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This monograph is a first attempt to present a general outline of the economic evolution of the province of Scythia (4th-6th centuries AD) from a ceramic point of view. The author aims to fill a gap in Romanian archaeological research, where ceramic studies focused more on form and decoration of the ceramic vessels than on the economic inferences to be drawn from this ubiquitous archaeological material. This study will be of interest not only to specialists in Roman ceramics but also to historians of the ancient economy. The monograph is divided into two parts. The first discusses the typology of the ceramic vessels, and the second analyses the economic implications of the ceramic finds themselves.

Why another book on violence in prehistory? Do we have enough evidence to draw meaningful conclusions on the importance and meaning of violent interactions among sedentary and semi-sedentary hunter-gatherers of Europe? What methodological and theoretical questions do we hope to answer with this volume? Many questions on the evidence and meaning of confirmed violent interactions remain unresolved even as more and more books appear on the topic. This volume was prompted by the editor's research in the Iron Gates Gorge and the 8 papers presented here reflect a similar puzzlement felt by each of the participants while examining the evidence of trauma and possible or probable interpersonal violence. As a framework for this volume, Mesolithic societies are defined as sedentary or semi-sedentary prehistoric hunter-gatherers with no temporal or geographical limitations usually associated with this term, allowing for comparisons between temporally and geographically remote regional groups. While the number of societies presented could have been much larger, the 8 articles in this volume present a number of different approaches, focuses and expertise. What seems to unite them is the call for minute examination of osteological evidence and broad understanding of contextual data.

Prior to the last decade, few cylinder seals and no impressed sealings had ever been discovered in Predynastic Egyptian archaeological contexts. This monograph reviews important new finds from Abydos (Upper Egyptian Cemetery U) which demonstrate that cylinder seals were indeed used for sealing purposes, as well as other finds from Egypt and Nubia, which may be reevaluated in light of these discoveries. Seals and sealings from Lower Nubia and the southern Palestinian site of 'En Besor are examined to trace the development of the Predynastic Egyptian glyptic style from the Naqada IId period to the beginning of the First Dynasty. This development is used to suggest a sequence for other Predynastic art works without provenance. The social and political implications of early Egyptian cylinder seal use are also examined using models established in the study of Mesopotamian seal use and sealing practices

The 14 papers in this volume are taken from a conference held in Edinburgh in 2004. When the organisers called for papers for a conference on Games and Festivals they had no idea the response would be so varied-ranging from Minoan bull leaping to Samoan kilikiti-or that the papers would turn out to be so thematically interrelated. The response has shown that it is not so much the mechanics of the games or the actions carried out at ancient festivals that fascinate modern scholars as their social and political significance and the way the theme could be manipulated by writers and artists. Games and festivals were at the heart of Classical societies, playing a much more important role than in modern western societies (even taking football into account). Festivals structured the year and were inextricably bound up with the structures of society. Games and festivals are also closely linked, as most competitive games took place at a festival, or at least in a religious context, even, it seems, cock fighting and dicing, and many festivals contained elements of competition. Competitiveness pervades Greek and Roman life-and this is reflected in literature and art. In this, an Olympic year, a new selection of papers on Classical games and festivals is especially welcome.

The papyri presented in this volume (the second volume in the Lahun series: cf. BAR 1083: 'Letters') range across all categories between letters and accountancy documents (to form the final BAR volume, forthcoming) and five broad groupings have been adopted for this work - 'Religious, Literary, Legal, Mathematical, and Medical'. As in the 'Letters' volume, the printed pages present updated transcriptions with transliterations for all but the smallest fragments. The entire collection is presented in digitized photographic form in the accompanying CD.

This conference in honour of Randi Haaland was held in Bergen in September 2001. Although the title of the conference was ambitious, the aim was to highlight current research problems in fields where Randi Halaand has been particularly active. The current volume contains the proceedings of the conference, thus fulfilling its aims. The largest session was reserved for "Approaches in African Archaeology" since Africa is the continent where the majority of Randi Halaand's work has been conducted.

From 1981 to 1990, the Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA), in conjunction with Texas A&M University (TAMU) and the Jamaica National Heritage Trust, excavated a portion of the underwater English colonial city of Port Royal in Jamaica. Port Royal, an important international commercial centre in the late 17th century, was destroyed in 1692 by an earthquake, which sank over half of the city beneath the waters of Kingston Bay. The INA/TAMU investigation has resulted in an extensive collection of artifacts and other material remains contemporary with the disaster. This study examines the ceramic inventory of one of the most fully excavated buildings in the heart of old Port Royal. As household wares, the pottery vessels recovered from the site provide important data on the customs and standard of living of the building's occupants. By extension, they reveal certain social aspects of the town as a whole and provide information about the kinds of material goods that were available to New World colonial settlers at the end of the 17th century. Minimum vessel counts, by ceramic ware, form, and functional classification, are the basis for the analysis. The assemblage is looked at in the general context of all of the ceramics recovered from the Port Royal site, as investigated by INA/TAMU. It is also compared with similarly well-dated groups from two non-Jamaican sites. English pottery inventories from the 17th century and household probate inventories from Port Royal are examined to cast light on ceramic usage and markets. Social commentaries of the period and northern European paintings of interior scenes provide a snapshot of the everyday roles of ceramic vessels.

This new series is in the same format as Studies in the History of Collections and Studies in Classical Archaeology. It is intended for studies in gems and jewellery from ancient to neo-classical, both monographs and the publication of contents of collections, and is inspired by the Beazley Archive's rich resources of gem impressions and casts, gathered first by Sir John Beazley himself. This second volume, Classical Phoenician Scarabs A catalogue and study, is the result of some years of collecting records of the green jasper scarabs of the Mediterranean world in the course of research on other glyptic, Greek and Persian. The principal aim is to present the material in catalogue form, arranged by subject, and accompanied by selective illustration. (The first volume (2003), Classical and Eastern Intaglios, Rings and Cameos, by C. Wagner and J. Boardman, publishes a selection of gems from a private collection formed between 1921 and about 1970. They range from 3rd-millennium BC cylinder seals of Mesopotamia, to Neo-classical engravings of the 19th century AD, and include prime specimens also of Greek, Etruscan, Roman and Sasanian glyptic.

This extensive book is organised into three parts. Part one discusses the changing perspectives of the 'Mesolithic' and 'Neolithic', in particular the changing way that the two periods have been viewed in relation to economy and subsistence. Continuity in economic and subsistence patterns between the 'Mesolithic' and 'Neolithic' of Britain and Ireland are examined in detail. Part two begins with a theoretical chapter which outlines and overviews the past and current use standard social theory. The following chapters look at the evidence for human social behaviour relating to occupation, mobility, clearing woodland, construction, the deposition of artefacts and the distribution and treatment of human and animal skeletal material. The large corpus of literature illustrates the continuity that is present in the empirical evidence between the 'Mesolithic' and 'Neolithic'. Part three, which contains a case study chapter and the conclusion, applies the arguments and observations made in Parts one and two to a case study of the Avebury region. The case study documents the archaeological and environmental data gathered over the last few centuries which identifies continuity in human social behaviour across the 'Mesolithic'/'Neolithic' divide, from the early tenth to the late fifth millennium BP. The case study concludes that a complex and intermeshed patterning of human activity occurred across the landscape from the early tenth to the late fifth millennium BP and that the 'Mesolithic' and 'Neolithic' represent one tradition of 'action', whatever specific verbalised meanings may have been involved. Finally, the book concludes that the current discourse's interpretive approaches adversely affect our ability to identify past human social behaviour which has no direct parallel in either the observed and/or the documented social life of the present or the recent past.

Early and Middle Palaeolithic studies have recently been greatly improved by the application of modern technological methods. These studies are very much based upon lithic production systems, basically the methods by which ancient peoples made their stone tools, and their relative aspects in terms of culture, environment and economic values. Up until recently many previous studies have been concerned with different flaking methods, and how they have varied. This BAR is about one of these methods known as the 'discoid flaking method' and follows on from previous studies. There are fifteen papers in this study, nine of which are in French. These articles discuss the discoid assemblages of Europe and its environs, either to outline the main features of discoid lithic tools, or to illustrate the layout of a particular archaeological context, or in order to show the varying levels of technology used by the Palaeolithic peoples who made these tools. The discoid method is not very well known, and is also often unclear in many areas for which it is present. The editor starts by defining exactly what this flaking procedure is, and relates it to previous examples, expecting new information gained from a more scientific approach. The majority of the contributions to this study are focused on newly acquired results either from recent excavations, or from the re-examination of older sites, and how these results relate to the definition of variability of the discoid flaking method. The number of reports in French indicate how France is the central area of study for discoid lithic technology, as well as being the main area of lithic research in general.

This volume presents a selection from a large private collection of engraved gems, finger rings and cylinder seals. It was created from 1921 through the 1960s from various sources, and includes many examples from old collections that had come on to the market, notably the Evans, Southesk, and (for later gems) Poniatowski, as well as many purchased from dealers and in auctions. They are now in the possession of the collector's son, who encouraged this publication. Boardman had already published a selection, mainly of the Greek and Etruscan gems from the collection, in Intaglios and Rings (London, Thames and Hudson, 1975), and these stones have since been purchased by the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu (except for nos. 9, 17, 86, 149, 154, 205-208). The present selection also includes some early gems, omitted from the earlier publication for various reasons, but it is mainly devoted to the Hellenistic and Roman, as well as to a choice of the many Sasanian stones, cylinder seals, other eastern, and Neo-classical. The selection has been determined by the apparent interest of each piece for either its style or its subject, but also represents a fairly typical range of gem engraving through the Greek and Roman worlds, and outside it - including Etruscan, Greco-Persian, Syrian, Persian, Phoenician, Sasanian and the early production of cylinders in the near east. This is the type of material that was available for collectors in the first half of the last century. The catalogue takes the form of a descriptive handlist rather than a catalogue raisonné, with select comparanda, and with more attention paid to the puzzling or important pieces. Of these there are several of the highest quality, and several of exceptional archaeological or iconographic interest. The prime motive has been to make much of the collection known to scholars who might wish to take study of individual pieces further. To this end the publication of mainly unprovenanced engraved gems is of no less importance than that of unprovenanced decorated vases. This volume inaugurates the new series Studies in Gems and Jewellery.

Proceedings of the Second International Meeting of Anthracology, Paris, September 2000

Edited by Peter Attema, Gert-Jan Burgers, Ester Van Joolen, Martijn Van Leusen and Benoît Mater.The 7 sections in this volume represent the proceedings of the three-day international conference 'Regional Pathways to Complexity' held in April 2000 at the University of Groningen. They bring together expert contributions on a broad range of common themes in Mediterranean landscape archaeology - including: the comparison of settlement histories across projects and regions; the methods and methodologies involved in analysing regional settlement data; the relationship between pottery technology and production and societal proceses such as urbanisation and colonisation; the potential of land use models based on land evaluation techniques; and the archaeological study of past landscape perception from an urban and colonial perspective. To students of Italian archaeology, and Mediterranean archaeology in general, the papers and workshop discussions will serve as an excellent introduction to these subjects and their complexities, conveying the state-of-the-art in Mediterranean landscape archaeology.

Papers given at a session of the annual conference of the Theoretical Archaeology Group held at the University of Birmingham on 20 December 1998.

The eminent scholar in the field of Roman architecture, Thomas Blagg, died in 2000. As a further mark of respect Grahame Soffe, Martin Henig, and Anthony King have collaborated in this publication of T F C Blagg's London Ph.D. thesis from the early '70s. It is a study of the decorated stonework used in the construction and embellishment of Roman buildings in Britain. Stonemasons' tools and techniques are considered first, followed by classifications and discussions of various categories of architectural ornament. Two reconstructed monuments from Roman London are presented as case studies in the archaeological use of architectural ornament. The concluding chapter contains a discussion of the historical and social contexts for the introduction into Britain and the subsequent development of Roman architectural decoration in stone, including aspects of patronage and craft organization, the relationship of civilian to military and of rural to urban architecture. Soffe, Henig, and King have added a detailed appreciation and list of publications, and the release of this BAR makes a fitting, additional, tribute to the work of this well-respected scholar.

This work on personal ornament in Roman Britain began as an analysis of, and a comparison between, the types of and styles of jewellery favoured by the people of Roman Britain of differing social classes and areas. It soon became clear that many of these artifacts had a deeper significance than that of mere adornment. Furthermore, the majority of these items were recovered from places with ritual or religious connotations. The author proposes that such personal ornamentation appears to have a definite ritual aspect. Because of the religious or superstitious nature of these sites, artifacts deliberately deposited there can be linked to a belief in an afterlife and an intervention by the gods in the lives of mortals. The find-sites indicate that the items probably had a common significance which would have been linked mainly to women, for the majority of these items were articles of feminine adornment. This led to the supposition that the votive artifacts were associated with health and fertility, the mainconcerns of most women in the ancient world.

Foreword by Colin Renfrew.It is only in the last couple of decades that the crucial importance of the westernmost province of China (formerly known as Chinese Turkestan) for the prehistoric period, and specifically for the bronze and iron ages, has come to be recognized. It has come to public attention through the excavation and study of the so called Xinjiang 'mummies', in fact desiccated human burials (with wonderfully preserved textiles) going back to before 1000 BCE. The present volume offers the first coherent study of the later prehistory of this region to be available in English, and the first in any language to give a detailed treatment of what is now known of its early metallurgy. In this field the author has been a pioneer, and his metallurgical analyses and his study of the important mining and smelting site at Nulasai here begin the necessary task of reconstructing the early history of metallurgy in Central Asia.

This book considers the practicalities of a large-scale military building project, primarily the quantities of materials required and how they might have been supplied, and the amount of labour involved.The main concern has been to establish a method for estimating the quantities of those building materials. This has been achieved through a detailed examination of the legionary fortress at Inchtuthil.

Contributions by Kenneth D. Thomas, Myfanwie Stewart, John D. Gale, Helen Keeley and Beverley Collinson.Report on the excavations undertaken by the author at the Culverwell site in Dorset. Finds of virtually every period of the past have been found, but the emphasis is on the Mesolithic period. Alongside tools and other artefacts, small deposits of midden have been found. The book includes specialists' reports and examines the nature of the site and its place in the wider context of later Mesolithic.

By means of a paleoethnological, archaeological and autonomous historical analysis, based on regional records, this book presents a specific explanatory model of the origin and development of the city and the state in the Proto-history of the Northern Plateau of South-West Celtiberia, using as a case study the city of Termes, whose territory occupied a large part of this region in Celtiberic and Roman times, and analysing the subsequent integration process of this community as a civil territorial unit within the Roman Empire. Firstly, the pre-urban site is analysed; this is followed by an attempt to reconstruct the structural characteristics and evolution of the proto-urban and urban organisation of the site, up to the 2nd century AD. The text includes an analysis of the site's successive models of socio-political organisation, their patterns of continuity and disintegration, the interconnection between these, and the parameters defining this dynamic and changing urban structure.Se realiza un análisis paleoetnológico, arqueológico e histórico autónomo, fundamentado en el registro local para elaborar un modelo explicativo concreto sobre el origen y desarrollo de la ciudad y el Estado en la Protohistoria en la Meseta Norte desde el caso de la ciudad de Termes, y analizar el posterior proceso de integración de esta comunidad como unidad territorial y cívica dentro de una superestructura del Imperio Romano. Se analizan primero las premisas preurbanas, para a continuación tratar de reconstruir las características estructurales y evolución de la organización protourbana y urbana, hasta el s. II d.C. Abordamos el análisis de los sucesivos modelos de organización sociopolítica, sus pautas de continuidad y ruptura, la interconexión entre éstas, y los parámetros de definición de esa estructura urbana dinámica y cambiante.

This book, based on the author's doctoral thesis, focuses on the funerary customs and the society of the Langobards in the last phase of the migration period. Several theories about identity and ethnicity in the Middle Ages, developed in the field of history, have been used to interpret the archaeological records; from this perspective the funerary evidence holds a privileged position, because necropolises provide the richest and the best preserved evidence for the greater part of the age of migrations. Analysis of the grave goods of 16 necropolises of Austria and Hungary that display the material culture of the Langobard people has yielded interesting results relating to the funerary culture and the society that created these arrangements of grave goods. This analysis has permitted the identification of various data that grant an understanding of the construction and the development of the cultural and social identity of the Langobards during the last phase of their migration.Questo libro, basato sulla tesi dottorale dell'autrice, si focalizza sulle tradizioni funerarie e sulla società longobarda nell'ultima fase della migrazione. Le numerose teorie riguardanti identità ed etnogenesi, nate e sviluppatesi in ambito storico, hanno trovato impiego in campo archeologico: è in quest'ottica che la documentazione funeraria ha un carattere privilegiato, perché l'evidenza delle necropoli è la più ricca e la meglio conservata per buona parte dell'età delle migrazioni. L'analisi dei contesti funerari di 16 necropoli austriache ed ungheresi di cultura Longobarda ha fornito interessanti risultati riguardo la cultura e la società che ha composto quei corredi. L'approccio impiegato ha permesso di individuare numerosi elementi, dai quali sembra possibile trarre alcune valutazioni delle caratteristiche sociali, cultuali e culturali dei Longobardi in Pannonia, permettendo in questo modo di definire alcune caratteristiche della loro etnogenesi.

This book is an investigation of the funerary monuments of Rough Cilicia and Isauria. Rock-cut tombs, tower tombs, temple tombs, grave houses, barrel-vaulted aedicula tombs, tombs with monumental columns, sarcophagi, larnaces, rectangular funerary altars and stelae, mostly from the Hellenistic and Roman periods, all occur in Rough Cilicia and Isauria. Much of the book rests on archaeological surveys conducted by the author in Rough Cilicia and in Isauria. She divides Rough Cilicia into four areas, to establish tentative boundaries of local distribution, as well as a rough chronology of distinct types of monuments. The funerary monuments of Isauria are treated separately. Selected tombs are considered, site-by-site, with comments on characteristic features, typical of the funerary architecture of the district. A noteworthy aspect is the movement of itinerant artists, who contributed to the transmission of funerary forms and motifs.

Esta publicación incluye todos los datos recientes recuperados en "El castro" (Pendia) durante las campañas arqueológicas desarrolladas entre 2003 y 2013. Por esta razón, el libro reúne un amplio abanico de temas que incluyen:- El estudio de las arquitecturas perecederas.- Otros estudios acerca de las arquitecturas del castro: por ejemplo la defensiva o la del recinto norte.- El desarrollo urbano del poblado, entre la Edad del Hierro y la época romana.- Las actividades textiles en Pendia. En este capítulo los estudios de género y la arqueología de las households tienen un papel crucial. El estudio está basado en el análisis espacial de las pesas de telar recuperadas en las excavaciones.- Por último es la primera revisión de la información arqueológica proporcionada por el Dr. Antonio García y Bellido sobre el sitio tras la excavación de 1941.This book includes all the recent data recovered from the hillfort of Pendia during the archaeological campaigns undertaken between 2003 and 2013. The publication thus gathers together a huge range of material, including:- Iron Age perishable architecture: a complete overview of all the finds from the hillfort.- Other studies about the architecture of the hillfort, such as the defensive walls and the entrance to the northern enclosure.- A survey of the urban development of the hillfort, from the Iron Age to Roman times.- Textile activities in Pendia's hillfort, with a focus on gender studies and household archaeology. This study is based on a spatial analysis of the loom weights that were found in the hillfort.- The first revision of the archaeological information on this site provided by Dr Antonio García y Bellido in 1941.

The prehistoric communities in Iberia have never been investigated before using a cutting-edge and multidisciplinary approach. In this research, the latest techniques are applied in order to allow a reconstruction of prehistoric social structure and social organization. Specifically, this investigation uses bioarchaeological methods, such as osteological, paleopathological and biochemical approaches (stable isotopes), in combination with funerary context to reconstruct the mortality, morbidity, dietary and mobility patterns of two human skeletal populations from the Copper Age (c. 3300-2100 cal BC). The main objective was to test whether social differences were already present during the 3rd millennium BC in southern Iberia. For this purpose, two main Copper Age sites, Valencina de la Concepción (Seville) and La Pijotilla (Badajoz), were analysed and then compared to many other contemporary sites from the same geographical location. In sum, the results of this research demonstrate the complexity of the funerary patterns in the Iberian Copper Age, providing evidence for social inequality and differentiation.

Il II millennio a.C. in Mesopotamia è caratterizzato da un incremento delle raffigurazioni astrali, le quali assumono un ruolo importante come rappresentazione non antropomorfa di divinità e specchio di osservazioni del cielo. Il presente volume presenta un'analisi dei simboli con valore astrale nella glittica mitannica, cassita e medio-assira. Partendo da un'analisi degli elementi simbolici presenti su un corpus di 1090 sigilli e impronte di sigillo, sono stati individuati e singolarmente analizzati, contestualmente alla loro posizione nella scena, i simboli con valore astrale. Inoltre, lo studio delle relazioni fra i simboli - astrali e non astrali - ha permesso l'identificazione di alcune associazioni ricorrenti. La loro comparazione con fonti testuali (es. omina e compendi astronomici) e con la ricostruzione del cielo mesopotamico del Bronzo Tardo, ha permesso la comprensione della percezione mitannica, cassita e medio-assira della volta celeste e del suo legame con il sentire religioso e la pratica divinatoria.In Mesopotamia of the 2nd millennium BC, astral representations spread throughout art, assuming an important role as the symbolic representation of deities and the mirror of real celestial observations. The present book focuses on astral symbols as they are represented on Mitannian, Cassite and Middle Assyrian seals and seal impressions. Starting from an analysis of the symbols on a corpus of 1090 seals and seal impressions, those with astral significance have been identified and individually analyzed, as has their position in the scene. Furthermore, a study of the relationship between the symbols - both astral and non-astral - allows for the identification of some recurring patterns. The comparison of the representations with textual sources (e.g. astral omina and astronomical compendia) and the reconstruction of the Mesopotamian sky in the Late Bronze Age Period yields an understanding of the Mitannian, Cassite and Middle Assyrian perception of the heavens and of its link with religious behaviour and divination.

The studies in this book investigate various elements relating to the Roman rural economy and its development, as well as changes in its structure arising from the establishment of Roman rule in the territory of modern Serbia. Of particular importance is the complexity of economic relations, as well as agriculture as a fundamental economic activity (along with mining) in the territory of the Balkan region, developed after the arrival of the Roman legions, and the creation of new forms of organisation, in which the indigenous population were gradually included.

The present work catalogues and analyses the so-called 'bronze belts' - thin metal plaques, decorated or not - that represent one of the main features of the material culture of the native peoples of the Caucasus area during the Iron Age. Given the amount of material examined, the research has been divided into two parts. The first part is devoted to the study of the belts themselves, their art and style. The second part offers a summary of the archaeological contexts of their recovery. Each site is described by its overall features, followed by a more detailed analysis of the context of provenance of each indivdual belt, represented in most cases by funerary evidence. For each of these burials the set of objects associated with the deceased is laid out in full detail. From the preface by John Curtis'In this pioneering study Manuel Castelluccia has collected together about 350 sheet bronze belts that were found mostly in graves in the South Caucasus region or Transcaucasia (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and South Ossetia)...This work is particularly valuable in that nearly all the belts are now in museums in the former Soviet Union or are known only through publications in Russian, Georgian and Armenian, so for the ¿rst time this large body of material is made available to western scholars...This exemplary catalogue will be compulsory reading and a standard work of reference for all scholars interested in the archaeology of Transcaucasia.'Preface by John Curtis

This book investigates the production technology and inter-site circulation of a large and diverse Late Neolithic ceramic assemblage from the flat-extended settlement of Makrygialos (Phase II), in northern Greece. Comparative samples from Dimini, in Thessaly, and Agrosykia A and Giannitsa B, in western Macedonia, are also incorporated. It draws conclusions from the use of macroscopic and petrographic analysis of a large number of samples in an integrated project.The new evidence offers a better understanding of the role of technological choice in ceramic production. Locally produced and imported ceramic categories are found to co-exist. They signify manufacture by different groups or individuals with varying degrees of technological knowledge and skill, probably producing in different places, and within distinct ceramic traditions. More importantly, petrographic analysis provides positive evidence of the long-distance exchange of pots, challenging previously established ideas on the circulation of pottery for this period and geographical area. The emerging picture strongly supports the idea of a dynamic Neolithic society characterised by mobilities, interaction and social competition between people, as revealed through their material culture.