Archaeology has been historically reluctant to embrace the subject of agent-based simulation, since it was seen as being used to "re-enact" and "visualize" possible scenarios for a wider (generally non-scientific) audience, based on scarce and fuzzy data. Furthermore, modelling "in exact terms" and programming as a means for producing agent-based simulations were simply beyond the field of the social sciences.
This situation has changed quite drastically with the advent of the internet age: Data, it seems, is now ubiquitous. Researchers have switched from simply collecting data to filtering, selecting and deriving insights in a cybernetic manner. Agent-based simulation is one of the tools used to glean information from highly complex excavation sites according to formalized models, capturing essential properties in a highly abstract and yet spatial manner. As such, the goal of this book is to present an overview of techniques used and work conducted in that field, drawing on the experience of practitioners.

Maritime cultural landscapes are collections of submerged archaeological sites, or combinations of terrestrial and submerged sites that reflect the relationship between humans and the water. These landscapes can range in size from a single beach to an entire coastline and can include areas of terrestrial sites now inundated as well as underwater sites that are now desiccated.

However, what binds all of these sites together is the premise that each aspect of the landscape -cultural, political, environmental, technological, and physical - is interrelated and can not be understood without reference to the others. In this maritime cultural landscape approach, individual sites are treated as features within the larger landscape and the interpretation of single sites add to a larger analysis of a region or culture. This approach provides physical and theoretical links between terrestrial and underwater archaeology as well as prehistoric and historic archaeology; consequently, providing a framework for integrating such diverse topics as trade, resource procurement, habitation, industrial production, and warfare into a holistic study of the past.

Landscape studies foster broader perspectives and approaches, extending the study of maritime cultures beyond the shoreline. Despite this potential, the archaeological study of maritime landscapes is a relatively untried approach with many questions regarding the methods and perspectives needed to effectively analyze these landscapes.

Thechapters in this volume, which include contributions from the United States, the United Kingdom, Norway, and Australia, address many of the theoretical and methodological questions surrounding maritime cultural landscapes. The authors comprise established scholars as well as archaeologists at the beginning of their careers, providing a healthy balance of experience and innovation. The chapters also demonstrate parity between method and theory, where the varying interpretations of culture and space are given equal weight with the challenges of investigating both wet and dry sites across large areas.

An equestrian burial from the 10th century with an exceptionally elaborate horse harness was discovered at Fregerslev near Skanderborg in eastern Jutland, Denmark in 2012. This formed the starting point for the Fregerslev Research Project initiated by Museum Skanderborg in 2017. Two years later, the museum held a conference to present the preliminary results of the project. A group of researchers from neighbouring countries were invited to provide a wider international context for a discussion of the social, political, cultural and religious background of the Fregerslev burial. With 21 articles, Horse and Rider in the late Viking Age presents the outcome of the conference. Part I describes the excavation of the Fregerslev burial and its contents. The finds, particularly the harness fittings and the remains of a quiver of arrows, and the results of a wide range of scientific analyses demonstrate what a remarkable burial this once was. The excavation methods and documentation procedures, the sampling strategies, and the following conservation and preservation of the finds, give an idea of the many new approaches, which may be useful when dealing with a decomposed grave in the future. Part II and Part III present new research on 10th-century equestrian burials and their significance in contemporary society from a variety of countries across Central and Northern Europe.

The Emergent Past approaches archaeological research as an engagement within an assemblage - a particular configuration of materials, things, places, humans, animals, plants, techniques, technologies, forces, and ideas. Fowler develops a new interpretative method for that engagement, exploring how archaeological research can, and does, reconfigure each assemblage. Recognising the successive relationships that give rise to and reshaped assemblages over time, he proposes a relational realist understanding of archaeological evidence based on a reading of relational and non-representational theories, such as those presented by Karen Barad, Tim Ingold, and Bruno Latour. The volume explores this new approach through the first ever synthesis of Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age mortuary practices in Northeast England (c.2500-1500 BC), taking into account how different concepts and practices have changed the assemblage of Early Bronze Age mortuary practices in the past 200 years. Fowler argues that it is vital to retain the most valuable archaeological tools, such as typology, while developing an approach that focuses on the contingent, specific, and historical emergence of past phenomena. His study moves from analyses of changing types of mortuary practices and associated things and places, to a vivid discussion of how past relationships unfolded over time and gave rise to specific patterns in the material remains we have today.

This book describes a novel machine-learning based approach to answer some traditional archaeological problems, relating to archaeological site detection and site locational preferences. Institutional data collected from six Swiss regions (Zurich, Aargau, Grisons, Vaud, Geneva and Fribourg) have been analyzed with an original conceptual framework based on the Random Forest algorithm. It is shown how the algorithm can assist in the modelling process in connection with heterogeneous, incomplete archaeological datasets and related cultural heritage information. Moreover, an in-depth review of past and more recent works of quantitative methods for archaeological predictive modelling is provided. The book guides the readers to set up their own protocol for: i) dealing with uncertain data, ii) predicting archaeological site location, iii) establishing environmental features importance, iv) and suggest a model validation procedure. It addresses both academics and professionals in archaeology and cultural heritage management, and offers a source of inspiration for future research directions in the field of digital humanities and computational archaeology.

The environment has always been a central concept for archaeologists and, although it has been conceived in many ways, its role in archaeological explanation has fluctuated from a mere backdrop to human action, to a primary factor in the understanding of society and social change. Archaeology also has a unique position as its base of interest places it temporally between geological and ethnographic timescales, spatially between global and local dimensions, and epistemologically between empirical studies of environmental change and more heuristic studies of cultural practice. Drawing on data from across the globe at a variety of temporal and spatial scales, this volume resituates the way in which archaeologists use and apply the concept of the environment. Each chapter critically explores the potential for archaeological data and practice to contribute to modern environmental issues, including problems of climate change and environmental degradation. Overall the volume covers four basic themes: archaeological approaches to the way in which both scientists and locals conceive of the relationship between humans and their environment, applied environmental archaeology, the archaeology of disaster, and new interdisciplinary directions.The volume will be of interest to students and established archaeologists, as well as practitioners from a range of applied disciplines.

From the tomb of Tutankhamun to the grave of Richard III, archaeologists have studied, displayed and debated rich and varied evidence of the burial and commemoration of the dead from past times to the present day. Mortuary data is not only a key window into the human past, it defines and resonates through 20th and 21st-century popular culture. Yet, in many regards, archaeologists' engagements with death and the dead are contentious and problematic, emotional and political. For instance, in what circumstances if at all is it ethical to dig up and display human remains? What do people learn from meeting ancient people in museums and heritage sites? How significant is mortuary archaeology in our own present-day imaginings of prehistoric and historical societies, as well as fantastical and fictional societies portrayed in literature and film? Tackling questions such as these, osteoarchaeologists and mortuary archaeologists have often found themselves at the forefront of the public engagements for interdisciplinary and archaeological research. This book identifies a series of lacunae in recent discussions of mortuary archaeology's interactions with contemporary society. It aims to re-evaluate the range and character of public mortuary archaeology critically through a range of case studies from the UK, Europe and farther afield. In particular, this book seeks to address a network of relationships between mortality, material culture and archaeological theory, method and practice through a series of themes that connect the digging, display and dissemination of mortuary contexts and remains with wider popular culture themes and media.

Humans occupy a material environment that is constantly changing. Yet in the twentieth century archaeologists studying British prehistory have overlooked this fact in their search for past systems of order and pattern. Artefacts and monuments were treated as inert materials which were the outcomes of social ideas and processes. As a result materials were variously characterized as stable entities such as artefact categories, styles or symbols in an attempt to comprehend them. In this book Jones argues that, on the contrary, materials are vital, mutable, and creative, and archaeologists need to attend to the changing character of materials if they are to understand how past people and materials intersected to produce prehistoric societies. Rather than considering materials and societies as given, he argues that we need to understand how these entities are performed. Jones analyses the various aspects of materials, including their scale, colour, fragmentation, and assembly, in a wide-ranging discussion that covers the pottery, metalwork, rock art, passage tombs, barrows, causewayed enclosures, and settlements of Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Britain and Ireland.

Sticks, Stones, and Broken Bones: Neolithic Violence in a European Perspective presents an up-to-date overview of the evidence for violent injuries on human skeletons of the Neolithic period in Europe, ranging from 6700 to 2000 BC. Unlike other lines of evidence - weapons, fortifications, and imagery - the human skeleton preserves the actual marks of past violent encounters. The papers in this volume are written by the experts undertaking the archaeological analysis, and present evidence from eleven European countries which provide, for the first time, the basis for a comparative approach between different regions and periods. Difficulties and ambiguities in interpreting the evidence are also discussed, although many of the cases are clearly the outcome of conflict. Injuries often show healing, but others can be seen as the cause of death. In many parts of Europe, women and children appear to have been the victims of violence as often as adult men. The volume not only presents an excellent starting point for a new consideration of the prevalence and significance of violence in Neolithic Europe, but provides an invaluable baseline for comparisons with both earlier and later periods.

European first millennium BC studies have witnessed an increasing theoretical divide between the approaches adopted in different countries. Whilst topics such as ethnicity, identity, and agency have dominated many British studies, such themes have had less resonance in continental approaches. At the same time, British and Iberian first millennium BC studies have become increasingly divorced from research elsewhere in Europe. While such divergence reflects deep historical divisions in theory and methodology between European perspectives, it is an issue that has been largely ignored by scholars of the period. This volume addresses these issues by bringing together 33 papers by leading Bronze Age and Iron Age scholars from France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Ireland, North America, and the United Kingdom. Initial chapters from leading specialists introduce major themes (landscape studies, social organisation, historiography, dynamics of change, and identity), providing overviews on the history of approaches to these areas, personal perspectives on current problems, and possible future research directions. Subsequent chapters by key researchers develop these topics, presenting case studies and in-depth discussions of particular issues relating to the first millennium BC in the Atlantic realm of Western Europe.

The Oxford Handbook of Public Archaeology seeks to reappraise the place of archaeology in the contemporary world by providing a series of essays that critically engage with both old and current debates in the field of public archaeology. Divided into four distinct sections and drawing across disciplines in this dynamic field, the volume aims to evaluate the range of research strategies and methods used in archaeological heritage and museum studies, identify and contribute to key contemporary debates, critically explore the history of archaeological resource management, and question the fundamental principles and practices through which the archaeological past is understood and used today.

When reconstructing the past, the archaeologist needs to take into account all kinds of relevant information. Where no written evidence is available, the natural sciences play an indispensable role. Troia is a remarkable site in this respect. The present Troia project, under the directorship of Manfred Korfmann, integrates various disciplines including geoarchaeology, archaeobotany, zooarchaeology, anthropology, geophysical prospection as well as chemical and technological studies of metal, stone and pottery. Hardly any other archaeological project is supported so intensely and on such a broad scale by archaeometric investigations as the international research group in Troia. In April 2001 an International Symposium was held in Heidelberg, Germany, with the aim of promoting scientific interaction and providing synopses of the various disciplines engaged in Troia. This volume contains most of the contributions presented at the symposium.

The world's collective archaeological heritage is threatened by war, development, poverty, climate change, and ignorance. To protect our collective past, archaeologists must involve the general public through interpersonal experiences that develop an interest in the field at a young age and foster that interest throughout a person's life. Contributors to this volume share effective approaches for engaging and educating learners of all ages about archaeology and how one can encourage them to become stewards of the past. They offer applied examples that are not bound to specific geographies or cultures, but rather, are approaches that can be implemented almost anywhere.

The chemical study of archaeological materials
Archaeological Chemistry, Second Edition is about the application of the chemical sciences to the study of ancient man and his material activities. The text of the book centers on the use of chemical methods, but also refers to the contributions of physics, biology, and genetics to archaeological research.
Subjects discussed in the book include the determination of the nature of ancient materials, their provenance and age, the technologies used for the production of man-made materials, and the analysis of ancient human and animal remains (such as bone, dried blood, and coprolites), which yields information on ancient diets, kinship, habitancy, and migratory patterns.
New developments in analytical chemistry and in related disciplines, which have contributed to archaeological research since the first edition of the book was published, are dealt with in this edition, which also includes:
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Updated information on the study of the nature, age, and provenance of ancient materials
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New sections on organic, biological and genetic studies
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Glossary
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Extensive bibliography

The book is intended primarily for archaeologists, physical anthropologists and students of archaeology and physical anthropology, but will also be of use to conservators, curators, and art historians. Natural scientists reading it will become acquainted with advances in archaeological research which were made possible only by the application of chemical, physical, and biological methods and techniques.

Historical archives of vertical photographs and satellite images acquired for other purposes (mainly declassified military reconnaissance) offer considerable potential for archaeological and historical landscape research. They provide a unique insight into the character of the landscape as it was over half a century ago, before the destructive impact of later 20th century development and intensive land use. They provide a high quality photographic record not merely of the landscape at that time, but offer the prospect of the better survival of remains reflecting its earlier history, whether manifest as earthworks, cropmarks or soilmarks. These various sources of imagery also provide an opportunity to examine from the air areas of Europe and beyond whose skies are still not open to traditional archaeological aerial reconnaissance. Tens of millions of such images are held in archives around the world, but their research potential goes very largely untapped. A primary aim of this volume is to draw to wider attention the existence, scope and potential access to historical archival aerial and satellite photographs, in order to encourage their use in a range of archaeological and landscape research. By drawing attention to this massive archival resource, providing examples of its successful application to archaeological/landscape questions, and offering advice how to access and utilise the resource, the volume seeks to bring this material to wider attention, demonstrate its huge potential for archaeology, encourage its further use and stimulate a new approach to archaeological survey and the study of landscape evolution internationally. "

Auditory archaeology considers the potential contribution of everyday, mundane and unintentional sounds in the past and how these may have been significant to people. Steve Mills explores ways of examining evidence to identify intentionality with respect to the use of sound, drawing on perception psychology as well as soundscape and landscape studies of various kinds. His methodology provides a flexible and widely applicable set of elements that can be adapted for use in a broad range of archaeological and heritage contexts. The outputs of this research form the case studies of the Teleorman River Valley in Romania, Catalhoeyuk in Turkey, and West Penwith, a historical site in the UK.This fascinating volume will help archaeologists and others studying human sensory experiences in the past and present.

Over the last thirty years, new scientific techniques have revolutionised our understanding of prehistoric economies. They enable a sound comprehension of human diet and subsistence in different environments, which is an essential framework for appreciating the rich tapestry of past human cultural variation. This volume first considers the origins of economic approaches in archaeology and the theoretical debates surrounding issues such as 'environmental determinism'. Using globally diverse examples, Alan K. Outram and Amy Bogaard critically investigate the best way to integrate newer lines of evidence such as ancient genetics, stable isotope analysis, organic residue chemistry and starch and phytolith studies with long-established forms of archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological data. Two case study chapters, on early Neolithic farming in Europe, and the origins of domestic horses and pastoralism in Central Asia, illustrate the benefit of a multi-proxy approach and how economic considerations feed into broader social and cultural questions.

This volume introduces the Cross-Cultural Interaction Model (CCIM), a visual tool for studying the exchanges that take place between different cultures in borderland areas or across long distances. The model helps researchers untangle complex webs of connections among people, landscapes, and artifacts, and can be used to support multiple theoretical viewpoints. Through case studies, contributors apply the CCIM to various regions and time periods, including Roman Europe, the Greek province of Thessaly in the Late Bronze Age, the ancient Egyptian-Nubian frontier, colonial Greenland in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Mississippian realm of Cahokia, ancient Costa Rica and Panama, and the Moquegua Valley of Peru in the early Middle Horizon period. They adapt the model to best represent their data, successfully plotting connections in many different dimensions, including geography, material culture, religion and spirituality, and ideology. The model enables them to expose what motivates people to participate in cultural exchange, as well as the influences that people reject in these interactions. These results demonstrate the versatility and analytical power of the CCIM. Bridging the gap between theory and data, this tool can prompt users to rethink previous interpretations of their research, leading to new ideas, new theories, and new directions for future study.

This volume investigates the construction of group identity in Late La Tene South-East Europe using an innovative statistical modelling method. Death and burial theory underlies the potential of mortuary practices for identity research. The sample used for this volumes's research consists of 370 graves, organized in a specially crated database that records funerary ritual; and grave-good information. In the case of grave-goods, this involved found hierarchically organized categorical variables, which serve to describe each item by combining functional and typological features. The volume also aims to show the compatibility of archaeological theory and statistical modelling. The discussions from archaeological theory rarely find methodological implementations through statistical methods. In this volume, theoretical issues form an integrative part of data preparation, method development and result interpretation.

Many archaeologists, as primarily social scientists, do not have a background in the natural sciences. This can pose a problem because they need to obtain chemical and physical analyses on samples to perform their research. This manual is an essential source of information for those students without a background in science, but also a comprehensive overview that those with some understanding of archaeological science will find useful. The manual provides readers with the knowledge to use archaeological science methods to the best advantage. It describes and explains the analytical techniques in a manner that the average archaeologist can understand, and outlines clearly the requirements, benefits, and limitations of each possible method of analysis, so that the researcher can make informed choices. The work includes specific information about a variety of dating techniques, provenance studies, isotope analysis as well as the analysis of organic (lipid and protein) residues and ancient DNA. Case studies illustrating applications of these approaches to most types of archaeological materials are presented and the instruments used to perform the analyses are described. Available destructive and non-destructive approaches are presented to help archaeologists select the most effective technique for gaining the target information from the sample. Readers will reach for this manual whenever they need to decide how to best analyze a sample, and how the analysis is performed.

The use of computation in archaeology is a kind of magic, a way of heightening the archaeological imagination. Agent-based modelling allows archaeologists to test the 'just-so' stories they tell about the past. It requires a formalization of the story so that it can be represented as a simulation; researchers are then able to explore the unintended consequences or emergent outcomes of stories about the past. Agent-based models are one end of a spectrum that, at the opposite side, ends with video games. This volume explores this spectrum in the context of Roman archaeology, addressing the strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities of a formalized approach to computation and archaeogaming.

New Developments in the Bioarchaeology of Care evaluates, refines and expands existing concepts and practices in the developing field of bioarchaeological research into health-related care provision in the past. Evidence in human remains that indicates an individual survived with, or following, a serious pathology suggests this person most likely received some form of care from others. This observation was first made half a century ago, but it is only in the last five years that health-related caregiving has been accepted as a topic for bioarchaeology research. In this time, interest has grown exponentially. A focus on care provides a dynamic framework for examining the experiences of disease and disability in the past - at the level of the individual receiving care, and that of the community providing it. When caregiving can be identified in the archaeological record, bioarchaeologists may be able to offer unique insights into aspects of past lifeways. This volume represents the work of an international, diverse, cross-disciplinary group of contributors, each bringing their own particular focus, style and expertise to analyzing past health-related care. Nineteen chapters offer content that ranges from an introduction to the basic 'bioarchaeology of care' approach, through original case studies of care provision, to new theoretical perspectives in this emerging area of scholarship. This book creates a synergy that challenges our thinking about past health-related care behaviors and about the implications of these behaviors for understanding the social environment in which they took place.

* 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.