Books published by BAR Publishing

This research takes the form of a regional study of those parts of North West England, which comprise the area known as Lancastria (Cheshire, Merseyside, Greater Manchester and Lancashire, together with the Unitary Authorities for Blackpool, Blackburn with Darwen, Holton and Warrington, and also southern Cumbria and the western extremities of West Yorkshire) in the later Prehistoric Period circa 2800-500 cal. BC. The study investigates why the scientific construction of knowledge about the prehistoric inhabitants of Lancastria has focused so much on individual artefacts and single sites removed from their landscape context. It asks why the knowledge and understanding assembled by archaeologists has had so little to do with studies of change over the longterm. It examines some of the circumstances that shaped these approaches over the past 400 years tracing the parting of the ways between scientific and popular knowledge of the past. Specific research objectives of the study are to recontextualise the interrelationships between objects, monuments and landscape to facilitate a diachronic study of change in later prehistoric Lancastria; to explore the influence of local and regional contexts on strategies of exploitation, interaction, connectivity and interdependence amongst the prehistoric inhabitants of the region; to explore the changing role of technology and material culture in ordering and representing changing social identity; and to develop a model for the social reproduction of small-scale society through time within the region.

This study builds on the work of the archaeologist Jose-Maria De Navarro to examine a particular celtic scabbard decoration, of two facing s-shaped dragons. The book contains maps of the distribution of these artefacts, and a full catalogue, together with an analysis of the iconography of the design. French text.

Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology 64Series Editors: John Alexander and Laurence Smith

Acts of the XIVth UISPP Congress, University of Liège, Belgium, 2-8 September 2001Colloque / Symposium 9.45 papers from the session on Atlantic Megaliths from Acts of the XIVth UISPP Congress, University of Liège, Belgium, 2-8 September 2001.

Basal-looped spearheads were prevalent in the British Isles during the later part of the Middle Bronze Age. Their main period of use covered the Taunton and Penard industrial phases in Britain, and the contemporary Bishopsland phase in Ireland, dating to around 1300-1000 BC. Distribution also extended to the northwestern area of Continental Europe. The diagnostic attribute of these spearheads is the loops at the base of the blade, either incorporated within the blade, or projecting below it. Ireland is likely to have been the place of origin of the category, with manufacturing taking place in Ireland, Britain and on the Continent. 551 basal-looped spearheads are included in the study's catalogue. 54% of these come from Britain, 32% from Ireland and 14% from the Continent. A typology is developed for the category, sorting them into eight main types and establishing the chronological sequence of these types. Recovery contexts are weighted to watery locations at 80% of the total, supporting the interpretation that much of the deposition was purposeful, and represented a form of votive offering. The condition of the spearheads is analyzed, from which it can be concluded that at least two thirds had been used in some form of combat. An experimental programme was undertaken with replicas which were combat tested at the Royal Armouries, Leeds. The programme demonstrated the versatility of the basal-looped spearhead, and its overall superiority to the rapier, the main contemporary sidearm. The basal-looped spearhead may therefore be considered the primary weapon of its time in the British Isles, with use in warfare and on ceremonial occasions. Its supremacy began to be eclipsed during the Penard phase with the introduction of the early flange-hilted swords from the Continent.

This study is the first gendered study of the prehistoric rock art of Naquane National Park in Valcamonica, northern Italy. Its purpose is to identify and describe gendered representations and imagery in the rock art of Naquane, in order to reconstruct potential gender roles, gender relations and ritual activities during the Bronze and Iron Age periods. The social role of art in non-western cultures is explored, as well as recent work on gender studies in archaeology and rock art, with a view towards placing the prehistoric rock art of Naquane within a social and cultural context. Gender-specific access to and usage of the rock art sites during successive phases of prehistory is considered and analysis is presented of the possible rituals being portrayed in the rock art and their potential social implications. Discussion also focuses on the social and ritual construction of femininity and masculinity during different chronological periods, as well as upon possible gendered motifs and sexual imagery in the rock art. The study concludes with a discussion of the incidence of over-carving and the incorporation of earlier images into later rock art panels, considering potential reasons why certain earlier carvings were actively curated among the predominantly male-orientated Iron Age rock art.

The manuscript which eventually came to be called "Domesday Book" is a product of the enterprise originally known as the "Descriptio totius Angliae", the survey carried out in 1086, twenty years after the Norman Conquest, by order of King William I. This manuscript does not stand alone. It is the latest of four successive versions of the written record of the survey. Intrinsically the least valuable, it has gained in value over time, as the earlier versions have dropped out of existence. But they have not disappeared completely. Part of the immediately preceding version survives as the companion volume to "Domesday Book"; part of the version preceding that survives, for some unknown reason, in the library of Exeter Cathedral, even though it was, without any doubt, written in the king's treasury at Winchester. The earliest version of all - the only version in which the data were recorded cadastrally, county by county, hundred by hundred, village by village, manor by manor - has been entirely lost in the original; yet for most of one county a copy survives, in a late twelfth-century manuscript from Ely. This book begins with a sequence of chapters which analyse some aspects of the manuscript evidence, from a new angle, or in closer detail than before, working backwards from the latest version towards the earliest. The last two chapters reassemble the evidence to create a new picture of the conduct of the survey, in both its fieldwork and its post-fieldwork phases.

Reconstructing an actual, conceptual and documented Wiltshire landscapeThe main argument of this thesis is that the landscape and locality of Clarendon Forest and Park (some 6 km east of Salisbury, Wiltshire, England) were strongly influenced by the presence (or, later, absence) of Clarendon Palace, which fell into decay in the late fifteenth century. The first sure evidence of a royal residence at Clarendon dates from the reign of Henry I (1100-1135), although the site may well have Saxon connections. A primary aim of this work is to restore the wider conceptual landscape by considering the forest alongside the relict landscape of the park, and it is argued throughout that, because medieval forests are archaeologically elusive, the best way to achieve this is through an intensive documentary methodology. Attention is drawn throughout to the capacity of documents to illustrate how estates were managed over time. The argument, representing an unprecedented systematic study of manuscript sources for Clarendon Park and Forest held at central and regional record offices, is supported by references to printed primary sources. It has resulted in the compilation of a main computer database listing over 800 relevant documents held at the Public Record Office alone, from which those that might prove most useful were selected and transcribed. The transcriptions, arranged by subject, form several substantial and searchable electronic databases facilitating cross-checking and comparison. The written sources themselves have informed the structure of the work and help to illustrate that this unique landscape and locality was indeed profoundly influenced by the existence of a royal park and palace at its centre. Nevertheless, what has emerged strongly in the course of the study are the myriad ways in which the forest, in turn, shaped the 'lifecycle' of the palace.

From the Early Minoan period to the Late Minoan IB destruction in Crete

The Peloponnese forms an approximate cultural province. The precise delimitation of a cultural province, even for a restricted archaeological period, is not always easy to define. Over a time-span of some three thousand years, which witnessed probably considerable climatic and ecological changes, and certainly the development of a great diversity of pottery types, it is not to be expected that cultural boundaries should remain constant. In the earliest stages of the Neolithic period it could be argued on the ceramic evidence that all the Greek mainland, from Macedonia to Laconia, constituted one province, while during what is generally known as the Middle Neolithic period, the same area could be subdivided into five or six zones. With this qualification, however, the pottery of the Peloponnese is on the whole sufficiently distinguished from that of its northern neighbours by style and technique to justify treating the region as a single cultural unit. This is more clearly apparent in some phases than in others. It was decided originally to take the whole Neolithic Age as the chronological framework for the study, principally because it was thought that a unified study of the development, changes and relationships of all the Neolithic pottery from one region might make a useful contribution to the elucidation of Greek and Aegean prehistory. It is, too, a moment in man's history that has a certain stadial unity of its own, at least in this part of the world. It starts with his first efforts to control the environment through agriculture and animal husbandry, and ends with the rapid expansion of trade and intercourse that accompanied the development of metallurgical techniques in the Early Bronze Age.

In this work, the author aims to arrive at a meaningful frame of reference for the earliest occupation of Eurasia. The basis for this endeavour, and the subject of the first part of this study, is a solid chronology of occupation founded on a critical assessment of the evidence. This chronology is then compared to that of various events in and aspects of the evolution of global and regional climates and ecologies, as well as various events in and aspects of hominin evolution itself. Archaeological and biological clues to changing behaviour in Africa and Eurasia over the timespan of 2.5-0.3 Ma are assessed against the background of changing climate and environments in the second part of this work. These form the background against which an attempt is made to provide a context of behavioural and cognitive evolution leading to these earliest colonizations. The primary goal of this discussion of the earliest occupation of Eurasia therefore is not to present the earliest dates with as many dots as possible in remote corners of the World map: the primary goal is to understand how, because of which factors of change, these dots appeared

Merida was founded in the years immediately preceding the birth of Christ on the Roman crossroads linking Toledo and Lisbon, with Salamanca and Seville. Known at its peak as a miniature Rome, its monuments, temples, and public works make it the site of some of the most celebrated Roman remains in Spain. In this work, the author studies the theatre and amphitheatre from the point of view of construction and, in particular, the phases of wall building. The result is a detailed, course-by-course, picture of these two famous structures and their wider contexts, offering a new archaeological basis for the history of the city of Merida.

This volume is derived from a symposium entitled "Theory and Practice in Chinese Pleistocene Archaeology" at the 65th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology 2000, in Philadelphia, PA. The 12 papers include: Current Research in Chinese Pleistocene Archaeology: an Introduction; Davidson Black and his role in Chinese Papaeoanthropology; Retrospect of 50 Years of Palaeolithic Archaeology in China; Biostratigraphy, Taphonomy, Palaeoenvironment and Hominid Diet in the Middle and Late Pleistocene of China; New Palaeolithic Discoveries in the Middle Yangzi River Region, Southern Cina; New Evidence of Hominid Behaviour from Xiaochangliang, Northern China: Site Formation and Lithic Technology; Taphonomy of an Early Pleistocene Archaeofauna from Xiaochangliang, Nihewan Basin, North China; Faunal Approaches to Site Formation Processes at Panxian Dadong; Electron Spin Resonance (ESR) Dating of Mammalian Tooth Enamel at Panxian Dadong Cave, Guizhou, China; ESR Dating of Early Pleistocene Archaeological Sites in China; The Jinniushan Hominid in Anatomical, Chronological, and Cultural Context; Remarks on Chinese Pleistocene Archaeology.

This volume presents the results of a statistical approach applied to assemblages of grave goods (and a use-wear analysis of the stone artefacts) found in the Neolithic settlements of Ca n'Isach (Girona, Spain), the storage pits of Bòbila Madurell (Barcelona, Spain), and the burial-fields of Sant Pau del Camp (Barcelona, Spain), Camí de Can Grau (Barcelona, Spain) and Bòbila Madurell. The main aim of the research was to attempt to understand some aspects of the socio-economic organization of the ancient people buried in these necropolises. The author set himself the task of not only describing the archaeological material and presenting some economic and chronological hypotheses, but also attempted to define some aspects of the social structure of these human groups. The selection of sites, especially the burial-grounds, was carefully made and determined by a number of factors (burials dated to the Early and Middle Neolithic period in the Northeast region of the Iberian Peninsula (5th-4th Millennium cal BC); the majority of the burials were single ones; and the state of preservation of the anthropological, grave goods and stone remains was good or excellent. Altogether, 117 graves were analysed.

An integrated study of the archaeological plant and animal remains from rural and urban sites, using modern ethnographic information to develop a model of economic organisation and contactBradford Monographs in the Archaeology of Southern Asia 1This study compares two environmentally very different regions in The North West Frontier Province of Pakistan, during the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age, in order to better understand their contrasting subsistence strategies. The two regions under study are the valleys of Dir and Swat in the North, and the Charsadda District in the Vale of Peshawar, and these areas represent very different cultural inhabitants during this period. The study deals primarily with the period of settlement stretching from 1700-1000 BC, and this comes between the final stages of the Harappan Civilisation and the beginning of the early historic cities of Charsadda and Taxila. This is a period that has been traditionally considered one of cultural unrest, and this book looks at archaeological and environmental evidence from both old and new sources in order to gain a better perspective on this apparent period of discontinuity in these two regions. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of plant and animal remains in order to understand the development of subsistence strategies over time. Ethnographic studies were also carried out in order to gain a model of subsistence land use in these areas, and these are compared to the archaeological evidence, some of which is new, some of which is a re-examination of previous studies. This allows conclusions to be formed over how important certain factors are on subsistence strategies in the regions in question, contrasting between geographical and environmental situations on one side, and other factors such as culture, race and religious beliefs.

An extensive study of city planning in the Greek Archaic colonies (Sicily and Southern Italy) from Hippodamus and beyond. The author sets out to consider the legacy of the great planner and those projects he may have contributed to. The first section of the work focuses on 12 specific sites (Syracuse, Metapontum, Selinus, Neapolis, etc.), while the second section traces the developmental features of the characteristic grid pattern of the planned city, taking into account the social, economic, and political aspects that evolved. The detailed bibliography includes sub-sections arranged by site.

Just over two thousand years ago, Julius Caesar set into motion events that would culminate in the conquest of the tribes of Gaul. It is to the coins of one of these tribes that this book addresses itself. The Coriosolites inhabited what is now Cotes-d'Armor in Brittany. The tribe has left a large number of coins: more than 20,000 are recorded, and no Celtic tribe is so well represented. Large hoards of these coins have been found in Jersey, Brittany, and Normandy. Foremost among these is the La Marquanderie hoard from Jersey, consisting of over 11,000 coins. The La Marquanderie hoard forms the basis of this book. The further strength of this engagingly-written study is its appeal to a wide range of interests: it is not just a catalogue of coins, but a case study of Celtic religious philosophy and aesthetics, referring to such apparently disparate subjects as poetry, physics, and psychology. (The Appendices show all the flow charts in addition to an Index of Design Elements and a concordance between the author's coin numbers and Rybot's. There is also a Quick Identification Chart with which any Coriosolite coin may be classified in a few minutes.)

In essence, this is a book about the female body. The Neolithic figurative representations examined here form part of what is traditionally called Levantine Rock Art or, more recently, Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin of the Iberian Peninsula. The region is understood to have occupied the whole of the Mediterranean Fringe, the coastal and pre-coastal regions of the Eastern Iberian Peninsula, from the foothills of the Pyrenees to the mountainous regions in the interior of the south-east of the Iberian Peninsula. The author's main interest is centred on recovering, documenting, and analyzing the greatest number of female representations in the Levantine panels. The aim was to explain them in relation to the social practices in which they were involved, based on the activities represented. (The surviving representations produced in this artistic style were declared an element of World Heritage by UNESCO in 1998.)

Papers from a session held at the European Association of Archaeologists Fifth Annual Meeting in Bournemouth 19998 papers on Ethno-archaeology and its transfers from a session of the European Association of Archaeologists conference at Bournemouth in 1999. The sites covered range from Siberia to Indonesia and the topics discussed from modern day pottery studies in present day-Africa to Neolithic sickle harvesting in Cantabrian Spain.

With contributions by Caroline Cartwright, Rosa Ma Flores Ramírez, Catherine Liot, Elizabeth López Rincón, Ma Teresa Ramírez Herrera and Gerardo Villanueva

Detailed report on rescue excavations on the Roman and Byzantine village of Sumaqa. The excavations unearthed remains of a synagogue, several residential areas, workshops, extraordinary oil and wine presses, and burial caves. All finds are discussed with extensive chapters on Roman and Byzantine pottery, glass, coins, faunal and floral remains, and architecture.With contributions by Y. Ben Ephraim, S. Chaim, J. Drory, M. Henig, L.K. Horwitz, G.L. Jacobson, A. Kindler, S.A. Kingsley, O. Lernau, N. Liphschitz, A. Tsatskin, Y. Turnheim and M. Weinstein-Evron

Eight studies of First Millennium AD burials in Crimea, England and southern Scandinavia.Papers from a session held at the European Association of Archaeologists Fourth Annual Meeting in Göteborg 1998Collection of eight papers which treat three different areas of study: Late Scythian cemeteries, Anglo-Saxon England and southern Scandinavia. Two main dimensions of society were studied: ethnicity and social status, both expressed through material culture and mortuary customs.

After defining the framework of this study, describing the archaeological evidence for metallurgy dating from the emergence of the first copper finds (c. 4500 BC) to the establishment of tin/bronze technology in central Europe, this book provides an overview of the projects that provided the trace element analyses for this research. The database of this study has been assembled, according to several criteria, from those projects which have compiled c. 35 000 trace element analyses of copper and bronze objects from all over the 'Old World'. Various criteria, such as the location and date of each analysed object, must be confirmed by literature, so that a trace element analysis can be added to the database of this study. Access to the database is provided in the catalogue via an online download, which includes some of the output, graphs and diagrams resulting from the statistics. A further chapter ascertains the impact of both ore formation and the technical processes of early copper metallurgy, such as smelting and casting, on the trace element composition of copper objects. Apart from the metallurgical literature, this study also refers to archaeometallurgical studies that have investigated the properties of prehistoric copper artefacts. Following the discussion of the possible effects of impurities on copper and their importance for the prehistoric metallurgist, the database of trace element analyses is investigated in respect of the research questions. A subsequent chapter further explores the method discussed and the statistical evaluation and results are presented.

This book focuses on the historic use of lime as a soil additive, and sets liming in the context of agricultural land improvement alongside draining, paring, marling and the use of other soil conditioners. It is concerned with the Central Pennines, centred on the Yorkshire Dales National Park (N England), and adjacent lowlands. Previous work has tended to concentrate on kilns as industrial monuments or on archaeological investigations of lime burning and quarrying sites. No other detailed regional study of the history of agricultural liming has been identified in the literature. The book examines the time frame during which liming is known to have been practised, and investigates whether or not widespread liming was largely a phenomenon of the era of parliamentary enclosure; it looks into the spatial extent within which land was limed, whether dominantly moorlands and upland wastes or lowlands as well; and investigates the possibility that liming was not just undertaken where limestone bedrock occurs but also more widely; and considers the possibility that the benefits of liming may have been appreciated at all levels of the farming hierarchy rather than just by landowners and their stewards and agents. An empirical, evidence-based approach was adopted with data having been obtained by both field- and deskbased methods. Archaeological excavation was employed, alongside the field surveying techniques of landscape archaeology, to identify the spatial distribution of liming and to isolate examples of late medieval or early modern lime burning. Extensive archival research concentrated on estate, manorial and farm records and on contemporary written sources.

15 essays on the archaeology and history of the ancient world: peripheral and cross-continental approaches.

Collection survey, scientific analysis and preventive conservationThis work focuses on the research findings from a collection survey of Euro-Mediterranean post-Byzantine ecclesiastical garments, known as sakkoi, from the Holy Mountain of Athos located in Chalkidiki, Greece. The sakkos appeared to be an evolution of the Greek chiton (10th - 8th BC) to the Roman dalmatic (180- 192 AD). The study begins with a discussion of the nomenclature, while it addresses the issue prevalent in Byzantine and post-Byzantine research, as to the historical provenance of this liturgicalgarment. Different approaches ranging from art historic and semiotic research to scientific examination using sophisticated analytical techniques are applied, in order to introduce a cultural, historical and technological context of the garments. The Mount Athos sakkoi, never previously researched, date from the end of the 15th to the 20th century and they are garments worn by Patriarchs, Bishops, and Emperors. The survey examines fifty two sakkoi from fourteen monasteries, identifying constructional andstylistic details, material components using analytical techniques (Optical Microscopy, HPLC and SEM-EDS) and technological evidence such as fibres, dyes, metal threads and weaving techniques, whilst analysing the sources of degradation and decay. This research demonstrates not only the scope of a conservation collection survey methodology for elucidating new information about specific items but also it's potential to add to the knowledge relating to the history, development and use of such garments. A major goal of the study was to enable intellectual access to this inaccessible collection and the mechanism for disseminating this information. Major attention was also drawn on new preventive conservation approaches that can be adopted to preserve the items as a 'living' collection, including guidelines for the continuation of production of those garments. The spiritual dimension of these artefacts is thus discussed within the framework of conservation ethics. This research offers for the very first time,a complete assemblage of knowledge regarding the production, synthesis, condition and display of the ecclesiastical Athonian sakkoi.

Actes du colloque international organisé à Lyon les 1 er et 2 décembre 2006, Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée

Hominin Occupation and Technological Evolution in the Imjin-Hantan River Area, Korea.Foreword by Seonbok Yi

This study explores the influence of Near Eastern military architecture on the Egyptian 20th-Dynasty 'castle' (Migdol) at Medinet Habu.

Between the emergence of insular characters and Middle-Eastern traditional reminiscences, the Khirokitian Culture (Late Aceramic Neolithic period; from the 7th millennium to the middle of the 6th millennium cal. BC), which forms the core of this study, can be considered as the result of a colonizing process which started in Cyprus at the end of the 9th millennium cal. BC. The study of the bone industries of Khirokitia, in the south of the island, and of Cap Andreas-Kastros, at its eastern extremity which yielded a total of 2451 artefacts, allowed the author to follow two principal aims. Firstly, it was advisable to measure the part Middle-Eastern tradition played in these productions and to uncover their original character. In addition the island provided the possibility of studying sedentary agro-pastoral communities in an insular context where development occurred in a certain isolation, without a regular relationship with the mainland. The study therefore centred on the question of understanding and measuring the effect of this isolation on the nature of the relationships between these communities and their environment, and on the formation of the bone industry.