'Western-Pontic Culture Ambience and Pattern: In Memory of Eugen Comsa' is dedicated to the memory of Eugen Comsa, an archaeologist whose work created the foundation of the Northern Balkan prehistory and was essential for the contemporary view of the prehistory of the North-western Pontic region. This edited volume brings together researchers in the field of Circumpontic archaeology from the Neolithic to the Iron Age period. The content of the volume is offered to students and scholars who seek a deeper understanding of the prehistory of the Western Pontic region, in particular the Balkans in their Eurasian context and more broadly to enhance the scholarly collections of academic, educational, public and private libraries throughout the world.

How do archaeologists think? How do they use the scattered and often-fragmentary remains from the past-both historical and excavated-to create meaningful, sensible interpretations of human history? In Archaeological Thinking, Charles E. Orser Jr., provides a commonsense guide to applying critical thinking skills to archaeological questions and evidence. Rather than critiquing and debunking specific cases of pseudo-archaeology or concentrating on archaeological theory, Orser considers the basics of scientific thinking, the use of logic and analogy, the meaning and context of facts, and the evaluation of source materials. He explains, concisely and accessibly, how archaeologists use these principles to create pictures of the past and teaches students to develop the skills needed to make equally reasoned interpretations.

Multiple Hopewellian monumental earthwork sites displaying timber features, mortuary deposits, and unique artifacts are found widely distributed across the North American Eastern Woodlands, from the lower Mississippi Valley north to the Great Lakes. These sites, dating from 200 b.c. to a.d. 500, almost define the Middle Woodland period of the Eastern Woodlands. Joseph Caldwell treated these sites as defining what he termed the ""Hopewell Interaction Sphere,"" which he conceptualized as mediating a set of interacting mortuary-funerary cults linking many different local ethnic communities. In this new book, A. Martin Byers refines Caldwell's work, coining the term ""Hopewell Ceremonial Sphere"" to more precisely characterize this transregional sphere as manifesting multiple autonomous cult sodalities of local communities affiliated into escalating levels of autonomous cult sodality heterarchies. It is these cult sodality heterarchies, regionally and transregionally interacting - and not their autonomous communities to which the sodalities also belonged - that were responsible for the Hopewellian assemblage; and the heterarchies took themselves to be performing, not funerary, but world-renewal ritual ceremonialism mediated by the deceased of their many autonomous Middle Woodland communities. Paired with the cult sodality heterarchy model, Byers proposes and develops the complementary heterarchical community model. This model postulates a type of community that made the formation of the cult sodality heterarchy possible. But Byers insists it was the sodality heterarchies and not the complementary heterarchical communities that generated the Hopewellian ceremonial sphere. Detailed interpretations and explanations of Hopewellian sites and their contents in Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and Georgia empirically anchor his claims. A singular work of unprecedented scope, Reclaiming the Hopewellian Ceremonial Sphere will encourage archaeologists to re-examine their interpretations.

Analysis of the scroll fragments of the Qumran Aramaic scrolls has been plentiful to date. Their shared characteristics of being written in Aramaic, the common language of the region, not focused on the Qumran Community, and dating from the 3rd century BCE to the 1st century CE have enabled the creation of a shared identity, distinguishing them from other fragments found in the same place at the same time. This classification, however, could yet be too simplistic as here, for the first time, John Starr applies sophisticated statistical analyses to newly available electronic versions of these fragments. In so doing, Starr presents a potential new classification which comprises six different text types which bear distinctive textual features, and thus is able to narrow down the classification both temporally and geographically. Starr's re-visited classification presents fresh insights into the Aramaic texts at Qumran, with important implications for our understanding of the many strands that made up Judaism in the period leading to the writing of the New Testament.

"Interesting, strong, and timely. Everyday Life Matters is clearly and sharply written, and by targeting the archaeology of everyday life as an emerging field explicitly, it identifies and fills a real void in the field."--John Robb, author of The Early Mediterranean Village "An absolute must-read. Robin's thorough understanding of commoners and how they occasionally interacted with elites provides a solid foundation for social reconstruction."--Payson Sheets, coeditor of Surviving Sudden Environmental Change While the study of ancient civilizations most often focuses on temples and royal tombs, a substantial part of the archaeological record remains hidden in the understudied day-to-day lives of artisans, farmers, hunters, and other ordinary people of the ancient world. Various chores completed during the course of a person's daily life, though at first glance trivial, have a powerful impact on society as a whole. Everyday Life Matters develops general methods and theories for studying the applications of everyday life in archaeology, anthropology, and a wide range of related disciplines. Examining the two-thousand-year history (800 B.C.-A.D. 1200) of the ancient farming community of Chan in Belize, Cynthia Robin's ground-breaking work explains why the average person should matter to archaeologists studying larger societal patterns. Robin argues that the impact of the mundane can be substantial, so much so that the study of a polity without regard to its citizenry is incomplete. Refocusing attention away from the Maya elite and offering critical analysis of daily life elucidated by anthropological theory, Robin engages us to consider the larger implications of the commonplace and to rethink the constitution of human societies by ordinary people living routine lives.