Migration has always been a fundamental human activity, yet little collaboration exists between scientists and social scientists examining how it has shaped past and contemporary societies. This innovative volume brings together sociocultural anthropologists, archaeologists, bioarchaeologists, ethnographers, paleopathologists, andothers to develop a unifying theory of migration. The contributors relate past movements, including the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain and the Islamic conquest of Andalucia, to present-day events, such as those in northern Ethiopia or at the U.S.-Mexico border. They examine the extent to which environmental and social disruptionshave been a cause of migration over time and how these migratory flows have in turn led to disruptive consequences for the receiving societies. The observed cycles of social disruption, resettlement, and its consequences offer a new perspective on how human migration has shaped the social, economic, political, and environmental landscapes of societies from prehistory to today.

In the fourteenth century the Old World witnessed a series of profound and abrupt changes in the trajectory of long-established historical trends. Transcontinental networks of exchange fractured and an era of economic contraction and demographic decline dawned from which Latin Christendom would not begin to emerge until its voyages of discovery at the end of the fifteenth century. In a major new study of this 'Great Transition', Bruce Campbell assesses the contributions of commercial recession, war, climate change, and eruption of the Black Death to a far-reaching reversal of fortunes from which no part of Eurasia was spared. The book synthesises a wealth of new historical, palaeo-ecological and biological evidence, including estimates of national income, reconstructions of past climates, and genetic analysis of DNA extracted from the teeth of plague victims, to provide a fresh account of the creation, collapse and realignment of Western Europe's late medieval commercial economy.

How did small-scale societies in the past experience and respond to sea-level rise? What happened when their dwellings, hunting grounds and ancestral lands were lost under an advancing tide? This book asks these questions in relation to the hunter-gatherer inhabitants of a lost prehistoric land; a land that became entirely inundated and now lies beneath the North Sea. It seeks to understand how these people viewed and responded to their changing environment, suggesting that people were not struggling against nature, but simply getting on with life - with all its trials and hardships, satisfactions and pleasures, and with a multitude of choices available. At the same time, this loss of land - the loss of places and familiar locales where myths were created and identities formed - would have profoundly affected people's sense of being. This book moves beyond the static approach normally applied to environmental change in the past to capture its nuances. Through this, a richer and more complex story of past sea-level rise develops; a story that may just have resonance for us today.

This book describes, collates and analyses the archaeological, zooarchaeological and palaeobotanical evidence for agriculture, livestock and cereal production in early medieval Ireland, AD 400-1100, particularly as revealed through archaeological excavations in Ireland since 1930. It is based on the research of the Heritage Council-funded Early Medieval Archaeology Project (EMAP), a collaborative research project between University College Dublin and Queens University Belfast, supported by the Irish government Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. Providing a range of insights into farmsteads and field enclosures, livestock management (particularly of cattle) and crop cultivation, along with a series of datasets presented in tables and gazetteer descriptions, it is arguably amongst the most detailed, focused and comprehensive analyses of early agricultural practice in its social and economic contexts in Europe, and the wider world.

Before the invention of the combine, the binder was an essential harvesting implement that cut grain and bound the stalks in bundles tied with twine that could then be hand-gathered into shocks for threshing. Hundreds of thousands of farmers across the United States and Canada relied on binders and the twine required for the machine's operation. Implement manufacturers discovered that the best binder twine was made from henequen and sisal-spiny, fibrous plants native to the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. The double dependency that subsequently developed between Mexico and the Great Plains of the United States and Canada affected the agriculture, ecology, and economy of all three nations in ways that have historically been little understood. These interlocking dependencies-identified by author Sterling Evans as the "henequen-wheat complex"-initiated or furthered major ecological, social, and political changes in each of these agricultural regions. Drawing on extensive archival work as well as the existing secondary literature, Evans has woven an intricate story that will change our understanding of the complex, transnational history of the North American continent. STERLING EVANS is an associate professor and Canada Research Chair in history at Brandon University in Brandon, Manitoba. He is the editor of The Borderlands of the American and Canadian Wests. Evans holds a Ph.D. from the University of Kansas.

Insect remains from archaeological sites can tell us an astonishing amount about the past. This ranges from lists of which species were present, via intimate details of the parasitological state of Londoners of the time, to socially and economically significant reconstructions of the environment and climate. However, many insects are unfamiliar to most people, and the methods used to glean information from their fossils can be complex. In this study the author makes us feel much more familiar with the creatures themselves, and presents descriptions of site results, explanations of methodology, and outlines his conclusions.

The Japan Association for Quaternary Research (JAQUA) and the Geological Survey of Japan (GSJ), National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), celebrated their 50th and 125th anniversaries, respectively, with an international symposium entitled 'Quaternary Environmental Changes and Humans in Asia and the Western Pacific', November 19-22, 2007, in Tsukuba, Japan. This volume represents the papers presented at the session Environmental Changes and Human Occupation in North and East Asia during OIS 3 and OIS 2, focusing on the correlation between environmental changes and human activities among Palaeolithic sites in North and East Asia. Contents: 1) High-Resolution Climate Reconstruction for the Past 72Ka from Pollen, Total Organic Carbon (Toc) and Total Nitrogen (Tn) Analyses of Cored Sediments From Lake Nojiri, Central Japan (Fujio Kumon, Sayuri Kawai and Yoshio Inouchi); 2) Absolute Chronology of Archaeological and Paleoenvironmental Records from the Japanese Islands, 40-15 ka BP (Yuichiro Kudo); 3) Terrestrial Mammal Faunas in the Japanese Islands during OIS 3 and OIS 2 (Yoshinari Kawamura and Ryohei Nakagawa); 4) A New OIS 2 and OIS 3 Terrestrial Mammal Assemblage on Miyako Island (Ryukyus), Japan (Ryohei Nakagawa et al.); 5) Taphonomy of Vertebrate Remains from Funakubu Second Cave in Okinawa Island, Japan (Shin Nunami and Ryohei Nakagawa); 6) Formative History of Terrestrial Fauna of the Japanese Islands during the Plio-Pleistocene (Keiichi Takahashi and Masami Izuho); 7) Some Issues on the Origin of Microblade Industries in Northeast Asia during OIS2 (Anatoly Kuznetsov); 8) Re-evaluation of the Chronology and Technology of Palaeolithic Assemblages in the Imjin-Hantan River Area, Korea (Yongwook Yoo); 9) The Upper Paleolithic of Hokkaido: Current Evidence and Its Geochronological Framework (Masami Izuho et al.); 10) Pioneer Phase of Obsidian Use in the Upper Palaeolithic and the Emergence of Modern Human Behavior in the Japanese Islands (Kazutaka Shimada).

Water management, soil conservation, sustainable animal husbandry . . . because such socio-environmental challenges have been faced throughout history, lessons from the past can often inform modern policy. In this book, case studies from a wide range of times and places reveal how archaeology can contribute to a better understanding of humans' relation to the environment.
"The Archaeology of Environmental Change" shows that the challenges facing humanity today, in terms of causing and reacting to environmental change, can be better approached through an attempt to understand how societies in the past dealt with similar circumstances. The contributors draw on archaeological research in multiple regions--North America, Mesoamerica, Europe, the Near East, and Africa--from time periods spanning the Holocene, and from environments ranging from tropical forest to desert.
Through such examples as environmental degradation in Transjordan, wildlife management in East Africa, and soil conservation among the ancient Maya, they demonstrate the negative effects humans have had on their environments and how societies in the past dealt with these same problems. All call into question and ultimately refute popular notions of a simple cause-and-effect relationship between people and their environment, and reject the notion of people as either hapless victims of unstoppable forces or inevitable destroyers of natural harmony.
These contributions show that by examining long-term trajectories of socio-natural relationships we can better define concepts such as sustainability, land degradation, and conservation--and that gaining a more accurate and complete understanding of these connections is essential for evaluating current theories and models of environmental degradation and conservation. Their insights demonstrate that to understand the present environment and to manage landscapes for the future, we must consider the historical record of the total sweep of anthropogenic environmental change.

Different Times? Archaeological and environmental data from intra-site and off-site sequences brings together seven papers from Session II-8 of the XVIII UISPP Congress (Paris, 4-9 June 2018). The session questioned temporal correlations between intra-site and off-site data in archaeology-related contexts. The word 'site' describes here archaeological sites or groups of sites - usually settlements - that have undergone research in recent years and produced information on the duration and timing of human presence. Comparison with evidence from geomorphological and paleoenvironmental research conducted at various distances from settlements gives some interesting results, such as 'missing' occupation periods, distortions in human presence intensity through space as well as time, variability in explanations concerning the abandonment of settlements, etc. Examples presented here highlight: first, discrepancies between time records within built areas used for living and the surrounding lands used for other activities (cultivation, herding, travelling, etc); second, discrepancies produced by the use of different 'time markers' (ie. chronostratigraphy of archaeological layers or pottery evolution on the one hand, sedimentary or pollen sequences on the other hand). Although improving the resolution of individual data is essential, the authors argue that the joint and detailed examination of evidence produced together by human and natural scientists is more important for reaching a reliable reconstruction of past people's activities. Both the session and the volume stem from the Working Group 'Environmental and Social Changes in the Past' (Changements environnementaux et societes dans le passe) in the research framework of the Cluster of Excellence 'Dynamite' (Territorial and Spatial Dynamics) of the University Paris 1-Pantheon-Sorbonne (ANR-11-LABX-0046, Investissements d'Avenir).

This study uses the perspectives of what might be termed the 'empirical tradition' of British landscape archaeology that developed in the 1960s and 1970s, especially in industrial archaeology, to explore the early modern history of the 'garden' landscapes formed by British colonialism in the eastern Caribbean, and their place in the world. It presents a detailed chronological sequence of the changing material conditions of these English-/British-owned plantation landscapes during the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries, with particular reference to the origins, history and legacies of the sugar industry. The study draws together the results of archaeological fieldwork and documentary research to present a progressive account of the historical landscapes of the islands of St Kitts and St Lucia: sketching a chronological outline of landscape change. This approach to landscape is characterised by the integration of archaeological field survey, standing buildings recording alongside documentary and cartographic sources, and focuses upon producing accounts of material change to landscapes and buildings. By providing a long-term perspective on eastern Caribbean colonial history: from the nature of early, effectively prehistoric contact and interaction in the 16th century, through early permanent European settlements and into the developed sugar societies of the 18th and 19th centuries, the study suggests a temporal and thematic framework of landscape change that might inform the further development of historical archaeology in the island Caribbean region. The broader aim of the study relates to exploring how archaeological techniques can be used to contribute a highly detailed, empirical case study to the interdisciplinary study of postcolonial landscapes and British colonialism. In order to achieve this goal, the study draws upon the techniques of what has been called the 'empirical tradition' of landscape archaeology.

This book examines archaeological and historical evidence for the socio-economic organization of the kingdom of East Kent, England, as a territorial and social system during the Early to Middle Anglo-Saxon period (AD 400-900). Explicit archaeological and theoretical frameworks are considered to propose a hierarchical model of the spatial organization of communities as a way of providing a micro-economic casestudy of state formation.

Over the past century, the Italian landscape has undergone exceedingly rapid transformations, shifting from a mostly rural environment to a decidedly modern world. This changing landscape is endowed with a narrative agency that transforms how we understand our surroundings. Situated at the juncture of Italian studies and ecocriticism and following the recent "material turn" in the environmental humanities, Elemental Narratives outlines an original cultural and environmental map of the bel paese. Giving equal weight to readings of fiction, nonfiction, works of visual art, and physical sites, Enrico Cesaretti investigates the interconnected stories emerging from both human creativity and the expressive eloquence of "glocal" materials, such as sulfur, petroleum, marble, steel, and asbestos, that have helped make and, simultaneously, "un-make" today's Italy, affecting its socio-environmental health in multiple ways. Embracing the idea of a decentralized agency that is shared among human and nonhuman entities, Cesaretti suggests that engaging with these entangled discursive and material texts is a sound and revealing ecocritical practice that promises to generate new knowledge and more participatory, affective responses to environmental issues, both in Italy and elsewhere. Ultimately, he argues that complementing quantitative, data-based information with insights from fiction and nonfiction, the arts, and other humanistic disciplines is both desirable and crucial if we want to modify perceptions and attitudes, increase our awareness and understanding, and, in turn, develop more sustainable worldviews in the era of the Anthropocene. Elegantly written and convincingly argued, this book will appeal broadly to scholars and students working in the fields of environmental studies, comparative literatures, ecocriticism, environmental history, and Italian studies.

Many regional forest reserves are in decline in the Mediterranean as these dynamic ecosystems become increasingly threatened and affected by climate change and human activities. This study examines the forest resources of Cyprus through a case study based in the Makheras region of the eastern Troodos mountains. Burnet presents the results of field survey carried out in this vast 4,054 hectare area, looking in particular at the relationship between archaeological sites and their contemporary environment. In more general terms, she reconstructs the ecological and economic landscape of the eastern Troodos and studies its long-term development asking questions such as what resources were available in prehistoric and historic times, how did man exploit these, what impact did this have and how can the resources be sustained in the future.

Prompted by two contradictory references to the nature and extent of woodlands in Cudham during the medieval period, Sue Harrington embarked upon a survey of the history of woodlands in this part of the North Downs. With the Domesday Book referring to extensive ploughlands and a slighty later reference to extensive woodlands, this study was designed to find out which was correct and what impact London had on Cudham in terms of offering a market for its surpluses. The methodology of Harrington's fieldwork and documentary research is outlined and background material on the environment, geology, patterns of settlement and land use, are presented. A core-periphery model is used to describe the relationship between Cudham and London.

Thirteen papers form the proceedings of the First International Conference on Soils and Archaeology held in Szazhalombatta, Hungary, in 2001. The specialised and mostly technical papers comprise methodological and theoretical discussions of the contribution soil analysis can make to archaeology as well as worldwide case studies. These include prehistoric and medieval sites in western Siberia, Sardinia, South Africa, Bavaria, Hungary and the Caucasus. Other subjects include C14 dating, soft tissue decomposition, the deterioration of archaeological materials in soil and the impact of human populations on soil formation.

The Reconstruction of Archaeological Landscapes through Digital Technologies: 18 Papers from the Italy-United States Workshop, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, November, 2001. Including: Landscape Archaeology in Tuscany: Cultural resource management, remotely sensed techniques, GIS based data integration and interprccardo Francovich); Hyperspectral airborne remote sensing as an aid to a better understanding and characterization of buried elements in different archaeological sites (Cavalli R.M., Marino C. M. and Pignatti S.); Archaeology at War (Armando De Guio); The Power of GIS and Remote Sensing: Multi-Scalar Spatial Analysis of Settlement Data in SE Pacific Coastal Guatemala and the Southern Maya Lowlands (Francisco Estrada-Belli); From Artifact to Landscape: A Theoretical Approach to a Simulated Reconstruction of Historical Processes in Ancient Ethiopia (Rodolfo Fattovich); Real Space Beyond Solid Models: Spatial Metadata in Ethnoarchaeology (Monica Foccillo, Andrea MAnzo, Cinzia Perlingieri, Rosario Perlingieri); Remote Sensing, GIS and Virtual Reconstruction of Archaeological Landscapes (Maurizio Forte); Mindscape: ecological thinking, cyber-anthropology and virtual archaeological landscapes (Maurizio Forte); Digital Technologies and Prehistoric Landscapes in the American Southwest (John Kantner and Ronald Hobgood); NASA archaeological research: a remote sensing approach (Marco J. Giardino, Troy E. Frisbee, Michael R. Thomas); Genetic Programming, and Traditional Statistics: towards Interpretation of Ancient Landscape and Social Simulation (Andrea Manzo, Cinzia Perlingieri); Preliminary recognition and analysis of archaeological mounds in the lower Sourou Valley (Burkina Faso)( Paolo Mozzi, Aldino Bondesan, Armando De Guio, Francesco Ferrarese, Giovanna Pizzaiolo); Archaeological Subsurface Site Reconstruction Using Computer Processing of GPR Data (Sheldon S. Sandler); Remote Sensing and the Location of the Ancient Tigris (Elizabeth C Stone); Hydraulic Landscapes and Social Relations in the Middle Horizon Andes (Patrick Ryan Williams); The Archaeologist, the Neural Networkroblems in Spatial and Cultural Cognition of Landscapes (Ezra Zubrow).

Much has been written on marine fishing and for the migratory eel and salmon. Less attention has focused on the obligate freshwater species, primarily the native pike, perch, cyprinids and introduced species of which the most significant is carp. Their exploitation by man has changed from food to sport more dramatically in England and the British Isles than in Europe. They have also been used as elite statements, symbols of lineage, in religion and art. Much of the early evidence is confined to fish bones from archaeological sites and indicators of diet from isotopic analyses of human bones. From the Medieval period these data sources are increasingly complemented and ultimately superseded by documentary sources and material culture. The bones are relatively few from prehistoric contexts and mostly food waste. In the Mesolithic the bones are largely marine from middens on Scottish coasts, while early farmers apparently ate few fish of any type. Examples from European prehistoric sites demonstrate other cultural attitudes to fish. Both marine and freshwater fish bones are more numerous from Roman sites. There are regional and site type differences, but Roman influence appears to have increased fish consumption, though obligate freshwater species remain relatively few. The first evidence is seen for fishponds, probably ornamental. Angling was a noted sport elsewhere in the Empire, but there is no evidence in Britain. In Saxon England the exploitation and management of waterways and the beginnings of the privatization of the landscape, included enclosure of waters as fish stores. This previewed an elite practice of the Medieval period in which landscape features and documentary evidence demonstrate the importance of pond systems among a small section of elite medieval society and for whom these fish were an important part of feast and fast food and gift exchange. However quantitatively marine fish had dominated the fish supply from the late 10th century. The first documentary evidence for freshwater angling in England appears in the Medieval period, revealing an established sport through an oral tradition. The arrival of the common carp, in the 14th century, marks a change in pond culture, it soon became the favourite fish. By the early modern period freshwater fish are in slow decline on the table, though landscape water features evolve in style. The popularity of angling is reflected in the growing commercialisation of tackle and angling books initially marketed at gentlemen of means. The industrialisation and urbanisation of the 18th and 19th centuries created a new landless, 'working class' with whom coarse fishing became synonymous and came to represent a social divide with fly fishing viewed as more elite. Freshwater fish were never to revive as a table fish, but were ever popular as sport. Record carp have become the quest for many specimen anglers practicing catch-and-release, more prevalent in Britain than Europe. The development of coarse angling reflects social and cultural changes in society in England at many levels.

Threats to biodiversity, food shortages, urban sprawl . . . lessons for environmental problems that confront us today may well be found in the past. The archaeological record contains hundreds of situations in which societies developed long-term sustainable relationships with their environments--and thousands in which the relationships were destructive. Charles Redman demonstrates that much can be learned from an improved understanding of peoples who, through seemingly rational decisions, degraded their environments and threatened their own survival. By discussing archaeological case studies from around the world--from the deforestation of the Mayan lowlands to soil erosion in ancient Greece to the almost total depletion of resources on Easter Island--Redman reveals the long-range coevolution of culture and environment and clearly shows the impact that ancient peoples had on their world. These case studies focus on four themes: habitat transformation and animal extinctions, agricultural practices, urban growth, and the forces that accompany complex society. They show that humankind's commitment to agriculture has had cultural consequences that have conditioned our perception of the environment and reveal that societies before European contact did not necessarily live the utopian existences that have been popularly supposed. Whereas most books on this topic tend to treat human societies as mere reactors to environmental stimuli, Redman's volume shows them to be active participants in complex and evolving ecological relationships. "Human Impact on Ancient Environments" demonstrates how archaeological research can provide unique insights into the nature of human stewardship of the Earth and can permanently alter the way we think about humans and the environment.

How people produced or acquired their food in the past is one of the main questions in archaeology. Everyone needs food to survive, so the ways in which people managed to acquire it forms the very basis of human existence. Farming was key to the rise of human sedentarism. Once farming moved beyond subsistence, and regularly produced a surplus, it supported the development of specialisation, speeded up the development of socio-economic as well as social complexity, the rise of towns and the development of city states. In short, studying food production is of critical importance in understanding how societies developed. Environmental archaeology often studies the direct remains of food or food processing, and is therefore well-suited to address this topic. What is more, a wealth of new data has become available in this field of research in recent years. This allows synthesising research with a regional and diachronic approach. Indeed, most of the papers in this volume offer studies on subsistence and surplus production with a wide geographical perspective. The research areas vary considerably, ranging from the American Mid-South to Turkey. The range in time periods is just as wide, from c. 7000 BC to the 16th century AD. Topics covered include foraging strategies, the combination of domestic and wild food resources in the Neolithic, water supply, crop specialisation, the effect of the Roman occupation on animal husbandry, town-country relationships and the monastic economy. With this collection of papers and the theoretical framework presented in the introductory chapter, we wish to demonstrate that the topic of subsistence and surplus production remains of interest, and promises to generate more exciting research in the future.

Archaeology is a vast subject - it is the study of human society everywhere in the world, from distant human origins 3-4 million years ago up to the present day. The Oxford Handbook of Archaeology brings together 35 authors - all specialists in their own fields - to explain what archaeology is really about. This is one of the most comprehensive treatments of the subject and of the key debates ever attempted. It is designed to open up the world of archaeology to non-specialists and to provide an essential starting point for those who want to pursue particular topics in more depth.

The two volumes bring together the contributions of the members of the International Union of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences (UISPP), to a project launched in 2017, with the support of the International Academic Union (UAI), under the title Human societies facing climate change in prehistory and protohistory : from the origins of Humanity to the beginning of historical times. The second volume concerns protohistory, from the beginning of the Holocene to historical times. In what climate and at what latitudes have the innovations represented by farming and animal husbandry succeeded in sustaining themselves? How did agro-pastoral societies adapt to the progression of Holocene aridity after the exceptional wet period at its beginning? Is nomadic pastoralism a specialization of an agro-pastoral society in the context of increasing aridity and/or an adaptation of animal domestication to steppe and semi-desert areas? How have agro-pastoral societies adapted to multi-century periods of climate change such as those known from protohistoric and historical periods (the crises of 8200 BP, 4200 BP, 1200 BC and 800 BC; the Roman climate optimum; the crisis of the Later Roman Empire and barbarian invasions; the medieval climate optimum; the Little Ice Age)? And how did they survive episodes of adverse weather lasting several years that caused scarcity and famine?

The Oxford Handbook of Maritime Archaeology is a comprehensive survey of the field as seen through the eyes of nearly fifty scholars at a time when maritime archaeology has established itself as a mature branch of archaeology. This volume draws on many of the distinct and universal aspects of maritime archaeology, bringing them together under four main themes: the research process, ships and shipwrecks, maritime and nautical culture, and issues of preservation and management. The first section of the book deals with the best practices for locating, documenting, excavating, and analyzing submerged sites. This methodological foundation is followed by a sample of shipwreck studies from around the world as scholars trace the regional development of ships and seafaring. Chosen to balance the traditional core regions of maritime archaeology with important but lesser-studied areas, it aims at offering an international account of the study of submerged sites. Reflecting the growing number of scholars who study past maritime cultures, but not shipwrecks, the third section of the book addresses various aspects of the maritime landscape and ethnography above and below the water. The final chapters then approach maritime archaeology in a broader context, moving beyond archaeological sites to discuss the archaeological record in general within legal, preservation, and management frameworks. Taken together, these individual and original articles provide a valuable resource that summarizes the current state of the field of maritime archaeology and offers insight into the future of this established and growing discipline.