Andersfield, Cannington, and North Pether-ton hundreds together occupy the Lower Par-rett valley stretching from the Quantock ridge in the west to King's Sedgemoor in the east, and from the Bristol Channel in the north to the river Tone in the south. By the late 11th century the settlement pattern was dense, especially between the Quantocks and the Par-rett, an area crossed by the Saxon 'herpath' in the north and including the 10th-century strongholds of Athelney and Lyng in the south and the Domesday royal manors of Can-nington, North Petherton, and Creech St. Michael. The origin of the medieval royal park at North Petherton can be traced to a pre--Conquest royal forest on the Quantocks, and North Petherton was an extensive minster parish. Bridgwater, a chartered borough from 1200, is the only significant town. By the later Middle Ages its port served central, south, and west Somerset, and until the 19th century heavy goods continued to be transported along the Parrett, the Tone, and the Bridgwater and Taunton canal into Dorset and Devon. The pattern of settlement is varied, with a few nucleated villages, roadside villages, and many dispersed hamlets. Interlocking parish boundaries indicate complex economic units and late parochial formation. Arable farming predominated until the 16th century, partly in open arable fields. In the 17th century there was an emphasis on stock rearing and an increase in dairying and orchards, large-ly the result of improved drainage. Cheese was an important product of the area in the 18th century, and in the 19th baskets from locally grown willow. Woollen cloth production con-tinued into the 17th century. From the late 17th century the alluvial clays of the Parrett valley provided material for the bricks and tiles for which Bridgwater became well known in the 19th century. Substantial estates whose houses wholly or partially survive include Fairfield, Gothelney, Gurney Street, West Bower, and Sydenham. Halswell House was from the later 17th century the grandest mansion in the area, and Enmore Castle was built in the later 18th century.

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.

This volume is the final site report on the architecture and pottery of Late Intermediate Cerro Azul. During the course of excavation, the University of Michigan Project excavated two tapia buildings in their entirety, saving every sherd from every room, walled work area, feature, and midden. The Project determined the function of every room, including those whose functions changed over time, owing to seismic damage. The types of rooms include residential (both elite and commoner), general storage, a kitchen/brewery with large-scale production of chichi, a guinea pig pen, specialized fish storage rooms, and open courts for weaving. The Cerro Azul pottery was analyzed using the type-variety system, with petrographic analyses of local and nonlocal varieties by James Stoltman. The percentages of pottery types varied room by room, not only chronologically but also according to room function. Primary, secondary, and tertiary deposits were distinguished and showed quantifiable differences. Every sherd from every room of every excavated building was classified and counted, including not only the decorated vessels but also all the utilitarian wares, which were often omitted in earlier Andean studies. The Cerro Azul volume is extensively illustrated, showing both the details of the tapia architecture and the individual pottery collections from each room and midden.

Le gemme romane e post-antiche del Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Cagliari presenta un catalogo di circa 200 gemme incise d’età romana e post-antica attualmente o un tempo conservate nel Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Cagliari (Sardegna, Italia). Grazie alla ricerca d’archivio e bibliografica, per numerosi reperti, è stato possibile determinare le circostanze di acquisizione e la collezione storico-antiquaria di appartenenza (Spano, Timon e Gouin), avvenuta attraverso le donazioni o l’acquisto da parte del Museo tra la seconda metà del XIX secolo e l’inizio del secolo successivo, definendo le tappe storiche della formazione della raccolta museale. L’indagine svolta su tale collezione è scaturita dalla volontà di conoscere e definire l’entità della collezione glittica più cospicua della Sardegna, in grado di offrire uno spaccato socio-culturale, religioso e politico degli abitanti della Sardinia romana.

This book provides a comprehensive research on Ancient Indian glass. The contributors include experienced archaeologists of South Asian glass and archaeological chemists with expertise in the chemical analysis of glass, besides, established ethnohistorians and ethnoarchaeologists. It is comprised of five sections, and each section discusses different aspects of glass study: the origin of glass and its evolution, its scientific study and its care, ancient glass in literature and glass ethnography, glass in South Asia and the diffusion of glass in different parts of the world. The topic covered by the different chapters ranges from the development of faience, to the techniques developed for the manufacture of glass beads, glass bangles or glass mirrors at different times in south Asia, a major glass producing region and the regional distribution of key artefacts both within India and outside the region, in Africa, Europe or Southeast Asia. Some chapters also include extended examples of the archaeometry of ancient glasses. It makes an important contribution to archaeological, anthropological and analytical aspects of glass in South Asia. As such, it represents an invaluable resource for students through academic and industry researchers working in archaeological sciences, ancient knowledge system, pyrotechnology, historical archaeology, social archaeology and student of anthropology and history with an interest in glass and the archaeology of South Asia.

The focus of Conquistador's Wake is a decade-long archaeological project undertaken at a place now known as the Glass Site, located in Telfair County, Georgia. This spot, near the town of McRae, Georgia, offers clues that place Hernando de Soto in Georgia via a different route than previously thought by historians and archaeologists. Rare glass beads-some of the only examples found outside Florida-are among the rich body of evidence signaling Spanish interaction with the Native Americans along the Ocmulgee River. An unusual number and variety of metal and glass artifacts, identified by their distinct patterns and limited production, are the "calling cards" of Soto and other early explorers. As a meditation on both the production of knowledge and the implications of findings at the Glass Site, Conquistador's Wake challenges conventional wisdom surrounding the path of Soto through Georgia and casts new light on the nature of Native American societies then residing in southern Georgia. It also provides an insider's view of how archaeology works and why it matters. Through his research, Dennis Blanton sets out to explain the outcome of one of Georgia's, and the region's, most important archaeological projects of recent years. He tells at the same time a highly personal story, from the perspective of the lead archaeologist, about the realities of the research process, from initial problem formulation to the demands of fieldwork, the collaborative process, data interpretation, and scholarly tribalism.

Pits and Boots derives from excavations carried out in 2007-8, in advance of an extension to the Bon Accord Centre in Aberdeen, that uncovered the backlands of an area that would have formed part of the industrial quarter of the medieval town. The site is well-dated by dendrochronology, augmented by artefactual evidence, and indicates activity from the late 12th century AD into the early modern period, with a particularly intensive period in the 13th century. Structural evidence consists primarily of the backland boundaries, hearth/ovens, several wood-lined wells and many large pits. It is the contents of these pits and wells which forms the core of this monograph. The waterlogged conditions within the pits and wells has meant that a remarkable assemblage of organic remains including leather, wooden artefacts, textiles, animal pelts, fibres, and cordage has survived. The leather assemblage is the largest ever to be found in Scotland and has revealed a range of activities associated with the use of animal hides, from hide processing to tanning and shoemaking. The wood assemblage is also extensive and includes bowls, platters, coopered vessels and tools. Metalwork, crucibles, clay mould fragments and ceramics all testify to the industrial nature of the area, while the large quantities of animal and fishbone demonstrate that butchery on an industrial scale took place in the area. The excavation charts the changing nature of this once-peripheral area of Aberdeen, from an industrial zone in the medieval period, to horticultural and domestic spaces in post-medieval times, and has thus greatly enhanced our knowledge of Scottish urban development.

This work book contributes to the knowledge about human settlements in the Isla Grande of Tierra Del Fuego by the hunter-gatherer societies that inhabited the area until the early twentieth century. The central theme is the study of technological organization as an approach to the management strategies of biotic and abiotic resources, as well as the occupation of space, considering the different environments represented in the area and the differential supply of resources. As a general framework, the book proposes instrumental methodologies that allow us to look at the characterization of the social and economic organization of hunter-gatherer societies from the point of view of the analysis of natural resources management, the resources introduced by Europeans and the spatial organization of technical activities.

Most cultures and societies have their own customs and traditions of treating their dead. In the past, some deceased received a burial that deviated from tradition. The reasons for unusual burial could result from reasons such as outbreaks of epidemics or wars, or from premature births, distinctive social status, or disability. Authors present a selection of cases addressing the issue of unusual deaths, burials, or ways to remember the deceased. Chapters explore theoretical views related to social memory of death and memorializing the deceased and their resting places during modern period. The case studies introduce varied views on 'otherness' that are visible in burial customs and memorialization.

The last three decades have witnessed a period of growing archaeological activity in Greece that have enhanced our awareness of the diversity and variability of ancient communities. New sites offer rich datasets from many aspects of material culture that challenge traditional perceptions and suggest complex interpretations of the past. This volume provides a synthetic overview of recent developments in the study of Neolithic Greece and reconsiders the dynamics of human-environment interactions while recording the growing diversity in layers of social organization. It fills an essential lacuna in contemporary literature and enhances our understanding of the Neolithic communities in the Greek Peninsula.

Archaeologists have shown that towns can claim to be more representative of the nature of society of which they formed part than any other type of site. In towns we are most likely to find archaeological evidence of both long-distance and local trade, of exploitation of natural resources, of specialization and of technological evidence in manufacturing, of social differentiation, of the means of political control, and of the religious aspirations of the population. Medieval Towns is the second and enlarged edition of the book Medieval Towns which was published in 1994 by Continuum. It surveys recent work on the archaeological study of medieval towns in Britain. Its emphasis is on the discoveries by archaeological teams, nearly always on sites to be developed or already under construction. From the vast haul of information now at our disposal, after thirty years of data gathering, we can begin to ask questions of many kinds. What went on in medieval towns? How did the rich and poor live, what nourished them, what did they die of? What was the weather like, the quality of life, the restrictions or special pleasures of living in towns?

On the remote north-western Isle of Lewis stands one of the most spectacular megalithic monuments in the world, a stone circle forming part of a huge Celtic Cross, built over four thousand years ago. Behold Callanish! This small book, packed with fine old engravings, is a great new introduction to the 'Stonehenge of the Hebrides' by one of the leading writers and lecturers in the subject. WOODEN BOOKS are small but packed with information. "Fascinating" FINANCIAL TIMES. "Beautiful" LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS. "Rich and Artful" THE LANCET. "Genuinely mind-expanding" FORTEAN TIMES. "Excellent" NEW SCIENTIST. "Stunning" NEW YORK TIMES. Small books, big ideas.

Literal and metaphorical excavations at Sweet Briar College reveal how African American labor enabled the transformation of Sweet Briar Plantation into a private women's college in 1906. This volume tells the story of the invisible founders of a college founded by and for white women. Despite being built and maintained by African American families, the college did not integrate its student body for sixty years after it opened. In the process, Invisible Founders challenges our ideas of what a college "founder" is, restoring African American narratives to their deserved and central place in the story of a single institution - one that serves as a microcosm of the American South.

An important study of the treatment of cultural property, and cultural heritage in general, in modern theatres of conflict. Winner of the 2011 James R. Wiseman Book Award. Discussion of the issues surrounding the destruction of cultural property in times of conflict has become a key issue for debate around the world. This book provides an historical statement as of 1st March 2006 concerning the destruction of the cultural heritage in Iraq. In a series of chapters it outlines the personal stories of a number of individuals who were - and in most cases continue to be -involved. These individuals are involved at all levels, and come from various points along the political spectrum, giving a rounded and balanced perspective so easily lost in single authored reports. It also provides the first views written by Iraqis on the situation of archaeology in Iraq under Saddam and an overview and contextualisation of the issues surrounding the looting, theft and destruction of the archaeological sites, the Iraqi National museum and the libraries in Baghdad since the war was launched in 2003. Beyond this, it examines our attitudes towards the preservation of cultural and heritage resources and, in particular, the growing political awareness of their importance. Although related to a single conflict, taking place at a specific time in history, the relevance of this work goes far beyond these self-imposed boundaries. PETER STONE is Professor of Heritage Studies and Head of School of Arts and Cultures at Newcastle University; JOANNE FARCHAKH BAJJALY is a Lebanese archaeologist and Middle East correspondent for the French magazine Archeologia.

Taking a thematic approach to the landscape of the Vale of York and the human activity that helped to shape it, this volume examines the largest exposure of prehistoric and Roman activity investigated archaeologically in the immediate hinterland of the city of York, illustrating the complex development of landscape in the area from the Neolithic period and, most intensively, in Iron Age, Roman and modern periods.

Egypt's eighteenth dynasty, a period of empire building, was also for a short time the focus of a religious revolution. Now called the Amarna Period (1353-1322 BCE), after the site of an innovative capital city that was the center of the new religion, it included the reigns of the heretic Pharaoh Akhenaten and his presumed son, the boy king Tutankhamun.Three Penn Egyptologists examine the concept of royal power and demonstrate how Akhenaten established, projected, and maintained his vision of it. They investigate how and why this unique pharaoh made fundamental changes in the social contract between himself and his subjects on one side, and between his new solar god, the Aten, and himself on the other. The authors also look at the radical religion, politics, and art, he introduced to Egypt as well as at the consequences of his actions after his death, including how his successors, most notably, Tutankhamun, Egypt's most famous pharaoh, dealt with the restoration of traditional ways. Why did this reversal take place? Could a youth effect such changes without significant help?In concise and readable form, this generously illustrated volume takes a fresh approach to a most fascinating period in Egyptian history. It deals with such topics as the evolution of Akhenaten's ideology and the concepts surrounding the foundation, construction, and use of his innovative city and its unique palaces, temples, and houses. Egypt's empire, the role of its women, its relations with other nations of the ancient world, and the remarkable place both Akhenaten and Tutankhmun hold in history are also among other issues discussed. An epilogue recaps how Amarna's modern discovery helped solve the mysteries surrounding this city, its unique founder, and the aftermath of his revolution.

This collection of original essays explores the tensions between prevailing regional and national versions of Indigenous pasts created, reified, and disseminated through monuments, and Indigenous peoples' memories and experiences of place. The contributors ask critical questions about historic preservation and commemoration methods used by modern societies and their impact on the perception and identity of the people they supposedly remember, who are generally not consulted in the commemoration process. They discuss dichotomies of history and memory, place and displacement, public spectacle and private engagement, and reconciliation and re-appropriation of the heritage of indigenous people shown in these monuments. While the case studies deal with North American indigenous experience-from California to Virginia, and from the Southwest to New England and the Canadian Maritime-they have implications for dealings between indigenous peoples and nation states worldwide. Sponsored by the World Archaeological Congress.

The alluvial lowlands of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in southern Mesopotamia are widely known as the "cradle of civilization," owing to the scale of the processes of urbanization that took place in the area by the second half of the fourth millennium BCE. In Ancient Mesopotamia at the Dawn of Civilization, Guillermo Algaze draws on the work of modern economic geographers to explore how the unique river-based ecology and geography of the Tigris-Euphrates alluvium affected the development of urban civilization in southern Mesopotamia. He argues that these natural conditions granted southern polities significant competitive advantages over their landlocked rivals elsewhere in Southwest Asia, most importantly the ability to easily transport commodities. In due course, this resulted in increased trade and economic activity and higher population densities in the south than were possible elsewhere. As southern polities grew in scale and complexity throughout the fourth millennium, revolutionary new forms of labor organization and record keeping were created, and it is these socially created innovations, Algaze argues, that ultimately account for why fully developed city-states emerged earlier in southern Mesopotamia than elsewhere in Southwest Asia or the world.

Winner, Association for Latin American Art-Arvey Foundation Book Award, 2022 More than a thousand years ago on the north coast of Peru, Indigenous Moche artists created a large and significant corpus of sexually explicit ceramic works of art. They depicted a diversity of sex organs and sex acts, and an array of solitary and interconnected human and nonhuman bodies. To the modern eye, these Moche "sex pots," as Mary Weismantel calls them, are lively and provocative but also enigmatic creations whose import to their original owners seems impossible to grasp. In Playing with Things, Weismantel shows that there is much to be learned from these ancient artifacts, not merely as inert objects from a long-dead past but as vibrant Indigenous things, alive in their own inhuman temporality. From a new materialist perspective, she fills the gaps left by other analyses of the sex pots in pre-Columbian studies, where sexuality remains marginalized, and in sexuality studies, where non-Western art is largely absent. Taking a decolonial approach toward an archaeology of sexuality and breaking with long-dominant iconographic traditions, this book explores how the pots "play jokes," "make babies," "give power," and "hold water," considering the sex pots as actual ceramic bodies that interact with fleshly bodies, now and in the ancient past. A beautifully written study that will be welcomed by students as well as specialists, Playing with Things is a model for archaeological and art historical engagement with the liberating power of queer theory and Indigenous studies.

This book addresses a void in the synthetic archaeological knowledge of the North Pacific by enabling a more informed evaluation of North Pacific Rim seafaring hypotheses. It answers questions about intra- and inter-regional relationships in the evolution of maritime adaptations throughout the region. The authors collectively address evidence of aquatic activities during the Late Pleistocene and Holocene in the Sea of Japan, Sea of Okhotsk and adjacent coastal areas of Korea, Japan, Sakhalin Island, the Kurile Islands and the Russian Far East with syntheses placing the region into a larger North Pacific context. This examination provides essential data on human modes of terrestrial adaptation and the transition to maritime lifeways over the last 40,000 years. It also provides a much-needed foundation to better understand the peopling of the New World 17,000 years ago, either by a pedestrian transit or through the use of watercraft, or more likely a combination of the two. As one of the first publications on the prehistory of the maritime region of Northeast Asia provided in English, with contributions by leading Korean, Japanese, Russian, Canadian, European and US-based researchers of the region, this volume presents a means for archaeologists to assess proposed hypotheses pertaining to late Pleistocene and Holocene seafaring around the North Pacific Rim. It is an essential read for specialists in history, archaeology, behavioural ecology and maritime evolution.

Roman glass from indigenous sites is a key source material for studying the impact of Rome on Iron Age Scotland, but it has never been properly studied. This work fills that gap. This study is based on the Roman glass vessels found on non-Roman/native sites north of Hadrian's Wall, dated mainly to the Roman Iron Age (0-400 AD). It sheds light on aspects of Roman-native relations, most importantly the exchange of goods and ideas, and considers the problem of whether the finds of glass on native sites represent loot or plunder as has been argued, or whether they were the outcome of some peaceful enterprise such as trade, exchange or present giving.

Blood and Beauty brings together a diverse, prestigious group of contributors to debate this charged topic in an open, critical and frank interchange. Authors specializing in the anthropology, archaeology, art history, and linguistics of Mesoamerica and Central America bring new data and interpretive strategies to bear on the nature of institutional violence in these ancient societies. The volume covers a broad time frame, from circa 1200 B.C.E. to the sixteenth century, including recent ethnography. The volume endeavors to contextualize violence and violent acts within the matrix of indigenous thought and culture. Chapter topics reflect that desire, including localized, culturally specific, examinations of warfare, sacrifice, ballgames, boxing, pain, and healing. While there is no overarching theoretical perspective, the contributors are sensitive to current theoretical discourse in the field, including recent perspectives on organized violence and the agency of artworks.

The First World War has been described as the first total war, a conflict in which a country's people and resources were harnessed towards final victory. During 2014-18 Historic England set out to uncover and study the physical remains left across England by the First World War. The range of what was discovered is astonishing, reflecting how the home front became as important as the battlefront. It was the place to train and equip new armies, to manufacture armaments, to treat the wounded and to grow more food. As millions of men joined the armed forces, women entered the workforce in munitions factories, as tram and bus conductresses and as farm workers. Archaeological remains can be found of practice trench lines, munitions works, government factories, army and PoW camps, airfields and airship stations. But England was also drawn into the fighting as German warships and submarines bombarded coastal towns, and Zeppelin airships and later bomber aircraft brought death from the sky. The threat of invasion saw the construction of defences down the east and south coasts. Ships and smaller vessels were lost to mines, torpedoes and gunfire, and on the sea bed work is beginning to explore the wrecks from this almost forgotten battlefield. A century later many traces of this great endeavour survive. This new book brings together these discoveries and helps to mark the contribution and sacrifice not only of those who served in the armed forces, but also of those who provided support, in myriad ways, on the home front.