As people move through life, they continually shift affiliation from one position to another, dependent on the wider contexts of their interactions. Different forms of material culture may be employed as affiliations shift, and the connotations of any given set of artifacts may change. In this volume the authors explore these overlapping spheres of social affiliation. Social actors belong to multiple identity groups at any moment in their life. It is possible to deploy one or many potential labels in describing the identities of such an actor. Two main axes exist upon which we can plot experiences of social belonging - the synchronic and the diachronic. Identities can be understood as multiple during one moment (or the extended moment of brief interaction), over the span of a lifetime, or over a specific historical trajectory.

From the Introduction

The international contributions each illuminate how the various identifiers of race, ethnicity, sexuality, age, class, gender, personhood, health, and/or religion are part of both material expressions of social affiliations, and transient experiences of identity. The Archaeology of Plural and Changing Identities: Beyond Identification will be of great interest to archaeologists, anthropologists, historians, curators and other social scientists interested in the mutability of identification through material remains.

In many facets of Western culture, including archaeology, there remains a legacy of perceiving gender divisions as natural, innate, and biological in origin. This belief follows that men are naturally pre-disposed to public, intellectual pursuits, while women are innately designed to care for the home and take care of children. In the interpretation of material culture, accepted notions of gender roles are often applied to new findings: the dichotomy between the domestic sphere of women and the public sphere of men can color interpretations of new materials. In this innovative volume, the contributors focus explicitly on analyzing the materiality of historic changes in the domestic sphere around the world. Combining a global scope with great temporal depth, chapters in the volume explore how gender ideologies, identities, relationships, power dynamics, and practices were materially changed in the past, thus showing how they could be changed in the future.

This is the fully-illustrated edition of LONDON IN FRAGMENTS. A new paperback edition is also available, published under the title A MUDLARK'S TREASURES: London in Fragments 'A beautiful book.' Daily Mail 'Exhilaratingly curious.' Evening Standard 'Gripping.' Spectator 'Brilliant.' Penelope Lively 'Indefatigably researched.' Country Life 'Beautifully illustrated.' Monocle Mudlarking, the act of searching the Thames foreshore for items of value, has a long tradition in England's capital. In the late 18th and 19th centuries, mudlarks were small boys grubbing a living from scrap. Today's mudlarks unearth relics of the past from the banks of the Thames which tell stories of Londoners throughout history. From Roman tiles to elegant Georgian pottery, presented here are modern-day mudlark Ted Sandling's most evocative finds, gorgeously photographed. Together they create a mosaic of everyday London life through the centuries, touching on the journeys, pleasures, vices, industries, adornments and comforts of a world city. This unique and stunning book celebrates the beauty of small things, and makes sense of the intangible connection that found objects give us to the individuals who lost them.

The Caucasian Archaeology of the Holy Land investigates the complete corpus of available literary, epigraphic and archaeological evidence of the Armenian, Georgian and Caucasian Albanian Christian communities' activity in the Holy Land during the Byzantine and the Early Islamic periods. This book presents the first integrated approach to a wide variety of literary sources and archaeological evidence, previously unpublished or revised. The study explores the place of each of these Caucasian communities in ancient Palestine through a synthesis of literary and material evidence and seeks to understand the interrelations between them and the influence they had on the national churches of the Caucasus.

Traditionally, Historical Archaeology has had a North American or European stance, focusing on the interplay between historical documents and the archaeological record. For Africa, with its non-traditional historical sources, this interplay is not as applicable. These sources also inform the period of contact with Europeans, during which the shape of the modern continent was inexorably defined. By focusing on such sources, it becomes possible to present historical understandings which access African experiences with outsiders and other African populations.

This volume explores the range of interactions between the historical sources and archaeology that are available on the African continent. The contributions, written by a range of experts on different aspects of African archaeology, present the underlying issues such as:
- The conflict and collaboration in the foundation of modern Africa;
- African trading communities maintaining their independence from Europe;
- The impacts of the Atlantic slave trade.

This represents the first consideration of historical archaeology over the African continent as a whole and therefore provides an important review for African archaeologists and historians. This seminal volume also explores Africa's place in global systems of thought and economic development for historical archaeologists and historians alike.

Processual archaeologists seek to explain variability in the static archaeological record we observe in the present as a necessary first step toward learning how to learn about the operation of cultural dynamics in the past. The approach is a diverse and productive one that focuses on developing learning strategies. Researchers pursuing processual archaeology have already discovered a great deal about the archaeological record and about past dynamics, and there is a huge potential for building on the foundation laid thus far. The contributors to this volume provide clearly written research articles that are easily accessible to upper-level undergraduates and professional archaeologists. Although the papers do not focus on a single region, time period, or domain of observation (e.g. settlement patterns or lithics or site structure), they are integrated by shared goals for archaeology. This book clearly demonstrates that processual archaeology, far from having been replaced by post-processual archaeology, is becoming more and more powerful as our analytic sophistication and knowledge of the archaeological record grow.

Frankfurt/M., Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Wien. This volume relates to a comparative research of historical developments and structures in North Central Europe, which is directed to the exploration of an early medieval design of this historical region beyond the Roman Empire's culture frontier. One point of the editorial concern thus was building bridges to overcome long existing dividing lines built up by divergent perspectives of previous scientific traditions. In addition, the recent come back of national histories and historiographies call for a scrutiny on the suitability of postulated ethnicities for the postsocialist nation building process. As a result, the collected papers - presented partly in English, partly in German - have a critical look into various influences, responsible for the realization of images of the past as of scientific strategies. Contents: Jerzy Gassowski: Is Ethnicity Tangible? - Sebastian Brather: Die Projektion des Nationalstaats in die Fruhgeschichte. Ethnische Interpretationen in der Archaologie - Przemyslaw Urbanczyk: Do We Need Archaeology of Ethnicity? - Klavs Randsborg: The Making of Early Scandinavian History. Material Impressions - George Indruszewski: Early Medieval Ships as Ethnic Symbols and the Construction of a Historical Paradigm in Northern and Central Europe - Volker Schmidt: Die Prillwitzer Idole. Rethra und die Anfange der Forschung im Land Stargard - Babette Ludowici: Magdeburg als Hauptort des ottonischen Imperiums. Bemerkungen zum Beitrag von Archaologie und Kunstgeschichte zur Konstruktion eines Geschichtsbildes - Arne Schmid-Hecklau: Deutsche Forschungen zur 'Reichsburg' Meien. Ein Uberblick - Stine Wiell: Derdanisch-deutsche Streit um die groen Moorwaffenfunde aus der Eisenzeit. Ansichten zur Vor und Fruhgeschichte aus dem 19. und 20. Jahrhundert - Christian Lubke: Barbaren, Leibeigene, Kolonisten: Zum Bild der mittelalterlichen Slaven in der deutschen Geschichtswissenschaft - Matthias Hardt: 'Schmutz und trages Hinbruten bei allen'? Beispiele fur den Blick der alteren deutschen Forschung auf slawische landlich-agrarische Siedlungen des Mittelalters - Elaine Smollin: The Aesthetics and Ethics of Archaeology: Lithuania 1900-1918: The Intersection of Baltic, German and Slavic Cultures - Derek Fewster: Visionen nationaler Groe. Mittelalterperzeption, Ethnizitat und Nationalismus in Finnland, 1905-1945 - Leszek Pawel Slupecki: Why Polish Historiography has Neglected the Role of Pagan Slavic Mythology - Dittmar Schorkowitz: Rekonstruktionen des Nationalen im postsowjetischen Raum. Beobachtungen zur Permanenz des Historischen.

Bringing together leading academics and practitioners from across the globe, this unique collection explores the emerging field of heritage crime studies. Moving beyond the traditional focus on illicit antiquities, the volume identifies the diversity of crimes that affect heritage and outlines various approaches to prevention.

It is perhaps a truism to note that ancient religion and rhetoric were closely intertwined in Greek and Roman antiquity. Religion is embedded in socio-political, legal and cultural institutions and structures, while also being influenced, or even determined, by them. Rhetoric is used to address the divine, to invoke the gods, to talk about the sacred, to express piety and to articulate, refer to, recite or explain the meaning of hymns, oaths, prayers, oracles and other religious matters and processes. The 13 contributions to this volume explore themes and topics that most succinctly describe the firm interrelation between religion and rhetoric mostly in, but not exclusively focused on, Greek and Roman antiquity, offering new, interdisciplinary insights into a great variety of aspects, from identity construction and performance to legal/political practices and a broad analytical approach to transcultural ritualistic customs. The volume also offers perceptive insights into oriental (i.e. Egyptian magic) texts and Christian literature.

All divisions of history into periods are artificial in proportion as they are precise. In history there is, strictly speaking, no end and no beginning. Each event is the product of an infinite series of causes, the starting-point of an infinite series of effects. Language and thought, government and manners, transform themselves by imperceptible degrees; with the result that every age is an age of transition, not fully intelligible unless regarded as the child of a past and the parent of a future. Even so the species of the animal and vegetable kingdoms shade off one into another until, if we only observe the marginal cases, we are inclined to doubt whether the species is more than a figment of the mind. Yet the biologist is prepared to defend the idea of species; and in like manner the historian holds that the distinction between one phase of culture and another is real enough to justify, and, indeed, to demand, the use of distingui-shing names.

Maritime archaeology and underwater cultural heritage management have become well established over the past twenty years or so in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly in Australia. During that period Australian researchers and underwater cultural heritage managers have conducted a significant number of important maritime archaeological investigations and have developed innovative approaches to the discipline.

Subject areas discussed in this book include shipwrecks and abandoned vessels, underwater site formation processes, maritime infrastructure and industries such as whaling, submerged aircraft and Australian Indigenous sites underwater. The application of National and State legislation and management regimes to these underwater cultural heritage sites is also highlighted, together with the important role of avocational divers and training programs in raising the profile of underwater and maritime heritage sites.

The book includes a comprehensive bibliography of work conducted both in Australia and by Australian maritime archaeologists in the Asia-Pacific region. This book will be of interest to students and practitioners of maritime and historical archaeology and cultural heritage managers throughout the world as example of good practice and innovative approaches to maritime archaeology.