Archaeology can either bolster memory and tradition, or contradict the status quo and provide an alternative view of the past. An archaeology of Harpers Ferry's wartime and Victorian eras confronts time-honored historical interpretations of the past (created and perpetuated by such interest groups as historians and the National Park Service) and in so doing allows us to be more inclusive of the town's forgotten histories and provides alternative voices to a past.

Focusing on the British Isles, the author explores a period of huge societal change – the Neolithic, or ‘New Stone Age’ – through the most iconic artifact of its time: the polished stone axe, using an ancient stone axe-head brought to him by a local quarry worker as a guide to the revolution that changed the world. These formidable creations were not only crucial tools that enabled the first farmers to clear the forests, but also objects of great symbolic importance, signifying status and power, wrapped up in expressions of religion and politics. Mixing anecdote, ethnography and archaeological analysis, the author vividly demonstrates how the archaeology on the ground reveals to us the evolving worldview of a species increasingly altering their own landscape; settling down together, investing in agricultural plots, and collectively erecting massive ceremonial monuments to cement new communal identities. As a direct result of the invention, and intensification, of agriculture, the planet entered the Anthropocene, or the current ‘age of humanity’: an era in which we are changing the world around us in significant, accelerating and often unpredictable ways. As the author poignantly concludes, our ancestors set us on the path to the modern world we live in; now seven billion humans must face the challenges that presents. With 76 illustrations, 24 in colour

The orthodox view of the Mississippian social world hinges on the idea that chiefdoms-dominance- based hierarchical societies in the Eastern Woodlands of North America-vied for power, often violently but at times cooperatively, through political and economic avenues. These chiefdoms represented something of a feudal state in prehistoric North America, which lasted up to the contract period with Europeans around 1500 AD. In From Cahokia to Larson to Moundville, noted archaeologist A. Martin Byers challenges these assumptions and offers a contrasting view by deconstructing the chiefdom model and offering instead an autonomous social world that focused on spiritual renewal and sacred rituals. Byers presents his case through the archaeological record of Cahokia, Larson, and Moundville's monumental earthworks and, in doing so, reveals the Mississippian social community to be more complex, and more cooperative, than previously envisioned.

The extraordinary mysteries of the pyramids - revealed From the development of monumental architecture around 3,000 BC to the fabulous edifices that rose up from the desert plains of Giza, these are amongst the most remarkable structures in world history. Their story has given rise to a set of incredible legends: spaceships, ley lines, mysterious goings on... Is it fact or fiction? Joyce Tyldesley, writer, lecturer and broadcaster on Ancient Egypt, cuts away modern myth and prejudice to reveal the truth behind these astonishing structures. The Old Kingdom pharaohs believed that death was the beginning of eternal life. To help them on their way they built pyramids; huge ramps or stairways charged with the most potent magic, leading directly to the sky. Pyramids chronicles how and why Egypt's pharaohs built on so grand a scale, and shows how the pyramids helped to build Egypt itself. ‘A fascinating survey… For anyone who wants to know about pyramids, this is required reading’ Spectator ‘Tyldesley sets out to fill the gap between Egyptologists’ reserve, the excesses of tour guides and misinformed traditions… [she] should be required reading.’ Sunday Times

Research on early medieval Cyprus has focused on the late antique "golden age" (late fourth/early fifth to seventh century) and the so-called Byzantine "Reconquista" (post-AD 965) while overlooking the intervening period. This phase was characterized, supposedly, by the division of the political sovereignty between the Umayyads and the Byzantines, bringing about the social and demographic dislocation of the population of the island. This book proposes a different story of continuities and slow transformations in the fate of Cyprus between the late sixth and the early ninth centuries. Analysis of new archaeological evidence shows signs of a continuing link to Constantinople. Moreover, together with a reassessment of the literary evidence, archaeology and material culture help us to reappraise the impact of Arab naval raids and contextualize the confrontational episodes throughout the ebb and flow of Eastern Mediterranean history: the political influence of the Caliphate looked stronger in the second half of the seventh century, the administrative and ecclesiastical influence of the Byzantine empire was held sway from the beginning of the eighth to the twelfth century. Whereas the island retained sound commercial ties with the Umayyad Levant in the seventh and eighth centuries, at the same time politically and economically it remained part of the Byzantine sphere. This belies the idea of Cyprus as an independent province only loosely tied to Constantinople and allows us to draw a different picture of the cultural identities, political practices and hierarchy of wealth and power in Cyprus during the passage from Late Antiquity to the early Middle Ages.

This book argues that the Indo-Europeanizing of Europe essentially began shortly before 1600 BC, when lands rich in natural resources were taken over by military forces from the Eurasian steppe and from southern Caucasia. First were the copper and silver mines (along with good harbors) in Greece, and the copper and gold mines of the Carpathian basin. By ca. 1500 BC other military men had taken over the amber coasts of Scandinavia and the metalworking district of the southern Alps. These military takeovers offer the most likely explanations for the origins of the Greek, Keltic, Germanic and Italic subgroups of the Indo-European language family. Battlefield warfare and militarism, Robert Drews contends, were novelties ca. 1600 BC and were a consequence of the military employment of chariots. Current opinion is that militarism and battlefield warfare are as old as formal states, going back before 3000 BC. Another current opinion is that the Indo-Europeanizing of Europe happened long before 1600 BC. The "Kurgan theory" of Marija Gimbutas and David Anthony dates it from late in the fifth to early in the third millennium BC and explains it as the result of horse-riding conquerors or raiders coming to Europe from the steppe. Colin Renfrew's Archaeology and Language dates the Indo-Europeanizing of Europe to the seventh and sixth millennia BC, and explains it as a consequence of the spread of agriculture in a "wave of advance" from Anatolia through Europe. Pairing linguistic with archaeological evidence Drews concludes that in Greece and Italy, at least, no Indo-European language could have arrived before the second millennium BC.

This volume investigates the material production and expression of colonial experiences in Africa. It combines archaeological, historical, and ethnographic sources to explore the diverse pathways, practices, and projects constructed by Africans in their engagement with the forces of colonial modernity and capitalism. This volume is situated in ongoing debates in archaeological and anthropological approaches to materiality. In this respect, it seeks to target archaeologists interested in the conceptual issues provoked by colonial enfoldments. It is also concerned with increasing the visibility of relevant African archaeological literature to scholars of colonialism and imperialism laboring in other fields. This book brings together an array of junior and senior scholars, whose contributions represent a rich sample of the vibrant archaeological research conducted in Africa today, blending conceptual inspiration with robust fieldwork. The chapters target a variety of cultural, historical, and colonial settings. They are driven by a plurality of perspectives, but they are bound by a shared commitment to postcolonial, critical, and material culture theories. While this book focuses on western and southern Africa - the sub-regions that boast the deepest traditions of historical archaeological research in the continent - attention was also placed on including case-studies from traditionally less well-represented areas (East African and Swahili coasts, Madagascar), whose material pasts are nevertheless essential to a wider comprehension of variability and comparability of 'modern' colonial conditions. Consequently, this volume lends a unique wide-ranging look at African experiences across the tangle of imperial geographies on the continent, with case-studies focusing on Anglophone, Francophone, and Dutch-speaking contexts. This volume is an exciting opportunity to present this work to wider audiences and foster conversations with a wide community of scholars about the material fashioning of colonial life, relations, and configurations of power.

An Archaeological History of Indian Buddhism is a comprehensive survey of Indian Buddhism from its origins in the 6th century BCE, through its ascendance in the 1st millennium CE, and its eventual decline in mainland South Asia by the mid-2nd millennium CE. Weaving together studies of archaeological remains, architecture, iconography, inscriptions, and Buddhist historical sources, this book uncovers the quotidian concerns and practices of Buddhist monks and nuns (the sangha), and their lay adherents-concerns and practices often obscured in studies of Buddhism premised largely, if not exclusively, on Buddhist texts. At the heart of Indian Buddhism lies a persistent social contradiction between the desire for individual asceticism versus the need to maintain a coherent community of Buddhists. Before the early 1st millennium CE, the sangha relied heavily on the patronage of kings, guilds, and ordinary Buddhists to support themselves. During this period, the sangha emphasized the communal elements of Buddhism as they sought to establish themselves as the leaders of a coherent religious order. By the mid-1st millennium CE, Buddhist monasteries had become powerful political and economic institutions with extensive landholdings and wealth. This new economic self-sufficiency allowed the sangha to limit their day-to-day interaction with the laity and begin to more fully satisfy their ascetic desires for the first time. This withdrawal from regular interaction with the laity led to the collapse of Buddhism in India in the early-to-mid 2nd millennium CE. In contrast to the ever-changing religious practices of the Buddhist sangha, the Buddhist laity were more conservative-maintaining their religious practices for almost two millennia, even as they nominally shifted their allegiances to rival religious orders. This book also serves as an exemplar for the archaeological study of long-term religious change through the perspectives of practice theory, materiality, and semiotics.

This book presents archaeological research conducted within the Highlands of Sicily. Results of an archaeological survey in the Madonie mountain range, in northern Sicily, supported by a chronological and cultural grid, drawn by the excavation of Vallone Inferno, deal with complex and fascinating problems of uplands and mountainous landscape. Settlement patterns, between the Late Pleistocene and the Medieval era, are investigated through the support of spatial analyses. A diversified use of the mountain is currently attested by this research, according to the different prehistoric and historical times. This work is innovative for the Mediterranean area, where there are no similar examples of such extensive territorial research in a mountainous context. The research has been focused on particular aspects of ancient peopling: economic and social issues, human-environment interactions and the long term interest in the mountain range.

Numismatic Archaeology of North America is the first book to provide an archaeological overview of the coins and tokens found in a wide range of North American archaeological sites. It begins with a comprehensive and well-illustrated review of the various coins and tokens that circulated in North America with descriptions of the uses for, and human behavior associated with, each type. The book contains practical sections on standardized nomenclature, photographing, cleaning, and curating coins, and discusses the impacts of looting and of working with collectors. This is an important tool for archaeologists working with coins. For numismatists and collectors, it explains the importance of archaeological context for complete analysis.

Westminster came into existence in the later Anglo-Saxon period, and by the mid-11th century, when Edward the Confessor's great new abbey was built, it was a major royal centre two miles south-west of the City of London. Within a century or so, it had become the principal seat of government in England, and this series of twenty-eight papers covers new research on the topography, buildings, art-history, architecture and archaeology of Westminster's two great establishments - Abbey and Palace. Part I begins with studies of the topography of the area, an account of its Roman-period finds and an historiographical overview of the archaeology of the Abbey. Edward the Confessor's enigmatic church plan is discussed and the evidence for later Romanesque structures is assembled for the first time. Five papers examine aspects of Henry III's vast new Abbey church and its decoration. A further four cover aspects of the later medieval period, coronation, and Sir George Gilbert Scott's impact as the Abbey's greatest Surveyor of the Fabric. A pair of papers examines the development of the northern precinct of the Abbey, around St Margaret's Church, and the remarkable buildings of Westminster School, created within the remains of the monastery in the 17th and 18th centuries. Part II part deals with the Palace of Westminster and its wider topography between the late 11th century and the devastating fire of 1834 that largely destroyed the medieval palace. William Rufus's enormous hall and its famous roofs are completely reassessed, and comparisons discussed between this structure and the great hall at Caen. Other essays reconsider Henry III's palace, St Stephen's chapel, the king's great chamber (the 'Painted Chamber') and the enigmatic Jewel Tower. The final papers examine the meeting places of Parliament and the living accommodation of the MPs who attended it, the topography of the Palace between the Reformation and the fire of 1834, and the building of the New Palace which is better known today as the Houses of Parliament.

A discussion of the historical archaeology of one of the largest cities in the world following four centuries of marginal positioning in regard to empires, trade routes, and the production and accumulation of wealth. The author describes how Buenos Aires came to achieve its current status as a major urban metropolis through an analysis of settlement patterns, architecture, the lifestyle of its residents, and the access to commodities of different social groups.

Between the first and seventh centuries AD, Gothic groups moved thousands of miles across the map of Europe, from the fringes of the Baltic to the shores of the Atlantic ocean. In the process, they transformed themselves from an insignificant people on the outskirts of the known world into highly militarized forces, capable of carving out successor states for themselves from the body politic of the Roman Empire.

This book draws on all the available literary and archaeological evidence, much of the latter never before discussed in English, to reconstruct the Goths' dramatic history, and to explore the meaning of Gothic identity at different moments and in different contexts.

The volume is divided into three parts, corresponding to the three main phases in Gothic history: their early history down to the fourth century, the revolution in Gothic society set in motion by the arrival of the Huns, and the history of the Gothic successor states to the western Roman Empire.

In Excavations at Tall Jawa, Jordan, Volume 5, the authors present their research in the areas of regional survey, salvage excavation, zooarchaeology, ceramic typology, experimental archaeology and ethnoarchaeology. This work illustrates areas threatened and later destroyed by modern development and is a contribution to heritage documentation. These studies illuminate aspects of family and town life in the Iron Age, Roman, Byzantine and Late Ottoman-Early Mandate periods in central Jordan.

The famous Nile Mosaic of Palestrina, ancient Praeneste in central Italy, dating to c. 100 B.C., is one of the earliest large mosaics which have been preserved from the classical world. It presents a unique, comprehensive picture of Egypt and Nubia. The interpretation of the mosaic is disputed, suggestions ranging from an exotic decoration to a topographical picture or a religious allegory.
The present study demonstrates that the mosaic depicts rituals connected with Isis and Osiris and the yearly Nile flood. The presence of these Egyptian religious scenes at Praeneste can be explained by the assimilation of isis and Fortuna, the tutelary goddess of Praeneste, and by the interpretation of the mosaic as a symbol of divine providence.

Revisiting al-Andalus brings together a range of recent scholarship on the material culture of Islamic Iberia, highlighting especially the new directions that have developed in the Anglo-American branch of this field since the 1992 catalogue of the influential exhibition, Al-Andalus: the Art of Islamic Spain. Together with examples of recent Spanish scholarship on medieval architecture and urbanism, the volume's contributors (historians of art and architecture, archaeologists, and architects) explore topics such as the relationship between Andalusi literature and art; architecture, urbanism, and court culture; domestic architecture; archaeology as a tool for analyzing economic and architectural history; cultural transfer between the Iberian Peninsula and the New World; 19th-century "rediscovery" of al-Andalus; and modern architectural and historiographical attempts to construct an Andalusi cultural identity. Contributors include: Antonio Almagro, Glaire D. Anderson, Rebecca Bridgman, Maria Judith Feliciano, Kathryn Ferry, Pedro Jimenez, Julio Navarro, Camila Mileto, Antonio Orihuela, Jennifer Roberson, Cynthia Robinson, Mariam Rosser-Owen, Antonio Vallejo Triano, and Fernando Vegas.

Why did the ancient artists create paintings and engravings? What did the images mean? This careful study of rock art motifs in the Trans-Pecos area of Texas and a small area in South Africa demonstrates that there are archaeological and anthropological ways of accessing the past in order to investigate and explain the significance of rock art motifs. Using two disparate regions shows the possibility of comparative rock art studies and highlights the importance of regional studies and regional variations. This is an ideal resource for students and researchers.

This book is an inquiry into the relationships between archaeology, colonialism and ecotourism at the famous standing stones of Hintang, Laos. It investigates the conditions under which archaeological knowledge has been produced, appropriated, contested, commodified, and consumed by colonialism from the 1930s until today and what it shows about the power dynamics of heritage and ecotourism. The volume-explores how the discourses of colonialism and ecotourism affect tourists, archaeologists, heritage managers, and the local community;-is written as a set of overlapping creative essays, each giving an overlapping perspective on Hintang;-is a multidisciplinary research project based on ethnographic fieldwork, archival research, interviews with community members, biography, material culture studies, and text analysis.

The Sacred Identity of Ephesos offers a full-length interpretation of one of the largest known bequests in the Classical world, made to the city of Ephesos in AD 104 by a wealthy Roman equestrian, and challenges some of the basic assumptions made about the significance of the Greek cultural renaissance known as the 'Second Sophistic'. Professor Rogers shows how the civic rituals created by the foundation symbolised a contemporary social hierarchy, and how the ruling class used foundation myths - the birth of the goddess Artemis in a grove above the city - as a tangible source of power, to be wielded over new citizens and new gods. Utilising an innovative methodology for analysing large inscriptions, Professor Rogers argues that the Ephesians used their past to define their present during the Roman Empire, shedding new light on how second-century Greeks maintained their identities in relation to Romans, Christians, and Jews.

This wide-ranging yet detailed study describes and assesses the many-faceted cultural achievement of an area remote from Athens, the Dorian islands. Elizabeth Craik's scholarship sets this lively outlying region of the ancient Greek world - which included Rhodes, Kos, Karpathos, Melos, and Thera - in the perspective of Greek civilization as a whole, demonstrating that excessive emphasis on the Athenian advancements of the fifth century BC tends to obscure the contribution of other regions. Beginning with a discussion of the geographical setting, natural resources and historical development of the area, The Dorian Aegean goes on to survey linguistic usage and local scripts, and to examine the regional contribution to literature, medicine and science. In the final three chapters, the religious traditions and practices of the islands are discussed, in terms of myths, cults and administration. This work will appeal to students of the classical world, archaeology, and cultural history.

For more than a decade the European Seminar in Historical Methodology has debated the history of ancient Israel (or Palestine or the Southern Levant, as some prefer). A number of different topics have been the focus of discussion and published collections, but several have centered on historical periods. The really seminal period--one of great debates over a number of different topics--is the four centuries between the Late Bronze II and Iron IIA, but it seemed appropriate to leave it toward the end of the various historical periods. It was also important to give a prominent place to archaeology, and the best way to do this seemed to be to have a special Seminar session devoted entirely to archaeology.

Early Urbanizations in the Levant examines the first cycle of urbanization, collapse and reurbanization in the 4th-2nd millennium BCE Levant. The core of the study is a detailed analysis of settlement fluctuations and material culture development in the Hula Valley, at the crossroads between modern Israel, Syria and Lebanon. Focusing on field data and a close reading of the material text, the book emphasizes the variety exhibited in patterns of cultural and social change when small, densely settled regions are carefully scrutinized. Using the concepts of time-space edges and shifting loci of power, the study suggests new scenarios to explain changes in the regional archaeological record, and considers the implications these have for existing reconstructions of social evolution in the larger region. The Levant is shown to be composed of a fluid mosaic of polities that moved along multiple, if often parallel, paths towards and away from complexity. This book should be of interest to anyone studying the archaeology of early state formation in the Near East, particularly in areas of asecondaryAe urbanization - Palestine, Syria and Anatolia. With its detailed consideration of settlement patterns and ceramic production, it is also indispensable for the study of the early history of the two major sites in the area, Tel Dan and Tel Hazor, being the first attempt to integrate the results of excavations at these sites with the information obtained in archaeological surveys of the valley which sustained them.

This work presents for the first time in its entirety the long Sumerian poem describing the destruction and suffering in Babylonia during the final days of the Third Dynasty of Ur. The text is both an important work of native historiography and a moving literary composition. The author's introduction places the work within the Sumerian literary tradition, and evaluates it as a historical source. Indexes and copies of unpublished texts are included.

This survey of work carried out over a number of years synthesises the progress of archaeology, showing at a glance the changes within less than quarter of a century on the interpretation of and reflection on knowledge in the area. Entertainingly, written, this is a lasting introductory account of important finds in English and Welsh archaeology, by two of the key researchers of the time. Heavily illustrated, this book showcases many artefacts as well as maps and plans, offering a wealth of information.

This wide-ranging yet detailed study describes and assesses the many-faceted cultural achievement of an area remote from Athens, the Dorian islands. Elizabeth Craik's scholarship sets this lively outlying region of the ancient Greek world - which included Rhodes, Kos, Karpathos, Melos, and Thera - in the perspective of Greek civilization as a whole, demonstrating that excessive emphasis on the Athenian advancements of the fifth century BC tends to obscure the contribution of other regions. Beginning with a discussion of the geographical setting, natural resources and historical development of the area, The Dorian Aegean goes on to survey linguistic usage and local scripts, and to examine the regional contribution to literature, medicine and science. In the final three chapters, the religious traditions and practices of the islands are discussed, in terms of myths, cults and administration. This work will appeal to students of the classical world, archaeology, and cultural history.