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A collection of papers from the Romanian conference (with two from the CAA meeting held in Glasgow). The 19 papers consider different approaches to site evaluation and site analysis, the study of artefacts, dating and the role of GIS and the web in archaeology.

A detailed catalogue of 417 seals belonging to the Tablets & Cylinder Seals Collection in the Near Eastern Department of the National Museum of Aleppo. The collection dates from the 7th millennium BC to the Sasanian period. All pieces are illustrated.

South American Archaeology Series No 18A collection of 14 recent studies on archaeological GIS applications from contributors in Argentina, Brazil and Chile in South America. The subjects covered include predictive modeling and analysis of site location and distribution, settlement patterns, lithic raw material availability, regional archaeological visibility, intrasite material distributions and zooarchaeological collections as well as heritage management and risk assessment. The time periods analyzed include cases from the Holocene up until present day and the papers are written in English, Portuguese and Spanish.

This work examines a group of clay figurines representing porters carrying sacks (saccarii) recovered from Ostia and other harbours. The saccarii were responsible for the loading and unloading of goods from ships to river boats and warehouses. Contextual and iconographic analyses of the statuettes suggest they represented the religious symbol (genius) of the workers' guild (collegium). Their probable location in shrines and niches in streets, taverns and workshops, frequented by saccarii and the heterogeneous community, gives an insight into the exhibition of social identity and religious beliefs through material culture by a group of overlooked workers in Roman Imperial Ostia.

Excavations at Late Neolithic Toumba Kremastis Koiladas, near the modern town of Kozani in north-western Greece, have yielded one of the largest faunal assemblages of this period from Greece (and probably also from Europe). This assemblage is important not only because of its large size, but also because of the character of the site and the apparently distinctive nature of bone deposition. Although near to a settlement mound or tell, the excavated area from which the assemblage is drawn appears to be of the 'flat/extended' type of site. As such, much of the bone assemblage is derived from clearly defined pits and ditches cut into the bedrock, offering much greater opportunities for contextual analysis than is usually possible on tell sites with complex vertical stratigraphy. Furthermore, the excavator's observation of complete animal skeletons in some pits suggested the possibility of structured deposition of a sort that, though well known from the Aegean Bronze Age, is as yet rare in the Neolithic of Greece. The assemblage studied here thus offers unusually high potential for investigation of patterns of bone deposition and animal consumption and also for exploration of the extent to which these processes may have obscured or distorted the evidence commonly used to infer patterns of animal management and land use. The questions addressed in this book are centred within four main contexts: Types of Neolithic settlements (tells vs. 'flat/extended' sites); The Neolithic household in Greece; Neolithic husbandry regimes in Greece; Scales and contexts of consumption during the Greek Neolithic.

The development of settlement in the region between Chiusi and Volterra (northern Etruria, corresponding to the modern territory of Siena), from the Iron Age to the end of the Romanization period (9th-1st century BC), is a much-debated subject among Etruscan archaeologists. This comprehensive study attempts to analyse all the available information on the Etruscan settlements of the area to produce a coherent development model that can be adapted to cover the long time period under consideration.

This research centres on the ideology and socio-economic practices of the communities in the Argolid and the Methana Peninsula (Peloponnese, Greece) that existed during approximately 1200 BC through 900 BC. A thorough examination of mortuary practices, the built environment, ceramic material and metal objects demonstrate that during this transitional period an ideological shift took place alongside complex socio-economic developments. An analysis of the material evidence indicates the active formation of a new ideology and socio-economic practices that privileged the individual and the domestic unit over the larger corporate group. After presenting the geographic and research background for these two regions, the author discusses the concept of the Greek"Dark Ages" and analyses the mortuary evidence and built environment, demonstrating that, following the collapse of the Mycenaean palatial administration, the remaining communities maintained and developed practices that promoted the individual or the domestic unit. Analysis of specific examples from the ceramic material and metal objects dating to this period are used to discuss specific activities, such as production and exchange. Evidence from this data illustrates that these activities had, in all probability, taken place outside the direct control of the Mycenaean palatial administration and continued without substantial interruption throughout this period. This re-appraisal of the material culture dating from the Late Helladic IIIB 2 through Early Geometric period combines new theoretical approaches to collapsed societies and attempts to reconstruct the ideology and socio-economic practices of Iron Age communities in the Argolid and the Methana Peninsula.

This book includes papers from N-TAG TEN, the Proceedings of the 10th Nordic TAG conference at Stiklestad, Norway 2009.

This work considers the female body in ancient and medieval societies as seen through the eyes of doctors. In their writings on gynaecology, the medieval authors that are studied here have made clear their thoughts on women, which are grounded in the texts of their predecessors (Greek and Latin doctors) but conditioned by their own religious beliefs - Christian, Jewish, or Muslim. Their works were written not only to educate or inform other doctors and midwives, but also to aid medical students and to provide guidance for women who might seek it. These texts also reflect popular opinion when it comes to such issues, as in many instances they are closer to popular belief than to science. Our selected authors wrote in order to gain recognition and prestige. They based their advice on texts written by earlier, widely recognized specialists and, in turn, their work became references for future doctors who, in their own writings, would cite them or recreate their work. From this point of view, it may be said that none of these doctors pursued an objective relative to our own current medical practices, but this does not necessarily mean that their texts are any less important. The texts studied in this work span almost twenty centuries, from the fifth century BC to the fifteenth century AD.

A collection of papers focusing on questions of Copper Age metallurgical contexts, outlining the importance of an integrated analysis of artefacts, considering pottery, metal, stone and osseous productions as inseparable aspects of economic and social choices.

This book includes papers from a session on 'Mother Earth' sites presented at the Fourteenth Annual Conference of the European Association of Archaeologists in Valetta, Malta, in September 2008. The papers discussed the various forms of evidence not only from definite 'Mother Earth' sites but from others for which an expression of a divine feminine principle, personified as belief in an Earth Mother or other female deity, may be inferred as possible or sometimes likely-especially where the work is based on new discoveries.

South American Archaeology Series No 17Analyses of animal finds and remains from sites around Lago Cardiel, Patagonia.

A study of the Neolithic in Macedonia.

The Klissoura cave site (Argolid, Greece) is a multi-layered site with layers dating back to the Middle Palaeolithic. In the Aurignacian layer were found concave clay forms which are estimated, by C14 dates, to be 35-37.5 calibrated kyrs BP. In this study the author takes an experimental approach to investigate these important primitive features.

This book presents the proceedings of the 'Theory and Method in Archaeology of the Neolithic (7th - 3rd millennium BC)' conference held in Mikulov, Czech Republic, 26th - 28th October 2010.

During the Middle Sicán period (C.E. 950-1050) on the North Coast of Peru, artisans developed a sophisticated tradition of ceramic and metalworking production amidst dry coastal forests of the region. Organic fuel resources, specifically wood, clearly played a vital role in the manufacture of these objects; however, this component of production has been largely overlooked. Thus, a major gap in our understanding of the relationship between Sicán period production and the local landscape has developed. The Sicán Archaeological Project (SAP) suggests that the production of metal and ceramics during this period likely placed the local fuel resources under considerable stress. Yet, an evaluation of the archaeological data is essential to assess the degree of overexploitation, identifying the fuels used, their contexts for use, and their role in local ecology. This study interprets how Middle Sicán artisans met their fuel-wood requirements for production in light of easily endangered forest resources. An examination of the archaeological charcoal from Middle Sicán period kilns, hearths, and metal furnaces permits the reconstruction of fuel use and the ecological setting of production. This unique site demonstrates the concurrent production of metal and ceramics, as well as the presence of domestic activity. Using wood anatomy of fuels recovered from archaeological features, the author identified the fuel materials of different use contexts.

This research aims to better understand Maya ritual practices associated with the burning of aromatic substances and the use of incense burners in the southern Maya lowlands during the Classic (A.D. 250 - 900) to Postclassic (A.D. 900 - A.D. 1200) transition. Incense burners are considered as important components of Maya ritual and religious paraphernalia through which communication with supernatural beings was enacted. Their forms and decoration were the products of specific principles of design and iconography that were commonly imbued with symbolic and religious meaning. The study involves an analysis of the form and decoration of these vessels as well as their contexts of recovery and use through time. The changes and continuities in the forms and decoration of incense burners, their contexts and their use sheds light into the continuation and/or innovation of ritual and religious ideas which are linked to broader social, economic and political factors in Maya society during the end of the Classic period. The study is based on a sample of incense burner materials excavated in Guatemala and from various museum collections.

The translated title of this work is: "Gotland Picture Stones of the Migration- and Vendel periods as Reflections of the Early Historical Cultural Environment". Gotland has a prominent position within northern Europe due to the quantity and wealth of pre- and early historical evidence. The picture stones of this area are prominent relics of the Scandinavian Iron Age, taking the form of processed limestone monuments of different sizes and designs. Usually, the stones reveal a worked front side carved with various motifs, such as whirling discs, ships and animals. These picture stones date from approximately the first centuries after Christ until after the first millennium and are found on the island of Gotland situated in the Baltic Sea, and politically, part of Sweden. The author focuses on the stones and fragments which can be dated to the Migration- and Vendel period. At the core of the work is the aim to gain an interpretation with the anticipation of making statements about the early historical cultural environment.

The painters of Sicyon were rulers of a τ¿χνη in their artistic creation that allowed them to combine their natural talent for painting with a scientific method. The main objective of this book is to place Sicyon at the centre of an aesthetic conflict between Plato and Aristotle. The Sicyonian school of painting has always been identified as one of the main enemies of Plato for various reasons, in particular for the use of scientific disciplines that for Plato should be reserved for the study of philosophy or dialectics. By contrast, Aristotle shared many of the aesthetic ideals of the school of Sicyon: his love of nature as a teacher of art and the maximum value offered through drawing within the liberal arts education. This book demonstrates the importance of the Sicyonian school of painting in Antiquity. For the first time painting and drawing were taught in Sicyon as subjects worthy of being learned. In this cultural context of artistic and theoretical reflection, some of the greatest artists of the Greek world were fostered, such as Apelles, Lysippus, Pamphilus, and Pausias. Sicyonian works of art were admired, imitated, and even taken to Rome as paradigms of Greek art and as examples of how best to understand art and culture: attributes that were still in evidence at the time of the Renaissance.

This book presents a contextual study of the Famabalasto Negro Grabado pottery of the late period in the Calchaqui Valleys in northwest Argentina, especially in the Yocavil or Santa María Valley in the south of the area. This is an interesting black and polished ceramic that is different from contemporary decorated pottery and comes closer in design to certain special metallic goods made in cast bronze, such as round plates and Santamarians bells or tan-tanes.

Archaeology is fundamentally concerned with both space and time: dates, chronologies, stratigraphy, plans and maps are all routinely used by archaeologists in their work. To aid in their analysis of this material, the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) by archaeologists has become widespread. However, GIS are conventionally ignorant of time. Thus, if archaeologists are to achieve the fullest potential in the application of GIS to their studies, GIS are needed that properly take into account timeas well as space. A GIS capable of dealing with temporal data is referred to as a temporal-GIS (TGIS), and commercial TGIS systems currently exist. However, these are locked into a model of modern clock time. Archaeological time does not sit well within that model, being altogether fuzzier and less precise. Nor are commercial TGIS able to address the questions that archaeologists ask of their spatio-temporal data. Thus, a TGIS is needed that deals with the types of time that we encounter as archaeologists, lest we end up shaping our data and questions to the inherent capabilities of non-archaeological TGIS. The creation of that new TGIS is the subject of this book: a fuzzy TGIS built specifically for the study of archaeological data that also takes into account recent developments in the theory of temporality within the discipline. The new TGIS needs to be flexible and powerful, yet to ensure that it is actually used it must remain within the software horizons of GIS-literate archaeologists. The new TGIS has been applied to two case studies, one in prehistoric Derbyshire and one in Roman Northamptonshire, producing informative and interesting new results. It is hoped that others will fruitfully use the TGIS and that, as a result, new forms of spatio-temporal analysis might come to be applied to archaeological studies.

The extensive work presented here takes a new look at the prehistoric art preserved on various megalithic monuments from the northwestern Iberian Peninsular. The initial chapters (1-3) deal with the objectives of the study, the history of research of megalithic art in the Iberian Peninsula, and the discussion on the area of study. In chapter 4, the research methodologies applied are described in detail: fieldwork (identification, cataloguing and diagnosis), the analysis of stone and paint samples (including radiocarbon dating), and the systems used for the recording of the images. In chapter 5, the most extensive of the book, each of the megalithic sites studied is described, with special emphasis on the description and recording of megalithic art, its state of preservation and the need for conservation actions that would stop its degradation. Chapter 6 deals with the information obtained on this kind of megalithic art. Chapters 7 and 8 deal with the degradation processes and the proposal for preservation measures, not only for the prehistoric art itself, but also for the megalithic sites. Chapter 9 contains the discussion on the main findings.

Among other objectives, this collection of papers investigates the role that settlements surrounding necropolises have played in the evolution of megalithic and hypogean graves and their relationship to the development of collective burial ritual through consideration of collective burial ritual as a means of masking social differences. The intention here is to explore the relationship between collectivism and concealment in relation to other forms of non-funerary ritualism.

The aim of this research is two-fold: using aspects of London, Berlin and Beirut as templates, firstly it aims to examine the wider historical context of urban archaeological conservation in the post-war situation, and secondly to identify more clearly the reasons and values behind the conservation of archaeological sites within the modern city. From this a clear criteria may be drawn as to why such sites should or should not be conserved, and how they may best be considered and used in order that they may play an active and valuable role within the city. It is important to have such criteria relating to the valuing and decision-making regarding the conservation of sites so that the reasons for keeping such sites are more comprehensible to non-archaeologists, especially to the urban development professions, so that the sites' values may be better represented in their presentation. Due to the multi-disciplinary nature of this research and the on-going nature of, for example, redevelopment in Beirut, a variety of qualitative research methods were employed. These included desk-based research of urban planning and development history and theories; of the history, practice and theories of archaeology and conservation as they relate to the subject matter of this research; and also in a number of other subjects including history and cultural studies. In relation to the sites themselves, fieldwork was carried out in London, Berlin and Beirut; the author lives in London; Berlin was visited in March 2004, Beirut in April 2005, and both cities were visited again in 2007. There are six chapters. Chapter Two comprises a general historical and theoretical background of the urban context, and the practices of archaeology and conservation, along with a literature review. Chapter Two is followed by individual chapters on London, Berlin and Beirut. The case study chapters are each divided up into sections comprising the urban context, conservation and archaeology before and after the respective wars, the sites including how each site came to be conserved, and then a discussion. The final chapter draws together all the ideas and discoveries of Chapter Two and the case studies for the main discussion and analysis. It highlights the wide range of issues encountered in the cities concerned, demonstrating both similarities and differences of urban development and conservation of archaeological sites from post-World War II London, through post-World War II and then post-Cold War Berlin to post-war Beirut.

This study examines, through a variety of evidence, Late Classic (c. 250-900 AD) Maya political organization, specifically the existence of large-scale political structures as evidenced through specific patterns of city plans and architectural similarities. This particular exercise draws upon such interconnected aspects of current and past Maya scholarship as epigraphic reconstructions of political history, elite architecture, the nature of the ancient Maya state, and research into the less tangible aspects of the ancient Maya civilization, such as the cosmological and ideological frameworks within which such issues were conceived, negotiated, and imbued with meaning.

This work discusses in depth the series of changes involving human communities that took place in the strip of land between the rivers Júcar and Segura (south-eastern Iberian Peninsular) over a period of nearly 3,000 years, ca. 5600 - 2600 cal BC, from the Ancient Neolithic Cardial period up to the Chalcolithic age.

A new study of 'The Fair Stone', defining jade, its nature, virtues, deposits and carving techniques according to ancient Chinese texts. Analysis of ancient sources with a critical mind may supplement archaeological finds and modern scientific studies, but others still present scholars with quite a few riddles, such as metal jade carving implements. This study attempts to provide an analysis of the multifaceted meanings, connotations and echoes of a single word, concept and symbol. It also allows a better grasp of matters of concern for mineralogists and gemmologists: jade's origin and deposits, mining and carving technology. Two appendices include a chart of "jade" producing places according to the Shanhaijing (Books of mountains and seas) and a full translation of Song Yingxing' chapter on jade in the Tiangong kaiwu (Exploitation of the works of Nature). Illustrations draw on reproductions of old Chinese books from the Yuan (1279-1368) to the Republic. Maps in late commentaries to the Classics, geographical monographs on Xinjiang or drawn by the author show jade and abrasive deposits and the "jade road" from Khotan to Xi'an.

In 2001, the Gadara Region Project was started, and the tell in the centre of Wadi al-Arab, Tall Zar'a was chosen as an initial focus of research. During previous visits to the site, it had been established that this tell had been inhabited almost continuously from the Early Bronze Age to the Late Ottoman Period. Tall Zar¿a is situated in the western sector of Wadi al-'Arab, which runs from the Transjordanian highlands near the city of Irbid to the Jordan Valley near northern Shunah. Contents: Introduction; Sondage and Stratigraphy; Architectural Remains; The Pottery; Small Finds; Stone Artefacts; Iron Age Cooking Vessels; Tall Zar¿a as 'Gadara' in the Later Bronze and Early Iron Age.

The main goal of this research is the study of the strategies of provisioning and utilization of lithic raw materials within the Pali Aike volcanic field, Santa Cruz Province, Argentina (South America). The work includes an analysis of the land-use patterns and home ranges of the human populations that inhabited this region during the Late Holocene (ca. last 4000 years BP). The case-study presented here employs a methodology of lithic analysis that is regional and non-typological, which has the potential to be of value in other areas of the world and with other specific research goals.