Old Oswestry is considered to be one of England's most precious archaeological jewels, described by Sir Cyril Fox in the 1930s as 'the outstanding work of the Early Iron Age type on the Marches of Wales', and its design is unique amongst hillforts in the UK. Located on the edge of the Shropshire Plain and just a kilometre north of the market town of Oswestry, the hillfort (and its hinterland landscape) can trace activity through artefactual evidence back at least 5000 years, with the last 3000 years evident as earthworks. The reader will notice that little in the way of archaeological investigation has occurred within the hillfort, and indeed, more excavation took place when its internal space became a training ground for trench warfare during World War I than through any academic endeavour. Old Oswestry Hillfort and its Landscape: Ancient Past, Uncertain Future, organised into 14 well-crafted chapters, charts the archaeology, folklore, heritage and landscape development of one of England's most enigmatic monuments, from the Iron Age, through its inclusion as part of an early medieval boundary between England and Wales, to its role during World War I when, between 1915 and 1918, over 4000 troops (including Oswestry's own great war poet Wilfrid Owen), were being trained at any one time for the Western Front. This book also discusses in detail the recent threats to the monument's special landscape from insensitive development and its alternative potential to act as a heritage gateway for the recreational and economic benefit of Oswestry and surrounding communities.

Places of Memory takes a new look at spatialised practices of remembrance and its role in reshaping societies from prehistory to today, gathering researchers representing diverse but complementary fields of expertise. This diachronic outlook provides important insights into the great variety of human and social reactions examining memory, encompassing aspects of remembering, the loss of memory, reclaiming memories, and remembering things that may not have happened. The contributions to this volume expand upon Pierre Nora’s concept of lieux des memoire (places of memory) and the notion that memory is not just stored in these places but activated through human engagement. The volume presents a reflection on the creation of memories through the organisation and use of landscapes and spaces that explicitly considers the multiplicity of meanings of the past. Thus, social identities were created, reaffirmed, strengthened, and transformed through the founding, change, and reorganization of places and spaces of memory in the cultural landscape.

The MegaGeo project, under the direction of the late Rui Boaventura, aimed to analyse the raw material economy in the construction of megalithic tombs in multiple territories, showing the representation of several prehistoric communities that raised them and their relationship with the surrounding areas. Following the meeting of the previous year, it was decided to hold Mega-Talks 2, which brought together national and international experts who have developed work related to Megalithism and Geology, in its various perspectives, from the funerary depositions to the raw material construction of the tombs, as indicators of mobility and interaction with the surrounding physical environment. Megaliths and Geology: Megalitos e Geologia presents contributions from Mega-Talks 2, held in Redondo, Portugal, on 19-20 November 2015.

The area corresponding to the modern city of Rome is usually known for the magnificent remains of the Roman civilization and the myths of its foundation in 753 BC. Less known is evidence of the prehistoric occupation occurring until the Bronze Age along the territory corresponding to the city of Rome and the surrounding area, called "Campagna Romana". Indeed, until a few years ago, the archaeological evidence relating to the phases of recent prehistory, from the Neolithic to the beginning of the Bronze Age, were completely, or almost completely, unknown. Recent excavations, mainly related to preventive archaeology, led to the identification of settlements and necropolises associated with a complex cultural scenario and shed light on the social and cultural aspects of daily life of the human groups who occupied this territory before the Latium civilization.

Late Prehistoric Fortifications in Europe: Defensive, Symbolic and Territorial Aspects from the Chalcolithic to the Iron Age presents the contributions to the International Colloquium ‘FortMetalAges’ (10th–12th November 2017, Guimarães, Portugal), The Colloquium was organised by the Scientific Commission ‘Metal Ages in Europe’ of the International Union of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences (UISPP/ IUSPP) and by the Martin Sarmento Society of Guimarães. Nineteen papers discuss different interpretive ideas for defensive structures whose construction had necessitated large investment, present new case studies, and conduct comparative analysis between different regions and chronological periods from the Chalcolithic to the Iron Age.

This book explores the Mesolithic period in the central-eastern area of Cantabria (Spain) as a manifestation of sociocultural evolution and change of the societies that lived in the area between the ninth and sixth millennia cal BC, until the introduction of farming. It analyses the subsistence and sociocultural transformations made by hunter-gatherer societies in their adaptation to the environment that emerged from the climate change seen during the Holocene. It also considers the evolutionary processes undergone by social groups based on their experiences and cognitive processes.

Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220) stone carved tombs were constructed from carved stone slabs or a combination of moulded bricks and carved stones, and were distributed in Central and Eastern China. Such multi-chambered stone tombs were very popular among the Han people, but they were entirely new, and were a result of outside stimuli rather than an independent development within China. The stone carved tombs were a result of imitating royal rock-cut tombs, while the rock-cut tombs were stimulated by foreign examples. Moreover, many details of stone carved tombs also had Western features. These exotic elements reflected the desire to assimilate exotica within Chinese traditions. Some details within stone carved tombs showed high level of stone working technologies with Western influences. But in general the level of stone construction of the Han period was relatively low. The methods of construction showed how unfamiliar the Western system was to the Han artisans. Han Dynasty stone carved tombs were hybrids of different techniques, including timber, brick and stone works. From these variations, Han people could choose certain types of tombs to satisfy their specific ritual and economic needs. Not only structures, but also pictorial decorations of stone carved tombs were innovations. The range of image motifs was quite limited. Similar motifs can be found in almost every tomb. Such similarities were partly due to the artisans, who worked in workshops and used repertoires for the carving of images. But these also suggest that the tombs were decorated for certain purposes with a given functional template. Together with different patterns of burial objects and their settings, such images formed a way through which the Han people gave meaning to the afterworld. As the Han Empire collapsed, stone carved tombs ceased being constructed in the Central Plains. However, they set a model for later tombs. The idea of building horizontal stone chamber tombs spread to Han borderlands, and gradually went further east to the Korean Peninsula. In this book, the origins, meanings and influences of Han Dynasty stone carved tombs are presented as a part of the history of interactions between different parts of Eurasia.

Bronze ornaments of the Nordic Bronze Age (neck collars, belt plates, pins and tutuli) were elaborate objects that served as status symbols to communicate social hierarchy. The magnificent metalwork studied here dates from 1500-1100 BC. An interdisciplinary investigation of the artefacts was adopted to elucidate their manufacture and origin, resulting in new insights into metal craft in northern Europe during the Bronze Age. Based on the habitus concept, which situates the craftsmen within their social and technological framework, individual artefact characteristics and metalworking techniques can be used to identify different craft practices, even to identify individual craftsmen. The conclusions drawn from this offer new insights into the complex organisation of metalcraft in the production of prestige goods across different workshops. Several kinship-based workshops on Jutland, in the Luneburg Heath and Mecklenburg, allow us to conclude that the bronze objects were a display of social status and hierarchy controlled by, and produced for, the elite - as is also seen in the workshops on Zealand. Within the two main metalworking regions, Zealand and central Lower Saxony, workshops can be defined as communities of practice that existed with an extended market and relations with the local elite. Attached craft, in the sense that the craftspeople fully depended on a governing institution and produced artefacts as a manifestation of political expression, was only detected on Zealand between 1500-1300 BC. The investigation presented here showed that overall results could not be achieved when concentrating only on one aspect of metalwork. Highly skilled craft is to be found in every kind of workshop, as well as an intensive labour input. Only when considering skill in relation to labour input and also taking into account signs of apprenticeship and cross-craft techniques, as well as the different categories of mistakes in crafting, can a stable image of craft organisation be created.

As it appears in diverse guises - and notably as a founding narrative - the past is at the core of every functioning human society. The idea that the past can be known through scientific research has long been a fundamental challenge for western societies and for European researchers, from all disciplines concerned. Through more than four decades of outward-looking archaeological practice, the scholar, teacher and intellectual Jean-Paul Demoule has elaborated a truly global approach to European cultures and their transformations, spanning from the social inequality in Neolithic times to Indo European research to contemporary links between heritage and politics. His colleagues - British, Bulgarians, Czechs, Danes, Dutch, French, Germans, North-Americans, Spaniards, Swiss and Russians - seek to extend and enrich his vision. With contributions (written in French and in English) spanning from prehistory to the modern world, they bring in this volume new insights and data to such issues as the processes of identity construction at different scales, migratory movements in Europe, the status of gender, the role of prestige objects and megalithic monuments in the emergence of social hierarchy and in the semiology of power... without forgetting the myths and realities surrounding the Indo-European phenomenon. - Le passe sous diverses formes - et notamment celle d'un recit fondateur - est au coeur du fonctionnement de toute societe humaine. L'idee que le passe puisse etre connaissable par une recherche scientifique est un enjeu essentiel, particulierement aborde par les societes occidentales et notamment par des chercheurs europeens, toutes disciplines confondues. Par sa pratique de l'archeologie et son erudition, le chercheur et le professeur Jean-Paul Demoule a su elaborer un tableau global des cultures europeennes et de leurs transformations, incluant autant les origines neolithiques des inegalites sociales que l'emergence du mythe indo-europeen ou encore les rapports entre patrimoine et politique. Dans cet ouvrage, ses collegues allemands, britanniques, bulgares, danois, espagnols, francais, neerlandais, nord-americains, russes, suisses et tcheques prolongent et enrichissent - en anglais ou en francais - sa vision. Ils y apportent leurs reflexions et leurs donnees concernant les perspectives de l'archeologie du XXIe siecle, les processus de la construction identitaire a differentes echelles, les mouvements migratoires de l'Europe, le statut du genre, le role des objets de prestige et des monuments megalithiques dans l'emergence de la hierarchisation sociale et de la semiologie du pouvoir... sans oublier la mythologie et les realites du phenomene indo-europeen.

At the confluence of the Illinois, the Missouri, and the Mississippi Rivers lies the "American Bottom," a broad floodplain that prehistoric peoples inhabited for millennia. Precisely how did they live? What were their ties to the natural world around them? In this study, based upon some six years of intensive archeological and geological research at Labras Lake in St. Clair County, Illinois, Richard W. Yerkes interprets a wealth of important new data in a stimulating and original fashion.
With a fine-tuned control of the data, Yerkes challenges prevailing theories based on simple classifications of stone tools according to shape or on simple models of diffuse and focal economies. He views environment as a dynamic factor in economic and cultural life, rather than as merely a backdrop to it. Using incident light microscopy, he examines wear patterns on stone tools to determine what activities were performed during each period the site was inhabited--the Late Archaic, the Late Woodland, and the Mississippian. As he documents environmental change at Labras Lake, he analyzes plant and animal remains in context to explore diet and seasonal patterns of subsistence and settlement.
The result is a more accurate and detailed picture than ever before what prehistoric life on the Mississippi floodplain was like. Yerkes shows how to assess the duration and size of occupations and how to determine where and when true permanent settlements arose. What others call "sedentary encampments" he reveals as sequences of small residental occupations for a narrow range of activities during shorter, seasonal periods. His contribution to the study of the development of sedentism is potentiallyfar-reaching and will interest many North American anthropologists and archeologists.

The Phaistos Disc is one of the most studied documents of Minoan civilization, enticing scholars and simple enthusiasts with the mysterious aura that envelops it and with its singularity among Minoan scriptures. It has entered the collective imagination, both at academic and popular levels. Archaeologists digging at Phaistos are often asked 'Where was the Disc found?' Representations of the Disc can be found abundantly in popular culture, from appearances in Mickey Mouse comics to props amidst the curios on the tables of television magicians. It is this very overexposure that risks undermining the understanding of an object that is, first and foremost, an archaeological artefact found in a chronological and cultural context. Much has been said and much has been written about the Disc. Collet brings a new approach. It is not a deciphering but an interpretation, a depiction of the Minoan Weltanschauung through the symbols on the Disc and their connections with reality. This begins with the spiral-shaped construction of the inscription and its possible temporal allusions, and moves on to a structuralist view of use of the signs, in which the repetitions take on almost ritual significance. Hence it is a pictorial interpretation rather than syllabic, whereby the pictograph is not intended as a rigid reproduction of logical discourse, but rather a path.

This investigation exhaustively gathers the archaeological evidence of the Palaeolithic human settlement in the Guadalteba river region (Malaga, Spain) during the Pleistocene. The main objective is to show the direct relationship between the reservoirs and the sources of raw materials, located in the fluvial terraces, in the geological outcrops and in the surface deposits. An important part of the work has been the geoarchaeological and archeometric surveys and the analysis of new lithic collections from surface archaeological surveys and recent systematic archaeological excavations in the Ardales Cave and Las Palomas de Teba Sima. In this sense, the methodological tools of other disciplines were used. Geoarchaeology enabled an understanding of the sedimentary and Post -depositional processes affecting the deposits and consequently its lithic industry. Archaeometry helped to see the petrographic features of lithic assemblies of deposits. These disciplines have been fundamental to propose a settlement pattern and mobility of these groups of Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers during the Pleistocene period in the interior of the province of Malaga, laying down a basic structure for future prehistoric investigations in the area. Spanish Description: Una investigacion que recoge de manera exhaustiva las evidencias arqueologicas del poblamiento humano Paleolitico en la comarca del rio Guadalteba (Malaga, Espana) durante el Pleistoceno. El objetivo principal es mostrar la relacion directa entre los yacimientos y las fuentes de materias primas, localizadas en las terrazas fluviales, en los afloramientos geologicos y en los propios yacimientos. Destacar la importancia del analisis del registro arqueologico de superficie, donde la prospeccion se convierte en la herramienta mas efectiva para detectar yacimientos que han permanecido al aire libre, sobre todo del Paleolitico inferior y medio. De igual forma cobra especial relevancia el reconocimiento y la caracterizacion espacial y territorial, donde el artefacto se convierte en la unidad basica de investigacion. Parte importante del trabajo han sido los muestreos geoarqueologicos y arqueometricos y el analisis de los nuevos conjuntos liticos procedentes de las prospecciones arqueologicas superficiales y de las recientes excavaciones arqueologicas sistematicas, realizadas en la Cueva de Ardales y en la Sima de Las Palomas de Teba. En este sentido, hemos utilizado herramientas metodologicas de otras disciplinas, como la Geoarqueologia, para comprender los procesos sedimentarios y postdeposicionales que afectan a los yacimientos y en consecuencia a su industria litica, y la Arqueometria, para ver las caracteristicas petrograficas de los conjuntos liticos, disciplinas fundamentales para proponer un patron de asentamiento y movilidad de estos grupos de cazadores-recolectores del Pleistoceno. Este trabajo constituye un hito en la investigacion del Paleolitico en el interior de la provincia de Malaga, convirtiendose en una estructura basica para futuras investigaciones prehistoricas en la zona.

This volume presents the proceedings of the conference "L'arte rupestre dell'eta dei metalli nella penisola italiana: localizzazione dei siti in rapporto al territorio, simbologie e possibilita interpretative" that took place in Pisa at the Cantiere delle Navi di Pisa under the aegis of the Soprintendenza Archeologica della Toscana and of the University of Pisa on 15th June 2015. The addressed issues were related to the Post-Pleistocene rock art along the Apennine ridge; in recent years more and more evidence has been identified, which is different from the magnificent evidence found in the Alps such as, for example, the well-known Monte Bego and Val Camonica. This evidence, despite various and peculiar features, can be all related to the iconographic field whose main expressions are anthropomorphic figures, weapons, daggers, halberds and several other symbols, all similarly stylised. A peculiarity of these manifestations is their location in small shelters inappropriate for habitation or in places suitable for supervising mountain and territory roads, bearing comparison to evidence from Western Mediterranean coastal areas. An interpretative possibility has emerged: these sites could have been not only ceremonial places, but also spaces linked to the socio-economic fields or perhaps to the power of communities that occupied these territories.

Studies of Iron Age artefacts from Britain tend to be dominated either by the study of metalwork, or pottery. This book presents a study not only of a different material, but also a different type of object: glass beads. These are found in a range of different sizes, shapes, colours, and employ a variety of different decorative motifs. Through an analysis of glass beads from four key study regions in Britain, the book aims not only to address regional differences in appearance and chronology, but also to explore the role that this object played within the networks and relationships that constructed Iron Age society. It seeks to understand how they were used during their lives and how they came to be deposited within the archaeological record, in order to establish the social processes that glass beads were bound within. The results indicate that glass beads were a strongly regionalised artefact, potentially reflecting differing local preferences for colour and motif. In addition, glass beads, in combination with several other types of object, were integral to Middle Iron Age dress. Given that the first century BC is often seen as a turning point in terms of settlements and material culture, this supports the possibility of strong continental exchange during an earlier period for either glass beads or raw materials. However, by the Late Iron Age in the first century BC and early first century AD, their use had severely diminished.

What is considered masculine is not something given and innate to males but determined by cultural ideas and ideals constructed through performative practices - today and in the past. This book questions whether androcentric archaeology has taught us anything about prehistoric men and their masculinities. Starting from broad discussions of feminist theory and critical men's studies, this study examines how notions of masculinity are expressed in cremation burials from the Late Bronze Age to the end of the Roman Period (1100 BC - 400 AD) in Eastern Norway and Funen in Denmark. It is argued that notions of masculinity were deeply intertwined with society, and when central aspects like war systems, task differentiation, or technology changed, so did gender and ideas of masculinity and vice versa. In the Late Bronze Age, an idealisation and sexualisation of the male body related to warrior esthetic was probably essential to the performance of masculinity. In the Early Roman Period, masculinity became bounded by what it was not - the unmanly. Warrior capabilities were the most prominent ideals of masculinity and concepts of unmanliness structured society, highlighting divergences between men and women. In the Late Roman Period, society grew more complex and multiple contemporary, possibly complementary masculinities associated with the rising class of free peasants, specific roles and regional differences developed and the warrior lost the dominant position as masculine ideal.

This is the fifth volume in the series Rock Art Studies: News of the World. Like the previous editions, it covers rock art research and management across the globe over a five-year period, in this case the years 2010 to 2014 inclusive. The current volume once again shows the wide variety of approaches that have been taken in different parts of the world, although one constant has been the impact of new techniques of recording rock art. This is especially evident in the realm of computer enhancement of the frequently faded and weathered rock imagery that is the subject of our study. As has been the case in past volumes, this collection of papers includes all of the latest discoveries, including in areas hitherto not known to contain rock art. The latest dating research reported in this fifth volume, sometimes returning surprisingly early results, serves to extend our knowledge of the age of rock art as well as highlight the limits of current models for its development around the world.

A significant number of Holocene societies throughout the world have resorted at one time or another to the making of paints or carvings on different places (tombs, rock-shelters or caves, openair outcrops). The aim of the session A11e. Public images, private readings: multi-perspective approaches to the post-Palaeolithic rock art, which was held within the XVII World UISPP Congress (Burgos, September 1-7 2014), was to put together the experiences of specialists from different areas of the Iberian Peninsula and the World. The approaches ranged from the archaeological definition of the artistic phenomena and their socioeconomic background to those concerning themselves with the symbolic and ritual nature of those practices, including the definition of the audience to which the graphic manifestations were addressed and the potential role of the latter in the making up of social identities and the enforcement of territorial claims. More empirical issues, such as new recording methodologies and data management or even dating were also considered during this session.

In this book Anne Teather develops a new approach to understanding the Neolithic flint mines of southern Britain. These mines include some of the earliest - and also some of the largest - monumental constructions that transformed the landscape of Britain during the period of social change that accompanied the transition from foraging to farming 6000 years ago. Yet the sophisticated architecture of these mines and the unique deposits that they contained have received relatively little attention from archaeologists. This book draws together the results of an extensive analysis of archival records and material to illustrate how these mines and the activities that took place in them can be seen as integral to Neolithic life. Previous studies of the flint mines have focused on the functional demands of flint extraction and the ways in which the raw flint material was distributed and processed into tools such as axes. Yet there is compelling evidence that the voids - shafts and galleries created through the process of flint extraction - were not merely the abandoned features of flint exploitation but instead should be seen as dynamic and monumental architectural spaces where creative and meaningful social actions took place. This interpretation is evidenced through the recognition of repeated motifs of chalk art inscribed on the walls of the mines and in the deliberate placement and deposition of artefacts. These artefacts include both naturalistic and abstract forms made of chalk, items that have not previously been recognised as a cohesive class of material. The book draws together for the first time a comprehensive typology, chronology and classification system for prehistoric chalk artefacts. The concept of artefact is broadened to include natural materials whose selection and placement in specific archaeological contexts is pivotal in understanding depositional complexity and the symbolic meaning conveyed by elements of the natural world.

This volume presents proceedings from the session 'Monumental Earthen Architecture in Early Societies: Technology and power display', part of the XVII World UISPP Congress, held in Burgos (Spain), the 4th September 2014. The theme of the symposium is the archaeology of earthen architecture in pre- and protohistoric cultures, with an emphasis on constructive techniques and systems, and diachronic changes in those aspects. The main interest is in monumental architecture (not domestic), where it is better possible to appreciate the building strategies that show raw earth to be as noble a material as stone or wood, but with its very own characteristics which required the development of original solutions and construction techniques. The scope on monumental buildings also allows analyzing the political, social and economical factors that made such architecture a recognized expression of societal values and political power.

In many European areas, the Neolithic period corresponds to the development of architectural monumentality which left important marks in the landscape, as well as the land clearing and the cultivation by the first agro-pastoral societies. This volume presents proceedings from the session 'Monumentality and territory: relationship between enclosures and necropolis in the European Neolithic', part of the XVII World UISPP Congress, held in Burgos (Spain), the 4th September 2014. The session considered the various manifestations of the relationship between Neolithic enclosures and tombs in different contexts of Europe, notably through spatial analysis; the concept of landscape appropriation, combining domestic, symbolic, economic or natural spaces; and the patterns of territorial organization, in which enclosures and tombs have a fundamental role in some Neolithic contexts.

The research scope of this book is the human occupation of the northern Adriatic region at the end of the Last Glacial Maximum (ca. 24,000- 20,000 calBP), and a point of view over the long debated occupation of the once exposed Great Adriatic Plain and the role it played within the early Epigravettian hunter-gatherers settlement system. The study relied on a comprehensive techno-economic approach to lithic technology, one among the possible means to investigate site function, mobility and land use.

This study examines Middle-Late Bronze Age (c. 1750-600 BC) domestic settlement patterns in Ireland. Recent archaeological investigations have extended the knowledge of habitation, but no detailed, systematic attempts have been made to understand the domestic evidence, or to substantially revise the existing models for the development of complex Bronze Age societies. All available data relating to settlements dating to Middle-Late Bronze Age have been collated. An evidence-based chronology for settlement is established for the first time. The data are examined at multiple scales to investigate any spatial or chronological trends in settlement character or distribution. The relationships between settlements and the surrounding environmental and social landscapes are analysed through a GIS. The new data are investigated to see how domestic settlements operated, and if traditional concepts regarding the structure of Bronze Age society can still be upheld. Agent-based modelling and social network analysis provide another dimension to the discussion regarding power, regionalism, and hierarchy within the settlement network. The results reveal a distinct rise in the visibility, and a rapid adaption, of domestic architecture, which seems to have occurred earlier in Ireland than elsewhere in western and northern Europe.

This volume is the first of two reports on archaeological excavations undertaken ahead of the eastern expansion of Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal (DIRFT) which lies in the northern watershed region of Northamptonshire at its border with Warwickshire. The excavations, covering 178 hectares, recorded one of the most extensive Iron Age farming settlements yet discovered in the British Isles. It comprised at least five individual sites of house clusters and enclosures, spread around the rim of a shallow valley overlooking around 100 hectares of open pasture. At its peak between 400 BC and 100 BC the settlement would have contained up to 100 circular buildings. Volume 1 describes the excavation of the largest of these individual sites, that at Covert Farm, Crick, excavated by the Birmingham University Field Archaeology Unit. From the outset the excavations adopted an innovative approach to examine social themes in Iron Age studies, such as relationships with rubbish, fire and water, and the way life in the settlement may have been experienced by its inhabitants - themes that are presented and discussed in this book.

This volume is the second of two reports on archaeological excavations undertaken ahead of the eastern expansion of Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal (DIRFT) which lies in the northern watershed region of Northamptonshire at its border with Warwickshire. The excavations, covering 178 hectares, recorded one of the most extensive Iron Age farming settlements yet discovered in the British Isles. It comprised at least five individual sites of house clusters and enclosures, spread around the rim of a shallow valley overlooking around 100 hectares of open pasture. At its peak between 400 BC and 100 BC the settlement would have contained up to 100 circular buildings. Volume 2 describes the excavations of four of these individual sites, undertaken at various times by MOLA Northampton (then Northamptonshire Archaeology) at The Lodge and Long Dole, by Foundations Archaeology at Crick Hotel, and by Cotswold Archaeology at Nortoft Lane, Kilsby. The project was managed by RPS. The site reports are followed by a wide-ranging discussion, putting the discoveries here and at Covert Farm, Crick (Volume 1) into the context of Iron Age settlement patterns and dynamics in the East Midland region.

This volume brings together a group of peer reviewed papers, most of them presented at a workshop held at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. The event took place on 15-17 October 2011 and was part of the European Research Council (ERC) funded project Cultural Evolution of Neolithic Europe (EUROEVOL 2010-2015). The aim of the EUROEVOL project is to contribute to the new interdisciplinary field of cultural evolution that has developed over the last 30 years, and at the same time use these ideas and methods to address specific questions concerning the links between demographic, economic, social and cultural patterns and processes in the first farming societies of temperate Europe. The aim of the EUROEVOL project is to do that for the first time, and in doing so to provide the basis for a new account of the role of farming in transforming early European societies, c.6000-2000 cal BCE.