A beautifully illustrated introduction to mudlarking which tells the incredible, forgotten history of London through objects found on the foreshore of the River Thames. Often seen combing the shoreline of the River Thames at low tide, groups of archaeology enthusiasts known as 'mudlarks' continue a tradition that dates back to the eighteenth century. Over the years they have found a vast array of historical artefacts providing glimpses into the city's past. Objects lost or discarded centuries ago - from ancient river offerings such as the Battersea Shield and Waterloo Helmet, to seventeenth-century trade tokens and even medals for bravery - have been discovered in the river. This book explores a fascinating assortment of finds from prehistoric to modern times, which collectively tell the rich and illustrious story of London and its inhabitants - illustrated with and array of photographs taken of the items in situ in the mud and gravel of the Thames estuary, at the same time both gritty and glimmering.

Qin Cao's innovative research presents new insights into these weapons, moving beyond perceptions of them being primarily symbols of power and rank. It further challenges the dominant interpretations of this Chinese Bronze Age period as being ritual-centric. Through the lens of weapons, this book argues for the significance of martial prowess and leadership within late Shang society. The author considers Shang weapons from an object biographical perspective, tracing their life histories for the first time. This book synthesises archaeological data, scientific analyses, and inscriptions on oracle bones and bronzes, uncovering a more nuanced understanding of the complex roles weapons played in society. What traces of evidence can be detected on weapons that demonstrate their ability to cause bodily harm? Why were tens of thousands of weapons placed in tombs? What led to certain individuals, including high-ranking royal females, being buried with weapons? This book will of interest to academics, students (both undergraduates and postgraduates) and researchers in archaeology, particularly those focused on China, East Asia or comparative studies, as well as a more general readership in Chinese archaeology

Alternative Iron Ages examines Iron Age social formations that sit outside traditional paradigms, developing methods for archaeological characterisation of alternative models of society. In so doing it contributes to the debates concerning the construction and resistance of inequality taking place in archaeology, anthropology and sociology. In recent years, Iron Age research on Western Europe has moved towards new forms of understanding social structures. Yet these alternative social organisations continue to be considered as basic human social formations, which frequently imply marginality and primitivism. In this context, the grand narrative of the European Iron Age continues to be defined by cultural foci, which hide the great regional variety in an artificially homogenous area. This book challenges the traditional classical evolutionist narratives by exploring concepts such as non-triangular societies, heterarchy and segmentarity across regional case studies to test and propose alternative social models for Iron Age social formations. Constructing new social theory both archaeologically based and supported by sociological and anthropological theory, the book is perfect for those looking to examine and understand life in the European Iron Age. We are so grateful to the research project titled "Paisajes rurales antiguos del Noroeste peninsular: formas de dominacion romana y explotacion de recursos" [Ancient rural landscapes in Northwestern Iberia: Roman dominion and resource exploitation] (HAR2015-64632-P; MINECO/FEDER), directed from the Instituto de Historia (CSIC) and also to the Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia [Foundation for Science and Technology] postdoctoral project: SFRH-BPD-102407-2014.

As world powers realign their cultural, economic and political outlooks, there is no better time to consider how Afro-Eurasia's complex network of ancient trade routes - which spanned the vastness of the steppe, vertiginous mountain ranges, fertile river plains and forbidding deserts across the continents and on to the seas beyond - fostered economic activity and cultural, political and technological communication. From silk to slaves, fashion to music, religion to science the movement of interaction of goods, people and ideas was crucial to the flourishing of peoples and their cultures across this vast region. Edited by Susan Whitfield, an established authority on the subject, with contributions from over 80 leading scholars from across the globe, Silk Roads situates the ancient routes against the landscapes that defined them, to reveal the raw materials that they produced, the means of travel that were employed to traverse them and the communities that were shaped by them. Organized by terrain, from steppe to desert to ocean, each section includes detailed maps, a historical overview, thematic essays and features showcasing art, buildings and archaeological discoveries. A wealth of photographs reveals the breathtaking and often forbidding landscapes encountered by travellers and traders through the millennia. With one section inscribed as a World Heritage Corridor by UNESCO in 2014 and others to follow, and China claiming the Silk Roads as the precursor of its Belt Road Initiative, this network of ancient trade routes and the interaction along them has never been of greater interest or importance than today. This beautiful publication honours the astonishing diversity in the way cultures advance and flourish not in spite of their differences, but because of them.

In Art in the Pre-Hispanic Southwest: An Archaeology of Native American Cultures, Radoslaw Palonka reconstructs the development of pre-Hispanic Native American cultures and tribes in the American Southwest and Mexican Northwest. Palonka also examines the wider context through the lenses of settlement studies and social transformation, while paying close attention to the material manifestations of pre-Hispanic beliefs, including intricately decorated ceramics and rock art iconography in paintings and petroglyphs.

Work and labour are fundamental to an understanding of Roman society. In a world where reliable information was scarce and economic insecurity loomed large, social structures and networks of trust were of paramount importance to the way work was provided and filled in. Taking its cue from New Institutional Economics, this book deals with the wide range of factors shaping work and labour in the cities of Roman Italy under the early empire, from families and familial structures, to labour collectives, slavery, education and apprenticeship. To illuminate the complexity of the market for labour, this monograph offers a new analysis of the occupational inscriptions and reliefs from Roman Italy, placing them in the wider context by means of documentary evidence like apprenticeship contracts, legal sources, and material remains. This synthesis therefore provides a comprehensive analysis of the ancient sources on work and labour in Roman urban society, leading to a novel interpretation of the market for work, and a fuller understanding of the daily lives of nonelite Romans. For some of them, work was indeed a source of pride, whereas for others it was merely a means to an end or a necessity of life.

The archaeologies of food and warfare have independently developed over the past several decades. This volume aims to provide concrete linkages between these research topics through the examination of case studies worldwide. Topics considered within the book include: the impacts of warfare on the daily food quest, warfare and nutritional health, ritual foodways and violence, the provisioning of warriors and armies, status-based changes in diet during times of war, logistical constraints on military campaigns, and violent competition over subsistence resources. The diversity of perspectives included in this volume may be a product of new ways of conceptualizing violence-not simply as an isolated component of a society, nor as an attribute of a particular societal type-but instead as a transformative process that is lived and irrevocably alters social, economic, and political organization and relationships. This book highlights this transformative process by presenting a cross-cultural perspective on the connection between war and food through the inclusion of case studies from several continents.

Current approaches to the archaeological understanding of permanence and transience in the early modern period, Can we approach European expansion to the Americas and elsewhere without colonial triumphalism? A research strategy which automatically treats early establishments overseas as embryonic colonies produces predictable results: in retrospect, some were, some were not. The approach reflected in the essays collected here does not exclude an interest in colonialism as an enduring practice, but the focus of the volume is population mobility and stability. Post-medieval archaeology has much to contribute to our understanding of the gradual drift of ordinary people - the cast of thousands, anonymous or almost-forgotten behind the famous names of history. The main concern of the articles here is the post-medieval expansion of the English-speaking world to North America, particularly Newfoundland and the Chesapeake, but the volume includes perspectives on Ireland and New France also. While most attend to the movement of Europeans, interactions with Native peoples, using the Labrador Inuit as a case study, are not neglected. PETER E. POPE was University Research Professor and former Head of the Department of Archaeology at Memorial University in St John's, Newfoundland; SHANNON LEWIS-SIMPSON researches aspects of cultural identity and interaction in the Viking-Age North Atlantic. She lectures part-time at Memorial University. Contributors: Eliza Brandy, Mark Brisbane, Amanda Crompton, Bruno Fajal, Amelia Fay, David Gaimster, Mark Gardiner, Barry Gaulton, William Gilbert, Audrey Horning, Carter C. Hudgins, Silas Hurry, Evan Jones, Neil Kennedy, Eric Klingelhofer, Hannah E.C. Koon, Brad Loewen, Nicholas Luccketti, James Lyttleton, Tania Manuel Casimiro, Paula Marcoux, Natascha Mehler, Greg Mitchell, Sarah Newstead, Stephane Noel, Jeff Oliver, Steven E. Pendery, Peter E. Pope, Peter Ramsden, Lisa Rankin, Amy St John, Beverley Straube, Eric Tourigny, James A. Tuck, Giovanni Vitelli,

A gripping account of 200 years of archaeological research, excavation and thought, told through the life stories of 70 of the world's greatest pioneers and practitioners. Brian Fagan has assembled a team of some of the world's greatest living archaeologists to write knowledgeably and entertainingly about their distinguished predecessors. Full of fascinating anecdotes, personal accounts and unexpected insights, this comprehensively illustrated book encompasses more than two centuries of research and excavation round the globe. Controversial figures such as Heinrich Schliemann of Troy fame, and Aurel Stein, plunderer of ancient manuscripts from Central Asia, are reassessed. Little-known pioneers - for example, Max Uhle in Peru and Li Chi in China - are set beside the giants in the field: Lepsius, Mariette and Carter in Egypt; Koldewey, Doerpfeld and Woolley in the Near East; Stephens and Catherwood, discoverers of the Maya of Mexico; and Louis and Mary Leakey, who transformed knowledge of our African ancestry. Other indomitable women here include Gertrude Bell, explorer of Arabia and Iraq, Kathleen Kenyon, the excavator of Jericho, and the script-decipherer Tatiana Proskouriakoff.

This book situates the archaeological evidence from Iran within a framework of issues and debates of relevance today. Richly adorned with more than 500 illustrations, many of them in colour, and accompanied by a bibliography with more than 3000 entries, this book will be appreciated as a major research resource for anyone concerned to learn more about the role of ancient Iran in shaping the modern world.

More than any other type of environment, with the possible exception of mountains, the sea has been understood since antiquity as being immovable to a proverbial degree. Yet it was the sea’s capacity for movement – both literally and figuratively through such emotions as fear, hope and pity – that formed one of the primary means of conceptualizing its significance in Late Antique societies. This volume advances a new and interdisciplinary understanding of what the sea as an environment and the pursuit of seafaring meant in antiquity, drawing on a range of literary, legal and archaeological evidence to explore the social, economic and cultural factors at play. The contributions are structured into three thematic parts which move from broad conceptual categories to specific questions of networks and mobility. Part One takes a wide view of the Mediterranean as an environment with great metaphorical and symbolic potential. Part Two looks at networks of seaborne communication and the role of islands as the characteristic hubs of the Mediterranean. Finally, Part Three engages with the practicalities of tackling the sea as a challenging environment that needs to be challenged politically, legally and for the means of travel.

The Art and Archeology of Ancient Greece is an introductory-level textbook for students with little or no background in ancient art. Arranged chronologically in broad swathes of time, from the Bronze and Iron Ages through the Geometric, Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods, and concluding with the Roman conquest of the Greek world, the textbook focuses on Greek art but also incorporates Near Eastern, Etruscan, and Roman objects. Judith M. Barringer examines a variety of media, analyzing marble and bronze sculpture, public architecture, and vase painting, as well as coins, domestic architecture, mosaics, terracotta figurines and reliefs, jewelry, and wall painting. This book adopts an approach that considers objects and monuments within their cultural contexts. * More than 500 illustrations, with over 400 in color and 13 maps, including specially commissioned photographs, maps, plans, and reconstructions * Includes text boxes, chapter summaries and timelines, and detailed glossary * Looks at Greek art from perspectives of both art history and archaeology, giving students an understanding of the historical and everyday context of art objects

* Written by one of the leading experts in Andean archaeology, including more of his insights on the latest developments * Increased content on issues with contemporary relevance such as the environment and climate change and, repatriation and social justice * Expanded final section that extends the chronological range of the book to include the Andean world of the Conquest and Colonial Periods as well as the Republican and contemporary Andean worlds and their prehispanic heritage.

The ruined silhouette of the Parthenon on its hill above Athens is one of the world's most famous images. Its 'looted' Elgin Marbles are a global cause celebre. But what actually are they? In a revised and updated edition, Mary Beard, award winning writer, reviewer and leading Cambridge classicist, tells the history and explains the significance of the Parthenon, the temple of the virgin goddess Athena, the divine patroness of ancient Athens.

"The best compilation of work about the French and Indian War to date."--James Parker, coauthor of Archaeology at Fort Mims "Provides images of life on the expanding American frontier of the mid-eighteenth century. A unique and significant discussion of the French and Indian War."--Clarence R. Geier, coeditor of Huts and History: The Historical Archaeology of Military Encampments during the American Civil War Fort Ticonderoga, the allegedly impenetrable star fort at the southern end of Lake Champlain, is famous for its role in the French and Indian War. From barracks to bastions, many other one-of-a-kind forts were also instrumental in staking out the early American colonial frontier. This collection of essays presents an overview of the fortifications that guarded the frontiers and borderlands between Native Americans, French settlers, and Anglo-American settlers. Civilian, provincial, or imperial, the fortifications examined here range from South Carolina's Fort Prince George to Fort Frontenac in Ontario and Fort de Chartres in Illinois. As Europeans and colonists struggled to control the lucrative fur trade routes of the northern boundary, these strongholds were part of the first serious arms race on the continent. Contributors to this volume reveal how the French and British adapted their fortification techniques to the special needs of the North American frontier. By exploring the unique structures that guarded the borderlands, this book reveals much about the underlying economies and dynamics of the broader conflict that defined a critical episode of the American experience.

Women in Mycenaean Greece is the first book-length study of women in the Linear B tablets from Mycenaean Greece and the only to collect and compile all the references to women in the documents of the two best attested sites of Late Bronze Age Greece - Pylos on the Greek mainland and Knossos on the island of Crete. The book offers a systematic analysis of women's tasks, holdings, and social and economic status in the Linear B tablets dating from the 14th and 13th centuries BCE, identifying how Mycenaean women functioned in the economic institutions where they were best attested - production, property control, land tenure, and cult. Analysing all references to women in the Mycenaean documents, the book focuses on the ways in which the economic institutions of these Bronze Age palace states were gendered and effectively extends the framework for the study of women in Greek antiquity back more than 400 years. Throughout, the book seeks to establish whether gender practices were uniform in the Mycenaean states or differed from site to site and to gauge the relationship of the roles and status of Mycenaean women to their Archaic and Classical counterparts to test if the often-proposed theories of a more egalitarian Bronze Age accurately reflect the textual evidence. The Linear B tablets offer a unique, if under-utilized, point of entry into women's history in ancient Greece, documenting nearly 2000 women performing over fifty task assignments. From their decipherment in 1952 one major gap in the scholarly record remained: a full accounting of the women who inhabited the palace states and their tasks, ranks, and economic contributions. Women in Mycenaean Greece fills that gap recovering how class, rank, and other social markers created status hierarchies among women, how women as a group functioned relative to men, and where different localities conformed or diverged in their gender practices.

Assessing key questions such as who the foreigners and outsiders in ancient Maya societies were and how was the foreign a generative component of identity, Foreigners Among Us reassess the arrival of foreigners as part of archaeological understandings of Pre-Columbian Maya and questions not only who these foreigners might have been but who were making such designations of difference in the first place. Drawing from identity studies, standpoint theory, and ideas on alterity, Foreigners Among Us highlights the diverse ways being foreign was constituted, imitated, and marked – from quotidian practices of making corn tortillas to ceremonial acts between king and captive and their memorialization in scenes on sculpted stone monuments. Rather than treat the foreign as axiomatically determined by geographical distance or fixed at birth, the book considers the foreign as much performed as inherited. It examines practices of captivity, cuisine, body ornamentation and dress, diasporic objects, relationships with deities, migration, and pilgrimage. The book focuses, in particular, on diverse peoples in the Maya area during the Classic and Postclassic periods, but also necessarily peers into contacts, engagements and relations throughout Mesoamerica, the Americas more broadly, and with Europeans during the Colonial period – all the while insisting that outsider status must be approached as multi-scalar, relational, and intersectional rather than as neutral, intrinsic, and static. Contributing broadly to intellectual investigations on foreign identities from an anthropological perspective, this book enriches the understanding of Maya society for students and researchers of Mesoamerican archaeology and art history.

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 Rosetta Stone contains a decree written three times in Greek, Demotic and hieroglyphic that provided the key to the mysterious hieroglyphic script of ancient Egypt, and opened up 3,000 years of the country's history and culture. This book tells the fascinating story of one of archaeology's icons, from its creation in the second century BC, to its discovery in 1799 during Napoleon's Egyptian campaign, to the subsequent race to decipher its hieroglyphic text. Undertaken by two brilliant scholars - the Frenchman Jean-Francois Champollion, and the English physicist Thomas Young - it was the former who eventually succeeded in making the crucial breakthrough. Today the Rosetta Stone stands in the Museum as an enduring symbol of human understanding and communication through the ages.

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.

In this fully illustrated study, Rune Frederiksen assembles all archaeological and written sources for city walls in the ancient Greek world, and argues that widespread fortification of settlements and towns, usually considered to date from the Classical period, in fact took place much earlier. Frederiksen discusses the types of fortified settlement and the topography of urban fortification, and also the preservation of structures from early settlements. He also presents an architectural history of Greek fortification walls before the Classical period, and makes the intriguing observation that early monumental architecture developed just as much in fortifications as it did in early temples. This underlines the importance of the secular sphere for the development of early communities across the Greek world.

Social and behavioral scientists study religion or spirituality in various ways and have defined and approached the subject from different perspectives. In cultural anthropology, and archaeology the understanding of what constitutes religion involves beliefs, oral traditions, practices and rituals, as well as the related material culture including artifacts, landscapes, structural features and visual representations like rock art. Researchers work to understand religious thoughts and actions that prompted their creation distinct from those created for economic, political, or social purposes. Rock art landscapes convey knowledge about sacred and spiritual ecology from generation to generation.

Contributors to this global viewdetail how rock art can be employed to address issues regarding past dynamic interplaysof religions and spiritual elements. Studies from a number of different cultural areas and time periods explore how rock artengages the emotions, materializes thoughts and actions, and reflects religiousorganization as it intersects with sociopolitical cultural systems."

This is the first in-depth historical study of Byzantine Cappadocia. The authors draw on extensive textual and archaeological materials to examine the nature and place of Cappadocia in the Byzantine Empire from the fourth through eleventh centuries.

A fully updated and revised edition of a classic bestseller: the definitive guide to Tutankhamun and his tomb - what it contained, why, and what it means today. On 4 November 1922, Lord Carnarvon and Howard Carter's long search in Egypt's Valley of the Kings drew to a triumphant close: Tutankhamun's tomb had been found. As news of the discovery spread, and as images of the breathtaking treasures began to circulate, this once-obscure pharaoh would capture the imagination of the entire world. A hundred years on, and both the fascination and the drama continue. Scientific research has pushed forward, and the results have been impressive: the tomb's ground-plan and setting are now fully remapped; CT-scanning and aDNA have begun to shed their unique light on Tutankhamun in life and in death; super-accurate recordings have been secured of the Burial Chamber's decorated walls; and we possess at last high-quality photography of Pharaoh's possessions. Our access to Carnarvon and Carter's extraordinary find is greater today than it has ever been, and from this fuller evidence comes one new realization among many - that both the tomb and its treasures had been intended for someone else. In this new edition of his landmark book Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves revisits Tutankhamun in the context of his time, the excavators in the context of theirs, and every aspect, old and new, of the tomb's discovery, archaeology, architecture and art. If what was discovered in 1922 had the ability to amaze, then what has been discovered since will simply astonish.

Since the arrival of literate European settlers in what is now KwaZulu-Natal in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, numerous stories about the Drakensberg region have made their way into print. But for every story which happens to have been written down, there are many others which have not, and which are therefore unavailable to us in our aim of wanting to establish a modern-day understanding of the history of the Drakensberg. This applies especially to the stories told by the unlettered San hunter-gatherers and their forebears during the several thousand years for which they inhabited these mountains, and by the isiNtu-speaking black farmers who have lived in the neighbouring uplands for the past thousand years or so. But it also applies to the unwritten stories told by European colonizers and their descendants over the last century and a half.;The declaration of the uKhahlamba-Drakensberg Park as a World Heritage Site - on the basis of its scenic beauty, high degree of biodiversity and the exceptional cultural value of its heritage of San rock art - provides an occasion for reflecting on the history and people of the region, from the earliest known times to the present. Constructed from archaeological and written sources, this book highlights the histories of the indigenous San hunter-gatherers and black farmers, as well as of the European colonisers. The accessible text is complemented by photographs of the landscape, rock art and archaeological finds.;The authors have not aimed to write a definitive history, but have tried to open up ways of looking at the region's past which go beyond the mainly 'colonial' views which have predominated in the literature up to the present.