A new narrative history of the Viking Age, interwoven with exploration of the physical remains and landscapes that the Vikings fashioned and walked: their rune-stones and ship burials, settlements and battlefields. To many, the word 'Viking' brings to mind red scenes of rape and pillage, of marauders from beyond the sea rampaging around the British coastline in the last gloomy centuries before the Norman Conquest. It is true that Britain in the Viking Age was a turbulent, violent place. The kings and warlords who have impressed their memories on the period revel in names that fire the blood and stir the imagination: Svein Forkbeard and Edmund Ironside, Ivar the Boneless and Alfred the Great, Erik Bloodaxe and Edgar the Pacifier amongst many others. Evidence for their brutality, their dominance, their avarice and their pride is still unearthed from British soil with stunning regularity. But this is not the whole story. In Viking Britain, Thomas Williams has drawn on his experience as project curator of the British Museum exhibition of Vikings: Life and Legend to show how the people we call Vikings came not just to raid and plunder, but to settle, to colonize and to rule. The impact on these islands was profound and enduring, shaping British social, cultural and political development for hundreds of years. Indeed, in language, literature, place-names and folklore, the presence of Scandinavian settlers can still be felt, and their memory - filtered and refashioned through the writings of people like J.R.R. Tolkien, William Morris and G.K.Chesterton - has transformed the western imagination. This remarkable book makes use of new academic research and first-hand experience, drawing deeply from the relics and landscapes that the Vikings and their contemporaries fashioned and walked: their runestones and ship burials, settlements and battlefields, poems and chronicles. The book offers a vital evocation of a forgotten world, its echoes in later history and its implications for the present.

The diverse forms of regional connectivity in the ancient world have recently become an important focus for those interested in the deep history of globalisation. This volume represents a significant contribution to this new trend as it engages thematically with a wide range of connectivities in the later prehistory of the Mediterranean, from the later Neolithic of northern Greece to the Levantine Iron Age, and with diverse forms of materiality, from pottery and metal to stone and glass. With theoretical overviews from leading thinkers in prehistoric mobilities, and commentaries from top specialists in neighbouring domains, the volume integrates detailed case studies within a comparative framework. The result is a thorough treatment of many of the key issues of regional interaction and technological diversity facing archaeologists working across diverse places and periods. As this book presents key case studies for human and technological mobility across the eastern Mediterranean in later prehistory, it will be of interest primarily to Mediterranean archaeologists, though also to historians and anthropologists.

A New Critical Approach to the History of Palestine discusses prospects and methods for a comprehensive, evidence-based history of Palestine with a critical use of recent historical, archaeological and anthropological methods. This history is not an exclusive history but one that is ethnically and culturally inclusive, a history of and for all peoples who have lived in Palestine. After an introductory essay offering a strategy for creating coherence and continuity from the earliest beginnings to the present, the volume presents twenty articles from twenty-two contributors, fifteen of whom are of Middle Eastern origin or relation. Split thematically into four parts, the volume discusses ideology, national identity and chronology in various historiographies of Palestine, and the legacy of memory and oral history; the transient character of ethnicity in Palestine and questions regarding the ethical responsibilities of archaeologists and historians to protect the multi-ethnic cultural heritage of Palestine; landscape and memory, and the values of community archaeology and bio-archaeology; and an exploration of the "ideology of the land" and its influence on Palestine's history and heritage. The first in a series of books under the auspices of the Palestine History and Heritage Project (PaHH), the volume offers a challenging new departure for writing the history of Palestine and Israel throughout the ages. A New Critical Approach to the History of Palestine explores the diverse history of the region against the backdrop of twentieth-century scholarly construction of the history of Palestine as a history of a Jewish homeland with roots in an ancient, biblical Israel and examines the implications of this ancient and recent history for archaeology and cultural heritage. The book offers a fascinating new perspective for students and academics in the fields of anthropological, political, cultural and biblical history.

Although long considered to be a barren region on the periphery of ancient Chinese civilization, the southwest massif was once the political heartland of numerous Bronze Age polities. Their distinctive material tradition-intricately cast bronze kettle drums and cowrie shell containers-has given archaeologists and historians a glimpse of the extraordinary wealth, artistry, and power exercised by highland leaders over the course of the first millennium BC. In the first century BC, Han imperial conquest reduced local power and began a process of cultural assimilation. Instead of a clash between center and periphery or barbarism and civilization, this book examines the classic study of imperial rule as a confrontation between different political temporalities. The author provides an archaeological account of the southwest where Bronze Age landscape formations and funerary traditions bring to light a history of competing warrior cultures and kingly genealogies. In particular, the book illustrates how mourners used funerals and cemetery mounds to transmit social biographies and tribal affiliations across successive generations. Han incorporation thus entangled the orders of state time with the generational cycles of local factions, foregrounding the role of time in the production of power relations in imperial frontiers. The book extends approaches to empires to show how prehistoric time frames continue to shape the futures of frontier subjects despite imperial efforts to unify space and histories.

Urbanization and Religion in Ancient Central Mexico examines the ways in which urbanization and religion intersected in pre-Columbian central Mexico, with a primary focus on the later Formative period and the transition to the Classic period. The major societal transformations of this interval occurred approximately two-thousand years ago and over a millennium before Mexico's best known early civilization, the Aztecs. David M. Carballo presents a synthesis of data from regional archaeological projects and key sites such as Teotihuacan and Cuicuilco, while relying on his own excavations at the site of La Laguna as the central case study. A principal argument is that cities and states developed hand in hand with elements of a religious tradition of remarkable endurance and that these processes were fundamentally entangled. Prevalent religious beliefs and ritual practices created a cultural logic for urbanism, and as populations urbanized they became socially integrated and differentiated following this logic. Nevertheless, religion was used differently over time and by groups and individuals across the spectra of urbanity and social status. The book provides a materially informed history of religion, with the temporal depth that archaeology can provide, and an archaeology of cities that considers religion seriously as a generative force in societal change.

During Spanish colonization of the Greater Antilles, the islands' natives were forced into labor under the encomienda system. The indigenous people became ""Indios,"" their language, appearance, and identity transformed by the domination imposed by a foreign model that Christianized and ""civilized"" them. Yet El Chorro de Maita retained many of its indigenous characteristics. In this volume-one of the first in English to examine and document an archaeological site in Cuba-Roberto Valcarcel Rojas analyzes the construction of colonial authority and the various attitudes and responses of natives and other ethnic groups. His pioneering study reveals the process of transculturation in which new individuals emerged-Indians, mestizos, criollos-and helps construct the vital link between the pre-Columbian world and the development of an integrated and new history.

In this book Joachim Latacz turns the spotlight of modern research on the much-debated question of whether the wealthy city of Troy described by Homer in the Iliad was a poetic fiction or a memory of historical reality.
Earlier excavations at the hill of Hisarlik, in Turkey, on the Dardanelles, brought no answer, but in 1988 a new archaeological enterprise, under the direction of Manfred Korfmann, led to a radical shift in understanding. Latacz, one of Korfmann's closest collaborators, traces the course of these excavations, and the renewed investigation of the imperial Hittite archives they have inspired. As he demonstrates, it is now clear that the background against which the plot of the Iliad is acted out is the historical reality of the thirteenth century BC. The Troy story as a whole must have arisen in this period, and we can detect traces of it in Homer's great poem.

The Political Machine investigates the essential role that material culture plays in the practices and maintenance of political sovereignty. Through an archaeological exploration of the Bronze Age Caucasus, Adam Smith demonstrates that beyond assemblies of people, polities are just as importantly assemblages of things-from ballots and bullets to crowns, regalia, and licenses. Smith looks at the ways that these assemblages help to forge cohesive publics, separate sovereigns from a wider social mass, and formalize governance-and he considers how these developments continue to shape politics today. Smith shows that the formation of polities is as much about the process of manufacturing assemblages as it is about disciplining subjects, and that these material objects or "machines" sustain communities, orders, and institutions. The sensibilities, senses, and sentiments connecting people to things enabled political authority during the Bronze Age and fortify political power even in the contemporary world. Smith provides a detailed account of the transformation of communities in the Caucasus, from small-scale early Bronze Age villages committed to egalitarianism, to Late Bronze Age polities predicated on radical inequality, organized violence, and a centralized apparatus of rule. From Bronze Age traditions of mortuary ritual and divination to current controversies over flag pins and Predator drones, The Political Machine sheds new light on how material goods authorize and defend political order.

This study explores the organization, scale, complexity, and integration of Aztec commerce across Mesoamerica at Spanish contact. The aims of the book are threefold. The first is to construct an in-depth understanding of the economic organization of precolumbian Aztec society and how it developed in the way that it did. The second is to explore the livelihoods of the individuals who bought, sold, and moved goods across a cultural landscape that lacked both navigable rivers and animal transport. Finally, this study models Aztec economy in a way that facilitates its comparison to other ancient and premodern societies around the world. What makes the Aztec economy unique is that it developed one of the most sophisticated market economies in the ancient world in a society with one of the worse transportation systems. This is the first book to provide an updated and comprehensive view of the Aztec economy in thirty years.

This is an archaeological and historical study of Mexico City and Xaltocan, focusing on the early years after the Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire in 1521. The study of households excavated in Mexico City and the probate inventories of 39 colonizers provide a vivid view of the material and social lives of the Spanish in what was once the capital of the Aztec empire. Decades of archaeological and ethnohistorical research in Xaltocan, a town north of Mexico City, offers a long-term perspective of daily life, technology, the economy, and the adoption of Spanish material culture among indigenous people. Through these case studies, this book examines interpretive strategies used when working with historical documents and archaeological data. Focusing on the use of metaphors to guide interpretation, this volume explores the possibilities for interdisciplinary collaboration between historians, archaeologists, and anthropologists working on this pivotal period in Latin American history.

This new edition of Historical Archaeologies of Capitalism shows where the study of capitalism leads archaeologists, scholars and activists. Essays cover a range of geographic, colonial and racist contexts around the Atlantic basin: Latin America and the Caribbean, North America, the North Atlantic, Europe and Africa. Here historical archaeologists use current capitalist theory to show the results of creating social classes, employing racism and beginning and expanding the global processes of resource exploitation. Scholars in this volume also do not avoid the present condition of people, discussing the lasting effects of capitalism’s methods, resistance to them, their archaeology and their point to us now. Chapters interpret capitalism in the past, the processes that make capitalist expansion possible, and the worldwide sale and reduction of people. Authors discuss how to record and interpret these. This book continues a global historical archaeology, one that is engaged with other disciplines, peoples and suppressed political and economic histories. Authors in this volume describe how new identities are created, reshaped and made to appear natural. Chapters in this second edition also continue to address why historical archaeologists study capitalism and the relevance of this work, expanding on one of the important contributions of historical archaeologies of capitalism: critical archaeology.

The Assyriologist and archaeologist Reginald Campbell Thompson (1876-1941) studied Hebrew at Cambridge and upon graduation moved into the department of Egyptian and Assyrian antiquities at the British Museum, where he developed remarkable skill in matching fragments of cuneiform tablets and transcribing their texts. He excavated at Nineveh and later produced a definitive edition of the trilingual inscription of Darius at Behistan in Iran. This 1915 work describes Thompson's life 'in the field' at various sites in Egypt, the Sudan and western Asia. The difficulties and dangers of travel, the encounters with local people, and the management of an excavation are all described with enthusiasm and in melodramatic terms. Thompson lovingly records the daily life and traditions of the pre-1914 Middle East, perhaps feeling that he was witnessing a world that would soon be radically changed by the war. His Semitic Magic (1908) is also reissued in this series.

This volume celebrates the career of Norma Franklin, an archaeologist who has made important contributions to our understanding of the three key cities of Samaria, Megiddo and Jezreel in the Northern Kingdom of Israel during the Iron Age. The sixteen essays offered by Franklin's colleagues in archaeology and biblical studies are a fitting tribute to the woman in the pith helmet: an indomitable field archaeologist who describes herself as "happiest with complex stratigraphy" and as being dedicated to "killing sacred cows".

This volume provides an up-to-date and in-depth summary and analysis of the political practices of pre-Columbian communities of the Araucanians or Mapuche of south-central Chile and adjacent regions. This synthesis draws upon the empirical record documented in original research, as well as a critical examination of previous studies. By applying both archaeological and ethnohistorical approaches, the latter including ethnography, this volume distinguishes itself from many other studies that explore South American archaeology. Archaeological and traditional-historical narratives of the pre-European past are considered in their own terms and for the extent to which they can be integrated in order to provide a more rounded and realistic understanding than otherwise of the origins and courses of ecological, economic, social and political changes in south-central Chile from late pre-Hispanic times, through the contact period and up to Chile’s independence from Spain (ca. AD 1450-1810). Both the approach and the results are discussed in the light of similar situations elsewhere. Throughout its treatment, the volume continually comes back to two central questions: (1) how did the varied practices, institutions and worldviews of the Mapuche’s ancient communities emerge as a historical process that resisted the Spanish empire for more than 250 years? and (2) how were these communities reproduced and transformed in the face of ongoing culture contact and landscape change during the early Colonial period? These questions are considered in light of contemporary theoretical concepts regarding practice, landscape, environment, social organization, materiality and community that will make the book relevant for students and scholars interested in similar processes elsewhere.

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Archaeology Under Fire addresses archaeology's role in current political issues, whether it be the ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, the division of Cyprus, or the continued destruction of Beirut.

Why do people destroy objects and materials that are important to them? This book aims to make sense of this fascinating, yet puzzling social practice by focusing on a period in history in which such destructive behaviour reached unseen heights and complexity: the Bronze Age and Early Iron Age in Europe (c. 2300-500 BC). This period is often seen as the time in which a 'familiar' Europe took shape due to the rise of a metal-based economy. But it was also during the Bronze Age that massive amounts of scarce and recyclable metal were deliberately buried in the landscape and never taken out again. This systematic deposition of metalwork sits uneasily with our prevailing perception of the Bronze Age as the first 'rational-economic' period in history - and therewith - of ourselves. Taking the patterned archaeological evidence of these seemingly un-economic metalwork depositions at face value, it is shown that the 'un-economic' giving-up of metal valuables was an integral part of what a Bronze Age 'economy' was about. Based on case studies from Bronze Age Europe, this book attempts to reconcile the seemingly conflicting political and cultural approaches that are currently used to understand this pivotal period in Europe's deep history. It seems that to achieve something in society, something else must be given up. Using theories from economic anthropology, this book argues that - paradoxically - giving up that which was valuable created value. It will be invaluable to scholars and archaeologists interested in the Bronze Age, ancient economies, and a new angle on metalwork depositions.

An equestrian burial from the 10th century with an exceptionally elaborate horse harness was discovered at Fregerslev near Skanderborg in eastern Jutland, Denmark in 2012. This formed the starting point for the Fregerslev Research Project initiated by Museum Skanderborg in 2017. Two years later, the museum held a conference to present the preliminary results of the project. A group of researchers from neighbouring countries were invited to provide a wider international context for a discussion of the social, political, cultural and religious background of the Fregerslev burial. With 21 articles, Horse and Rider in the late Viking Age presents the outcome of the conference. Part I describes the excavation of the Fregerslev burial and its contents. The finds, particularly the harness fittings and the remains of a quiver of arrows, and the results of a wide range of scientific analyses demonstrate what a remarkable burial this once was. The excavation methods and documentation procedures, the sampling strategies, and the following conservation and preservation of the finds, give an idea of the many new approaches, which may be useful when dealing with a decomposed grave in the future. Part II and Part III present new research on 10th-century equestrian burials and their significance in contemporary society from a variety of countries across Central and Northern Europe.

Nebuchadnezzar I (r. 1125-1104) was one of the more significant and successful kings to rule Babylonia in the intervening period between the demise of the Kassite Dynasty in the 12th century at the end of the Late Bronze Age, and the emergence of a new, independent Babylonian monarchy in the last quarter of the 7th century. His dynamic reign saw Nebuchadnezzar active on both domestic and foreign fronts. He tended to the needs of the traditional cult sanctuaries and their associated priesthoods in the major cities throughout Babylonia and embarked on military campaigns against both Assyria in the north and Elam to the east. Yet later Babylonian tradition celebrated him for one achievement that was little noted in his own royal inscriptions: the return of the statue of Marduk, Babylon's patron deity, from captivity in Elam. The Reign of Nebuchadnezzar reconstructs the history of Nebuchadnezzar I's rule and, drawing upon theoretical treatments of historical and collective memory, examines how stories of his reign were intentionally utilized by later generations of Babylonian scholars and priests to create an historical memory that projected their collective identity and reflected Marduk's rise to the place of primacy within the Babylonian pantheon in the 1st millennium BCE. It also explores how this historical memory was employed by the urban elite in discourses of power. Nebuchadnezzar I remained a viable symbol, though with diminishing effect, until at least the 3rd century BCE, by which time his memory had almost entirely faded. This study is a valuable resource to students of the Ancient Near East and Nebuchadnezzar, but is also a fascinating exploration of memory creation and exploitation in the ancient world.

In this book, Jan J. Boersema reconstructs the ecological and cultural history of Easter Island and critiques the hitherto accepted theory of the collapse of its civilization. The collapse theory, advanced most recently by Jared Diamond and Clive Ponting, is based on the documented overexploitation of natural resources, particularly woodlands, on which Easter Island culture depended. Deforestation is said to have led to erosion, followed by hunger, conflict, and economic and cultural collapse. Drawing on scientific data and historical sources, including the shipping journals of the Dutch merchant who was the first European to visit the island in 1722, Boersema shows that deforestation did not in fact jeopardize food production and lead to starvation and violence. On the basis of historical and scientific evidence, Boersema demonstrates how Easter Island society responded to cultural and environmental change as it evolved and managed to survive.

First comprehensive English-language book on the largest city in the Americas before the 1400s. Teotihuacan is a UNESCO world heritage site, located in highland central Mexico, about twenty-five miles from Mexico City, visited by millions of tourists every year. The book begins with Cuicuilco, a predecessor that arose around 400 BCE, then traces Teotihuacan from its founding in approximately 150 BCE to its collapse around 600 CE. It describes the city's immense pyramids and other elite structures. It also discusses the dwellings and daily lives of commoners, including men, women, and children, and the craft activities of artisans. George L. Cowgill discusses politics, economics, technology, art, religion, and possible reasons for Teotihuacan's rise and fall. Long before the Aztecs and 800 miles from Classic Maya centers, Teotihuacan was part of a broad Mesoamerican tradition but had a distinctive personality that invites comparison with other states and empires of the ancient world.

Napoleon's military expedition to Egypt in 1798 famously included various scientists and savants, among whom was the author of this three-volume work, published in French in 1802 and in English in 1803. Vivant Denon (1747-1825) was a diplomat under the Ancien Regime, but survived the Revolution thanks to the patronage of the painter David, and met Napoleon through the salon of Josephine de Beauharnais. He accompanied the army, excavating and sketching, sometimes even during battles. The publication of this lively, illustrated account is regarded as the chief stimulus for the so-called 'Egyptian Revival' style of architecture, interior design and even costume. Volume 2 finds Denon travelling down the Nile into Upper Egypt, and fretting because General Desaix, his mind focused on an approaching battle, would not give him an escort to visit Abydos. This disappointment was compensated for when the army arrived at the marvellous ruins of Thebes.

Napoleon's military expedition to Egypt in 1798 famously included various scientists and savants, among whom was the author of this three-volume work, published in French in 1802 and in English in 1803. Vivant Denon (1747-1825) was a diplomat under the Ancien Regime, but survived the Revolution thanks to the patronage of the painter David, and met Napoleon through the salon of Josephine de Beauharnais. He accompanied the army, excavating and sketching, sometimes even during battles. The publication of this lively, illustrated account is regarded as the chief stimulus for the so-called 'Egyptian Revival' style of architecture, interior design and even costume. In Volume 3, Denon continues his travels, taking opportunities to join with surveying parties, sketching, and purchasing antiquities, including mummies and papyrus manuscripts. The volume ends with Denon's return to France, and his regret at how little he had seen and done, compared with the immensity of Egypt.

Charles Roach Smith (1806-90) had a prosperous career as a druggist. His shop was in the City of London, then undergoing major excavation and redevelopment, and he began to collect the artefacts being uncovered around him. With a widening interest in all aspects of the past, Smith began to publish notes on his collection as well as antiquarian observations. (His Illustrations of Roman London is also reissued in this series.) This three-volume work, published 1883-91, reviews his activities as an excavator, collector, and co-founder of the British Archaeological Association. Pen-portraits of fellow enthusiasts and descriptions of ancient buildings and ruins are interspersed with accounts of infighting in the Association, and biting criticism of local and national authorities who refused to take on responsibility for Britain's archaeological heritage. Volume 1 includes essays on the Saxon Shore forts, of which Roach Smith was a pioneering investigator.

Charles Roach Smith (1806-90) had a prosperous career as a druggist. His shop was in the City of London, then undergoing major excavation and redevelopment, and he began to collect the artefacts being uncovered around him. With a widening interest in all aspects of the past, Smith began to publish notes on his collection as well as antiquarian observations. (His Illustrations of Roman London is also reissued in this series.) This three-volume work, published 1883-91, reviews his activities as an excavator, collector, and co-founder of the British Archaeological Association. Pen-portraits of fellow enthusiasts and descriptions of ancient buildings and ruins are interspersed with accounts of infighting in the Association, and biting criticism of local and national authorities who refused to take on responsibility for Britain's archaeological heritage. Volume 3, published posthumously, includes Smith's accounts of his later life in Kent, and his antiquarian visits to France.