First hand anecdotal snap shots offer a taste of daily life during the author's fifteen-year period at the High Down and Woomera rocket test sites. The preparation of eight Black Knight and four Black Arrow rockets up to their liftoff are recounted in detail with relevant diagrams and a few photos. So-called "rocket-science" jargon is deliberately sidestepped throughout. Delays that dogged Black Arrow's birth are touched along with a full explanation for terminating RO's maiden flight. Peripheral issues met during the final two proving flights are also discussed. The launch team's bittersweet feelings as R3 was readied and lifted off to deliver Prospero into earth orbit are chronicled alongside their dismay at the projects unfitting end. Black Arrow was Britain's only home grown rocket to stage an orbital insertion and may also be the only rocket to achieve this using peroxide oxidiser.

This practical introductory guide explains what archaeoastronomy is and gives advice for the beginner in the subject about how to check the astronomy of a prehistoric site. * Contains evidence for archaeoastronomy from around the world * Explains the role of archaeologists * Gives a simple introduction to solar and lunar astronomy * Lists the key dates to visit ancient sites * Explains why alignments have slightly altered over the centuries * Emphasises the links with ancient sea-faring and navigation * Encourages readers to adopt their own site for further research

This guidance is designed to help those intending to use airborne laser scanning (ALS), also known as lidar, for archaeological survey. The aim is to help archaeologists, researchers and those who manage the historic environment to decide first, whether using lidar data will actually be beneficial in terms of their research aims, and second, how the data can be used effectively. The guidance will be most useful to those who have access to data that have already been commissioned, or are planning to commission lidar for a specific purpose. They also provide an introduction to data interpretation in order to separate archaeological and non-archaeological features. Although important themes are introduced, this guidance are not intended as a definitive explanation of the technique or the complexities of acquiring and processing the raw data, particularly as this is a still developing technology. This document is intended to complement 3D Laser Scanning for Heritage, which covers a wider range of uses of laser scanning for heritage purposes (Historic England 2018). This Guidance is a revision of The Light Fantastic: Using Airborne Lidar in Archaeological Survey published by English Heritage in 2010. The text has largely been maintained except for certain areas where major changes have occurred in the ensuing years. This is particularly true with regard to increased access to data and the wide range of visualisation techniques now available. The case studies have also been updated to reflect more recent survey activity and to include examples from outside Historic England.

This guidance note has been prepared to assist planning authorities and archaeological officers, developers and their consultants to make clear and informed decisions about piling schemes and their potential impact upon archaeological remains. It provides information on piling types, impacts, and solutions for sustainable foundation design and is illustrated by case studies. Originally published in 2007, it has been revised by a team of archaeologists and engineers, to place a greater emphasis on the planning process and current planning guidance (NPPF). This new edition also includes a risk assessment methodology to provide a framework in which clients and their contractors can identify, avoid or otherwise manage the key construction risks to archaeological remains arising from their schemes.

The first edition of 3D Laser Scanning for Heritage was published in 2007 and originated from the Heritage3D project that in 2006 considered the development of professional guidance for laser scanning in archaeology and architecture. Publication of the second edition in 2011 continued the aims of the original document in providing updated guidance on the use of three-dimensional (3D) laser scanning across the heritage sector. By reflecting on the technological advances made since 2011, such as the speed, resolution, mobility and portability of modern laser scanning systems and their integration with other sensor solutions, the guidance presented in this third edition should assist archaeologists, conservators and other cultural heritage professionals unfamiliar with the approach in making the best possible use of this now highly developed technique.

This guidance provides practical advice on the recording, analysis and understanding of earthworks and other historic landscape features using non-intrusive archaeological field survey and investigation techniques. It describes and illustrates approaches to archaeological field survey, drawing conventions and Levels of Survey for record creators and users. The guidance also draws from the experience of Historic England field teams, exploring different aspects of landscape investigation and analysis through a series of case studies. This revised version of the 2007 edition is one of several pieces of Historic England guidance available from the Historic England website. This guidance builds on those documents and stands alongside Understanding Historic Buildings: a guide to good recording practice.

This guidance document covers the use of geoarchaeology to assist in understanding the archaeological record. Geoarchaeological techniques may range in scale from landscape studies to microscopic analysis, and are carried out by practitioners with specialist knowledge about the physical environment in which archaeological stratigraphy is preserved, and excavations take place. The main aim is usually to understand site formation processes, but there may also be issues concerning site preservation, refining field interpretations of archaeological contexts and identifying changes in the physical landscape through time.

This guidance document provides an introduction to the ways that the archaeological evidence for metalworking is studied. Archaeometallurgical evidence can include whole landscapes, buildings, features, artefacts and waste materials (eg slag and crucibles). Archaeometallurgy includes fieldwork investigations (survey and excavation) and the subsequent study of these data as well as any artefacts and residues recovered. Scientific approaches provide insights into the techniques used to produce different metals and how these were fabricated into artefacts.

This document provides practical guidance on how to investigate sites where pottery production has taken place. It describes how to anticipate and locate pottery production sites and the types of evidence that may be found. This document also provides advice on the available methods and strategies for examining, recording and sampling features and finds of various types at each stage of the work. The different techniques for establishing the date of pottery production, and for characterising the products of a site, are given particular emphasis. This document was compiled by Harriet White, Sarah Paynter and Duncan Brown with contributions by Joanne Best, Chris Cumberpatch, David Dawson, Peter Ellis, Jane Evans, Laurence Jones, Oliver Kent, Gareth Perry, The Prince's Regeneration Trust, Ian Roberts, Kerry Tyler and Ann Woodward.

Although many archaeologists have a good understanding of the basics in computer science, statistics, geostatistics, modeling, and data mining, more literature is needed about the advanced analysis in these areas. This book aids archaeologists in learning more advanced tools and methods while also helping mathematicians, statisticians, and computer scientists with no previous knowledge of the field realize the potential of the methods in archaeological experiments.

Humans are the only mammals to walk on two, rather than four, legs. From an evolutionary perspective, this is an illogical development, as it slows us down. But here we are, suggesting there must have been something tremendous to gain from bipedalism. First Steps takes our ordinary, everyday walking experience and reveals how unusual and extraordinary it truly is. The seven-million-year-long journey through the origins of upright walking shows how it was in fact a gateway to many of the other attributes that make us human-from our technological skills and sociality to our thirst for exploration. DeSilva uses early human evolution to explain the instinct that propels a crawling infant to toddle onto two feet, differences between how men and women tend to walk, physical costs of upright walking, including hernias, varicose veins and backache, and the challenges of childbirth imposed by a bipedal pelvis. And he theorises that upright walking may have laid the foundation for the traits of compassion, empathy and altruism that characterise our species today and helped us become the dominant species on this planet.

This book provides a clear, practical structured approach to studying archaeological and historic objects. The text, which includes nine detailed case studies, acts as a comprehensible guide to the different methods and approaches (cultural, forensic, technical) which can and have been used to study ancient artifacts.
- Shows how information obtained from objects builds into a picture of the ancient society that made and used the object
- Explains the commonly used scientific techniques for object analysis
- Reveals how and why object typologies work
- Demonstrates that cultural and economic factors as well as the properties of materials influence what objects are made of
- Demonstrates how simple observation of an object can be built into a biography of the object
- Reveals the answers to such questions as:
o Can DNA be obtained from objects?
o Why did artists sign their pictures?
o Why do people X-ray ancient artifacts?
o Can you determine the source of metal objects from their trace elements?
This book is designed to provide a clear and comprehensive textbook to all archaeology, conservation and museum students who are studying artifacts. It will help them appreciate the detailed scientific and technological information and come to grips with the jargon of anthropological and art historical approaches to studying artifacts.

In this volume, Denys A. Stocks examines the archaeological and pictorial evidence for masonry in ancient Egypt. Through a series of experiments in which he reconstructs and tests over 200 replica tools, he brings alive the methods and practices of ancient Egyptian craftworking, highlighting the innovations and advances made by this remarkable civilization. This practical approach to understanding the fundamentals of ancient Egyptian stoneworking allows the reader to explore more than just the processes of the craft. We are shown the evolution of tools and techniques, and how these come together to produce the wonders of Egyptian art and architecture that we can still see today, including the most famous monuments of all. Comprehensively illustrated with over two hundred photographs and drawings, "Experiments in Egyptian Archaeology" should bring a fresh perspective to the puzzles of Egyptian craft and technology. By combining the knowledge of a modern engineer with the approach of an archaeologist and historian, Denys Stocks has created a work that should capture the imagination of Egyptology scholars and enthusiasts.

This first of two volumes presents the archaeological evidence of a long sequence of settlement and funerary activity from the Beaker period (Early Bronze Age c. 2000 BC) to the Early Iron Age (c. 500 BC) at the unusually long-occupied site of Cladh Hallan on South Uist in the Western Isles of Scotland. Particular highlights of its sequence are a cremation burial ground and pyre site of the 18th–16th centuries BC and a row of three Late Bronze Age sunken-floored roundhouses constructed in the 10th century BC. Beneath these roundhouses, four inhumation graves contained skeletons, two of which were remains of composite collections of body parts with evidence for post-mortem soft tissue preservation prior to burial. They have proved to be the first evidence for mummification in Bronze Age Britain. Cladh Hallan's remarkable stratigraphic sequence, preserved in the machair sand of South Uist, includes a unique 500-year sequence of roundhouse life in Late Bronze Age and Iron Age Britain. One of the most important results of the excavation has come from intensive environmental and micro-debris sampling of house floors and outdoor areas to recover patterns of discard and to interpret the spatial use of 15 domestic interiors from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age. From Cladh Hallan’s roundhouse floors we gain intimate insights into how daily life was organized within the house - where people cooked, ate, worked and slept. Such evidence rarely survives from prehistoric houses in Britain or Europe, and the results make a profound contribution to long-running debates about the sunwise organisation of roundhouse activities. Activity at Cladh Hallan ended with the construction and abandonment of two unusual double-roundhouses in the Early Iron Age. One appears to have been a smokery and steam room, and the other was used for metalworking.

With contributions from 70 experienced practitioners from around the world, this second edition of the authoritative Handbook of Forensic Archaeology and Anthropology provides a solid foundation in both the practical and ethical components of forensic work. The book weaves together the discipline's historical development; current field methods for analyzing crime, natural disasters, and human atrocities; an array of laboratory techniques; key case studies involving legal, professional, and ethical issues; and ideas about the future of forensic work--all from a global perspective. This fully revised second edition expands the geographic representation of the first edition by including chapters from practitioners in South Africa and Colombia, and adds exciting new chapters on the International Commission on Missing Persons and on forensic work being done to identify victims of the Battle of Fromelles during World War I. The Handbook of Forensic Anthropology and Archaeology provides an updated perspective of the disciplines of forensic archaeology and anthropology.

The past few years have seen a revolution in our ability to map whole genome DNA from ancient humans. With the ancient DNA revolution, combined with rapid genome mapping of present human populations, has come remarkable insights into our past. This important new data has clarified and added to our knowledge from archaeology and anthropology, helped resolve long-existing controversies, challenged long-held views, and thrown up some remarkable surprises. The emerging picture is one of many waves of ancient human migrations, so that all populations existing today are mixes of ancient ones, as well as in many cases carrying a genetic component from Neanderthals, and, in some populations, Denisovans. David Reich, whose team has been at the forefront of these discoveries, explains what the genetics is telling us about ourselves and our complex and often surprising ancestry. Gone are old ideas of any kind of racial 'purity', or even deep and ancient divides between peoples. Instead, we are finding a rich variety of mixtures. Reich describes the cutting-edge findings from the past few years, and also considers the sensitivities involved in tracing ancestry, with science sometimes jostling with politics and tradition. He brings an important wider message: that we should celebrate our rich diversity, and recognize that every one of us is the result of a long history of migration and intermixing of ancient peoples, which we carry as ghosts in our DNA. What will we discover next?

In order to foster dialogue among various subfields, contributors are drawn from a wide range of domains. Classical archaeology, Aegean prehistory, Near Eastern archaeology, Egyptology, Pre-Columbian South America, and North America are brought together to explore ancient art from multiscalar perspectives and through the lenses of entanglement theory, network thinking, assemblage theory and other recent theoretical developments. Representing a new wave in research on ancient art, considering both the proximal and distributed operations of artworks, Ancient Art Revisited provides broad and inclusive coverage of ancient art and offers a cohesive approach to a fragmented area of study. This book will be suitable for archaeologists, anthropologists and art historians wishing to understand the latest thinking on ancient art.

* Provides nearly 300 full-color illustrations of both common and unique taphonomic affects to bones, derived from actual forensic cases * Presents new research including experimentation on recovery rates during surface search, timing of marine alterations; trophy skulls; taphonomic laboratory and field methods; laws regarding the relative timing of taphonomic effects; reptile taphonomy; human decomposition; and microscopic alterations by invertebrates to bones * Explains and illustrates common taphonomic effects and clarifies standard terminology for uniformity and usage within in the field.

SEEING THE UNSEEN. GEOPHYSICS AND LANDSCAPE ARCHAEOLOGY is a collection of papers presented at the advanced XV International Summer School in Archaeology ?Geophysics for Landscape Archaeology? (Grosseto, Italy, 10-18 July 2006). Bringing together the experience of some of the world's greatest experts in the field of archaeological prospection, the focus of this book is not so much on the analysis of single buried structures, but more on researching the entire landscape in all its multi-period complexity.

The book is divided into two parts. The first part concentrates on the theoretical basis of the various methods, illustrated for the most part through case-studies and practical examples drawn from a variety of geographical and cultural contexts. The second part focuses on the work carried out in the field during the Summer School. Tutors and students took part in the intensive application of the principal techniques of geophysical prospecting (magnetometry, EM, ERT and ground-penetrating radar) to locate, retrieve, process and interpret data for a large Roman villa-complex near Grosseto.

SEEING THE UNSEEN. GEOPHYSICS AND LANDSCAPE ARCHAEOLOGY provides a clear illustration of the remarkable potential of geophysical methods in the study of ancient landscapes, and will be usefull to Archaeologists, Geophysicists, Environmental scientists, and those involved in the management of cultural heritage.

This handbook is the first comprehensive overview of the field of satellite remote sensing for archaeology and how it can be applied to ongoing archaeological fieldwork projects across the globe. It provides a survey of the history and development of the field, connecting satellite remote sensing in archaeology to broader developments in remote sensing, archaeological method and theory, cultural resource management, and environmental studies. With a focus on practical uses of satellite remote sensing, Sarah H. Parcak evaluates satellite imagery types and remote sensing analysis techniques specific to the discovery, preservation, and management of archaeological sites.

Case studies from Asia, Central America, and the Middle East are explored, including Xi?an, China; Angkor Wat, Cambodia and Egypt's floodplains. In-field surveying techniques particular to satellite remote sensing are emphasized, providing strategies for recording ancient features on the ground observed from space. The book also discusses broader issues relating to archaeological remote sensing ethics, looting prevention, and archaeological site preservation. New sensing research is included and illustrated with the inclusion of over 160 satellite images of ancient sites.

With a companion website (www.routledge.com/textbooks/9780415448789) with further resources and colour images, Satellite Remote Sensing for Archaeology will provide anyone interested in scientific applications to uncovering past archaeological landscapes a foundation for future research and study.

This technical and well-illustrated guide for archaeologists and conservators aims to 'provide a methodology for the identification of the woody taxa used to manufacture artefacts recovered from archaeological excavations', to provide the anatomical descriptions of the taxa and to present a list of characters of the taxa. The guide is heavily illustrated with photographs, maps, and tables to allow easy identification.

Author Biography:
Gary Lock is University Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Oxford and is the editor of Archaeology and Geographic Information Systems: A European Perspective, with Zoran Stancic.

Central theoretical issues regarding behavioural reconstruction in human osteological research are raised in this analytical volume. Because behavioural reconstructions have become increasingly common, especially with palaeopathology, this work seeks to review the scientific basis for such an approach. For example, osteological scenarios seeking to link the onset of skeletal conditions such as osteoarthritis, dental disease, and trauma with specific behaviours in the past populations, are critically examined. Questions are also raised as to the scientific rigor of such hypotheses, the ethnohistoric evidence used to support them, and ultimately, the soundness of such claims. In addition, commentary is included that broadens the scope to include anthropology, and explains the utility of behavioural reconstructions in palaeoanthropology and the biocultural perspective as it is used in contemporary anthropology.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203017595

The use of GIS is the most powerful technology introduced to archaeology since the introduction of carbon 14 dating. The most widespread use of this technology has been for the prediction of archaeological site locations. This book focuses on the use of GIS for archaeological predictive modelling. The contributors include internationally recognized researchers who have been at the forefront of this revolutionary integration of GIS and archaeology, as well as first generation researchers who have begun to critically apply this new technology and explore its theoretical implications.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203212134