scale, outputs and implications for society. Tables provide additional information on wood craft and pottery. The book then provides a detailed review of the use of different materials in dress and ornament, touches on cloth and textile production, and explores how social identities were performed through objects and material practices. The book then provides a voluminous site gazetteer accounting for all evidence for craft and production on hundreds of early medieval settlements, with numerous tables of data, site plans, artefact drawings and photographs and an extensive bibliography. The book is based on the work of the Early Medieval Archaeology Project (EMAP), which was funded through the Irish Heritage Council and Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht's INSTAR programme, a collaborative research project carried out by University College Dublin and Queens University Belfast which reviewed all archaeological excavations in Ireland between c.1930-2012. This particular book, building on EMAP's previous studies of dwellings and settlements, and agriculture and economy, provides the baseline for a generation of studies of early medieval crafts and production in Ireland in its northwest European contexts.

The Chalcolithic wedge tombs of Ireland represent a dramatic re-emergence of megalithism over a millennium after most Neolithic megaliths were built and many centuries after most had gone out of use. This resurgence of building monuments associated with the dead may well have been associated with a period of social instability caused by the expansion of exchange networks and associated with the introduction of metallurgy. Regional, group, and individual identities all seem to have undergone change at this time, probably in a dynamic demographic context. Variations in the distribution and scale of wedge tombs in Co. Clare, on the west coast of Ireland, provide an interesting study that may reveal a pattern of clan affiliations, status competition, and enduring links to an important and ancient locale.

Provincias de Buenos Aires y Mendoza Argentina

This study began with an intensive search to identify all prehistoric sites with soapstone artifacts in Maryland and the District of Columbia. A review of published and unpublished records and interviews with avocational archaeologists found that the number of (precisely and imprecisely mapped) is at least 340. Avocational archaeologists had collected most of the reported soapstone artifacts, and surface collecting was the most common form of artifact retrieval. These situations result in limited site contextual information and restricted opportunity to interpret site activities. The findings of this study include that soapstone use increased during the Late Archaic and remained high, at least for certain artifacts, through the Woodland periods. The few 14C dates associated with soapstone vessels in the study area and neighboring states point to the initial use of bowls around 3600-2900 BP. Consideration of the distribution of the soapstone sites and review of the anthropological literature on trade and exchange point to three major means by which Native Americans in the study area obtained soapstone artifacts: direct unfettered procurement; direct access with use of an intermediate site as staging area; and exchange with a social group which quarried and made the items. Future developments in provenance studies of soapstone may assist archaeologists in matching artifacts with their quarries. My own experiments on the manufacturing of a preform bowl demonstrate the relative effectiveness of stone and bone chisels, as well as how archaeologists might best detect soapstone debitage at sites during field testing. I suggest that two factors led to the inhabitants of the Middle Atlantic switching to ceramics: first that there was a search for more easily obtainable materials to make watertight, fire-resistant vessels; and second that the increased use of ceramics led to an increase in their mechanical properties, making them a more desirable product.

In Spain there are the remains of and references to 73 dams from the Roman era, constructed between the 1st. and 4th. centuries a.C. Fourty five of them have been located and detailed in this study.

This is a study on textile production in central Tyrrhenian Italy from the final Bronze Age to the Republican period. Textile production is studied here through its technological, social and economic aspects. Textiles and their making were important parts of all fields of life in ancient Italy. Textiles and textile implements are found from settlement sites, burials, votive deposits and sanctuaries. The differences between the finds from different contexts through time point out the changes in material culture related to textile-making. The changes in the materials also indicate the change from household production of textiles to a workshop mode of production and specialisation, and later the development of slave involvement. Through the scope of this study one learns that textile production went through the introduction of many new technologies. This book presents new insights on the importance of textile-making in the ancient society and economy. The question of the importance of textile-making is approached through different angles concerning age, gender, ethnicity, social status, profession and religion, and in so doing a new insight on the multifaceted identity of textile makers and their social status is built.

In the last century, researchers have uncovered approximately 50 Roman forts via excavations in Raetia. The rapid technological advancement of the last two decades allowed to use a variety of non-destructive methods, which enabled the discovery of more than 30 forts and Roman military installations, previously unknown. Furthermore, these new methods allowed observation of the mostly unknown inner layout of previously known forts, which led to many cases of chronologies being drastically redefined, as these had previously been dependent on find typologies. New inscriptions displaying the names of units have also been found, which enriches our knowledge on provincial military history. H. -J. Kellner's 1971 system for the dislocation of auxiliary troops in Raetia is still used by those who publish Roman military diplomas; an overall re-examination and reestablishment is yet to be done. This book aims to: collect, organize and examine different sources of Roman military history in Raetia; establish the dislocation system of the army during the Principate; and provide an up-to-date synthesis of the social, economic and religious aspects of the army in provincial life.

This monograph deals with the destruction and disappearance of the palaces and palace societies of Late Bronze Age or Mycenaean Greece c.1200 and aspects of continuity and change in the subsequent Postpalatial period of the twelfth and eleventh centuries (LHIIIC). It is primarily concerned with mainland Greece and the islands, excluding Crete. An emphasis in this work, where analysis of the Greek material itself or theories based upon it is attempted, is the potential for differences between palatial and non-palatial areas. In order to set in context the discussion of collapse and of Postpalatial society, Chapter 1 is a brief introduction to Mycenaean material culture and interpretations of Mycenaean society. A limited survey is also offered, in order to clarify the extent and chronology of the collapse. Chapter 2 reviews developments in general collapse theory as drawn from recent and major publications. It further examines recent discussion of specific examples of collapse to identify current trends in interpretation. Chapter 3 critically examines theories of the Mycenaean collapse, concentrating on major styles of interpretation and ending in a discussion of the present consensus. Chapter 4 uses recent discussions of the Hittite, Maya and Roman collapses and continuities to suggest possible analogies for processes at work in LBA Greece. Chapter 5 examines the evidence for migrations and population mobility in Postpalatial Greece, discussing settlements and sites, and noting the contribution of survey. Chapter 6 deals with changes in rulership and social structure in the Postpalatial period, emphasising distinctions between areas of Greece that had palaces and non-palatial regions. The conclusion draws together the preceding discussions.