Books published by BAR Publishing

Researches in Stone Age prehistory from Bihar (NE India) have been reported from as early as the end of the nineteenth century. Despite these reports a sharp picture of the cultural transformation in this area has not emerged clearly. This study attempts to shed light on the various aspects of the cultural transformation processes from all the districts of Bihar.

This work comprises several studies dealing with the society, economy, ideology and power among the mainly tribal, semi-pastoral communities living and moving around the southern arid margins of the southern Levant, particularly the Negev desert, southern Transjordan (ancient Edom) and north-eastern Sinai during the first millennium BCE. All studies revolve around a central concept: the phenomenon of tribalism. In few words, tribalism constituted the framework around which were structured the local groups' social institutions, economy, politics and ideology. Key topics such as the manufacture and circulation of local ceramics, the exploitation and trade of copper and incense, the local socio-political fluctuations and emergence of local chiefdoms, and the ideology of kinship and segmentation are studied under this light.

Approaching precolumbian art in all of its various forms as the material expression of interlocking systems of visual communication opens a rich terrain upon which to further our insights into the cultural and symbolic lives of Andean peoples. For archaeologists, ethnohistorians, and anthropologists interested in such studies, however, it is no simple matter to determine how the varied graphic, artifactual, architectural, and spatial systems of visual communication found in the precolumbian world can or should be interpreted. This volume focuses specifically on the various systems of visual communication created by, or associated, with the imperial Inca state. This collection of papers advances understanding of Inca forms of representation, as well Andean systems more generally, by attending to the formal, contextual, functional, and ideological processes through which they are constructed and within which they are embedded. In essence, the volume constitutes a joint reflection on the important themes of representation and material systems of communication in the Andean context.

The western and southern Roman extramural settlements: A Roman community on the edge of the world. Excavations 1964-1989 and other investigations.Chester Archaeological Excavation & Survey Report 15This is the first detailed, wide-ranging report to be published on excavations in the extramural settlement of the Roman legionary fortress at Chester (north-western England), specifically those around the western side of the fortress. This publication concentrates on ten interventions carried out over twenty-five years in the area to the west and south of the fortress and attempts to summarise in more detail than has been done hitherto discoveries elsewhere around its perimeter. Discussions attempt to characterise the townscape, its development and population, and also to explore the role of the Chester extramural settlement generally. It is hoped that this publication will be useful in providing a context for future fieldwork and analysis. '[This] volume represents an important addition, not only to the literature of Roman Chester, but also to the wider topics of military supply, the nature of extra-mural settlement in the major military sites of the north-western Empire and military/civilian interaction. The authors are to be congratulated on a job exceptionally well done.' The Archaeological Journal (Vol. 169, 2012)Excavations directed by Simon Ward, David Mason, John McPeake, Sybil Rutland and Tim Strickland.Site reports compiled by Simon Ward, David Mason and John McPeake.Volume editors, Peter Carrington with Catrina Appleby and Alison Heke.With other contributions by †Peter Alebon, Justine Bayley, Peter Carrington, H.E.M. Cool, Brenda Dickinson, Gillian Dunn, James Greig, Lesley Harrison, Alison Heke, David Heke, Glenys Lloyd-Morgan, Yannick Minvielle-Debat, Tim Morgan, Gaenor Morris, Quita Mould, Cheryl Quinn, Sharon Roberts, Dan Robinson, Ian Smith, Julie Vint, Margaret Ward and Barbara West

Proceedings of the First Arheoinvest Congress, 10-11 June 2011, Iäi, Romania

This study combines archaeological material from Romano-British forts located in northern Britain with concepts and methods from the New and Processual schools of archaeological theory in order to learn more about the lives of the inhabitants of those forts. The primary goal of the study was the discovery of activity areas within the forts. Secondary goals included the discovery of possible artifact toolkits used in and around the forts and the utilization of information from older excavation reports; it was hoped that computerizing this data would make it more accessible and useful to modern scholars. History and chronology, much of which is based solely upon archaeology, is discussed in Chapter 2 to remind readers of the background information necessary to understand the results of this study. Chapter 3 contains a brief chronological overview of the development of archaeological method and theory concerning northern Roman Britain and corresponding schools of archaeological theory in Britain and the United States. The limitations of the excavation reports used in this study are explained more fully in Chapter 4 and the solutions which were used to circumvent at least partially these limitations are found in Chapters 5 and 6. Chapter 7 shows some aspects of the utility of the database developed for this study by examining the possibility of women living within the forts and the status of those using the various buildings of the forts. Chapter 8 presents the author's conclusions.

This book outlines the discovery and investigation of a Roman fort, enclosing an area of c. 2.1 ha, which overlooks the River Tamar, at Calstock in south-east Cornwall. Extensive geophysical survey has taken place, alongside campaigns of evaluation trenching and area excavation between 2007 and 2010. The fort was established c. AD50/55, and continued in use until c. AD 75/85. The presence of an earlier marching camp is also proposed. The whole site appears to be surrounded by a large polygonal hilltop enclosure that may have Iron Age origins, though may alternatively be of Roman military construction. Activity during the medieval period recommences by the eighth century, with two major phases of timber building in the eleventh / twelfth and twelfth / thirteenth centuries. The parish church of St Andrew sits within the footprint of the fort, and associated burial grounds overlay the northern half of the site. The contexts of Roman military and medieval occupation are discussed within the regional and national context.With contributions by John Allan, Michael J. Allen, Paul Bidwell, Christopher B. Ramsey, Dana Challinor, Hilary Cool, Gordon T. Cook, Alex Croom, Jenny Durrant, Charles French, W. Derek Hamilton, Lorrain Higbee, Michael J. Hughes, Julie Jones, John Meadows, Jo Mills, Henrietta Quinnell, Rob Scaife, Norman Shiel, Roger T. Taylor, Jane Timby, Susan Watts, and Tim Young

Paris Monographs in American Archaeology 33A study of private and public space in Mayan cities.

The aim of this study is to explore the rock-art of the Central Eastern Desert and has three objectives: to outline the petroglyphs' distribution, to date them, and to explain who created them and for what purpose. It focuses in detail on the animal, human and boat images within the geographical and chronological context in which they were created; the landscape of what is now the Central Eastern Desert, and the Naqada, Pharaonic and Greco-Roman Egyptian cultures.

This study outlines the history of the art of ironwork in Italy during the Middle Ages, examining the principal personalities involved, documents and significant episodes. Scientific studies that examine artistic ironwork in Italy are scarce and yet there are ample collections of documents on the arts, in the form of photographic portfolios and manuals, compiled in the late nineteenth century and the first three decades of the twentieth. The first part of this study examines the background, quantifying the legacy of still extant ironwork, and analysing its future in terms of protection, study, imitation, reproduction, reuse and dispersal. Understanding the technical similarities between the processes generally used in the workshops of jewellery-makers and blacksmiths, and attempting to distinguish between original mediaeval works and copies has meant dealing with the problem of techniques, a subject that is examined in some notes on the installation, assembly, decoration, colouring and interpretation of the precepts expounded in the treatises. The main area of focus is on those types of works which are dealt with in greater depth in archive documents, which essentially means monumental ironwork and thus primarily gates and railings. Light is then shed on another series of works - caskets and chests - which appear in large quantities in collections and museums and on those that are still in situ, such as locks and door bolts. The chronological limits of this study are not clear-cut, but the focus is mainly on the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The initial date has had to be pushed back to include Romanesque works

This book includes papers from the session 'Understanding Landscapes, from Land Discovery to their Spatial Organization' from the IUPPS 16th World Congress in Florianopolis, Brazil, 4th-10th September 2011.

The book unveils documents and museum collections related to research and excavations conducted on the Red Sea coast and at Adulis in the 19th and 20th centuries. In examining these materials the author takes the opportunity to discuss the place of Adulis and of the Eritrean coast in the cultural, social and political background of the Northern Horn of Africa from the latest centuries BC to the 7th century AD, so as their place in the Red Sea maritime trade network linking the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean.

This volume contains papers presented at the international conference 'Networks in the Hellenistic world - according to the pottery in the Eastern Mediterranean and beyond' which took place at the universities of Cologne and Bonn 23rd-26th February 2011.The organizers, all specialists in Hellenistic pottery of different regions in the Eastern Mediterranean, invited participants working from the Adriatic Sea to Asia Minor and up to Central Asia to consider their material according to the common platform of networks and exchange systems.

This work examines the public archives and libraries of the Greek world from the late Archaic period to the beginning of Trajan's rule. This study, including a catalogue, focuses on the buildings that housed the archives and libraries, their organisation, and their place in the Greek cities and the Hellenistic kingdoms. The work is aimed both at classicists and at historians of libraries, books and archives, and covers a gap in our knowledge of institutions that were important despite a relative lack of visibility in the literature and the archaeological record, in an ancient civilization that is known for having given birth to one of the most celebrated institutions of knowledge and book preservation in the world: the Great Library of Alexandria.

For more than 50 years, international organizations have been recommending diffusion policies and strategies based on the idea of democratising society's physical and intellectual access to archaeological heritage. A vast array of initiatives, resources,activities and materials has been developed to get archaeological heritage (its message, its goals, its everyday tasks, its agents, etc.) closer to the public and vice versa. This book analyses the Spanish case in the European context, showing all the aspects that show today the on-site presentation and interpretation of archaeological heritage.

This monograph examines the settlement history of a small island off the coast of southeast Crete and its exploitation by the settlements in the southern part of the Ierapetra Isthmus. Recent archaeological discoveries by the 24th Ephorea on Chryssi Island led to an intensive survey that uncovered numerous sites, dating from the Final Neolithic to the Ottoman period. The results from this study provided significant evidence for the exploitation of this small island (i.e. purple dye) through the centuries, and in turn the broader changes in settlement patterns that occurred along the south coast of Crete. Further, the archaeological investigation on Chryssi Island helped better our understanding of the 'colonization' of such marginal landscapes, the insular character of their communities, and their ties with the nearby coastal towns.

This work addresses the question of inter- and intra-site variability and its behavioral significance through a techno-economic analysis of lithic industries and an experimental procedure. For nine lithic assemblages from three sites in South-West of France, Cantalouette 1, Combre Brune 2 and Combe Brune 3, each of the production methods was analyzed based on a quantitative evaluation of all the operational phases present from the procurement of lithic raw materials to the use of the products. The role of experimentation in this procedure is to create specific reference bases that can be compared with the lithic assemblages in order to obtain a better estimation of their techno-economic representation.

Polis-Pyrgos Archaeological Project IThe material presented here is derived from an extensive survey conducted by the Polis-Pyrgos Archaeological Project (PAP) in 1992-1994, 1996-1997, and 1999 in the area between the western bank of the Chrysochou River and Kato Pyrgos in northwestern Cyprus. This is the first comprehensive publication of ceramics and ground stone artefacts from the neighbouring area of Polis tis Chrysochous (Polis), formerly ancient Marion and Arsinoe. The pottery constitutes the bulk of the material. Because of the number of artefacts the material will be presented in two volumes. The main task of each contribution is to present the artefacts recorded in its local, regional and whole island context, as far as possible. The second volume will contain post-prehistoric ceramics, Chalcolithic to Iron Age ground stone artefacts, as well as contribution on the environment and resources.

This research deals with all "skeletal material" finds (bone, ivory and antler) from the work of the three teams excavating at Caesarea Maritima, Israel, over recent years: the Israel Antiquities Authority team; the combined expedition team of the Rekanati Center for Maritime Studies, University of Haifa, and the Department of History, University of Maryland in the United States; and the expedition of the Zienman Institute of Archaeology, University of Haifa. The assemblage includes around 4,000 finds and fragments - a multi-period collection that serves as a solid basis for a thorough discussion and comparison with similar finds from Israel and abroad. To these items were added the bone objects displayed in the Caesarea Museum at Sdot-Yam - surface finds that include some items with no typological parallels within the main assemblage. All the finds are illustrated and catalogued.

This study examines female representation in British Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age (2500 - 1500 BC) funerary practices. Chronology relating to the burial practices is studied, from large scale change over time through to small scale individual chronologies; looking at age representation. In contrast to previous approaches, this study moves beyond purely looking at the grave goods and instead places greater emphasis upon other features of the burials, such as location, form and method. As a result, the methodology used in this study examines the varied forms of this period's burials, yet still considers them as a unit.

The aim of this study is to interpret the scale and nature of the economy of the Eastern Mediterranean in the latter period of the LBA. It does this by using a quantitative approach that estimates the size of the workforce required to meet basic needs (food, clothing, and shelter) and state needs. The quantitative findings are used to assess the proportion of the workforce dedicated to basic and non-basic activities of LBA Cyprus and NK Egypt, based on the food required to support a worker and his dependants. This allows the assessment of the relative economic strengths of each region, the extent to which their economies were embedded within their culture, and their economic interactions with other LBA Eastern Mediterranean states.

The city of Pompeii, or Colonia Cornelia Veneria Pompeiorum, the stage of the action that takes place here, is seen by the author from the perspective of its integration in the macro-economic system of the Roman Empire. The characters that take the centre stage here are slaves, freed slaves and free citizens of low social status, distinguished from others by the place they occupy within relations of oppression and exploitation. In the pages that follow, the author brings the popular Pompeian soul to life, through its manifestations of love, sexuality, anguish and sadness. The work examines particular linguistic expression of popular Latin and, most specifically, through the graffiti written on the walls of a Roman colonial city, rendered there for the attention of the local community.

Roman and Lucanian Grumentum (Potenza province, southern Italy) represents a good archaeological case-study of a site over which no modern city has been built. It was abandoned at the end of the 11th century AD and used as a cultivation area for centuries. The sites provide a highly interesting sequence of data, concerning the first human settlements, the 'Enotrian' and 'Lucanian' phases, the founding of the first city (3rd century BC), the Romanization and the founding of the Roman colony around 50 BC. This book presents the proceedings of a conference on the sites, held in Grumento Nova itself in April 2010. The range of topics is large, from stratigraphical excavations to history, from epigraphy to archaeometry. The chronological range is also wide, from prehistory to modern age.

This book reviews Samian ware chronology, c. AD 150-275. A dating scheme is proposed, based upon the stratigraphic association of Samian ware with coins, and using the statistical strength of association between potters or styles with each other and with dated deposits. A new model is also presented for estimating time-lapses between minting and loss for coins of the period. The results extend Central Gaulish Samian ware later than hitherto supposed, and revise the relative sequence of potters. The average period of use of Samian vessels is often quite long, and therefore, close dating of Samian ware is questioned. A concluding discussion looks at the socio-economic significance of Samian ware decline.

The ritual dimension of land use in both prehistoric and historic societies is a flourishing research issue examined by a growing number of archaeologists, historians, philologists, and anthropologists today. Anatolia, because of the time depth of its human settlement and its geographical as well as cultural diversity, offers a great potential for such studies. The chronological span of these papers stretches from the enigmatic world of Chalcolithic cave paintings at Latmos to the contemporary yet no less mesmerizing reality of sacred spaces in the Yezidi religion. Space in terms of its geographical aspect is equally well covered, reaching from the western and southwestern shores of Asia Minor to the Anatolian highlands, Cappadocia, and the Black Sea littoral, finally touching and crossing the easternmost borders of modern Turkey.

The necropolis of Amarna was used for only a very short period of time and therefore presents a unique opportunity for a 'snapshot' of private tomb architecture. In this study the archaeological material of the Amarna private tombs is processed, categorized and compared to the simultaneous and topical tombs at Thebes. The comparison (supported by the examination of the wall decoration) shows similarities as well as differences, making it possible to work out characteristics and development in the private tomb architecture at Amarna. The analysis shows clearly that in spite of the small time-frame tomb architecture did not remain entirely consistent, but was rich in variation and development and lived up to the new ideas of religion.

The book presents issues relating to the oldest known examples of human mortuary practices from the area of Northern Egypt and dating to the end of the Early Dynastic period. The research surveys changes in sepulchral architecture, offerings, body positioning and other elements of generally understood burial customs. Space is also found for discussions on social stratification, political development of the early Egyptian state and the Lower Egyptian cultural legacy, which contributed to the rich Egyptian civilization. The story focuses on recent archaeological fieldworks with a special stress on the revealing necropolis of Tell el-Farkha.

The third volume of the Anuradhapura series documents the results of six years of settlement survey, excavation and geoarchaeology in the hinterland of the Citadel. Mapping the response of rural communities to the growth of Anuradhapura as Sri Lankan capital and Indian Ocean pilgrimage centre, this interdisciplinary study presents the establishment and consolidation of settlement within the island's Dry Zone and the associated investment in hydraulic infrastructure from the first millennium BC onwards. It also traces the division of hinterland settlement into either Buddhist monastery or agricultural village with an absence of towns as well as the hinterland's subsequent collapse in the eleventh Century AD. Conforming to a model of Tropical Forest 'Low Density Urbanism', this volume presents the most detailed archaeology study of the dynamic and contested nature of a South Asia urban hinterland. (See also BAR S1508 and BAR S824)With contributions from (in alphabetical order) Gamini Adikari, Paul Adderley, Ian Bailiff, Cathy Batt, C. I. Burbidge, A. J. Cresswell, Christopher Davis, Randolph Donahue, Krista Gilliland, Jennifer Jones, Mangala Katugampola, Krishnan Krishnan, Mark Manuel, Gerry McDonnell, Harendralal Namalgamuwa, Umanga Roshani Rammungoda, David Sanderson, Armin Schmidt, Jayampath Senanayake, Ian Simpson, Ben Stern, Keir Strickland and Ruth Young

The Tuoba's success in the development of the Northern Wei as a conquest dynasty in fifth-century northern China is demonstrated as a result of their ability to cross between the traditions and practices of the Chinese sphere and those of the Eurasian steppe, through the construction of a 'dual presence' in the Pingcheng period (398-494 CE). A negotiation of material culture in this formative phase of state-building allowed for new notions of kingship, dynastic identity, and representations of daily life to be (re)created. This was manifested separately through the sculptures at the Yungang grottos, tomb repertoires, as well as the concept of Pingcheng as a capital city.

The objective of this book is to analyse ceramic technology within the geographical context of the Cantabrian region (N Spain) during the fifth millennium cal BC. It analyses ceramics, understood as manufacture, as the result of a technological fabrication process, in relation to the principle of a ceramic manufacturing sequence, which covers a set of operations that transform a raw material into a product with certain physicochemical properties which practically eliminate its original characteristics. Interest in the prehistoric ceramics of the Cantabrian region is a relatively recent phenomenon and is tied to its importance as a cultural marker of the Neolithic Period. The primary references to these types of materials were used to defend the cultural attribution of certain regional contexts to this period. The scarcity of recognisable morphological and decorative features among the first ceramic groups has resulted in their study being relegated in favour of other types of ceramics, such as the Bell Beaker ones, whose morpho-stylistic characteristics permit the establishment of cultural and chronological systems. This current research is focused on analysing the ceramic groups ascribed to the fifth millennium cal BC from the Los Canes (Asturias), Los Gitanos (Cantabria) and Kobaederra (Vizcaya) sites. These sites constitute important sequences for the study of the Neolithisation processes in the region's western, central and eastern zones.