Since its development in 1949, radiocarbon dating has increasingly been used in prehistoric research in order to get a better grip on the chronology of sites, cultures and environmental changes. Refinement of the dating, sampling and calibration methods has continuously created new and challenging perspectives for absolute dating. In these proceedings the focus lies on the contribution of carbon-14 dates in current Mesolithic research in North-West Europe. Altogether 40 papers dealing with radiocarbon dates from 15 different countries are presented. Major themes are the typo-technological evolution of lithic and bone industries, changes in settlement patterns, burial practices, demography and subsistence, human impact on the Mesolithic environment and the neolithisation process. Some papers also deal with more methodological aspects of carbon-14 dating (e.g. calculation of various reservoir effects, the use of cumulative calibrated probability distributions), and related techniques (e.g. stable isotope analysis for palaeodiet reconstruction).

The many hundreds of books and thousands of academic papers on the topic of Pleistocene (Ice Age) art are limited in their approach because they deal only with the early art of southwestern Europe. This is the first book to offer a comprehensive synthesis of the known Pleistocene palaeoart of six continents, a phenomenon that is in fact more numerous and older in other continents. It contemplates the origins of art in a balanced manner, based on reality rather than fantasies about cultural primacy. Its key findings challenge most previous perceptions in this field and literally re-write the discipline. Despite the eclectic format and its high academic standards, the book addresses the non-specialist as well as the specialist reader. It presents a panorama of the rich history of palaeoart, stretching back more than twenty times as long in time as the cave art of France and Spain. This abundance of evidence is harnessed in presenting a new hypothesis of how early humans began to form and express constructs of reality and thus created the ideational world in which they existed. It explains how art-producing behaviour began and the origins of how humans relate to the world consciously.

Knowledge of the Levantine Epipalaeolithic period plays a critical role in understanding the transition from nomadic hunter-gatherer foraging groups to sedentary communities on the threshold of agriculture. In this study, Bar-Oz has clarified many aspects of the relationship between Epipalaeolithic foragers and their prey. The Epipalaeolithic foragers all utilized similar hunting methods, as evidenced by culling patterns they used for gazelle and fallow deer.Multivariate inter-site zooarchaeological and taphonomic research from a single geographical area and ecological setting (the coastal plain of Israel) provides important records of the Epipalaeolithic cultural sequence. A wide variety of data highlights uniform patterns of cultural and economic behaviors related to food procurement and processing strategies and demonstrates cultural continuity in subsistence strategies within the Levantine Epipalaeolithic sequence.

Muge 150th: The 150th Anniversary of the Discovery of Mesolithic Shellmiddens is organized into two volumes. This first volume focuses on the Mesolithic structures of the Muge and Sado Valleys, with a total of 27 chapters. These contributions cover a wide range of archaeological and anthropological themes, including a general synthesis on the current state of specific topics including the use of isotopes in diet determination and migration; settlement and subsistence; technology; plant use; burial practices; social complexity; and research history.

This extensive volume presents the evidence uncovered by the British School at Rome between 1965 and 1974 for the Iron Age city of Silvium in Apulia, and for the Roman settlement that succeeded it. Its eight essays concentrate especially on the defences of the city of the late fourth century BC, the economic and social transformation of the settlement in the middle of the second century BC, and an osteological analysis of a sample of the burials from the sixth to the first centuries BC. Contributors include: A S Small; P G Dorrell; A C Western; J P Taylor; M Hassall; K Gruspier; G Mullen.

This is a detailed report on the Iron Age burial located during rescue excavations by the Dover Archaeological Group in Mill Hill, Deal, Kent between 1984 and 1989. Excavations revealed an extensive multi-period cemetery complex, other elements of which will be described in future publications. Mill Hill was intensively occupied by ancient people, and brooches and pots of Iron and Age and Roman date have been found previously. Many of these finds are re-examined and republished in the present volume. More than 500 individual archaeological features were found in the recent excavations; of these forty-two Iron Age inhumations, five pre-Roman cremations and a horse burial are examined in this book.

This volume contains nearly 40 contributions delivered at the East Hallstatt conference held at Sopron in 1994. The leading themes of the conference included the transition from the late Bronze age Urnfield culture through Hallstatt to the early La Tene period, the character of the inner-Alpine Hallstatt culture, the question of boundaries or transitions between the western and eastern Hallstatt groups, and the presentation of more exact chronologies. This volume reflects the rapidly changing research situation and the notable advances made in this field. English, German, and Italian text.

This well-presented and richly illustrated study of Etruscan history and culture is based around a catalogue of Etruscan artworks and artefacts from an exhibition held in Hamburg in 2004. The exhibits, which include wall paintings, tombs, ceramics, metalwork, armour and weapons, mirrors and everyday items, are all presented in colour photographs with a full description. Background essays place the objects in their setting, discussing Etruscan culture, grave goods, wall paintings and tombs and Etruscan archaeology.

English summary: One can demonstrate different forms of human Central and Southeast European Neolithic skull worship through post-mortem procedures. The most obvious finds indicative of this skull worship are documented in Central Europe from the Late Neolithic-Early Copper Age Lengyel culture. This book focuses especially on Lengyel burials where the forms of the head or skull could be analyzed in post mortem procedures, which may point to the ostensive skull phenomena with regard also to the contemporary and earlier Neolithic communities of the Central and South East European region or the Middle East region. After determining the forms or types of skull worship, the process of burial of the dead, the post-mortem manipulation of the cranium, its possible meaning, and the origin of these phenomena in the prehistoric communities are also discussed. German text. German description: Im mittel- und sudosteuropaischen Neolithikum kann man verschiedene Formen von am menschlichen Schadel vorgenommenen postmortalen Eingriffen nachweisen. Die bislang evidentesten auf den Schadelkult hinweisenden Funde sind in Mitteleuropa aus der spatneolithisch-fruhkupferzeitlichen Lengyel-Kultur belegt.In dem vorliegenden Buch werden vor allem die Vorstellungen bezuglich der in den Lengyel-Nekropolen belegten, mit dem Kopf oder dem Schadel zusammenhangenden Formen der postmortalen Eingriffe, die eventuell auf den Schadelkult hinweisenden Erscheinungen im Hinblick auch auf die zeitgleichen und fruheren neolithischen Gemeinschaften des mittel- und sudosteuropaischen Raumes oder des nahostlichen Bereiches behandelt. Nach der Bestimmung der Formen oder Typen des Schadelkultes wird auch nach dem Vorgang der Beisetzung der Toten und der postmortalen Manipulation des Schadels sowie auch nach der moglichen Sinndeutung und der Herkunft dieser Erscheinungen in den behandelten prahistorischen Gemeinschaften gefragt. German text.

The Beara Peninsula in counties Cork and Kerry is one of the richest archaeological landscapes in Ireland. Hundreds of prehistoric monuments have been recorded in that area, dating from the Bronze Age to medieval times. The hill valleys of the peninsula also contain an important landscape record of early farm settlement, where entire field patterns are preserved under the growth of blanket peat. This book is the first detailed study to be published on pre-bog fields and early farming in Ireland. It contains the results of new archaeological research for anyone interested in prehistoric and early medieval Ireland, and in the story of Irish farming and its impact on the environment over the past 4000 years. This is a story similar to that of the Ceide Fields in Mayo.

Proceedings of a conference held in 1992 at St. Polten. Contents include: Gab es zur Hallstattzeit in Ostosterreich schon Kelten? ( Christian Pescheck ); Zur ethnogenese der Ostkelten-spathallstatt-und fuehlatenezeitliche graberfelder zwischen Traisental und Donauknie ( Erzsebet Jerem ); Bemerkungen zu einigen fundstuecken der fruehlatenzeit aus Niederosterreich ( Otto-Herman Frey ); Oppida, Kelten und Romer ( Olivia Buechsenschuetz ); Keltische hohensiedlungen im osten Osterreich ( Otto Urban ).