Books published by BAR Publishing

This book presents findings on Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Nuragic settlement dynamics in two selected areas of the east coast of Sardinia, placing them in a wider context of Nuragic settlement in Sardinia and Central Mediterranean prehistory and protohistory. The research addresses the use of coastline, investigates the relationship between domestic and ritual sites, and provides a chronology of settlement. These issues are analysed using data gathered through a series of landscape surveys conducted in both study areas of the east coast of Sardinia, as well as Geographical Information Systems (GIS). The results demonstrate significant differences between the Nuragic settlement patterns, architecture, and distribution of ritual sites in different areas of the east coast, emphasising the need to study the Bronze Age and Early Iron Age settlement dynamics in Sardinia in their local context.

This is a study of the seasonal activity cycles of a pre-urban society, examined through the lens of an early medieval Welsh case study. It considers the patterns of power and habitual activity that defined spaces and structured lives. Key areas of early medieval life - agriculture, tribute-payment, legal processes and hunting - are shown to share a longstanding seasonal patterning that is preserved in medieval Welsh law, church and well dedications, and fair dates. Focussing on a cantref ('hundred') land unit in south-west Wales, it uses an innovative GIS-based multidisciplinary, comparative analysis to circumnavigate a restricted archaeological record and limited written sources. The study presents the first systematic survey of assembly site evidence in Wales, and reassesses widely-used interpretative models of the early medieval landscape. Digital resources include databases of geolocated pre-1700 place-names and of sixteenth-century demesne and Welsh-law landholdings.

This book represents research presented at the 1st International Conference on Classical Antiquities, held in Rome from 15th to 17th May, 2019 at the 'Tor Vergata' University. The conference focused on the ancient Mediterranean between the 6th century BC and the 7th century AD, stimulating dialogue across different disciplines -from ancient history to medieval literature and archaeology - producing innovative research, original methodologies, and comparative studies. Questo libro contiene i risultati del I Convegno Internazionale di Antichità Classiche, svoltosi a Roma il 15/17 maggio 2019 presso l'Università degli Studi di Roma "Tor Vergata". L'obiettivo della conferenza è stato quello di stimolare un dialogo internazionale e interdisciplinare fra i vari settori dell'antichistica, al fine di confrontare fra loro dati e metodologie afferenti a discipline diverse. L'attenzione degli studiosi si è concentrata nel bacino del Mediterraneo Antico, in un arco cronologico compreso fra il VI sec. a.C. e il VII sec. d.C.

Este libro es un estudio sobre la navegación prehispánica y los paisajes culturales marítimos en Mesoamérica. La autora presenta un estudio de caso para explicar la conectividad espacial entre el Altiplano Central y la costa del Pacífico a lo largo del río Balsas, antes y después de la llegada de los españoles. A través de un enfoque interdisciplinario que integra la arqueología marítima, la arqueología del paisaje, la etnohistoria y las ciencias de la información geográfica, propone un marco teórico-metodológico para reconstruir el transporte prehispánico y los sistemas de conectividad por vías acuáticas. El objetivo del trabajo es establecer la relevancia del estudio de la navegación prehispánica como parte del proceso de construcción de paisajes culturales marítimos en Mesoamérica. Se subraya el papel de la navegación para explicar el desarrollo de la complejidad social, los mecanismos de intercambio interregional, la cohesión de unidades regionales y algunos aspectos de la cosmovisión indígena vinculados a la concepción del entorno natural.This book is a study on prehispanic navigation and the maritime cultural landscapes in Mesoamerica, using an interdisciplinary approach that integrates maritime archaeology, landscape archaeology, ethnohistory, and geographic information sciences.

Este trabajo pretende ser una aproximación práctica al sistema portuario de Almería a través del estudio de su paisaje cultural marítimo. De esta forma, se identificarán los elementos de este paisaje que habrían pertenecido al sistema portuario de Almería durante la Alta Edad Media. Mediante el análisis de un mosaico de fuentes, se han podido clasificar en tres bases de datos principales: elementos antrópicos emergidos, elementos antrópicos subacuáticos y elementos naturales, así como identificar su función y su rol en este sistema portuario. El proyecto incluye el análisis espacial de los mismos, desarrollado a través de sistemas de información geográfica (GIS).Al-Ándalus desde el mar studies the port system of Almeria in early medieval times. By analysing a mosaic of sources, it has been possible to classify the data as well as identify its function and its role in this port system. The project includes in-depth spatial analysis using geographic information systems (GIS).

This volume proposes a theoretical and methodological framework for the study of "yellow" coffins, which is one of the most extensive corpus of funerary objects from Ancient Egypt, and the most complex in terms of decoration. It presents a synthetic view on Egyptian coffin decoration during the II millennium B.C. together with in-depth examination of a sample of nine previously unpublished burial assemblages. Dating from the 21st-22nd Dynasties, these objects were chosen to showcase the stages of development in coffin decoration detected in the "yellow" corpus, as well as variations in style and layout. A new formal typology of this corpus is proposed, allowing a better understanding of the dynamics of coffin decoration in Theban workshops.

The amphorae dating from the Submycenaean to the end of the Protogeometric period, brought to light in the Kerameikos cemetery, represent a high quality sample of Athenian output of the shape; this is due to their belonging to intact, archaeologically significant contexts. These vessels, usually employed as cinerary urns in the 'trench-and-hole' tombs, can be found also as grave goods or among the debris of the pyre offerings. The amphorae in this volume are re-examined with the help of new drawings and by adopting the 'envelope' method for their comparison. It has thus proven possible to recognise several typological groups, and to collect information about the process of standardisation of the vases and the organisation of the production process. Moreover, analytical reviews of the burials containing the amphorae and of the physical placing of the grave and pyre goods within the tomb shed new light on the cremation rite performed and on the connections between Athens and other sites employing a similar ritual. Undertaken with the assistance of the Institute for Aegean Prehistory.

Casalmoro lies along the Chiese river in the province of Mantua, in the northern Po Plain, and it represents the biggest known settlement area for Final Bronze Age Italy. This was one of the new settlements founded in the twelfth century BC north of the Po, in the region between eastern Lombardy and Veneto, after the crisis of the Terramare culture. This work provides a typological analysis and a chronological definition of the finds, and presents a significant amount of pottery and bronze artefacts for the first time. It then proposes a framing of Casalmoro in its regional context and in relation to other areas of the Italian Peninsula at the beginning of the Final Bronze Age. This settlement area constitutes an important context both for chronological aspects and to understand the processes leading to the birth of the proto-urban centres at the dawn of the Iron Age.

During three millennia of the Neolithic in southeastern Europe important changes in the social organisation, everyday practices and beliefs formed a diverse and rich cultural landscape expressed in settlement patterns, architecture and numerous aspects of material culture. A growing body of data uncovered over the last few decades shows striking variety in settlement organisation, from single-layered, short-lived sites to long-lived tell settlements located in different geographical settings. In addition, small sites (e.g. 0.5 ha) and extended settlements also appear in most sub-regions. This volume brings together new data on the Neolithic of southeastern Europe, emphasising the organisation and use of space within the regions of Northern Greece, the Balkan hinterland and north-western Turkey. To this end, individual chapters focus either on the intra-site organisation of recently excavated settlements or provide an up-to-date synthesis on the regional level, combining old and new data.

At Lamanai and Ka'kabish, two Precolumbian Maya centres in north-western Belize, archaeologists have researched the environment, architecture, and long-term occupation of the civic-ceremonial centres. The sites' rural or hinterland populations, however, which were presumably critical to the support of the centres, have not been studied. These populations are key to an understanding of the sites' long histories, which survived the Maya collapse (AD 600-900), flourished during the transition to the Postclassic period (AD 900-1500), and continued to be a focus of settlement in the Spanish Colonial period (AD 1521-1708). By reconstructing the spatial and temporal dynamics of Ka'kabish, Lamanai, and the inter-site settlement zone, and comparing them to environmental evidence from pollen cores collected in the New River Lagoon, this study sheds much-needed light on the processes that promoted the continuity in evidence in this region.

The domestication of the wild boar and the emergence of the domestic pig are a fundamental aspect of the Neolithic and a key moment in human history. This book represents the most comprehensive zooarchaeological study to date of the origins and evolution of the domestication of the pig in the Italian peninsula, from a wide regional scale and a diachronic perspective. Some key archaeological questions addressed concern how and when the process of pig domestication commenced in Italy, how it evolved, and how it compares with the wider European and Middle Eastern scenarios. Through the collection of mainly biometrical data from several Italian prehistoric sites, this book explores changes in pig management through time, from the Upper Palaeolithic to the Bronze Age. The results are articulated with both historical changes in Italian societies and evidence from other areas, to achieve a comprehensive understanding of domestication.

This book is the first systematic collection and discussion of dwellings in the Umayyad 'cities' (mad¿¿in) and 'palaces' (qü¿r) of Bil¿d al-Sh¿m. Giuseppe Labisi offers an overview of the apartments within and identifies the architectural models that inspired Umayyad dwellings. This study also allows the precise identification of the origin of pre-Islamic dwelling models and their reinterpretation in Umayyad domestic architecture. Through classification, the author has been able to group the apartments of qü¿r chronologically by the reigns of the Umayyad caliphs. The identification of the dictates of Islamic domestic tradition and the characteristics of early Islamic Arabia and Late Antique houses offer original insight and allow us to situate the Umayyad residences of Bil¿d al-Sh¿m in their wider cultural context. Additionally, Umayyad dwellings have been classified and presented in a rich catalogue as an appendix within the text.

En este libro se presentan y discuten resultados de estudios sobre diagénesis ósea en restos humanos y de mamíferos grandes, recuperados en una región subtropical del sur de Sudamérica: el centro-este de Argentina. Tales estudios se llevaron a cabo desde la perspectiva teórico-metodológica de la tafonomía regional, cuyo objetivo es el reconocimiento de espacios dentro de los cuales hay mayores probabilidades de depositación, enterramiento y preservación de huesos. En este marco, un objetivo central fue especificar las condiciones que producen tasas variables de destrucción del registro óseo, así como identificar áreas con potencial de preservación diferencial de huesos. Para ello, se construyeron modelos espaciales predictivos basados en las propiedades de los suelos, mediante el uso de Sistemas de Información Geográfica (SIG). Estos modelos fueron luego contrastados con información empírica obtenida de análisis específicos realizados sobre huesos recuperados en sitios arqueológicos del área.This book presents and discusses the results of studies on bone diagenesis in human and large mammal remains, recovered in a subtropical region of southern South America: the central-eastern area of Argentina.

This study examines the origins of complex society in the Maya Lowlands during the Middle Preclassic period. Excavations at Cahal Pech - a mid-sized Maya settlement in the Belize River Valley - revealed complex architectural sequences over a 600-year developmental period, which spans the time of the earliest permanent villages in the area and the emergence of institutionalized hierarchy characteristic of later Maya civilization. The author uses spatial analysis to investigate artifact distribution patterns related to architectural change and marshals a diverse dataset to support a network framework for understanding developing complexity. This new theoretical framing expands on studies of long-distance exchange to examine how households and communities could gain advantage by participating in interaction networks, and how the positioning of some entities in networks could have produced socioeconomic inequalities that became entrenched through time.

How did the 'Fall of the Roman Empire' change social and economic networks in eastern Gaul, and how did new 'barbarian' political frontiers shape those changes? Synthesising historical and archaeological approaches, this interdisciplinary study combines text-based prosopography with distribution analysis of ceramics and 'pseudo-imperial' coins in Burgundy and beyond. The study reveals that the frontiers of the second Burgundian kingdom (5th-6th centuries) curtailed traditional movements along one of Europe's key riverine corridors and reshaped, temporarily, the mental geographies imagined by local Gallo-Romans, until Merovingian princes conquered the region. The book includes the most thorough assessment to date of the distribution of Burgundian coins found across France. Illuminating the Burgundian kingdom's internal dynamics and its foreign relations, this assessment revises current understandings of the circulation of gold money across sixth-century Gaul, correcting over-generalisations that can obscure the importance of political frontiers at the end of antiquity.

In the summer of 2000 archaeological excavations on the periphery of the Roman 'small town' at Worcester revealed extensive evidence for timber-framed buildings, probably representing the lower status homes of some of the settlement's inhabitants. Major changes during the later Roman period led to much of the site being levelled and a series of gravel and cobbled surfaces being laid out. Several new structures were then built in this area, including a substantial post-built rectangular building, together defining a courtyard associated with a number of hearths, thought to be part of a smithy complex. It may even have formed one element of a wider 'light industrial' zone of the settlement, with evidence for pottery production and other metalworking in the vicinity. This volume presents the results of this work, setting it in the context of increasing archaeological investigation of Roman Worcester, which together is transforming our understanding of the settlement.

The Resilience of the Roman Empire discusses the relationship between population and regional development in the Roman world from the perspective of archaeology. By adapting a comparative approach, the focus of the volume lies on exploring the various ways in which regional communities actively responded to population growth or decline in order to keep going on the land available to them. The starting point of the theoretical framework for the case studies is the agricultural intensification models developed by Thomas Malthus and Ester Boserup. In order to advance the debate on the validity of these models for identifying the societal and economic pathways of the Roman world, the contributors incorporate the concepts of resilience and diversity into their approach, and shift attention from the longue-durée to how people managed to sustain themselves over shorter periods of time. The aim of the volume is not to discard the theories of Malthus and Boserup, but rather to deconstruct overly strict Malthusian or Boserupian scenarios, and as such introduce novel and more layered ways of thinking by exploring resilience and variability in human responses to population growth/decline in the Roman world.

Medieval cetacean (whales, dolphins, and porpoises) exploitation has frequently been connected to various medieval societies, including the Basques, Norse, Normans, and Flemish. Primarily for the ninth to the twelfth centuries AD, it has been argued that the symbolic significance of cetaceans surpassed their utilitarian value and that their consumption was restricted to the social elite. The extent to which active whaling was practised remains unclear. The identification of zooarchaeological cetacean fragments to the species level is hard and as a result they are frequently merely identified as 'whale', resulting in a poor understanding of human-cetacean interaction in the past. Zooarchaeological research as part of this study has revealed that medieval cetacean exploitation was widespread and especially the harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena), common bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus), and the North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis) were frequently targeted. The exploitation additionally seems to have often been restricted to the social elite.

In a number of significant sites of the vast ancient pasturelands of the Old World, generations of wandering shepherds have left their testimony in the form of graffiti drafted on the rocks, sometimes in their tens of thousands, over a period of hundreds of years from ancient to modern times. The phenomenon is a conspicuous one, and has considerable significance for two reasons. On the one hand, the study of such pastoral graffiti may convey fresh ethnoarchaeological information as to the circumstances of the pastoral activities and the pastoral economy of the past. On the other hand, these signs, which can be often fully alphabetic as well as drawing upon ancient symbolic repertoires, can be of some aid in the interpretation of rock art as a whole genre of human expression, and projected back, in their significance and their modes of appearance, the earliest times of prehistory.

Este libro presenta la investigacio¿n sobre la explotacio¿n alimenticia y tecnolo¿gica de restos de artiodäctilos, Hippocamelus bisulcus (huemul) y Lama guanicoe (guanaco) provenientes de contextos arqueolo¿gicos heteroge¿neos del Holoceno medio y tardi¿o de Fuego-Patagonia en Chile. Anälisis especi¿ficos arqueozoolo¿gicos y tecnolo¿gicos entregan como resultado las diferentes etapas vinculadas al procesamiento de estas dos especies desde la desarticulacio¿n hasta la fracturacio¿n de huesos largos y falanges para la obtencio¿n de me¿dula como recurso alimenticio. Resultados fracturas de huesos largos permitieron vincular patrones de desbaste para la obtencio¿n de soportes y posteriores procesos tecnolo¿gicos para la confeccio¿n de una importante diversidad de artefactos o¿seos. Los anälisis permitieron determinar procesos tecnolo¿gicos para el tratamiento de los huesos, aplicados indistintamente a una u otra especie para la elaboracio¿n de la industria o¿sea, complementando de esta manera un estudio integral y la proposicio¿n de cadenas operativas globales de tratamiento por parte de grupos cazadores-recolectores en Fuego-Patagonia. This book presents research on the dietary and technological exploitation of the remains of artiodactyls, Hippocamelus bisulcus (huemul) and Lama guanicoe (guanaco) from the heterogeneous archaeological contexts of the Middle and Late Holocene in Chile. Specific archaeozoological and technological analyses demonstrate the different stages linked to the processing of these two species from disarticulation to the fracture of long bones and phalanges to obtain marrow as a food resource. Results of long bone fractures allowed us to link patterns of grinding to obtain supports and subsequent technological processes for the manufacture of a wide variety of bone artifacts. The analyses made it possible to determine technological processes for the treatment of bones, applied indifferently to one species or another for the elaboration of the bone industry, thus complementing a comprehensive study and the proposal of global operational treatment chains by hunter-gatherer groups in Fuego Patagonia.

Drawn and Written in Stone explores the religious history of the highest part of the Tibetan Plateau through its rock art and inscriptions. It is focused on facsimiles of ritual and ceremonial monuments carved and painted on stone surfaces and rock inscriptions in the Tibetan language, vital archaeological and historical materials for appraising the development of religion in Tibet, ca. 100 BCE to 1400 CE. By probing the complexion of figures and letters in stone, this work considers how early cult traditions contributed to the establishment of Tibetan Buddhism and a rival faith known as Yungdrung Bon. Outside of the Indian cultural context, relatively little has been written about the historical antecedents of these popular Tibetan religions for a want of sources. This monograph helps remedy this large gap in Tibetan studies by drawing upon the author's surveys of rock art and rock inscriptions conducted in upmost Tibet between 1995 and 2013.

El presente trabajo aborda el estudio de la figura del servidor del ka durante el periodo cronológico del Reino Antiguo. Por medio de una amplia selección de fuentes se emprende la reconstrucción de las principales características que definieron este título ahondando en sus funciones específicas y en los contextos en los cuales las ejercieron. El carácter de la documentación nos ha impuesto un enfoque iconográfico y de análisis textual y arqueológico que combinado ha permitido obtener el máximo rendimiento posible a la evidencia disponible. Con ello, el servidor del ka se revela como una figura fundamental en la implementación de la religión funeraria del Reino Antiguo. Su papel principal fue efectuar el culto debido a los difuntos particulares garantizando su bienestar a través de la presentación de ofrendas. Pese a ser este su carácter primario, su posición como un miembro del grupo de parentesco del propietario le sitúa, además, como una parte activa en la gestión de las propiedades del difunto con el objetivo de garantizar los productos necesarios para el culto funerario. This book examines the figure of the ka-servant during the chronological period of the Old Kingdom (Third to Sixth Dynasties).

Over 40,000 lethal bronze weapons were discovered with thousands of terracotta warriors in the tomb complex of the Qin First Emperor (259-210 BC). This book carries out the first systematic and comprehensive study on these weapons to investigate the mass production and labour organisation in early imperial China. The research draws upon extensive measurements, typological analysis and related statistical treatment, as well as a study of the spatial distribution of the bronze weapons. A combination of metrical and spatial data is used to assess the degree of standardisation of the weapons' production, and to evaluate the spatial patterns in the array of the Terracotta Army. This provides further information about the labour organisation behind the production, transportation and placement of weapons as they were moved from the workshop and/or arsenal to the funeral pits. Integrating these insights with inscriptions, tool marks, and chemical analysis, this book fills a gap in the study of mass production, the behaviour of craftspeople, and related imperial logistical organisation in the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC), marking the most crucial early stage in Chinese political unification.

El paisaje urbano maya: del Preclásico al Virreinato lleva a cabo una reflexión en torno a ese término en el ámbito de la cultura maya. El volumen se aproxima desde diferentes perspectivas: urbano, contextual, arquitectónico e iconográfico, es decir, todos aquellos aspectos que inciden en la configuración del entorno en el que las diferentes comunidades mayas se desarrollaron. Las contribuciones ofrecen nuevas interpretaciones sobre el funcionamiento urbano y las dinámicas cotidianas que en muchos de ellos ocurrieron desde el preclásico tardío, a lo largo del clásico y hasta época colonial. Esa mezcla entre versiones actualizadas de espacios clásicos en la bibliografía y nuevos espacios hasta la fecha desconocidos otorga al libro un valor importante que permite transformarse en referencia para colegas y estudiantes, tanto del ámbito de la cultura maya, como de aquellos que se interesan por el análisis del paisaje cultural como simbiosis entre lo natural y la acción humana como binomio a lo largo del tiempo y del espacio.This series of essays reflects on the concept of the Maya Cultural Landscape, using, amongst other things, the archaeological record, urban and architectural models, and the study of iconography.

Chadwell St Mary is a village in the unitary authority of Thurrock, in southern Essex. This part of the county contains a high proportion of prehistoric settlement. This volume describes the archaeological excavation of a site to the east of Chadwell St Mary and the late Bronze Age and Anglo-Saxon settlements that were recorded there. The Bronze Age settlement contains a ringwork or 'Springfield style enclosure', relatively rare sites with a restricted geographical distribution, and is significant because of its proximity to the similar site at Mucking. This volume examines the function of such enclosures, their significance in the landscape of southern Essex, and looks, in general, at our current understanding of the utilisation of the Bronze Age landscape. The small Anglo-Saxon settlement is of significance due to its potential relationship with the larger contemporary settlement at Mucking. The book examines Anglo-Saxon structures and settlement form and layout.

Stories from the Edge identifies a methodology to illuminate the early medieval history of places that lack the compelling evidence to be included in national surveys of the period. It demonstrates that even in seemingly unpromising places something can be said about the people of the period. In landscape terms it is a study of the little world, the local, the manorial complex with its church and burial place, a micro-topography, investigating the construction of social memory. Through this we see the way the early medieval landscape was perceived and how people engaged with it in a creative and imaginative series of responses. Their past and present were negotiated and expressed through the landscape. It is about stories and storytelling, about the creation of memory, the invention of home, spirituality and social hierarchy. This study re-tells some of those stories and recaptures the early medieval sense of place in Pirehill. Above all though, this is an account of living in a mutable landscape and the stories people once told there.

Inspired by a session held at the EAA conference in Vilnius in 2016, The Life Biography of Artefacts and Ritual Practice focuses on creating biographies from material culture as a means of understanding the relationship between the life of an artefact, the temporality of ritual practices and an object's final deposition. The temporal and geographic scope of these chapters range from Mesolithic Scandinavia, Neolithic practices found across Eastern, Central, Northern and Western Europe and stretches into the Eneolithic, Copper Age and early Bronze Age of central Europe. This volume explores the idea that one can create a narrative of an artefacts' life-biography by engaging various scientific methods and theoretical approaches. With a foreword by Joshua Pollard.

Gold studies on the Indian Ocean- West Philippine/ South China Sea world system have tended to focus on global and often homogenous patterns in the fields of archaeology and history. However, there is increasing interest in pursuing the gold studies by starting from the putative 'peripheries' from where gold nuggets were mined in crude tunnels or panned in streams. Remote Sensing the Margins of the Gold Trade shows how Igorot societies negotiated their peripherality in the expansive porcelain-for-gold exchange system that was creeping onto their shores. The research looks at how the Igorot miners practiced their agency through their participation in tabu-tabuans or evanescent market encounter at the coastal trading centers. The findings are based on multiscalar and multidisciplinary analyses using regional GIS data, high resolution multispectral satellite remote sensing data, ethnographic data, primary and secondary written historical data, archival maps and images, oral tradition data, and archaeological data on the Early Historical to Historical period.

The Edge of Europe addresses the significance of Romanian WWI sites as places of remembrance and heritage. By measuring the case of Maramures against national and international heritage standards the work demonstrates that the Prislop Pass places of war hold heritage value both in terms of physical preservation and in terms of mapping the memorial-historical record. As well as providing the first ever gazetteer and survey of WWI sites on the Eastern Front, Roman's research suggests a model of conflictual landscape for approaching aspects of previously unexplored material culture of war and a tool kit for the assessment of unrecognised heritage.