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.

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 Poole Iron Age logboat, one of the largest surviving prehistoric watercraft in Britain, is today imposingly displayed in the entrance to Poole Museum in Dorset. However, the vessel faced a difficult journey from its first discovery to the amazing artefact we can now see. Recovered from Poole Harbour in 1964, it is impossible to overestimate the international significance of this vessel. But until now it had never been fully recorded and apart from its impressive size, very little was known about it. Its dimensions made it inherently unstable and suggest it was designed for use solely in Poole Harbour. This book is the culmination of significant multi-disciplinary work carried out by a variety of specialists, from conservators to woodworking and boatbuilding experts, exploring not only the craft’s history but also its functionality – or lack of – as a vessel. Digital recording, using the latest technology, has made it possible to test its capabilities. For the first time, prehistorians, nautical archaeologists and lay people alike can understand the story of one of Britain’s oldest boats – the archaeological and historical background, the environmental context, the timber and ship science, and the challenges of conserving such an important vessel.

Objects of adornment have been a subject of archaeological, historical, and ethnographic study for well over a century. Within archaeology, personal ornaments have traditionally been viewed as decorative embellishments associated with status and wealth, materializations of power relations and social strategies, or markers of underlying social categories such as those related to gender, class, and ethnic affiliation. Personal Adornment and the Construction of Identity seeks to understand these artefacts not as signals of steady, pre-existing cultural units and relations, but as important components in the active and contingent constitution of identities. Drawing on contemporary scholarship on materiality and relationality in archaeological and social theory, this book uses one genre of material culture - items of bodily adornment - to illustrate how humans and objects construct one another. Providing case studies spanning 10 countries, three continents, and more than 9,000 years of human history, the authors demonstrate the myriad and dynamic ways personal ornaments were intertwined with embodied practice and identity performativity, the creation and remaking of social memories, and relational collections of persons, materials, and practices in the past. The authors’ careful analyses of production methods and composition, curation/heirlooming and reworking, decorative attributes and iconography, position within assemblages, and depositional context illuminate the varied material and relational axes along which objects of adornment contained social value and meaning. When paired with the broad temporal and geographic scope collectively represented by these studies, we gain a deeper appreciation for the subtle but vital roles these items played in human lives.

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.

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.

The Cumans, a people that inhabited the steppe zone in the medieval period and actively shaped the fate of the region from the Black Sea to the Carpathian Basin, have been primarily known to history as nomadic, mounted warriors. Some of them arrived in the Hungarian Kingdom in the midthirteenth century as a group of refugees fleeing the invading Mongol army and asked for asylum. In the course of three centuries they settled down in the kingdom, converted to Christianity, and were integrated into medieval Hungarian society. This study collects all available information, historical, ethnographic and archaeological alike, on the animal husbandry aspect of the complex development of the Cuman population in medieval Hungary. Although this medieval minority has been in the focus of scholarly interest in the past decades, no attempt has been made so far to study their herds using interdisciplinary methods. The research of faunal assemblages through archaeozoological methods has the potential to reveal direct, and by other means, unavailable information on animal keeping practices, although this source of evidence often escapes scholarly attention in Central and Eastern Europe. This book combines a primary scientific dataset with historical information and interprets them within the framework of settlement history in order to investigate the manifold integration process of a medieval community.

This volume is a product of the International Conference of Archaeological Prospection 2017 which was hosted by the School of Archaeological and Forensic Sciences at the University of Bradford. This event marked a return to the location of the inaugural conference of archaeological prospection which was held in Bradford in 1995. The conference is held every two years under the banner of the International Society for Archaeological Prospection. The Proceedings of 12th International Conference of Archaeological Prospection draws together over 100 papers addressing archaeological prospection techniques, methodologies and case studies from around the world. Including studies from over 30 countries distributed across Africa, North America, South America, Asia and Europe; the collection of articles covers a diverse range of research backgrounds and situations. At this particular ICAP meeting, specific consideration has been given to emerging techniques and technologies in the fields of inter-tidal and marine archaeological prospection, and low altitude archaeological prospection. The papers within this volume represent the conference themes of: Techniques and new technological developments; Applications and reconstructing landscapes and urban environments; Integration of techniques and inter-disciplinary studies, with focus on visualisation and interpretation; Marine, inter-tidal and wetland prospection techniques and applications; Low altitude prospection techniques and applications; Commercial archaeological prospection in the contemporary world.

This volume brings together new lines of research across a range of disciplines from participants in a workshop held at Wolfson College, Oxford, on 23rd May 2017. In light of rapid technological developments in digital imaging, the aim in gathering these contributions together is to inform specialist and general readers about some of the ways in which imaging technologies are transforming the study and presentation of archaeological and cultural artefacts. The periods, materials, geography, and research questions under discussion therefore are varied, but the contributions are united in shared interests surrounding the aims of these techniques for imaging objects: what advantages do they offer, whether in research or museum contexts, what limitations are still faced, and how can technological development encourage new types of research and public engagement?

This volume is a product of the 13th International Conference on Archaeological Prospection 2019, which was hosted by the Department of Environmental Science in the Faculty of Science at the Institute of Technology Sligo. The conference is held every two years under the banner of the International Society for Archaeological Prospection and this was the first time that the conference was held in Ireland. New Global Perspectives on Archaeological Prospection draws together over 90 papers addressing archaeological prospection techniques, methodologies and case studies from 33 countries across Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe and North America, reflecting current and global trends in archaeological prospection. At this particular ICAP meeting, specific consideration was given to the development and use of archaeological prospection in Ireland, archaeological feedback for the prospector, applications of prospection technology in the urban environment and the use of legacy data. Papers include novel research areas such as magnetometry near the equator, drone-mounted radar, microgravity assessment of tombs, marine electrical resistivity tomography, convolutional neural networks, data processing, automated interpretive workflows and modelling as well as recent improvements in remote sensing, multispectral imaging and visualisation.

Zooarchaeology, the study of ancient animals, is a frequently side-lined subject in archaeology. This 'important and provocative' volume, now available in paperback, provides a crucial reversal of this bizarre situation - 'bizarre' because the archaeological record is composed largely of debris from human-animal relationships (be they in the form of animal bones, individual artifacts or entire landscapes) and many disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, and geography, recognise human-animal interactions as a key source of information for understanding cultural ideology. By integrating knowledge from archaeological remains with evidence from texts, iconography, social anthropology and cultural geography, Beastly Questions: Animal Answers to Archaeological Issues seeks to encourage archaeological students, researchers and those working in the commercial sector to offer more engaging interpretations of the evidence at their disposal. Going beyond the simple confines of 'what people ate', this accessible but in-depth study covers a variety of high-profile topics in European archaeology and provides novel interpretations of mainstream archaeological questions. This includes cultural responses to wild animals, the domestication of animals and its implications on human daily practice, experience and ideology, the transportation of species and the value of incorporating animals into landscape research, the importance of the study of foodways for understanding past societies and how animal studies can help us to comprehend issues of human identity and ideology: past, present and future.

The book derives from the experiences of the authors as lecturers and tutors at different international summer schools on reality-based surveying and 3D modelling in the field of archaeology and cultural heritage. The book is organized in three main sections. The first part aims to introduce and discuss the contribution of geomatic techniques in archaeology and more generally in cultural heritage with particular attentions to the 3D domain. The second part is focused on the main areas involved in the implementation of 3D surveys (aerial and terrestrial LiDAR, photogrammetry, remote sensing), 3D documentations, GIS and 3D interpretations (virtual and cyber archaeology). The last section collects some relevant case studies showing the extraordinary contribution that geomatic techniques can give to archaeological research and cultural heritage at different scales of detail: object, site, landscape.

This volume presents papers exploring the archaeological applications of remote sensing techniques, including the study of images made from the air and from space, but also the results of geophysical techniques like magnetometry, Ground Penetrating Radar and Electrical Resistivity Tomography.

This volume contains the proceedings of the 38th Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA) Conference, held April 6th-9th 2010, in Granada, Spain. The theme of the conference was 'Fusion of Cultures', aiming to reflect both the scope of the conference and the spirit of the host city - a celebrated venue for such disciplinary interplay between archaeologists, computer scientists, and mathematicians.

After neo-evolutionism, how does one talk about the pre-modern state? Over the past two decades archaeological research has shifted decisively from check-list identifications of the state as an evolutionary type to studies of how power and authority were constituted in specific polities. Developing Gramsci's concept of hegemony, this book provides an accessible discussion of general principles that serve to help us understand and organise these new directions in archaeological research. Throughout this book, conceptual issues are illustrated by means of case studies drawn from Madagascar, Mesopotamia, the Inca, the Maya and Greece.