Books published by BAR Publishing

This study examines the excavation of a villa rustica located in the south-east suburbs of Naples. This villa has been attributed to C. Olius Ampliatus because during the excavation a signaculum with his name was discovered. The excavated building was built in the late second century BC and enlarged in the time of Augustus and destroyed during the famous eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. This intact Roman villa of the Imperial period contained machinery for the production of wine and olive oil, and the parsurbana of the house was decorated with mosaics in opus signinum. In the basement below the torcularium was found the body of the vilicus who sought refuge there during the catastrophe.

The book is the result of three years of excavations (2005-2008) on the north-west side of Rome's Via dei Fori Imperiali, directly behind the Forum area. Contexts and landscapes extending from the Archaic period (6th century B.C.) to the time of Augustus have been discovered. Two wealthy houses from the Archaic period, destroyed most likely by the great fire of 390 B.C. and quickly rebuilt afterwards, were found in the area towards the south-eastern slope of the Capitoline Hill. They were subsequently dismantled during the construction of Caesar's Forum, which had occupied the entire area. This feature was originally 20 metres shorter than the one we know today and the many facets of its interesting story are fully discussed in these pages.

Excavation of the overflow burial ground of St Peter's Collegiate Church, Wolverhampton 2001-2002Birmingham Archaeology Monograph Series 3Between October 2001 and January 2002, Birmingham University Field Archaeology Unit (now Birmingham Archaeology) carried out archaeological explorations on the overflow burial ground of St Peter's Collegiate Church, Wolverhampton, in the English Midlands. The excavations revealed evidence of activity prior to the use of the area as a burial ground. Two pits and a gully were found, highly truncated, but may be associated with the grounds of a Deanery, which stood in this area during the medieval period. The excavations recorded 152 human burials, dating to the mid-19th century. The majority of the burials were found with scant remains of wooden coffins and had been subject to the intercutting of graves and truncation by later building activity. Seven brick vaults were found, six of which had been emptied, probably during an earlier graveyard clearance. The intact vault and earth-cut burials were found in the south-eastern part of the development site, which appeared not to have been cleared. The preservation of human bone was generally good, despite the high levels of truncation. The sample provided a good opportunity for research into the health and lifestyles of the local population. Anthropological analysis was carried out on 150 skeletons, revealing some striking results. An assessment of the pathology of the skeletons revealed a wide variety of diseases, conditions and trauma, including cases of tuberculosis, osteoarthritis, infectious diseases, syphilis, malignant tumours, and dental diseases. The archaeological evidence, scientific analysis of the skeletal remains, and the documentary research provide an important basis from which to reconstruct the lives and deaths of the people living in central Wolverhampton during the 19th century. The authors hope this project will help to demonstrate the usefulness of such assemblages and the wealth of information that can be gleaned from archaeological, scientific, and documentary analysis.With contributions by Iraia Arabaolaza, Lynne Bevan, Anthea Boylston, Gary Coates, Leonie Driver, Rowena Gale, Annette Hancocks, Emma Hancox, Erica Macey-Bracken, Charlotte Neilson, Paola Ponce, Stephanie Ratkái and Sarah Watt. Illustrations by Nigel Dodds and Kevin Colls.

This monograph presents the results of archaeological recording along two South West Water pipelines, between Tintagel and Boscastle and between Harlyn Bay and Padstow. The sequence began with Mesolithic lithics and continued through pits with Early Neolithic ceramics, with Grooved Ware and with Beaker pottery. A Middle Bronze Age roundhouse of unusual character had been submerged by colluvium and produced a mould for a copper alloy racloir, an artefact more commonly found in Continental Europe. There were Bronze Age field walls, and a modified 'natural' stone, a focus for prehistoric activity. At Forrabury, uniquely in Cornwall, Early Iron Age cists were revealed, and, close to the well-known later Iron Age cemetery at Harlyn Bay, an Iron Age to Romano-British settlement was uncovered beneath blown sand. The terrain of each pipeline had its own distinctive character and a concluding discussion explores the archaeology of successive periods against this and against the background of Cornish prehistory.Contributors: Dana Challinor, Tim Gent, James Gossip, Lorraine Higbee, Joanna Higgins, Julie Jones, Anna Lawson-Jones, Ian Longworth, Brendan O'Connor, Clare Randall, Roger Taylor and Tom Walker

This volume presents the study of a number of variants of Romano-Hispanic burial rituals. The research was carried out focusing on structural typologies, the analyses of materials found in the necropolis, the development of the burial practices, and the specificity of a variety of solutions (local and regional) adopted by the inhabitants of Roman Spain. This study is not only based on a primarily archaeological approach, but also takes into account other disciplines such as ancient history, iconography, anthropology and the history of religions. The main purpose of the study is to update the current state of research in burial rites in classical cultures and, above all, Hispanic cultural practices. All this provides plenty of largely new information that will enlighten future research.

A festschrift for Professor Angelika Geyer to mark her 65th birthday.

This book presents aspects of research on the archaeological investigations at the multi-period site of Priniatikos Pyrgos and surrounding area. Incorporating the Vrokastro Survey Project, the Istron Geoarchaeological Project, the Priniatikos Pyrgos Excavation Project and other researches, this volume presents interdisciplinary case-studies that deal with domestic, technological and mortuary practices at the site and how these relate to settlement and resource exploitation in the surrounding landscape. This is set within its environmental context at the local and regional levels, assessing both long term processes and shorter term events. The visual representation of materials and settlement complexity are approached using a combination of established and novel digital methods.

This work aimed to study the Roman lamps collected in Alcáçova de Santarém. The set is formed by a total of 393 unpublished fragments, although some references to some complete lamps in archaeological reports. Given the high fragmentation of the set, wasnot easy his classification and interpretation. Chronologically, the lamps was dated between the last quarter of the second century BC and the beginning of the fifth century AD. However, the largest volume of lychnological imports is from the High Empire. After the early second century AD, Scallabis seems to suffer a reduction of economic purchase which may be due to several factors, symptom that also is reflected by the Roman lamps.

The study of the Monument of the Lucilii aims to piece together the historical events of an important tumulus from the Age of Augustus, built approximately 470m outside the ancient site of the gate of Porta Salaria of the Aurelian Walls of the city of Rome. It was commissioned by an eminent member of the ordo equester (equestrian order), M. Lucilius Paetus, perhaps following the death of his sister: Lucilia Polla. As yet, the only written source that provides information about this familial sepulchre and on the cursus honorum (sequence of offices) of its owner, is the inscription on the eastern side of the monument. This study provides a careful analysis of the archival documents, along with a series of new measurements/data and photographs of the sepulchre that had a brief existence, on account of the interment of the entire Sepolcreto Salario (Salario sepulchres area) - attributed to Trajan by Rodolfo Lanciani, the first archaeologist involved with the area - resulting from the levelling of the hill that originally connected Quirinale to Campidoglio. Prior to this research, the Age of Augustus monument in question, as well as the subsequent building phases (also examined here), have not been given the attention due to them in either the archaeological or epigraphical literature, nor in the various analysis of the drawings of the ancient monuments. Amongst the principal studies, the following merit attention: the research done by Carlo Pietrangeli with drawings by Rosa Falconi - until today the only cohesive treatise of the monument; Michael Eisner's work on sepulchral buildings in suburbs of Rome and Ségolène Démougin's study on the inscriptions of the Julio-Claudian equites.

This book includes papers presented on Current Research in Sasanian Archaeology, Art and History from a Conference held at Durham University, November 3rd and 4th, 2001.

The aim of this volume is to explore a topic which occurs in all cultures from as early as the Upper Palaeolithic, but has so far been underexplored in archaeological literature - the archaeology of dance.

Previous studies of tombstones and inscriptions dedicated to divinities have focused on methods of assigning names in Roman society, the age at marriage and death of demographic populations across the Roman Empire, relations of kinship, marriage, amity and dependence among elite and sub-altern families and communities, and the performance of acts in accordance with traditional forms of belief and custom. The present volume wishes to ask what conclusions can be drawn from the corpus of private Latin inscriptions from Roman Italy about the identity, social condition and cultural activity of men and women participating in the process of epigraphic commemoration and dedication. In particular, this study hopes to demonstrate that women participated as significantly as men in the process in a variety of ways and contexts usually regarded as prominently or exclusively male, and in certain circumstances left behind the trace or residue of a uniquely female perspective on their world.

Edited by Sandra L. Olsen, Susan Grant, Alice M. Choyke, and László Bartosiewicz.This volume constitutes the proceedings of the Horses and Humans Symposium, held in 2000 at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pennsylvania. The four-day symposium brought together academics from Europe, Asia and America from the disciplines of archaeology, art history, history, paleontology, biology, veterinary medicine, animal husbandry and other fields.

Abu Dhabi Islands Archaeological Survey Monograph 1Fishing forms an important activity in many societies throughout the world today and played a significant role in the life and subsistence of many prehistoric societies. Past archaeological research on fishing has often tended to concentrate on particular sites or chronological periods. This study aims to adopt an inter-disciplinary approach to model regional interactions between coastal communities and their environment. The geographical framework for this study is the Arabian Gulf/Gulf of Oman, with aparticular focus on the southern Gulf region and present day coastline of the United Arab Emirates. The environmental and archaeological background to the region is considered first and modern fisheries data, as well as ethnographic data relating to traditional fisheries is presented. An evaluation is carried out of all the archaeological evidence for the adoption of particular fisheries technology. The principal data forming the basis for this study are 23 archaeological fish bone assemblages from sites located throughout the Arabian Gulf/Gulf of Oman. The chronological focus is from the 5th millennium BC to the Late Islamic period. In order to comprehend the regional variation in fisheries, sites were selected on the basis that they represented a variety of site types in different environments scattered throughout the region. This research provides for the first time a detailed insight into the status of past fisheries resources in the region as well as an insight into the fishing strategies utilised by the early coastal inhabitants of the Gulf during the course of the past 7000 years. The work's special focus is on the use of biometrical techniques to enable size reconstruction of economically important fish groups. The overall aim of this research (the first in a planned series of Abu Dhabi Islands Archaeological Survey Monographs) is to consider the interactions between the goals of the coastal societies, their fishing strategies and environment; the work overall goes some way towards addressingsome of the key questions of relevance to the archaeology of south-east Arabia.

In a world where pottery studies have tended to become increasingly insular as the volume of excavated pottery grows ever greater, Roman face pots do in fact provide a discrete body of material that is clearly inter-related and stretches across many Roman provincial boundaries and modern national frontiers, offering a particular insight into the movement of ideas and traditions within the Roman world.

This study focuses on the architectural landscape of the lower Valdarno area, which formerly belonged to the diocese of Lucca and in the 17th century formed the new diocese of San Miniato. Despite the distance from the Bishop, Lucca managed to keep the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of this area until the modern era, while, from a political point of view, these territories gravitated towards Pisa and Florence.

Paris Monographs in American Archaeology 38This volume closely examines and catalogs a limited set of glyphic elements found at the archaeological site of Teotihuacan in Mexico. This study serves as an initial investigation to verify whether these glyphs may be part of a writing system in use at the site. The author looks at two specific sources of glyphs and glyph compounds at Teotihuacan that appear to be the largest sets of co-occurring glyphs and contain the largest number of glyphs. One set, in particular, has not yet been studied in detail and therefore will present new information within this area of research. Furthermore, there has not been a steady or significant amount of glyphic research carried out at Teotihuacan in recent years, since Taube (2000). The investigation was structured to thoroughly analyze the data for similarities between the selected glyphic elements from Teotihuacan and the requirements for writing systems. For that reason, basic linguistic tests were conducted on the data to determine whether the glyphic elements had similarities with those requirements for Mesoamerican writing systems. This work is not a decipherment. Instead, its aim is to verify whether the glyphic elements at Teotihuacan could potentially be a writing system, catalog them in an orderly fashion, conduct a comparative analysis between them and others found within Teotihuacan and elsewhere in Mesoamerica, and conclude whether further research in the way of a complete decipherment is a possibility if future data is uncovered at the site.

Local architectural heritage is an expression of a long-lasting circle of traditions and oral knowledge fostered from one generation to another and revealed through simple or complex architectural realities. It is also a manifestation of economic and social impact on the landscape. Given this assumption, this volume, by means of new building archaeology research approaches, debates the development and the organisation of the fortified architectures, settlements and centres during the medieval age in the historical area of Luni (Lunigiana), a sub-cultural region that stands between Tuscany and Liguria (Italy). The author portrays a complete and summarized picture of the development of the power of the bishopric in the Luni area, promoter of the seigniorial territorialization and castle-building, between the 10th and 14th centuries. The study of the historical architectures adopts a multifaceted methodology that combines building archaeology such as wall stratigraphic relationships, building phases, type-chronology of the architectural elements, and masonry techniques analysis together with more recent dense image modeling and 3D reconstruction techniques.

Papers from a session at the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists, Cork, 5-11 September 2005This book includes five papers from the session 'The Aegean Bronze Age in Relation to the Wider European Context' presented at the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists, Cork, 5-11 September 2005.

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

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.

Liguria, North-West Italy, is a region sited between the Mediterranean and the Alps. Between XVI and XIII c. BC the region experienced continuity and discontinuity in material culture and land occupation strategy. That chronological period, known as Middle and Late Bronze Age, coincided with movements throughout the Central Mediterranean (Aegean Sea to Sardinia-Sicily-Southern Italy) and in Central Europe (Danube Valley until Eastern France and Eastern Italy). Indirect consequences of this movement can be seen in a marginal region like Liguria. A regional panorama of settlements and material culture is presented. Pottery continuity and discontinuity is analyzed and granted new perspectives by applying a techno-typological analytical model.

An extensive sediment sampling project was part of the overall excavation strategy for the Tuscany Site Archaeological Project (EgPn-377), location of the University of Calgary field school from 1995-1997. A series of paleosols in the lower stratigraphy yielded charred botanical remains and other materials like insects and terrestrial mollusks. The charred botanical remains were the focus of this study, enabling a paleoenvironmental reconstruction analysis and a paleoethnobotanical interpretation for people living in the landscape at ~7800 years ago. This study provides a very rare glimpse and summary of some of the in situ paleo-vegetation cover found in a dry-land site on the high plains of North America during the early Holocene.

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.

The study of salt during British prehistory has experienced an awakening during the past 40 years. In this work the author explores the evidence for the production of salt in the coastal regions of Essex, along the south coast and at the Droitwich salt springs in the prehistoric period. The evidence for the distribution of salt from Essex, the south coast and the salt springs of Droitwich and Cheshire is reviewed based upon discussion of briquetage finds. Models for, and implications of, salt distribution networks are considered and a speculative discussion of non-archaeologically visible distribution is also presented. Four case studies comparing Iron Age sites in salt producing and salt using regions are included to establish the relative presence of salt evidence in the archaeological record and its value as a social status discriminator. Finally, information is presented on how salt may have been used in the Iron Age and the social and ritual uses of salt are also discussed. A gazetteer and bibliography of 519 Bronze and Iron Age briquetage find sites is included as an on-line download.

'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 work focuses on the region northeast of the province of Segovia, a transition area between the hills of the Sistema Central and the sedimentary basin of the Douro River, and documents a virtually unknown area from the archaeological point of view. The origin of the work derives from two investigations intending to work towards the Segovia Provincial Archaeological Inventory, and includes material from the Bronze Age to Roman periods.

Normally, in Archaeology, material culture tends to be the main object of study for past societies, especially those who have no written language. In this study the author also assumes that in addition to objects, landscape and spatial patterns are also part of the archaeological record to be analyzed. Today we know that the Iron Age Iberian territories are regional political entities that are characterized by a conscious organization and that prioritize different types of settlements, with a degree of complexity and dynamism consistent with that of other contemporary Mediterranean civilizations. But how can we identify the emergence of complexity in the archaeological record? We must realize we can not excavate the social organization of a community and therefore we must implement other methods of analysis to address such complexity. So just as it is accepted that the identity of human groups is expressed through material culture, the author argues that we expression must accept that the archaeological landscape as socio-cultural construction of these modes of and representation and likewise admit the value of analyzing the associated spatial and geographical processes. In this work the author examines both habitat and landscape variables to address the emergence of sociopolitical complexity in the Western Mediterranean Iron Age.

This book presents an investigation of two of the National Museum of Scotland's older lithic collections, the assemblages from Airhouse and Overhowden in the Scottish Borders. The Airhouse assemblage numbers 558 lithic artefacts and the Overhowden assemblage 109 lithic artefacts. They were both collected in the first part of the 20th Century from locations situated a few hundred metres from the Overhowden Henge (with which they may in some way be associated), and they both embrace a broad spectrum of Late Neolithic tools, with relatively sophisticated, or 'fancy', pieces being notably more prominent than in other collections from this period. The main background to the project is the fact that, in Scotland, several interesting Late Neolithic assemblages have been recovered or written up lately and south of the Anglo-Scottish border many Late Neolithic sites and landscapes have been investigated. As a whole, this new corpus of comparative material offers a unique opportunity to gain insight into the seemingly unusual material from Airhouse/Overhowden by placing it in a wider Late Neolithic context.

South Asian Archaeology Series 14Despite the early beginnings of agriculture in the Ganga plains and the Belan valley, the hunting-gathering way of life has not completely disappeared from the region. Communities like the Musahars live almost entirely by small-game hunting and gathering, whereas others like the Kols combine hunting-gathering with some agriculture, and the Mallah with fishing and agriculture. All three of these communities live a partly nomadic and partly sedentary life and raise several kinds of settlements ranging from temporary ones lasting only a few weeks to permanent ones lasting for many years. In the present study the author reconstructs the lifeways of the past inhabitants of this region though the study of the settlements of the three contemporary simple communities. The author places a particular emphasis on the relationship between subsistence practices, economic activities and mode of the disposal of the dead. The inhabited and abandoned residences and other structures of these three communities have been studied in detail; topics such as form, function, construction materials and techniques, disposal of cultural refuse, and location of burial and cremation grounds, are investigated. The author compares the contemporary settlements with the excavated settlements of Mesolithic and Neolithic-Chalcolithic cultures of the Ganga valley and identifies considerable similarities. The author argues that the settlements of the living communities provide useful insights for reconstructing past settlements.