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The ancient site of Tel Gezer (Abu-Shûsheh/Tell Jezer/Tell el-Jazari) is located in Central Israel, approximately halfway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. It is situated in the northern section of the Judean foothills (Shephelah), not far from the southernmost hills of south-western Samaria. Raymond-Charles Weill commenced his career in archaeology and Egyptology at a relatively late age. After receiving his training in Egyptology and archaeology in France, Baron Rothschild invited him to excavate in Jerusalem, on lands belonging to the Baron. These excavations were conducted both before (in 1913-1914) and after (in 1923-1924) the First World War, and were duly reported by Weill (1920; 1947). Apparently, ancient tombs had been revealed on the site by the settlers, and Weill, who by chance was excavating at the time for the Baron in Jerusalem, was called in to excavate at Gezer. Both seasons of Weill's excavations at Gezer (in 1914 and 1924) coincided with his work in Jerusalem. His results were never fully published, and this present volume represents the author's long researches to make some of Weill's discoveries more widely available. With contributions by Nava Panitz-Cohen, Dan Barag, Othmar Keel, Nachum Applbaum and Yaakov H. Applbaum

This volume comprises a collection of essays in memory of the late John Rhodes by some of his many friends and colleagues. They salute a remarkable individual of wide tastes and interests. His achievements in the conservation, study and recording of the past from the Roman period to the present day, both in museums and in the field, were prodigious. The aim of the book is to follow the tradition of English antiquarian scholarship by taking three approaches: the study of individual monuments and objects, the investigation of the manner in which that study is reflected in their present-day care and interpretation, and the study of the wider implications of such approaches. 'Memorial volumes can be a bit hit and miss, but this one is all hits, partly because the papers are all iconoclastic in one way or another, offering an alternative view or a dissenting voice, which one senses is what John did in his own life to very good effect.' The Society of Antiquaries of London Online Newsletter (Salon): Issue 309, 25 November 2013

The subject of this work is the pottery (amphorae, vessels, lamps, small objects and architectural ceramic) of Roman Africa from the 2nd to the 7th century. It is based on a large assemblage from several settlements in south of France (Marseilles), in Tunisia (Nabeul, Hammamet/Pupput, Sidi Jdidi, Oudhna, Carthage, Thuburbo Majus, El Jem) and in the Eastern Mediterranean (Alexandria, Beirut). In the first part, the author examines different aspects of production (epigraphy, petrography, workshops, technology). The second part is devoted to the typology and the chronology of amphorae, red slip ware, cooking wares, coarse ware, handmade wares, lamps, figurines and moulds, tiles and vaulting tubes, with some new proposals for classification and dating. Economic patterns are discussed in the third part, including the processes of commercialisation (outside and inside Africa), the contents of amphorae and the historical interpretations of the large diffusion of African pottery. This book won the prize of Hippo 2004 the Academy of Sciences , Agriculture, Arts and Belles Lettres d'Aix / Cet ouvrage a obtenu le prix d'Hippone 2004 de l'Académie des Sciences, Agriculture, Arts et Belles Lettres d'Aix

The author's concern in this volume is the spatial organisation of hunters and gatherers and how this is manifested through dissimilarities in the style of objects. Differences were tested in Queensland Aboriginal material culture, aiming to search for a regionalisation of style. The study is broad-scale and the results show a clear regionalisation in Queensland that broadly correlates with drainage divisions: the patterns are robust. The model presented is applicable to archaeological research which is concerned with distributions of style and how these are associated with the populations of past hunters and gatherers. The primary data are 813 artefacts (including bags, boomerangs, message sticks, shields, spears and spearthrowers) from selected UK and Australian museum collections. The objects date from the early contact period and were collected by explorers, colonial officials and anthropologists. Secondary sources include published and unpublished material, archaeology, rock art, early photographs and present-day Aboriginal spokesmen. Analysis of the data proceeds from the most broad-based presence/absence evidence and continues to examine and compare the morphological characteristics of the objects. At each stage, the findings are set against the regional model, whereby Queensland in divided into six geographical regions based on drainage divisions. The findings are considered against social and environmental models of style. The author evaluates the impact that ecology plays on stylistic traditionand discusses the social role of style as a means of transmitting social information. She also considers the 'open' and 'closed' model which, in a hunter-gatherer context, has been linked to environmental conditions. The conclusions of the analyses suggest that both environmental and social factors play an important part in stylistic tradition and stylistic choice.

This book has attempted to collect evidence of the lively trade in the Atlantic from the 1st century BC up to 1st century AD, when the Romans decided to conquer the territories of the Atlantic littoral. The papers here cover the commercial phenomena detected from the Strait of Gibraltar up to the Galician coasts of the NW Iberian Peninsula, which was probably determined by the military campaigns in the NW during the Augustan campaigns against Cantabrii and Astures, and later the NW exploitation of the rich mines there. However, our feeling is that the phenomena was not limited to the Iberian Peninsula but affected the whole Mar Exterior (Atlantic), from the coast of Armorica, Brittany, Normandy, Belgium and Germania Inferior. Despite obvious differences between all these territories, there were some common traits in material culture, information, traders and logistics which cannot be explained in a fragmentary way. The present volume attempts to fill a gap from the western side of the Atlantic, but we are aware that some questions raised here can be only answered from other territories of the Mar Exterior.

This report presents the results of the Swiss-sponsored contributions to an international research project at Ekven, a prehistoric settlement situated on the Siberian coast of the Bering Strait (Chukchi Peninsula, Russian Federation), in 1995-98. After Reto Blumer reported on the preliminary results of the first two seasons, the purpose here is to present an overview of the excavations conducted in the ensuing two years. This richly illustrated volume presents the state of knowledge about Western Arctic Eskimo prehistory and about Ekven in particular, discussing the cultural terminology and chronology; the location and topography of Ekven, the vegetation, fauna, climate, and recent settlement history by Yupik (called Eskimosi in Russian) and Chukchi; a detailed description and analysis of the cut through the settlement created by marine erosion, erosion which grinds away at the site and will make it eventually disappear; comparisons of paleoclimatic data from the Ekven area with those just across the Bering Strait in Alaska; analysis of pottery recovered during the excavation and preparation of the erosion cut for documentation. The entire publication is an important contribution regarding the infiltration, in the still poorly known prehistoric past, of the ancestors of present-day Yupik in the peninsula settled by, and named after, Chukchi people. This process had great significance for the Eskimo migrations from the Arctic regions of the Old, to those of the New World.

The experimental study of refitting individual bones by osteoscopic approach includes 20 bilaterally symmetrical pairs and 14 contiguous articulations. More than 800 tests, each one based upon 70 bones, were done. The occurrence of three hierarchies was established: the first implies the type of refitting (bilaterally symmetrical bones are much better recognised than contiguity articulations); the second demonstrates that the performance of recognising refitted bones depends on the type of bones involved; the last relates to the degree of osteological knowledge. These results will provide a strategy to follow during future digging excavations when referencing topographic data. The accuracy of studies applied to metrical, morphometrical and chromatic approaches is also evaluated. The implications brought by refitting single bones in the counting of individuals buried are analysed: new formulae are proposed that allow us to estimate errors in the refitting of individual bones.

Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Central China was the scene of important cultural developments which impacted on agricultural practices and local vegetation. Using phytolith data from archaeological sites in Henan, this study investigates changing crop choices, from broomcorn millet to foxtail millet to rice. Crop processing stages were interpreted by examination of differing proportions of phytoliths from crop husks, weed husks and crop and weed leaves to illustrate cultivation systems, harvesting and processing methods. The results suggest more successful agricultural practices and possible changes in social organisation in the Late Neolithic. Phytolith data was also used to understand impacts of these changes on local vegetation.

Edited by Gocha R. Tsetskhladze with the assistance of Ergün Lafl¿, James Hargrave and William Anderson.The papers in this volume vary in their coverage, from the archaeological to the linguistic, from numismatics to pottery (and peoples), jewellery to rock-cut tombs, inscriptions to basilicas, and from the myth of the Argonauts to the Tabula Peutingeriana.

The low ridge of Phourni rises smoothly at the north-west edge of the fertile Cretan plain of Archanes, situated c.12 km south of Knossos. Uncovered along this ridge was one of the most important burial sites of the Bronze Age Aegean. Its historical trajectory extends from the beginning of the EM II to LM III B, covering approximately 14 centuries of almost uninterrupted use: the spectacular Tholos tomb E was unearthed in 1975. This present study is divided into 3 parts. Part 1 examines the tomb's architecture, stratigraphy, and find contexts. Part 2 takes up the presentation and evaluation of the large and varied number of finds, including very early fragments of Linear A and one of the earliest securely dated seal groups of Minoan Crete. The third part is dedicated to a comprehensive analysis of mortuary data, and provides further theoretical material for funerary beliefs in Bronze Are Crete.

Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology 59Since 1996, the author has been involved with a cultural, archaeological, and geological survey of the Mukogodo Hills and Ewaso Ng'iro Plains in Central Kenya. Results of this research are presented herein, with a primary goal of providing an environmental chronology and describing patterns of human land use through the Late Pleistocene. This was accomplished through geoarchaeological and archaeological survey. The geoarchaeological study demonstrates how local environmental conditions, particularly fluvial geomorphology, have responded to East African climatic fluctuations. This, in turn, provides a comparative basis to interpret cultural change documented by the archaeological survey. While building on research that has already been conducted in the region, these investigations provide the context within which to make archaeological interpretations meaningful. This research addresses four main questions. First, did landscape changes affect the distribution of archaeological sites in the Mukogodo Hills-Ewaso Ng'iro Plains region? Second, are there significant differences in land-use patterns between the Middle and Later Stone Age inhabitants of the region? Third, did the arrival of pastoralism contribute to erosion and degradation of the landscape? Fourth, has ecological change correlated with changes in economic patterns observed in the archaeological record?

This book on ethnicity in Mediterranean protohistory may well be regarded as the main and final result of the project on the ethnicity of the Sea Peoples as set up by Wim van Binsbergen as academic supervisor and worked out by Fred Woudhuizen who, in the process, earned himself a PhD from the Erasmus University Rotterdam (2006). The book is divided into four parts: I) Ethnicity in Mediterranean proto-history: explorations in theory and method: With extensive discussions of the Homeric catalogue of ships, the Biblical Table of Nations, and the Sea Peoples of the Late Bronze Age, against the background of a long-range comparative framework; II) The ethnicity of the Sea Peoples: an historical, archaeological and linguistic study; III) The ethnicity of the Sea Peoples: A second opinion; IV) The ethnicity of the Sea Peoples: Towards a synthesis, and in anticipation of criticism. It will soon be clear to the reader that the two authors differ considerably in their view on the matter, largely as a result of their different background and disciplinary allegiance. Thus Wim van Binsbergen (Parts I and III) - apart from providing an elaborate theoretical framework - , as a historicising anthropologist focuses on long-term processes and cultural features, whereas Fred Woudhuizen (Part II), as a historian by origin, is more occupied with the reconstruction (however difficult, in the protohistorical context) of the petty historical incidents. But however much the two authors may differ in detail and in overall disciplinary orientation, in the end they offer the reader a balanced synthesis, co-authored by both of them (Part IV), in which their respective views turn out to be complementary rather than diametrically opposed, and in which also a further methodological and linguistic vindication is offered for the more controversial points contained in the present book.

The papers collected in this volume were, with a couple of exceptions, presented at a conference on Celtic coinage held at the Ashmolean Museum and the Institute of Archaeology, Oxford, on 6th - 7th December 2001. With seventeen speakers and an audience of ninety, this was by far the largest gathering devoted specifically to Celtic numismatics since the 1989 Oxford, and indeed must have been one of the largest meetings devoted to Celtic coinage ever to have taken place.

After the death of the last of the ramessides, Smendes, Lord of Tanis, proclaimed himself Pharaoh, founded the XXI dynasty and initiated one of the most unknown but attractive periods in the history of Egypt, the Third Intermediate Period. This book deals with the burials in the Valley of the Kings in the 21st - 30th Dynasties of Egypt, when they were not used by the rulers anymore. Through detailed investigation of the tombs and the hieroglyphs, the author has tried to identify the individuals buried in these tombs. The royal New Kingdom tombs were taken as a reference point and a comparison with the texts and iconography was established. This enables a better understanding of the traditions that followed in the Third Intermediate Period and naturally the changes that had taken place in the choice of the religious compendiums and representations associated with this period.

This book brings together, for the first time, all of the burials and funerary practices from the Middle Neolithic to the end of the Middle Bronze Age (3600-1200 BC) in Wales into one coherent volume. The work is the first to provide an up-to-date synthesis of monument form and mortuary practice in Neolithic and Bronze Age Wales. It provides a comprehensive overview of all human bone deposits (both cremation and inhumation) throughout this time span. This comprises the osteological analysis of over 250 human bone deposits, with new observations and interpretations. The book engages with current debates on the changing character and significance of burial rites in later prehistory.

Moving away from the highly constrained, purely humanistic and empirical studies of hillfort location and morphology of the past, this book presents a multi-regional GIS-based analysis of the form and siting of several groups of hillforts across Britain. The location and morphology of hillforts in Ceredigion, Dartmoor, Aberdeenshire, The Gower and Warminster are investigated through a combination of GIS-based analysis and field visits. An innovative approach of integrating movement with visibility is employed to investigate whether movement, visibility and topography influenced the location and morphology of these hillforts. This investigation emphasises the complexity of hillforts as a class of site. It demonstrates that GIS-based analysis, when combined with fieldwork, can effectively be applied to the investigation of hillfort location and form, paving the way for future research agendas within hillforts and beyond.

El uso de brazaletes de piedra es uno de los fenómenos arqueológicos más destacado asociado a las primeras sociedades neolíticas en gran parte del Occidente Mediterráneo. Estos adornos se relacionan con el Neolítico Antiguo, caracterizado por el horizonte de las cerámicas decoradas cardiales y otras impresiones. En este libro se presenta el estudio petrológico, tecnológico, tipológico y traceológico realizado a estos adornos en la península ibérica. Estos análisis han permitido identificar culturalmente, a partir del uso, distribución y producción de los brazaletes, dos grupos culturales con un desarrollo social diferente y paralelo. Estos grupos son los tradicionalmente denominados como el Neolítico andaluz y el Neolítico valenciano. La distribución geográfica y cronológica de los brazaletes los convierte en un definidor cultural de las sociedades del Neolítico Inicial en estos ámbitos geográficos. De la misma forma, su artesanía, circulación y uso permite determinar parte del devenir socioeconómico de estas primeras poblaciones neolíticas.The use of stone bracelets is one of the most fascinating archaeological phenomena associated with the first Neolithic societies in most of the Western Mediterranean. These adornments are associated with the Early Neolithic, characterised by the advent of pottery with cardial and other impressed decorations. This book presents a petrological, technological, typological and traceological study of these bracelets in the Iberian Peninsula. Through these analyses, based on the use, distribution and production of the bracelets, the author identifies two cultural groups with different and parallel social developments. These groups are those traditionally known as the 'Andalusian Neolithic' and the 'Valencian Neolithic'. The geographic and chronological distribution of the bracelets makes them a cultural marker of Early Neolithic societies in these geographical areas. Similarly, analysis of their craftsmanship, circulation and use allows the author to determine aspects of the socioeconomic evolution of these first farming populations.

This book is the first in-depth analysis of one of the most remarkable monuments of Ostia, the ancient port town of Rome: The Domus del Ninfeo (III, VI, 1-3). Originally built as a multi-storey complex during the reign of Hadrian, in Late Antiquity it was converted into a ground-floor mansion to serve the dominus and his extended family. During this phase the building was enriched with marble floors and the elegant nymphaeum that gives it its current name. This study aims to present a comprehensive picture of the Domus, analysing not only the many structural changes but also its topographical setting, historical context and social inferences. The text also features the archaeological drawings that were made during the study and the results of a clearance in an area of the house previously neglected; the latter has provided invaluable evidence for interesting structural modifications that were previously completely unknown.

Cet ouvrage pose la question des rapports masculin-féminin au sein des sociétés du monde nord-alpin (soit le nord-est de la France, la moitié sud de l'Allemagne, la Suisse, l'Autriche et la Bohême), pendant plus d'un millénaire (du Bronze final au milieu du second âge du Fer). L'étude de quelques nécropoles a mis en évidence l'existence d'une structure hiérarchisée de ces sociétés. Ce préalable permet de poser la question de Grandes Femmes dans ces sociétés à travers l'appréhension d'une élite, définie par des sépultures ostentatoires. Un corpus de plus de 700 de ces sépultures a été analysé, nécessitant la mise en œuvre d'outils méthodologiques inédits permettant des interprétations en termes de richesse et de genre puis d'en questionner les rapports. Les données funéraires ont été enrichies par les apports des données textuelles et iconographiques sur les sociétés nord-alpines, mais également par l'étude des rapports de genre dans les sociétés contemporaines, voisines du monde nord-alpin et mieux documentées. Tous ces éléments ont permis de préciser les fluctuations des rapports entre féminin et masculin, de mettre en évidence des moments d'ostentation importante du féminin et d'en tirer des hypothèses interprétatives sur les structures des sociétés nord-alpines envisagées.This book explores male-female relationships in the societies of the North Alpine world. The analysis is based on a corpus of more than 1000 graves spread across north-eastern France, southern Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Bohemia. The treatment of this corpus is twofold: the first part is dedicated to cemeteries, and reveals the existence of a social hierarchy in the societies that established them; the second part focuses on the elite graves that became more numerous from the Late Bronze Age through the middle of second Iron Age. The study of these burials required the development of methodological tools for interpreting the corpus in terms of wealth and gender, in order to question the relationships between male and female. The resulting funerary data has been supplemented with ancient textual and iconographical data, and broadened through an examination of gender relations in contemporary neighbouring societies of the North Alpine world. These elements enable the author to shed light on the developments that affected male-female relationships, as well as to highlight important periods in the emergence of women and, finally, to come to interpretative hypotheses about the social structures of the North Alpine societies under study.

This book includes papers from Session C68 (Part I) of the XV UISPP World Congress (Lisbon, 4-9 September 2006).

Examination of ten major churches of pre-Viking period in Anglo-Saxon England, from a linguistic as well as from an historical point of view. As a whole, the book provides an historical context for the development of Anglo-Saxon architecture in the seventh and eighth centuries. Evidence from Merovinigian and early Carolingian Gaul is also examined and the text of almost all the documentary evidence, together with the author's new translations, is given in the second part of the study.

This is the sixth volume in a series of publications dealing with the excavations by Groningen University in 1991-2004 on the Timpone della Motta, Francavilla Marittima, Calabria (Italy), under the direction of the author. It is preceded by four BAR volumes on the Oenotrian production of Matt-painted pottery and one on spindle whorls. The locally produced material, together with impasto pottery, loom weights, cooking stove fragments, etc. was associated with an indigenous, Oenotrian apsidal building dating from the 8th century BC. Judging from the presence of an altar and a huge ash layer - alongside the many bone fragments of adult and sub-adult domestic animals, as well as those of foetal and neonatal specimens - this was not only the residence of female spinners and weavers, but also fulfilled a sacred function. The present volume largely consists of a catalogue of loom weights of various types, among them nicely decorated ones, and a description of their find circumstances. The book also contains a description of the loom weights and spindle whorls and their provenances from the excavations of Zancani Montuoro/Stoop 1963-'69 and a chapter on the extraordinary solar iconography of the large 8th-c. BC loom weights from Francavilla Marittima.

The so-called Coligny Calendar was discovered in November 1897 by a Monsieur Roux in a field north of Coligny (Ain, France). He came across the fragments of a buried statue of a young male deity and, with it, the broken-up remains of what had once been alarge bronze plaque. The more than 150 individual fragments, most of which bore writings and numerical values aligned to vertical lines of holes, were quickly recognized as pieces of a calendar, written in Roman capitals. The language was later recognized as Gaulish. Archaeological analysis showed that the fragments had been collected in a container made from a vegetal fibre. Archaeologists have suggested several hypotheses for this strange circumstance. The most accredited of them is that a druid wanted to save the remaining fragments of the calendar, burying them underground in a wood, and for the statue, evidently a sacred object, that it had been broken up for some dramatic event. The analysis proposed in this volume is that the plaque does not bear a solar calendar, but shows essentially the structure of a lunar calendar, based on a given yearly lunation pattern, and adapted to the solar course by means of two intercalary months. Therefore it could be a scientific instrument, the result of a cognitive study that perhaps was not used alone, but together with the solar Julian Calendar.

This fifth volume in a series of publications dealing with the excavations by Groningen University in 19912004 on the Timpone della Motta, Francavilla Marittima, Calabria (Italy), under the direction of the author, is preceded by four BAR volumes on the Oenotrian production of Matt-painted pottery. That pottery, together with impasto pottery fragments, loom weights and spindle whorls, was associated with an indigenous Oenotrian apsidal building, which, judging from the presence of animal bones (a relatively high percentage of which were fetal and neonatal bones of pigs, sheep and goats), an altar and ash, was not only a residence of female spinners and weavers, but also fulfilled a sacred function. The present volume largely consists of a catalogue of 300 spindle whorls of various types. Their weights and types are compared with spindle whorls from other Calabrian find spots (mainly graves) and conclusions as to the development in indigenous Oenotrian spinning practices are suggested.

This book presents an archaeozoological analysis of the Early Medieval fortified settlement Sand, in Lower Austria. The work describes the exceptional socio-economic organisation of a settlement based on its animal remains, at the border between Slavic and German spheres of influence. The investigation sheds light on aspects of daily life, the interaction between consumers and providers, and the exploitation of faunal resources.The first part of the book is dedicated to the environmental setting, the site, the material, and the methods applied. The main part presents a species by species analysis of the numerous faunal remains. The final part of the book discusses the archaeozoological results within the archaeological record, as well as the historical sources.The archaeozoological results show that the study of the faunal remains has played a decisive role in the archaeological interpretation of the site and substantially improved our understanding of historical processes and social dynamics.

NAS Monograph Series No.2Gerhard Kapitän, born in Meissen (Dresden, Germany) on the 23rd April 1924, is a scholar whose main field of study is maritime archaeology and ethnography. This book is Gerhard Kapitän's inventory of traditional Sri Lankan watercraft and his great achievement. Prepared for publication by Gerald Grainge, in association with Somasiri Devendra, the volume represents Kapitän's collection of scale drawings and photographs of traditional watercraft from west and south Sri Lanka. The material submitted consisted of Kapitän's drawings, photographs and captions - still the centrepiece of the book - together with a brief introductory overview by the author (Chapter 2) and an early draft of his classification of the watercraft of Sri Lanka (Chapter 4) along with brief notes on each of the drawings. The editor has written up a brief introductory comment to each of the chapters, based on what Gerhard Kapitän had previously published. Kapitän passionately believed in the importance of the traditional watercraft of Sri Lanka in terms of heritage, not only for Sri Lanka, but for the world. His vision of a maritime museum to preserve these craft was realized in 1992 in the old Dutch warehouse, situated near the Old Gate of Galle Fort, but unfortunately it was devastated by the 2004 tsunami. This volume, an important contribution to nautical archaeology, presents a unique record of the traditional craft that plied, and in many cases still plies, around the coastal waters of Sri Lanka.

Hypogean Archaeology: Research and Documentation of Underground Structures No 7Edited under the Aegis of the Federazione Nazionale Cavità Artificiali (F.N.C.A.)

Estudio paleoambiental en el valle del Madriu-Perafita-Claror (Andorra)Combined palaeoenvironmental and archaeological studies of European high mountains are still rare. This integrated research aims to understand the long-term landscape shaping of the Madriu-Perafita-Claror valley (Andorra, Eastern Pyrenees), included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. A palaeoenvironmental study combining pollen, non-pollen palynomorphs, and macrocharcoal was carried out in natural basins and results were integrated with archaeological on-site data. Distinct phases of local landscape variability are detected and related to the spatial organization of land-uses from the Neolithic to the Modern Era. This study underlines the role of social, economic and cultural parameters in the landscape shaping of European highlands since the Prehistory.

As well as presenting a detailed presentation of the archaeological finds from the Basilica of Santa María in Alicante (S/E Spain), this work also describes one of the pioneering investigations carried out by the Archaeological Museum of Alicante into the application of archaeological methodology to architectural projects in the Valencian Region. The results of the archaeological interventions were spectacular - a unique collection of nearly 500 practically complete pots was found. These included large wine or oil containers, some associated with maritime trade, as well as ceramic objects used in the basilica's construction: an exceptional example of a ceramic siphon was found, which is the oldest known example in Europe. This large and unique pottery collection comprises the main body of this publication, in catalogue form. The study begins however with introductory chapters describing the basilica and the evolution of its architecture throughout the medieval period.

Castro do Vieito is a settlement of a modest size, situated on the left bank of the Lima river estuary in the north west of Portugal. It was the target of a large scale archaeological rescue operation from 2004 to 2005, one coordinated by the present author. The enormous source of data, completely unpublished until today, that was provided by this unparalleled intervention, is explored here in such a way as to offer the reader a portrait of a village community which lived through the initial phase of the region's integration within the Roman empire. Castro do Vieito's setting on a nautical stopping point, close to one of the region's largest mineral seams, makes it possible to understand the involvement of this settlement in the supply network of the drafted military that controlled the auriferous explorations situated upstream on the river Lima. This privileged relationship with the military occupation force means that this settlement is distinct in many aspects from the others that surrounded it and makes it important in terms of understanding the different dynamics involved in the interaction of the local populations with the Imperial Army. After a first chapter explaining the methodological problems connected with an intervention of this nature and size and spread, as well as the solutions developed to surpass the problems, the following four chapters portray different aspects of the daily life of this community.