This volume gives an impression of the Archaeozoology Department's current research activity. It will be useful for several research workers, a number of technical assistants, and research students of archaeozoology.

In Richard Pococke's Letters from the East (1737-1740), Rachel Finnegan provides edited transcripts of the full run of correspondence from Richard Pococke's famous eastern voyage from 1737-40, together with updated biographical accounts of the author and his correspondents (his mother, Elizabeth Pococke and his uncle and patron, Bishop Thomas Milles).

This book presents cutting-edge archaeological materials from Xinjiang, from the Bronze Age to the early Iron Age. Through a systematic topological study of major archaeological cemeteries and sites, it establishes chronologies and cultural sequences for three main regions in Xinjiang, namely the circum-Eastern Tianshan region, the circum-Dzungarian Basin region and the circum-Tarim Basin region. It also discusses the origins and local variants of prehistoric archaeological cultures in these regions and the mutual relationships between them and neighboring cultures. By doing so, the book offers a panoramic view of the socio-cultural changes that took place in prehistoric Xinjiang from pastoral-agricultural societies to the mobile nomadic-pastoralist states in the steppe regions and the agricultural states of the oasis, making it a must-read for researchers and general readers who are interested in the archaeology of Xinjiang.

Research on historical earthquakes and tsunamis in the Iberian Peninsula has made great strides in recent years, from diverse scientific fields ranging from geology to archaeology. In addition to the famous earthquake and tsunami of 1755, which intensely affected the peninsula, researchers are conducting a growing number of surveys and case studies on seismic episodes and extreme wave events of possible tsunamigenic origin in Portugal and Spain during the ancient, medieval, and modern eras. However, the development of these studies has suffered due to a certain lack of communication among the different fields of research, which are focused on their own methodologies and interests. The aim of this book is to promote interdisciplinary dialogue by linking the results of the most recent research into historical earthquakes and tsunamis in Iberia from the fields of geology, history and archaeology. The volume, which devotes special attention to tsunamis and to events that occurred in the Iberian Peninsula before 1755, offers synthetic insights, updates, and case studies of maximum interest for knowledge of the historical seismology of Portugal and Spain.

During the late Byzantine period (1261-1453), a significant number of texts were translated from Latin, but also from Arabic and other languages, into Greek. Most of them are still unedited or available in editions that do not meet the modern academic criteria. Nowadays, these translations are attracting scholarly attention, as it is widely recognized that, besides their philological importance per se, they can shed light on the cultural interactions between late Byzantines and their neighbours or predecessors. To address this desideratum, this volume focuses on the cultural context, the translators and the texts produced during the Palaeologan era, extending as well till the end of 15th c. in ex-Byzantine territories. By shedding light on the translation activity of late Byzantine scholars, this volume aims at revealing the cultural aspect of late Byzantine openness to its neighbours.

This collection of essays in Archaeologies of Mobility and Movement draws inspiration from current archaeological interest in the movement of individuals, things, and ideas in the recent past. Movement is fundamentally concerned with the relationship(s) among time, object, person, and space. The volume argues that understanding movement in the past requires a shift away from traditional, fieldwork-based archaeological ontologies towards fluid, trajectory-based studies. Archaeology, by its very nature, locates objects frozen in space (literally in their three-dimensional matrices) at sites that are often stripped of people. An archaeology of movement must break away from this stasis and cut new pathways that trace the boundary-crossing contextuality inherent in object/person mobility. Essays in this volume build on these new approaches, confronting issues of movement from a variety of perspectives. They are divided into four sections, based on how the act of moving is framed. The groups into which these chapters are placed are not meant to be unyielding or definitive. The first section, "Objects in Motion," includes case studies that follow the paths of material culture and its interactions with groups of people. The second section of this volume, "People in Motion," features chapters that explore the shifting material traces of human mobility. Chapters in the third section of this book, "Movement through Spaces," illustrate the effects that particular spaces have on the people and objects who pass through them. Finally, there is an afterward that cohesively addresses the issue of studying movement in the recent past. At the heart of Archaeologies of Mobility and Movement is a concern with the hybridity of people and things, affordances of objects and spaces, contemporary heritage issues, and the effects of movement on archaeological subjects in the recent and contemporary past.

In this unique volume, twelve pioneers of historical archaeology offer reminiscences of the early part of their respective careers, circa 1920 to 1940. Each scholar had to overcome numerous biases held by historians and archaeologists-thus each chapter documents a step in the field's march from a marginal to a mainstream discipline. The book makes for facinating reading for archaeologists, anthropologists, and historians of science, and reminds us of the words of C.H. Fairbanks: ''what is past is prelude; study the past. ''

75,000 years ago... early humans built a stone calendar that predates all other man-made structures found to date. Who were they? Why did they need a calendar?

Adam's Calendar firmly places the many ancient ruins of southern Africa at a point in history that we modern humans have never faced before some 75,000 ago.

It therefore symbolises the first conscious human looking at his first sunrise as a free species on planet Earth.

Thinking Ancient Samnium focuses on the region of Samnium in Italy, where a rich blend of historical, literary, epigraphic, numismatic, and archaeological evidence supports a fresh perspective on the complexity and dynamism of a part of the ancient Mediterranean that is normally regarded as marginal. This volume presents new ways of looking at ancient Italian communities that did not leave written accounts about themselves but played a key role in the early development of Rome, first as staunch opponents and later as key allies. It combines written and archaeological evidence to form a new understanding of the ancient inhabitants of Samnium during the last six centuries BC, how they identified themselves, how they developed unique forms of social and political organisation, and how they became entangled with Rome's expanding power and the impact that this had on their daily lives.