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Wine is a beverage that belongs to the Mediterranean culture. A study of the origins of wine shows how deep vineyards are rooted in this area from West to East and since antiquity. The oldest and most extensive documentation about viticulture and winemaking comes from Egypt. Vineyards have been grown in the Nile Delta for five thousand years. The historical and archaeological study of documents and paintings related to winemaking coming from walls of Egyptian tombs, still presents nowadays unknown aspects. Thanks to the development of analytical techniques, we are now able to shed light on a new aspect known to us from the first Mediterranean civilization: the wine culture in Egypt. This present study has three objectives: To provide a bibliographical study of viticulture and oenology in ancient Egypt; to verify, in an analytical way, the presence of wine in amphorae of ancient Egypt; and to investigate what kinds of wine were produced in ancient Egypt.

The quarry has been considered a cornerstone in understanding lithic production systems. However, the methodological problems associated with the investigation of a quarry assemblage often leads to inadequate recording. The lack of detailed quarry research in Australia focusing on non-axe quarries has meant that they are poorly understood and for this reason a plethora of potentially valuable research regarding the role of the quarry in the organisation of lithic technology is virtually absent. There is a real need to develop quarry studies in Australia and worldwide. It is hoped that this study aides in the expansion of quarry research by providing a sound methodological and analytical approach to the study of quarry assemblages. A detailed technological and spatial analysis of quarries and occupations sites was used to determine the organisational strategies used to acquire and reduce the stone resources available in the arid zone margin of New South Wales, Australia, and identify the reasons why these particular strategies were employed during the late Holocene. Comparisons are made between quarried and non-quarried stone to identify their 'role' in the organisation of lithic technology. The theoretical framework incorporates aspects of non-site distributional archaeology. The individual artefact is the basic methodological and theoretical building block from which greater scales of variation in the distribution and composition of the archaeological record can be examined. This examination uses the concept of 'risk' as the heuristic device with which to explore the costs and benefits of employing different technological strategies. Hence the form of an artefact, its position in space and its time in the cultural system, are the key components of this study. By using a combination of these approaches it is possible to identify not only the many factors that contribute to the formation and distribution of stone resources but also the ways Aboriginal people organised their stone technology during the late Holocene.

Contributions from Janet Bell, Alison Kyle, Marion Meek and Brian SloanOne of the pressing problems listed in the first volume of the third series of the Ulster Journal of Archaeology in 1938 was the need to discover more about the character of early ecclesiastical settlements in the North of Ireland. The material remains of the early church in the north are, however, fragmentary and scattered and have been very unevenly studied. This present work was undertaken in the belief that early ecclesiastical sites deserve more concentrated study than they have received in the past. The author's initial was to bring together the scattered notices of early sites and material, to visit the sites, record the material and look at the evidence as a whole. The search for material, however, led on to the written sources and the place-name evidence, and so the work has grown from a search for material to an exploration of the interrelationships between the different sources. The study is in three parts. The introductory section explores the various approaches and the sources, including a discussion of procedure. Section II pursues the themes which emerge from the introduction. The basis for all this discussion is the material presented in section III, the gazetteer and inventory, which includes 266 sites and is accompanied by illustrations.

Caesarea Maritima is located on the eastern Mediterranean coast about 50 kilometres north of Tel Aviv, Israel. Between 1992 and 1997, large-scale excavations took place on the site, conducted by the Combined Caesarea Expeditions (CCE) and the Israeli Antiquity Authority (IAA). Thousands of pottery vessels from Post Byzantine levels, either intact or fragmental, were unearthed. Many were retrieved from sealed and homogeneous loci accompanied by coins, inscriptions and other dateable items. The selected samples represent the various types related to the Post Byzantine occupation levels. These are divided into two main historical eras: The Early Islamic (640-1101 C.E.), and the Crusader and Mamlûk periods (1101-1291). 16 strata and 10 phases were identified and each of these can be almost precisely dated and contain an exceptionally rich repertory of local and of imported pottery vessels. The data in this volume is presented consistent with chrono-typological appearance, the assemblages within each stratum being divided into three main categories: table ware, containers, and cooking ware.

In this work, the author reconstructs the Mesopotamian land tenure system as it may have existed at or near the beginning of history. The major focus is on the texts from Souruppak, which are the first that can be comprehended reasonably well. These are supported by detailed analysis of two later archives, the more recent of which is Sargonic. Altogether, the substantive study period covers about four hundred years in the middle of the third millennium. Introductory consideration is given to Sumerian Mesopotamia from the end of the fourth millennium until about 2200 in the Old Akkadian period and identifies some components of the tenure system during this time. The chronological focus of the study is extended to provide a broader sweep through the history of urbanisation on the alluvial plains of the Euphrates to provide a context for the development of irrigation, associated agricultural land and its tenure. The research is concerned with the city-states of the area known for the latter part of this period as ki-en-gi, the limits of which regularly varied with the shifting channels of the Tigris to the east and the Euphrates to the west. The texts, which are the database of this study, originate from Souruppak towards the south and Nippur and Isin in the north of Sumer. The primary evidence for types of land tenure in third millennium Sumer is adduced from cuneiform text archives from Early Dynastic Souruppak (Fara), pre- or early Sargonic Isin and Nippur of the classical Sargonic period. These archives are, arguably, administrative and economic records from palace, temple and private households. The study incorporates and emphasises transactions concerning real property from the genre of texts usually represented as sale documents or sale contracts. A principal and essential objective is to integrate these sale documents or contracts with administrative records related to land in a reconstruction of the tenure system. It is almost entirely the case that this synthesis has been absent from studies of sale contracts.

An interesting and unusual work on a little-explored field of study. By means of the iconographic evidence, the author aims to provide a counterbalance to the traditional studies of medieval welsh piety with their heavy emphasis on poetic material. There are interesting and suggestive divergences between the ideas communicated by literary evidence and those suggested by the surviving visual culture. In considering the importance of visual imagery as evidence for religious beliefs, the part played by imagery in the formation and reinforcement of a distinctive spirituality is not ignored. The work concentrates on surviving images from the 'golden century', but patterns of destruction and preservation are identified, including rare works lost through poverty and neglect.

This book describes the broad network of studies which were involved in three years of archaeological research in the southern Tigray (Ethiopia), at the Mifsas Bäri site. The uniqueness of this work lies in the subject of our research and in the final results. Mifsas Bäri is the southernmost Late Aksumite (c. 550¿c. 700 CE) site known in Tigray, the ruins of which dominate the amazing landscape of Lake ¿ashenge. The data collected from the excavation, survey, pottery and anthropological analysis, historical and linguistic researches contribute to the knowledge of a region of southern Tigray during the so-called "Ethiopian dark age". This book offers to the scientific community and to scholars involved in the Ethiopian studies new, convincing results and information regarding a region and a period hitherto unknown in the history of ancient Ethiopia.

How did farming spread into Europe, from its origins in the Near East? And what remained of the original Neolithic, once it spread beyond its initial boundaries, to Western Anatolia, Greece and the Balkans? This book looks at the content of the Neolithic pattern of existence that spread into Europe 8,500 years ago, and specifically at practices, defined by reference to the theories of social action as normative acts or ways of doing. Beyond farming practices - this book argues - the Neolithic witnessed the inception of a new set of residential and construction practices, pertaining to the way in which houses were built, lived in and discarded at the end of their use-lives. The argument is substantiated by a detailed review of Neolithic house forms and settlement structures during the interval 8,500-5,500 BC cal. in Anatolia and the Aegean Basin, combined with a re-examination of the absolute chronology for the arrival of the first farmers.

This monograph summarizes the first anthropological survey of human skeletons excavated at the 2nd church cemetery in Pohansko-B¿eclav (Czech Republic). The cemetery was discovered in 2006 in a north-eastern suburb of Pohansko and represents one of the key pieces of evidence about changes in human society at the end of the Great Moravian Empire (9th-10th century), when Early Medieval societies transformed into a new political organization. The monograph provides a summary of the preservation, paleodemographic assessments and paleopathology of the adult and non-adult skeletons with respect to new developments in techniques for assessing age at death, sex, stature and body mass from the Early Medieval skeletal material. Also provided are detailed preservation and osteometric data for further application in bioarchaeology, skeletal anthropology and archaeology.

The Archaeology of Gatherings was a thematic international conference to bring together a range of speakers from different disciplines. It took place at the Institute of Technology, Sligo, Ireland, between 25 and 27 October 2013 during the year of 'The Gathering', an Irish government initiative to engage with the worldwide diaspora. The aim of the conference and of this volume was to take a multidisciplinary approach in order to explore the structures, material culture and psychology behind gatherings of people. This volume thus seeks to contribute to the study of varied types of temporary gatherings both from the contemporary world and from the past. Through time people have gathered together for many reasons, including religious and political assemblies, social interaction and to exchange commodities and ideas. While some of these gatherings occurred in particular buildings or arenas, many were outdoors and temporary, and may have left only limited material evidence of their occurrence. It is therefore hoped that this multidisciplinary approach will provide insight into these sometimes ephemeral events and their remains.

This book examines the Northern (Stone Age) rock art of central Norway, which is dominated by images of marine and terrestrial motifs. It focuses on how these images were drawn and are classified, on the topographical location of the sites, on their dating and cultural context, and on the relationship between rock art and material culture, and offers possible interpretations.

Khok Charoen (Hill of Prosperity) is a neolithic burial ground in Central Thailand, excavated in the 1960s and 70s by the Thai-British Archaeological Expedition, but because of the substantial Australian contribution these excavations can rightly be called the first Australian venture into Southeast Asian archaeology.The site, dated to the latter half of the second and the beginning of the first millennium BC, consists of three cemeteries with a total of 65 burials, straddling a discontinuity caused by floods, which greatly disturbed these burials and their finds, which include 513 pots, but no bronze. The study of this pottery is the key to the understanding of the cultural and social history of the site, explaining killings and grave robberies within a divided society.The aim of this book is to present, with the help of a great number of illustrations, an overall picture of this site at the junction of Stone and Bronze.

This study approaches the prehistory of Wessex (central southern England) from an inclusive, broad brush point of view. It incorporates the whole of the land, the soils that the geology supports, the climate and drainage pattern and, in particular, it focuses on the less studied part of the area, the coastal zone.

Gifford Archaeological Monographs Number TwoThis volume is the essential outcome of several years of post-excavational endeavour. In the course of it, the understanding of the historical contexts of the Roman establishment at Wilderspool developed, broadened and changed. Most influential in this respect were - at the time - the entirely unpremeditated, and fortuitous, developer-funded excavations elsewhere on the related Roman road network in the West Midlands and North West of England. Perhaps foremost among these was the excavation of part of the settlement at Holditch, in Staffordshire, which, so it is thought, was not only similar to Wilderspool in its underlying raisons d'être, but appears also to have had a history - or fate perhaps - that seems to have been closely linked to, and to reflect, the inexorable northward movement of Roman military logistical supply of material in the Claudio/Neronian to Flavio-Trajanic periods. Furthermore, these inter-settlement links and developments all appear to relate closely, in particular, to the great Roman northward arterial system to the west of the Pennines. With its side-roads and 'tributaries', this converged on the Mersey Crossing at Warrington, and in so doing provided a direct, physical, link between the establishments at Wilderspool and Holditch. In this volume, therefore, the authors decided to present the reports on excavations at both places in a single volume, in the hope that the reader will find this beneficial; and also that this will facilitate understanding of each place and the underlying historical contexts.With contributions by H. Cool, G. Dunn, G. Lucas, G. McDonnell, W. Manning, D. Shotter and M. Ward

Prehistoric connections and interactions across the Baltic Sea are discussed through pottery and ceramic materials in this volume. Included are nine articles by thirteen authors from the countries around and connected to the Baltic Sea. The articles cover a timescale ranging from the Neolithic to the late Iron Age and subjects including craft traditions, metallurgical production patterns, Neolithisation processes, grave traditions and cultural spheres. Methodological perspectives include studies of morphology, material, decorations and distribution patterns as well as experimental and laboratory analysis. The studied ceramic objects include miniature pots, pitchers, crucibles, tuyères, drinking vessels and tableware from the region around the Baltic Sea.

This book synthesises archaeological and historical research in order to investigate Maltese water management technology in the Medieval, Early Modern and Modern periods, more specifically between AD 900 and AD 1900. Maltese terrestrial geological formations and stratification are a determining factor in conditioning the formation of subterranean aquifers, water-harvesting and storage, landscape development and utilisation. Central to this publication are reservoirs, cisterns, wells and perched aquifer galleries, which have for centuries provided farmers tilling arable land with a supplementary water source other than the limited and erratic seasonal rainfall. The data and conclusions presented in this book are the result of extensive personal field and archival research and include an assessment of the available documentary sources of evidence, including place names and cartographic sources. Comparative research suggests that a number of perched aquifer subterranean galleries share common characteristics with the qanat technology of the Islamic and Roman worlds and, in a Maltese context, were possibly part of a new agricultural and technological package introduced during the Muslim or post-Muslim period between the eleventh and the fourteenth centuries AD.

The distribution of ceramic juglets in the eastern Mediterranean of the Middle to Late Bronze Age has become linked to the provision of precious commodities, such as perfumed oil to lower elite segments of society. This research represents the first systematic investigation of the circulation of juglets, as functionally distinct forms which offer a fine-grained dataset for examining wider issues related to commodity production, distribution and consumption. The chronological depth and spatial breadth of this study offer an opportunity to trace developments in the social and economic significance in the intra- and inter-regional distribution of this form, contributing also to an understanding of changing inter-regional contacts throughout the eastern Mediterranean. The analysis presented here addresses patterns of production (including evidence for regionalism and specialist manufacture), consumption strategies within and between societies and over time, as well as producer-consumer dynamics such as bilateral trade links, selective marketing and branding.

In 1994-1997, the Yale University Khabur Basin Project excavated Tell Ziyadeh on the Middle Khabur River of Northeastern Syria. This monograph describes two pioneering settlements: fifth millennium BC Ubaid and early third millennium. It discusses the research programme and strategies; reviews the modern and palaeoenvironments; and provides separate chapters describing the various excavation areas, as well as the ceramic, lithic, faunal and botanical remains found in them. Two chapters describe small-scale excavations at Mashnaqa and Kuran, sites with occupation histories paralleling Ziyadeh. The monograph concludes with a discussion of the immigration by fifth-millennium Ubaid settlers into a virgin landscape in the Khabur, and the gradual transition into a widespread Late Chalcolithic tradition. It provides a reconstruction of the realities of life in these small homesteads, which comprised a society of closely interacting settlements and remained viable for hundreds of years before moving elsewhere, as simultaneously as they had initially arrived.With contributions by Jennifer Arzt, Benjamin Diebold, Miroslava Gregerová, Gregory Johnson, Nicholas Kouchoukos, Joy McCorriston, Scott Rufolo and Dalibor Všianský

The Egyptian Museum of Florence has one of the most important ushabti collections in Italy and Europe. The collection contains around eight hundred ushabtis, which originally belonged to different collections: Granducale, Nizzoli, Rosellini, Ricci, Schiaparelli. Other smaller groups contain objects belonging to different sources collected within the 19th and 20th centuries. The ushabti corpus of Florence belongs to the end of the Second Intermediate and Roman Period. In 2008, the "Ushabti Project" was started by the Egyptology and the Coptic Civilization Study Centre "J.F. Champollion" of Genoa, in cooperation with the Egyptian Museum of Florence, which were interested in a complete study and scientific publication of a new catalogue concerning the ushabti collection. The catalogue is divided into several volumes, providing a complete documentation of the Florence ushabti collection. This volume contains a general introduction about the history of the collection, the abbreviations and textual codes, the records, a photographic section, a useful index and a bibliography.

Research on rock art conducted during the last several decades has shown the skill and knowledge demonstrated by the painters, engravers and sculptors who executed the motifs on rock surfaces and supports. Some motif sets required their creators to acquire a strong graphic command while workmanship techniques have very often proved to be more complex than previously assumed, including for remote periods. It also appears that the motifs have been placed according to specific criteria in connection with spatial orientation or support shape, for instance. The aim of this volume is to question these aesthetic productions with the conceptual tools of art history. How were the techniques used put to the service of the aesthetic project? How can the iconographic study and the stylistic analysis contribute to the understanding of the decorated site? Can we approach the "short time" of the realisation of cave or rock art sets? Is it possible to target regional particularisms? These are some ofthe questions to which current investigation techniques may give some fresh insight.

Mirrors are amongst the most well known British Iron Age objects. They are of a type which is peculiar to Britain and are significantly different in form from contemporary Greek, Etruscan and Roman forms. 58 mirrors are known. They are made of bronze andiron, or sometimes a combination of bronze and iron components. Mirrors comprise a handle and a reflective plate, which is often decorated with intricate and free-flowing designs. Some plates are also rimmed. Mirrors are found throughout Britain; two have been discovered in Ireland and two others are known from the continent. They are most commonly found in graves; but were also deposited in bogs and rarely at settlements. They date to the mid-late Iron Age. This book tests the applicability of the biographical approach to prehistoric objects and the application of the biographical approach to prehistoric material culture is evaluated by constructing biographies for Iron Age mirrors. This study is divided into three main sections. In the first section mirrors are introduced as is the theoretical methodology (Chapter 2). Chapter 1 explains what mirrors look like, the contexts they are found in and how they have been studied in the past to pinpoint what we do not yet understand about them and what needs further clarification. In Chapter 2 the biographical approach to artefacts is outlined; how it has been used in archaeology and how the approach will be utilised to expand our knowledge of mirrors and the broader Iron Age context by reconstructing the relationships that constitute mirrors and their biographies. Chapter 3 examines evidence for the production of Iron Age metal artefacts as well as investigating the context of the production of metalwork in ethnographic contexts. The aim is to develop an understanding of the technology of mirror production, the relationships established through their production and the potential future trajectories of the life of a mirror set out at the time of manufacture. In Chapter 4 mirror decoration is examined. Chapter 5 summarises the results of a programme of visual examination of the physical condition of surviving mirrors. Over 30 mirrors were examined for signs of wear, polishing and repair; clues which can indicate how mirrors were used and inform us about their social lives. Chapter 6 examines the form of mirrors. In the third section deposition context is examined. Chapter 8 is the first comprehensive dating audit of all Iron Age mirrors. In Chapter 9 all of the deposition data is collected. Chapter 10 is an analysis of the results of Chapter 9. In Chapter 11 the implications of these findings for wider research and the future of the application of the biographical approach to archaeological research, is assessed.

This study proposes to examine the case of Homo erectus whose phylogenetic position and taxonomic status remain unclear despite considerable research aimed at identifying this taxon from archaic forms.

Abstract is in English

This is an archaeological study of social organization and change in a late prehispanic population of northern Chile. The research involves contextual examination of the occurrence of highland ceramic styles and materials and drawing inferences concerning local socio-political structures. Excavation at four sites dating to the Late Intermediate and Late Periods (AD 1100-1500) revealed no evidence of highland colonists or colonial enclaves. Household artefact assemblages showed: (a) that despite the presence of highland trade goods, the cultural pattern resembles local coastal traditions; (b) no indications of pronounced social or wealth differences; (b) great continuity through time in domestic activities; and (c) significant shifts in ceramic style preferences, highland import assemblages, textile production and access to metal ornaments. An important suprahousehold change of the Late Period was the nucleation of population at Molle Pampa Este, a site containing architecture (an ushnu and plaza) associated with imperial Inka administration and public ceremony.

Between 1801 and the First World War the population of the Borough of Reading increased almost tenfold, simultaneously with the growth of new industries. The authorities responded by delineating new streets and encouraging development in districts springing up mainly to the east, south and west beyond the original market town. The Borough's Highways Committee, helped by legislation, played a major role in managing and guiding these activities, especially in the later part of the nineteenth century. Largenumber of bricks burnt from local clays were used to build houses, shops, schools, chapels and churches required in these new suburbs, but the making of the streets called for the procurement of stone from far and wide. This volume discusses the geological features, spatial distribution and geographic sources (such as south Oxfordshire, Wales, Leicestershire and as far away as Norway) of the types of stone used for road construction in Reading in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The results of the excavation of two Paleolithic sites on the Nile in the Republic of the Sudan, undertaken from the autumn of 1965 into the spring of 1966, are presented in this report. Artifacts from Khor Abu Anga and Magendohli, currently housed in the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, are described and quantified. The artifact assemblages are identified as discrete units, placed in chronological order, compared in terms of cultural content, and assigned to known industrial complexes. The Khor Abu Anga and Magendohli assemblages are comparable to and part of recognized prehistoric industrial Acheulian, the Sangoan, the Lupemban, and Aterian complexes well documented in Africa and in parts of Europe and western Asia. The archaeological deposits at Khor Abu Anga are part of a record of evolving lithic technology from late Acheulian through Sangoan into Lupemban in the upper Nile valley over a long period of time.