Over the past 30 years, research on archaeological textiles has developed into an important field of scientific study. It has greatly benefitted from interdisciplinary approaches, which combine the application of advanced technological knowledge to ethnographic, textual and experimental investigations. In exploring textiles and textile processing (such as production and exchange) in ancient societies, archaeologists with different types and quality of data have shared their knowledge, thus contributing to well-established methodology. In this book, the papers highlight how researchers have been challenged to adapt or modify these traditional and more recently developed analytical methods to enable extraction of comparable data from often recalcitrant assemblages. Furthermore, they have applied new perspectives and approaches to extend the focus on less investigated aspects and artefacts. The chapters embrace a broad geographical and chronological area, ranging from South America and Europe to Africa, and from the 11th millennium BC to the 1st millennium AD. Methodological considerations are explored through the medium of three different themes focusing on tools, textiles and fibres, and culture and identity. This volume constitutes a reflection on the status of current methodology and its applicability within the wider textile field. Moreover, it drives forward the methodological debates around textile research to generate new and stimulating conversations about the future of textile archaeology.

Two longtime fieldworkers offer mentors' advice on finding and mapping archaeological sites. They outline the logic behind field surveying and the various designs used for survey projects. Recognizing that logistical issues-like schedule, budget, and equipment-are equally important to complete the job, particularly in a cultural resource management context, the authors also guide new professionals through the practical details of their work. The volume also ranges through the legal and ethical context of fieldwork and the various geophysical methods available for non-intrusive surveying. As a handy guide for novices, or a text for students and field schools, Collins and Molyneaux's book will be the place to start.

This book describes the use and methods of photography in field archaeology, surveys, conservation and archaeological laboratories. This second edition deals with a number of new materials and types of equipment, particularly the growing use of video and electronic recording systems.

This book concerns textile production at the fringes of north-western Europe - areas in western Norway and the North Atlantic in the expanding, dynamic and transformative period from the early Viking Age into the Middle Ages. Textiles constitute one of the basic needs in human life - to protect and keep the body warm but also to show social status and affiliations. Textiles had a wide spectrum of use areas and qualities, fine and coarse in various contexts, and in the Viking Age not least related to the production of sails - all essential for the development and character of the period. So, what were the tools and textiles like, who made them, who used them and who exposed them? By tracing textile production from the remains of tools and textiles in varied landscapes and settings - Viking Age graves and in-situ workplaces from the whole period - and combining this with textual information, many layers of information are exposed about technology and qualities as well as gender, gender roles, social relations, power and networks. By combining tools, textiles and texts in various settings, this book aims to contextualise dispersed archaeological finds of tools and textiles to uncover patterns across larger areas and in a long-term perspective of half a millennium. Related to the overall societal changes from the early Viking Age raids, colonisation to centralisation to urbanisation in the Middle Ages, the tools and textiles reveal diversity, as well as stability and change.

Archaeoastronomy and archaeology are two distinct fields of study which examine the cultural aspect of societies, but from different perspectives. Archaeoastronomy seeks to discover how the impact of the skyscape is materialised in culture, by alignments to celestial events or sky-based symbolism; yet by contrast, archaeology's approach examines all aspects of culture, but rarely considers the sky. Despite this omission, archaeology is the dominant discipline while archaeoastronomy is relegated to the sidelines. The reasons for archaeoastronomy's marginalised status may be found by assessing its history. For such an exploration to be useful, archaeoastronomy cannot just be investigated in a vacuum but must be contextualised by exploring other contemporaneous developments, particularly in archaeology. On the periphery of both, there are various strands of esoteric thought and pseudoscientific theories which paint an alternative view of monumental remains and these also play a part in the background. The discipline of archaeology has had an unbroken lineage from the late 19th-century to the present. On the other hand, archaeoastronomy has not been consistently titled, having adopted various different names such as alignment studies, orientation theory, astro-archaeology, megalithic science, archaeotopography, archaeoastronomy and cultural astronomy: names which depict variants of its methods and theory, sometimes in tandem with those of archaeology and sometimes in opposition. Similarly, its academic status has always been unclear, so to bring it closer to archaeology there was a proposal in 2015 to integrate archaeoastronomy research with that of archaeology and call it skyscape archaeology. This volume examines how all these different variants came about and consider archaeoastronomy's often troubled relationship with archaeology and its appropriation by esotericism, to shed light on its position today.

Building between the Two Rivers aims to supply university students and scholars of Near Eastern archaeology with an introduction to 'Building archaeology' methods as applied to the context of Ancient Mesopotamia. It helps the reader understand the principles underlying the discipline, which deals with the registration and analysis of all building materials and techniques involved in the assembly and erection of a construction, and to outline what knowledge and skills are needed, beyond those that are specific to archaeologists. The in-depth registration and analysis of building materials and techniques requires professional skills and experience, which cannot be achieved with only a standard university training in archaeology. However, archaeologists need to know the basics of the classification of building materials, their physical properties, the main techniques of their finishing, as well as the basic principles of statics. They should also be able to let architects understand how to better tune the registration of data to ensure a fruitful archaeological interpretation. Due to the introductory nature of the book, contents are organised in didactic chapters, trying to cover all the main topics and displaying them by means of selected examples. Particular attention is given to the methods of the 'stratigraphic reading', which are discussed in a dedicated appendix authored by Piero Gilento. A thematic bibliography and a technical glossary complete the book, helping readers enhance their understanding of the subject.

All humans share certain components of tooth structure, but show variation in size and morphology around this shared pattern. This book presents a worldwide synthesis of the global variation in tooth morphology in recent populations. Research has advanced on many fronts since the publication of the first edition, which has become a seminal work on the subject. This revised and updated edition introduces new ideas in dental genetics and ontogeny and summarizes major historical problems addressed by dental morphology. The detailed descriptions of 29 dental variables are fully updated with current data and include details of a new web-based application for using crown and root morphology to evaluate ancestry in forensic cases. A new chapter describes what constitutes a modern human dentition in the context of the hominin fossil record.

Approaches to Disruptions and Interactions in Archaeology is a collection of some of the papers presented at the Graduate Archaeology at Oxford Conferences over the years 2017, 2018, and 2019. The GAO conference has become an annual fixture in the calendar of graduate study in the School of Archaeology in Oxford, typically held in the spring each year and organised by graduate students from the School. The aims of the conferences have been primarily to provide a platform for graduate students and early career researchers to share their work, and to encourage discussions and connections amongst scholars from different fields within archaeology. In total, around 150 delegates participated, approximately 80 papers were presented, and 20 posters were displayed in the three conferences represented in this volume. The book represents 8 papers from the wider benefits and results of the GAO conferences over the three years. The papers draw out different aspects of the key themes of interaction, mobility, entanglement and disruption amongst various communities and demonstrated through material culture, relating to a range of time periods. Subjects include Japanese fans, Romano-British coins, Chinese architecture, the establishment of the Silk Road(s), chaos as shown in classical theatre, the threat to Indian urban sites, Buddhist grottoes in Northern Sichuan, and Phoenician colonisation of parts of Portugal. It is proposed that definitions and distinctions can be a mirage, and it is interaction and mobility that characterises much of the past.

Archaeologies of Cultural Contact undertakes an exploration of cultural transfer, with a particular focus on the combination and modification of both material and behavioural attributes under conditions of contact. From globalization and displacement to cultural legitimization and identity politics, the modern world is characterised by, and articulated through, dynamics of contact and transfer. This book recognises that creolization, ethnogenesis, hybridity, and syncretism are analytical concepts and social processes, relevant not only to the postcolonial contexts of the twentieth century but also to wide-ranging instances where contact is made between cultural groups. Indeed, in representing the re-working of pre-existing cultural elements, they were crucial and ever-present features of the human past. Ranging in their analytical frame, scale, and geographical and temporal location, the chapters in this volume demonstrate the diverse understandings that can be gained from explorations into the material remains of past contact, exposing and overcoming various limitations of competing models of cultural change. They permit insights into not only cultural change and difference but also the processes of appropriation, resistance, redefinition, and incorporation. Together, the contributions articulate the perspectives that concern practices in relations to people, places, and things, and note how power dynamics mediate social interactions and sustain and constrain forms of cultural contact. This book will be of interest to researchers and students in archaeology as well those from cognate disciplines, particularly anthropology and history.

A collection of eleven papers from a series of pottery workshops held between 1995 and 2000 at the Institute for Archaeology and Ethnology at Copenhagen University. Subjects include the Trojan cycle depicted on Tyrrhenian amphorae, Attic pottery imports to Locri Epizephyrii, Genucilia ceramics from Mid-Republican Italy, terracotta house models from Basilicata, Archaic Karian pottery, the distribution of local plain wares in the 6th-5th century BC, Cypriot transport amphorae, Cypriot sigillata, a fake phiale from the J F Willumsen Museum, pottery from the Archaic settlement at Vroulia, Rhodes.

Big Data and Archaeology presents the papers from two sessions of the 18th UISPP World Congress (Paris, June 2018): Session III-1 (CA): 'Big data, databases and archaeology', and Session III-1 (T): 'New advances in theoretical archaeology'. The advent of Big Data is a recent and debated issue in Digital Archaeology. Historiographic context and current developments are illustrated in this volume, as well as comprehensive examples of a multidisciplinary and integrative approach to the recording, management and exploitation of excavation data and documents produced over a long period of archaeological research. In addition, specific attention is paid to neoprocessual archaeology, as a new platform aimed at renewing the theoretical framework of archaeology after thirty years of post-modernism, and to the refinement of the concept of archaeological cultures, combining processual, contextual and empirical approaches.

This volume brings together all the successful peer-reviewed papers submitted for the proceedings of the 43rd conference on Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology that took place in Siena (Italy) from March 31st to April 2nd 2015. Altogether, within the four days of the conference 280 papers were presented in 48 sections divided into ten macro topics, 113 posters, 7 roundtables and 12 workshops. That number, in itself, has prompted a thought or two. Above all it says that CAA is very much alive and kicking, that it is in robust good health, and that it remains a wholly relevant force in the scientific community, fully engaged with the questions of the day, and a continuing focal point for the profession. All of that speaks well for the motto of CAA 2015: KEEP THE REVOLUTION GOING. Although the significance of the motto is obvious, it is worth some thoughts. Few would deny that in the past 30 years or so, digital technologies have profoundly revolutionised archaeology - in the office and laboratory, in the field and in the classroom. The progressive introduction of digital techniques in the archaeological process has of course led to a general increase in efficiency. But perhaps more importantly it has provided a spur to the discussion of methodology and through that has strongly influenced not only the way we go about things but also the outcomes that we have been able to achieve. The pioneering phase in the application of digital techniques in archaeological research has clearly been fruitful and today computer applications such as GIS, databases, remote sensing and spatial analysis as well as virtual and cyber archaeology are deeply embedded within our universities. This is all good, of course, but we must not assume that the task has been completed. An intrinsic revolutionary instinct towards technological development has been awakened. But it will only survive by virtue of the results that it brings about. Or using the words of our Chairman Prof Gary Lock: 'Computers not only change the way we do things, but more importantly they change the way we think about what we do and why we do it'. The general thrust of this statement can be summed up and reinforced by recalling a quote from the philosopher Don Ihde, who has argued we should never forget that all technologies should be regarded as 'cultural instruments', which as well as strategies and methodologies implemented in our researches are also 'non-neutral'. So KEEP THE REVOLUTION GOING! is a motto that lays stress on the need to maintain innovation in archaeology through technological advances. But innovation must have at its root the fostering of critical thought and the framing of new archaeological questions. So there is much work still to be done, and fresh challenges to be faced in the months, years and decades ahead. -from the introduction by Stefano Campana and Roberto Scopigno

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.

This book provides an up to date introduction to the exciting, but complex, new scientific methodologies that are increasingly used in archaeological study. Written by an international team of specialists, it provides clear and engaging overviews of a wide array of approaches, including DNA and proteomics, dating methods, materials analysis, stable isotope analysis, and the scientific study of human, plant, and animal remains, among other topics. Each technique is explored through the use of actual archaeological examples, which both explain the methods and highlight their potential applications. The work is carefully illustrated with useful charts, graphs and other images, which complement the detail in the text, and help to articulate the case studies explored as well as the underlying principles of the techniques involved. Feature tables in many of the chapters highlight selected research on each topic, providing useful summaries of the current state and scope of the field for the reader. This volume will serve as a handy reference tool for scholars, as well as a key textbook for courses on archaeological science.

Artefact evidence has the unique power to illuminate many aspects of life that are rarely explored in written sources, yet this potential has been underexploited in research on Roman and Late Antique Egypt. This book presents the first in-depth study that uses everyday artefacts as its principal source of evidence to transform our understanding of the society and culture of Egypt during these periods. It represents a fundamental reference work for scholars, with much new and essential information on a wide range of artefacts, many of which are found not only in Egypt but also in the wider Roman and late antique world. By taking a social archaeology approach, it sets out a new interpretation of daily life and aspects of social relations in Roman and Late Antique Egypt, contributing substantial insights into everyday practices and their social meanings in the past. Artefacts from University College London's Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology are the principal source of evidence; most of these objects have not been the subject of any previous research. The book integrates the close study of artefact features with other sources of evidence, including papyri and visual material. Part one explores the social functions of dress objects, while part two explores the domestic realm and everyday experience. An important theme is the life course, and how both dress-related artefacts and ordinary functional objects construct age and gender-related status and facilitate appropriate social relations and activities. There is also a particular focus on wider social experience in the domestic context, as well as broader consideration of economic and social changes across the period.

Crimes in the Past: Archaeological and Anthropological Evidence aims to discuss the possible examples of crimes in the archaeological past, their detection and interpretation with the help of modern scientific methods, and how interdisciplinary approaches can be conducted in further research concerning 'crimes of the past.' The idea to create this publication was born after organizing Session #169 Past Crimes during the 25th Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists (EAA 2019) in Bern. In this book, readers will find cases of historic and prehistoric 'crimes scenes' known from various contexts, including the findings of (pre)historic (mass) graves and lethal violent acts related to warfare, ritual killings, or possible murder cases. In order to get to the bottom of the possible archaeological crime scenes, contemporary interdisciplinary approaches will be used, which allow us to extend the frames of classical archaeological study.

The use of chemistry in archaeology can help archaeologists answer questions about the nature and origin of the many organic and inorganic finds recovered through excavation, providing valuable information about the social history of humankind. This textbook tackles the fundamental issues in chemical studies of archaeological materials. Examining the most widely used analytical techniques in archaeology, the third edition of this comprehensive textbook features a new chapter on proteomics, capturing significant developments in protein recognition for dating and characterisation. The textbook has been updated to encompass the latest developments in the field. The textbook explores several archaeological investigations in which chemistry has been employed in tracing the origins of or in studying artefacts, and includes chapters on obsidian, ceramics, glass, metals and resins. It is an essential companion to students in archaeological science and chemistry, as well as to archaeologists, and those involved in conserving human artefacts.

The aim of the atlas is to provide images of taphonomic modifications, making it as comprehensive as possible with evidence presently available. This volume is intended both as a field guide for identifying taphonomic modifications in the field, and for use in the laboratory when collections of fossils are being analyzed. Images in the book are a combination of scanning electron micrographs, regular photographs, cross-sections of bones and line drawings and graphs. By providing good quality illustrations of taphonomic modifications, with links between similar types of modification, the atlas provides a reference source for identifying the agents responsible for the modifications, the processes by which they were formed, and the potential bias introduced by the processes. The authors also aim to emphasize on the directions they consider taphonomic studies should be headed. Firstly, we should seek to quantify the degree of bias introduced into a fossil fauna and to take account of this bias before interpreting the palaeoecology of the fossil site. Secondly, we should recognize that taphonomic modifications increase the information encoded in fossils by identifying perimortem and postmortem contexts. This provides a more dynamic and realistic view of the past.

Session VIII-1 of UISPP 2018 in Paris 'Mapping the Past' brought together several contributions reflecting on the need to develop sustainable and reliable approaches to mapping our landscape heritage. The session was guided by the crucial concept termed the 'archaeological continuum'. This concept can be defined as a proactive approach to landscape survey based on the summative evidence detected (or detectable) within the area under examination, reducing spatial and chronological gaps as far as possible through the intensive and extensive application of a wide variety of exploratory methods and analytical techniques. Research work across Europe as well as contributions presented in this session have demonstrated that it is now possible to explore the whole landscape of carefully chosen areas and study them as an archaeological continuum. Archaeological interpretations derived from this kind of approach can be expected to reveal different layers of information belonging to a variety of chronological horizons, each displaying mutual physical (stratigraphic) and conceptual relationships within that horizon. The raising of new archaeological questions and also the development of alternative conservation strategies directly stimulated by the radical ideas inherent in the concept of the 'archaeological continuum' are among the major outcomes of the session.

Human skeletons are widely studied in archaeological, anthropological and forensic settings to learn about the deceased. Methods used to identify individuals in forensic contexts and to determine age and sex in archaeological settings are normally tested on identified skeletal collections: collections of skeletons with known age-at-death, sex, often occupation and cause of death. These collections often represent individuals dying within the last century, but this is variable and often depends on the purpose for creating the collection. Many were developed in attempts to understand local population biology whereas those collected recently are for forensic purposes: to improve identification in legal contexts. Some of these collections were developed from body donation programmes, while others have come from cemeteries: cemeteries which were either no longer viable or needed clearing. All these factors impact on who curates these collections: archaeology or anthropology departments and museums. However, unlike many other skeletons curated in these locations, these are individuals with names. All this raises ethical questions about their creation, curation and their use for research. This book focusses on identified skeletal collections in the UK, Portugal, South Africa, USA and Canada. The chapters discuss how and why collections were amassed including the local legislation governing them. Alongside this run the ethical issues associated with their collection, curation and access to them. The demographics of the collections: who is included and why, along with such biases and how they can impact on research are also discussed, as are limitations in the documentary data associated with these individuals. The importance of these collections is also focussed on: particularly their role in developing and testing methods for age determination in adults. This shows why these collections are so vital to improve methods and interpretations for archaeological and forensic research. The importance of communicating this to the wider public is also addressed.

This book is for students and practitioners of not only knapping, lithic technology and archaeology, but also of fractography and fracture mechanics. At conferences on fractography of glasses and ceramics, the author has often been asked to demonstrate knapping as well as provide overviews of fractography learned from it. The first part of the book is intended to stimulate such interests further, in order to solicit contributions from a largely untapped pool of experts. Such contributions can advance significantly our understandings of knapping as well as fractography. In Part II of the book, fracture markings as the tools of fractography are introduced, with their formation, meaning and utility explained. Observations on the presence or absence of the markings in knapping are considered in Part III, along with a number of interpretations of fracture features. The basic principles and concepts of fracture mechanics and fractography apply to fractures produced in any cultural context. This volume therefore addresses most questions on fracture in a generic sense, independent of cultural contexts. In general, understanding of fractures provides a sounder basis for lithic analysis, and use of more recent scientific tools opens new avenues for lithic studies.

Butrint has been one of the largest archaeological projects in the Mediterranean over the last two decades. Major excavations and a multi-volume series of accompanying scientific publications have made this a key site for our developing understanding of the Roman and Medieval Mediterranean. Through this set of interwoven reflections about the archaeology and cultural heritage history of his twenty-year odyssey in south-west Albania, Richard Hodges considers how the Butrint Foundation protected and enhanced Butrint's spirit of place for future generations. Hodges reviews Virgil's long influence on Butrint and how its topographic archaeology has now helped to invent a new narrative and identity. He then describes the struggle of placemaking in Albania during the early post-communist era, and finally asks, in the light of the Butrint Foundation's experience, who matters in the shaping of a place - international regulations, the nation, the archaeologist, the visitor, the local community or some combination of all of these stakeholders? With appropriate maps and photographs, this book aims to offer an unusual but important new direction for archaeology in the Mediterranean. It should be essential reading for archaeologists, classical historians, medievalists, cultural heritage specialists, tourism specialists as well as those interested in the Mediterranean's past and future.