Originally published in 1981, The Origins of Open Field Agriculture looks at the problems connected with open field agriculture - the origins of strip cultivation, the three-field system, the adaptation of 'Celtic' fields, and the development of ploughing techniques. The book looks at the challenges to traditional ideas on the origins of settlement and their associated economy, and casts new light on understandings of village development. The book suggests that conventional views of the nucleated village, in the midst of open field strips as a product of the Anglo-Saxon migration, is no longer tenable. The book brings together the work of distinguished archaeologists, historians, and historical geographers and opens up a new perspective on the early development of medieval agriculture.

After Modernity summarizes archaeological approaches to the contemporary past, and suggests a new agenda for the archaeology of late modern societies. The principal focus is the archaeology of developed, de-industrialized societies during the second half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first. This period encompasses the end of the Cold War and the beginning of the 'internet age', a period which sits firmly within what we would recognize to be a period of 'lived and living memory'. Rodney Harrison and John Schofield explore how archaeology can inform the study of this time period and the study of our own society through detailed case studies and an in-depth summary of the existing literature. After Modernity draws together cross-disciplinary perspectives on contemporary material culture studies, and develops a new agenda for the study of the materiality of late modern societies.

Archaeology in the Middle East and the Balkans rarely focuses on the recent past; as a result, archaeologists have largely ignored the material remains of the Ottoman Empire. Drawing on a wide variety of case studies and essays, this volume documents the emerging field of Ottoman archaeology and the relationship of this new field to anthropological, classical, and historical archaeology as well as Ottoman studies.

Pathways to Complexity synthesizes a wealth of new archaeological data to illuminate the origins of Maya civilization and the rise of Classic Maya culture. In this volume, prominent Maya scholars argue that the development of social, religious, and economic complexity began during the Middle Preclassic period (1000-300 BC), hundreds of years earlier than previously thought. Contributors reveal that villages were present in parts of the lowlands by 1000 BC. Combining recent discoveries from the northern lowlands--an area often neglected in other volumes-and the southern lowlands, the collection then traces the emergence of sociopolitical inequality and complexity in all parts of the Yucatan Peninsula over the course of the Middle Preclassic period. They show that communities evolved in different ways due to influences such as geographical location, ceramic exchange, shell ornament production, agricultural strategy, religious ritual, ideology, and social rankings. These varied pathways to complexity developed over half a millennium and culminated in the institution of kingship by the Late Preclassic period. Presenting exciting work on a dynamic and misunderstood time period, Pathways to Complexity demonstrates the importance of a broad, comparative approach to understanding Preclassic Maya civilization and will serve as a foundation for future research and interpretation.

This collection of twenty-eight essays presents an up-to-date survey of pre-Islamic Iran, from the earliest dynasty of Illam to the end of Sasanian empire, encompassing a rich diversity of peoples and cultures. Historically, Iran served as a bridge between the earlier Near Eastern cultures and the later classical world of the Mediterranean, and had a profound influence on political, military, economic, and cultural aspects of the ancient world. Written by international scholars and drawing mainly on the field of practical archaeology, which traditionally has shared little in the way of theories and methods, the book provides crucial pieces to the puzzle of the national identity of Iranian cultures from a historical perspective. Revealing the wealth and splendor of ancient Iranian society - its rich archaeological data and sophisticated artistic craftsmanship - most of which has never before been presented outside of Iran, this beautifully illustrated book presents a range of studies addressing specific aspects of Iranian archaeology to show why the artistic masterpieces of ancient Iranians rank among the finest ever produced. Together, the authors analyze how archaeology can inform us about our cultural past, and what remains to still be discovered in this important region.

Environment and human habitation have become principal topics of research with the growing interest in the Black Sea region in antiquity. This book highlights their interaction around all the coasts of the region, from different perspectives and disciplines. Here, archaeological excavation and survey combine with studies of classical texts, cults, medicine, and more, to explore ancient experiences of the region. Accordingly, the region is examined from external viewpoints, centred in the Mediterranean (Herodotus, the Hippocratics, ancient geographers, and poets), and through local lenses, particularly supplied by archaeology. While familiar disconnects emerge, there is also a striking coherence in the results of these different pathways into the study of local environments, which embrace not only Graeco-Roman settlement, but also a broader range of agricultural and pastoralist activities across a huge landscape which stretches as far afield as ancient Hungary. Throughout, there are methodological implications for research elsewhere in the ancient world. This book shows people in landscapes across a huge expanse, in local reality and in external conceptions, complete with their own agency, ideas, and lifestyles.

Historians, numismatists and philologists consider fundamental aspects of 9c political and economic history. The ninth century was a period of upheaval in England, as the kingdoms of Mercia and Wessex vied for supremacy, and East Anglia and Kent sought to regain their independence, with the arrival of the Vikings introducing a further element of unrest. This interdisciplinary collection of papers by historians, numismatists and philologists considers fundamental aspects of the period's political and economic history. Alliances and treaties are a central theme, political and monetary. A radical reassesment of events in London in the later ninth century is presented, prompted by a detailed examination of the numismatic evidence marshalled here along with the written sources; it is argued that the Vikings were not in control of the city prior to Alfred's "reoccupation" in AD 886. The volume includes an illustrated corpus of the coinage of Berhtwulf and another for the middle years of Alfred's reign; moneyers are identified as witnesses to charters, and the forms of their names are analysed according to the Old English dialects they represent. A listing of some 500 single coin-finds forms the basis for a discussion of the nature and extent ofmonetary use in ninth-century England. The late MARK BLACKBURN was Keeper of Coins and Medals at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; DAVID DUMVILLE is Emeritus Professor at the University of Aberdeen. Contributors: SIMON KEYNES, THOMAS CHARLES-EDWARDS, JAMES BOOTH, MARK BLACKBURN, LORD STEWARTBY, PAUL BIBIRE, D.M. METCALF, MICHAEL BONSER

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.

This book presents a collection of archaeological and anthropological writings by Li Chi, the founding father of modern archaeology in China. It is divided into two parts, the first of which traces back the rise of Chinese civilization, as well as the origins of the Chinese people; in turn, the second part reviews the rise of archaeology in China as a scientific subject that combines fieldwork methods from the West with traditional antiquarian studies. Readers who are interested in Chinese civilization will find fascinating information on the excavations of Yin Hsu (the ruins of the Yin Dynasty), including building foundations, bronzes, chariots, pottery, stone and jade, and thousands of oracle bones, which are vividly shown in historical pictures. These findings transformed the Yin Shang culture from legend into history and thus moved China's history forward by hundreds of years, shocking the world. In turn, the articles on anthropology include Li Chi's reflections on central problems in Chinese anthropology and are both enlightening and thought-provoking.

For almost forty years the study of the Iron Age in Britain has been dominated by Professor Sir Barry Cunliffe. Between the 1960s and 1980s he led a series of large-scale excavations at famous sites including the Roman baths at Bath, Fishbourne Roman palace, and Danebury hillfort which revolutionized our understanding of Iron Age society, and the interaction between this world of "barbarians" and the classical civilizations of the Mediterranean. His standard text on Iron Age Communities in Britain is in its fourth edition, and he has published groundbreaking volumes of synthesis on The Ancient Celts (OUP, 1997) and on the peoples of the Atlantic coast, Facing the Ocean (OUP, 2001). This volume brings together papers from more than thirty of Professor Cunliffe's colleagues and students to mark his retirement from the Chair of European Archaeology at the University of Oxford, a post which he has held since 1972. The breadth of the contributions, extending over 800 years and ranging from the Atlantic fringes to the eastern Mediterranean, is testimony to Barry Cunliffe's own extraordinarily wide interests.

In the ninth century AD, settlers from the heartland of the Wari Empire founded Quilcapampa, a short-lived site overlooking the Sihuas River in southern Peru. The contributors to this volume present excavation and survey data from in and around Quilcapampa that challenge long-held models of both Wari statecraft and the mechanisms that engendered the widespread societal changes of the era. Quilcapampa and other peripheral Wari settlements have generally been seen as local administrative centers that siphoned resources from conquered regions to the Wari capital. This volume demonstrates that Quilcapampa was likely founded not by Wari officials but by families looking for a new home amid the turmoil caused by increasing Wari political centralization. Botanical, faunal, ceramic, lithic, and other data sets are used to reconstruct lifeways at the site, and show how the settlers interacted with others locally and across greater distances. Featuring extensive illustrations in the print edition and multimedia components in the digital edition, Quilcapampa offers an abundance of archaeological data on the site as well as new theoretical considerations of Wari expansion, laying the foundation for a better understanding of how Andean political economy and social complexity changed over time.

This volume presents new data and interpretations from research at Florida's Spanish missions, outposts established in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to strengthen the colonizing empire and convert Indigenous groups to Christianity. In these chapters, archaeologists, historians, and ethnomusicologists draw on the past thirty years of work at sites from St. Augustine to the panhandle.Contributors explore the lived experiences of the Indigenous people, Franciscan friars, and Spanish laypeople who lived in La Florida's mission communities. In the process, they address missionization, ethnogenesis, settlement, foodways, conflict, and warfare. One study reconstructs the sonic history of Mission San Luis with soundscape compositions. The volume also sheds light on the destruction of the Apalachee-Spanish Missions by the English. The recent investigations highlighted here significantly change earlier understandings by emphasizing the kind and degree of social, economic, and ideological relationships that existed between Apalachee and Timucuan communities and the Spanish. Unearthing the Missions of Spanish Florida updates and rewrites the history of the Spanish mission effort in the region.

Archibald Henry Sayce (1845-1933) became interested in Middle Eastern languages and scripts while still a teenager. Old Persian and Akkadian cuneiform had recently been deciphered, and popular enthusiasm for these discoveries was running high when Sayce began his academic career at Oxford in 1869. This 1894 work, published by the Religious Tract Society, is an introduction for a popular readership to the world of ancient Assyria. Beginning with the geography of Mesopotamia and with the early archaeological discoveries in the region, Sayce next describes the decipherment of the cuneiform inscriptions and tablets, and the knowledge gained from them, especially about the history of the region, and government and organisation, before describing religion, literature, and what can be deduced about everyday life. An appendix gives weights and measures, lists of kings and gods, and a chronological table linking events known from the archaeological record to accounts in the Old Testament.

This volume summarizes the remarkably diverse archaeological discoveries made during the past half century of investigations at the site of St. Mary's City, the first capital of Maryland and one of the earliest European settlements in America. Founded in 1634, the city had disappeared by 1750, yet the archaeology documented in Unearthing St. Mary's City reveals its untold history.Contributors to this volume review new research approaches and methods developed recently at Historic St. Mary's City. They study the archaeology, architecture, and people of the lively seventeenth-century colonial hub. They also explore the landscapes of agriculture, enslavement, and remembrance that developed at the site in the centuries after the capital's relocation to Annapolis. In their chapters, contributors delve into subjects such as soil analysis, ceramics, diet, forts, burials, plantations, state houses, tenants, tobacco pipes, gaming, and the education of women. The lands along the Chesapeake Bay have witnessed a vast range of human experiences, and this book highlights the lives of peoples of European, Native American, and African origins who lived on this site over a span of four centuries. Their stories illuminate the multilayered nature of this important place and the broader Chesapeake region and serve as a testament to the potential and power of historical archaeology.

"The Byzantine Dark Ages" explores current debates about the sudden transformation of the Byzantine Empire in the wake of environmental, social, and political changes. Those studying the Byzantine Empire, the successor to the Roman Empire in the eastern Mediterranean, have long recognized that the mid-seventh century C.E. ushered in sweeping variations in the way of life of many inhabitants of the Mediterranean world, with evidence of the decline of the size and economic prosperity of cities, a sharp fall in expressions of literary culture, the collapse in trade networks, and economic and political instability."The Byzantine Dark Ages" looks at the material evidence for the seventh to ninth centuries, lays out the current academic discourse about its interpretation, and suggests new ways of thinking about this crucial era. Important to readers interested in understanding how and why complex societies and imperial systems undergo and adapt to stresses, this clearly written, accessible work will also challenge students of archaeology and history to think in new ways in comprehending the construction of the past.

This book offers a critical synthesis of the archaeology of South Asia from the Neolithic period (c.6500 BCE), when domestication began, to the spread of Buddhism accompanying the Mauryan Emperor Asoka's reign (third century BCE). The authors examine the growth and character of the Indus civilisation, with its town planning, sophisticated drainage systems, vast cities and international trade. They also consider the strong cultural links between the Indus civilisation and the second, later period of South Asian urbanism which began in the first millennium BCE and developed through the early first millennium CE. In addition to examining the evidence for emerging urban complexity, this book gives equal weight to interactions between rural and urban communities across South Asia and considers the critical roles played by rural areas in social and economic development. The authors explore how narratives of continuity and transformation have been formulated in analyses of South Asia's Prehistoric and Early Historic archaeological record.

The Maltese archipelago is a unique barometer for understanding cultural change in the central Mediterranean. Prehistoric people helped reshape the islands' economy and when Mediterranean maritime highways were being established, the islands became a significant lure to Phoenician colonists venturing from their Levantine homeland. Punic Malta also sat at the front line of regional hostilities until it fell to Rome. Preserved in this island setting are signs of people's endurance and adaptation to each new challenge. This book is the first systematic and up-to-date survey of the islands' archaeological evidence from the initial settlers to the archipelago's inclusion into the Roman world (c.5000 BC-400 AD). Claudia Sagona draws upon old and new discoveries and her analysis covers well-known sites such as the megalithic structures, as well as less familiar locations and discoveries. She interprets the archaeological record to explain changing social and political structures, intriguing ritual practices and cultural contact through several millennia.

This is the first book to examine the late Byzantine peasantry through written, archaeological, ethnographic and painted sources. Investigations of the infrastructure and setting of the medieval village guide the reader into the consideration of specific populations. The village becomes a micro-society, with its own social and economic hierarchies. In addition to studying agricultural workers, mothers and priests, lesser-known individuals, such as the miller and witch, are revealed through written and painted sources. Placed at the center of a new scholarly landscape, the study of the medieval villager engages a broad spectrum of theorists, including economic historians creating predictive models for agrarian economies, ethnoarchaeologists addressing historical continuities and disjunctions, and scholars examining power and female agency.

Stephen Rostain's book is a culmination of 25 years of research on the extensive human modification of the wetlands environment of Guiana and how it reshapes our thinking of ancient settlement in lowland South America and other tropical zones. Rostain demonstrates that populations were capable of developing intensive raised-field agriculture, which supported significant human density, and construct causeways, habitation mounds, canals, and reservoirs to meet their needs. The work is comparative in every sense, drawing on ethnology, ethnohistory, ecology, and geography; contrasting island Guiana with other wetland regions around the world; and examining millennia of pre-Columbian settlement and colonial occupation alike. Rostain's work demands a radical rethinking of conventional wisdom about settlement in tropical lowlands and landscape management by its inhabitants over the course of millennia.

The primary focus of this book is on the arms and armour of Europe, but also included are neighbouring cultures where these had a direct influence on developments and changes within Europe, from late Roman cavalry armour, Byzantium and the East, to the influence of the Golden Horde. A Companion to Medieval Arms and Armour covers the entire period from the fifth to the fifteenth century, a thousand years which saw huge changes in military technology in most of the world's major civilisations. Arms and armour in Europe are the principal focus of the studies, but those of neighbouring civilisations, including the Byzantine Empire, eastern Europe, the steppes and the Islamic world, are also investigated, both for the impact upon them of European technological developments, and for their influence upon developments within western Europe. Arms and armour in Europe developed dramatically during the thousand years from the fifth to the fifteenth century. During this broad sweep of time civilisations rose and fell and population movements swept from east to west, bringing in their wake advances and modifications absorbed and expanded by indigenous populations. So although the primary focus of this book is on the arms and armour of Europe, it also includes neighbouring cultures where these had a direct influence on developments and changes within Europe, from late Roman cavalry armour, Byzantium and the Eastto the influence of the Golden Horde. A truly impressive band of specialists cover issues ranging from the migrations to the first firearms, divided into three sections: From the Fall of Rome to the Eleventh Century, Emergence ofA European Tradition in the High Middle Ages, and New Influences and New Challenges of the Late Middle Ages; throughout there is particular emphasis on the social and technological aspects of medieval military affairs. Contributors: ANDREA BABUIN, JON COULSTON, TIM DAWSON, CLAUDE GAIER, MICHAEL GORELIK, JOHN HALDON, MARCO MORIN, HELMUT NICKEL, DAVID NICOLLE, EWART OAKESHOTT, ANNE PEDERSON, SHIHAB AL-SARRAF, ALAN WILLIAMS.

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 dilettante and 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 1 describes the voyage to Egypt via Malta, the storming of Alexandria, exploration of the Delta, and travel down the Nile to Cairo and the Pyramids. The combination of archaeological observations, notes on the modern Egyptians, and descriptions of warfare makes for a fascinating read.

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1849 Excerpt: ...whole of Norway. With regard to the objects from the iron-period the circumstances are wholly reversed. The swords and other weapons characteristic of that period, the oval clasps for the breast, the mosaic beads, &c., are so common in Sweden and Norway, that traces of them are discovered in nearly every barrow which has been examined there; on the contrary, in Denmark (with the exception of Bornholm, which in an antiquarian point of view is connected with Sweden) they occur but very rarely indeed, when compared with the objects of stone and bronze. In places of historical note for instance, as Leire and Jellinge, which we must consider as having been tolerably well peopled in the pagan times, swords and trinkets belonging almost exclusively to the bronze-period alone have been exhumed; but none from the iron-period, although numerous graves in the neighbourhood have been opened. This can scarcely be a matter of accident, since the Royal Museum of Northern Antiquities in Copenhagen, which during a series of years has received accessions from different parts of the country, and from many hundred barrows, possesses only a very few weapons of iron, which are known to have been found in heathen graves; while, on the other hand, it exhibits several hundred swords and daggers of the bronze-period. If it should be objected that the soil of Denmark may destroy objects of iron sooner than that of Norway and Sweden, it must be observed that Wendish weapons of iron are frequently discovered in heathen graves in Mecklenburg, the soil of which country is similarly constituted to that of Denmark. It must also be remarked that not only the iron weapons but also the other antiquities of the iron-period, such as brass brooches, beads, and ornaments of stone and glass, a...

The traveller and archaeologist Sir Charles Fellows (1799-1860) made several trips through Asia Minor. His careful observations of ancient cities that were at that time unknown to Europeans captured the attention of readers of his published journals and fuelled the British Museum's desire to acquire antiquities from the region. This brief work, first published in 1843, seeks to explain and justify how Fellows shipped dozens of cases of sculptures and architectural remains to Malta from Xanthos, an important city in ancient Lycia. It includes correspondence relating to the practicalities of carrying out the expedition and securing permission to do so from the Ottoman authorities. Fellows was later knighted for his role in these acquisitions, though controversy surrounds their removal. His well-illustrated accounts of his two previous trips to Asia Minor are also reissued in this series.

This book presents research into the urban archaeology of 19th-century Australia. It focuses on the detailed archaeology of 20 cesspits in The Rocks area of Sydney and the Commonwealth Block site in Melbourne. It also includes discussions of a significant site in Sydney - First Government House. The book is anchored around a detailed comparison of contents of 20 cesspits created during the 19th century, and examines patterns of similarity and dissimilarity, presenting analyses that work towards an integration of historical and archaeological data and perspectives. The book also outlines a transnational framework of comparison that assists in the larger context related to building a truly global archaeology of the modern city. This framework is directly related a multi-scalar approach to urban archaeology. Historical archaeologists have been advocating the need to explore the archaeology of the modern city using several different scales or frames of reference. The most popular (and most basic) of these has been the household. However, it has also been acknowledged that interpreting the archaeology of households beyond the notion that every household and associated archaeological assemblage is unique requires archaeologists and historians to compare and contrast, and to establish patterns. These comparisons frequently occur at the level of the area or district in the same city, where archaeologists seek to derive patterns that might be explained as being the result of status, class, ethnicity, or ideology. Other less frequent comparisons occur at larger scales, for example between cities or countries, acknowledging that the archaeology of the modern western city is also the archaeology of modern global forces of production, consumption, trade, immigration and ideology formation. This book makes a contribution to that general literature