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.

MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology) undertook extensive excavations during the construction of two separate, but adjacent road schemes, some 4.5km apart near Houghton Regis and Toddington, in south Central Bedfordshire. Taken as a whole, the excavations provide a detailed multi-period dataset for regional and national comparison. The first evidence for occupation occurred in the middle/late Bronze Age comprising pits and clusters of postholes, including four-post and six-post structures. Two pit alignments, more than 2km apart, also indicate that land divisions were being established, and in the late Bronze Age/early Iron Age a significant new settlement emerged in the valley bottom. Parts of a further contemporary earlier-middle Iron Age settlement lay at the top of the valley but neither settlement extended into the Roman period. In the late Iron Age or early Roman period three or four new settlements emerged with occupation continuing into the late Roman period in at least one of these. Of particular interest was the recovery of two significant Aylesford-Swarling type cemeteries as well as a third cemetery which largely comprised unurned burials, including some busta, but with few accompanying grave goods. In the late 7th-century a small probable Christian conversion open-ground inhumation cemetery was established with burials accompanied by a range of objects, including a rare work box, knives, brooches, chatelaine keys and a spearhead. Parts of three medieval settlements were uncovered including one with a potters' working area.

The transition from foragers to farmers and the role of intensive rice agriculture have been among the most controversial subjects in Korean archaeology. However, the relatively high acidity of sediment in the Korean peninsula has made it impossible to examine faunal/floral remains directly for tracing the subsistence change. For this reason, many of the studies on the transition heavily relied on the shell middens in coastal areas, which reflect only a small portion of the overall subsistence in the Korean Peninsula. The subsistence behaviors recorded in numerous large-scale inland habitation sites have been obscured by the overall separation between hunter-gatherer and intensive rice farmer. This research investigates the role of intensive rice farming as a subsistence strategy in the central part of the prehistoric Korean peninsula using organic geochemical analysis and luminescence dating on potsherds. The central hypothesis of this research is that there was a wide range of resource utilization along with rice farming around 3,400-2,600 BP. This hypothesis contrasts with prevailing rice-based models, where climatically driven intensive rice agriculture from 3,400 BP is thought to be the dominant subsistence strategy that drove social complexity. This research focuses on four large-scale inland habitation sites that contain abundant pottery collections to evaluate the central hypothesis as well the prevailing rice-centred model. This research produced critical data for addressing prehistoric subsistence in the Korean peninsula and established a detailed chronology of subsistence during 3,400-1,800 BP.

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 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.

Eastern Sudan, like other regions far away from the Nile valley, has often been overlooked historically on account of a kind of prejudice towards areas lacking in monumental or urban remains or evidence of any literary production. Despite the relevance of the deserts and marginal areas becoming increasingly evident in the last year or so, in Sudan only few research projects have been conducted in these regions. The ongoing research project in Eastern Sudan by the University 'L'Orientale' has provided a preliminary reconstruction of the history of the region from c. 6000 BC to AD 1500. This publication outlines this reconstruction and also considers the more general setting known for the other regions of northeastern Africa. Several issues remain to be clarified and understanding of some phases is still limited, nevertheless it can be safely stated that Eastern Sudan, was in ancient times, as it is now, a crossroads between the Nile basin, Eastern Desert, the Ethio-Eritrean highlands and the Red Sea, represented a crucial region in several respects: the spread of domestic crops and animals towards the Ethio-Eritrean highlands, the spread of the Sahelian crops towards India via the Red Sea and Arabia, as well as the long-distance trade network characterizing northeastern Africa in the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC.

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.

Rather than considering the myths supposedly depicted in the world's rock art, this book examines the myths archaeologists and others have created about the meanings and significance of rock art. This vast body of opinions dominates our concepts of the principal surviving cultural manifestations of early worldviews. Here these constructs are subjected to detailed analysis and are found to consist largely of misinterpretations. From the misidentification of natural rock markings as rock art to mistaken interpretations, from sensationalist claims to pareidolic elucidations of iconographies, the book presents numerous examples of myths researchers have created about pre-Historic 'art'. The claims about a connection between rock art and the neuropathologies of its producers are assessed, and the neuroscience of rock art interpretation is reviewed. The book presents a comprehensive catalogue of falsities claimed about palaeoart, and it endeavours to explain how these arose, and how they can be guarded against by recourse to basic principles of science. It therefore represents a key resource in the scientific study of rock art.

The papers collected in this book correspond to the lectures held during session B34 of UISPP conference in Burgos (June 2014) where the presentation of multidisciplinary works were encouraged. The main goal of bringing together specialists from various disciplines (humanities and natural sciences) was to debate, from different perspectives, the networks in raw materials and technological innovation in Prehistory and Protohistory, involving investigation topics typical of archaeometry: archeometallurgy, petrography, and mineralogy.

Was the purpose of an Iron Age hillfort to defend people and resources or was it there to show the power of the community and its leaders? Was the Middle Iron Age trend to large complex 'defences' a response to developing tactics of assault or did the huge amounts of construction work serve the purpose of building community identity through shared labour? The name 'hillfort' implies a defensive purpose, but in recent decades alternative interpretations have gained favour, based on analyses suggesting that hillforts are poorly suited to military purposes and on views of Iron Age society that emphasise the importance of boundaries, symbolic display and communitybuilding. Excavations of hillfort interiors reveal they were sites for many activities; large caches of stones suggest that sling warfare was one. This book reports an investigation of these issues. Sling accuracy at a hillfort was measured for the first time, in a controlled experiment comparing attack and defence across single and developed ramparts. Tactical scenarios modelled from the results showed that hillfort development gave defenders increased advantage. These results support defence as the explanation for the features of the enclosing works of hillforts. Full details of the method and analyses are included.

Dan Monah (11 February 1943 - 21 September 2013) was a specialist in the Neo-Eneolithic of Romania and, in particular, of the Precucuteni-Cucuteni-Tripolye cultural complex, last affiliated with the Iasi Institute of Archaeology of the Romanian Academy. His core body of work, consisting of seven books and more than one hundred articles published, primarily deals with coroplastic analysis as a mean of insight into the religion and art of the Neo-Eneolithic communities. With a unique approach to the study of what he formally named 'the religious life of Cucuteni-Tripolye communities', Dan Monah was a staunch critic of the dominant cultural-historic paradigm and its natural interpretative consequences: the supremacy of typological description, the Cartesian ranking of religious systems from simple to complex, and the avoidance of 'unclassable' occurrences. The present volume embodies his vision applied to the analysis of the Cucuteni-Tripolye anthropomorphic representations, resting on two structural pillars: an in-depth knowledge of a large body of history of religion literature, and an almost exhaustive inventory of the Cucuteni- Tripolye anthropomorphic representations, the result of over three decades of personal, patient and meticulous examination of the archaeological data. For those in his wake, Dan Monah's open and unprejudiced approach to the prehistoric imagery enclosed in this book constitutes a solid cornerstone on which further work can be built. Its pages should be turned, if not on account of the wealth of information inside, but for the author's pleasant and refreshing style at least.

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.

1. The Emergence of warrior societies and its economic, social and environmental consequences. Proceedings of the XVII UISPP World Congress (1-7 September 2014, Burgos, Spain) Session A3c edited by Fernando Coimbra and Davide Delfino: Several works have been dedicated to the aim of warfare in European Bronze Age, by a point of view of bronze technology and archaeometallurgy. The present volume wants to be a short and actualized contribution to the study and interpretation of warrior societies, through a point of view of the marks of the first warfare in Europe, its causes and its consequences in all the intelligible evidences, both from a point of view of material culture, of landscape, of human behavior and artistic manifestations. 2. Aegean - Mediterranean imports and influences in the graves from continental Europe - Bronze and Iron Ages. Proceedings of the XVII UISPP World Congress (1-7 September 2014, Burgos, Spain) Session A16a edited by Valeriu Sirbu and Cristian Schuster: There is already a 'history' with not only different, but sometimes contradictory opinions regarding the role played by the Aegean-Mediterranean area in the evolution of the peoples who lived in continental Europe during the age of Bronze and Iron, including burial customs. The organizers of this session proposed, through ongoing communication and the discussions that followed, to obtain new data on the influences and Aegean-Mediterranean imports found in the graves, and the possible movements of groups of people who carried them. The main area of interest focused on the 'roads' and the stages of their penetration, but also considered feedback from peripheral areas. The session aims to highlight the role of the southern imports in the evolution of local communities' elites and their impact on the general development of the populations of continental Europe, the possible meanings of their deposit in the burials. Analysis of these phenomena over wide geographical areas (from the Urals to the Atlantic) and large chronological periods (the third-. first millennia BC) allow the identification of certain traits as general (eg., the continuity and discontinuity), or particular (eg., the impact of imports and southern influences on communities of different geographical areas).

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.

The Bell Beaker phenomenon is one of the most fascinating horizons in European Later Prehistory, due to its vast geographical distribution, the intrinsic value of some of the artefacts comprising the Beaker package, or its supposed links to certain kinds of ritual ceremonies as shown by the frequent deposition of Beaker items in burial contexts. At present, the idea that the Beaker package is best interpreted as a symbol of power common to socially-prominent individuals by the mid-to-late third millennium BC is widely acknowledged by scholars in this field. From this point of view, the Beaker phenomenon is seen as the archaeological evidence representing an ideology which was shared by a number of prehistoric societies geographically scattered throughout much of Western and Central Europe, or, more specifically, was only shared by elite individuals within these territories. The strategies employed by these individuals to attain such privileged statuses, however, are poorly known. Therefore, in the framework of the XVII World UISPP Congress, held in September 2014 in Burgos (Spain), a session entitled 'Analysis of the economic foundations supporting the social supremacy of the Beaker groups' (B36) was organised by this volume's two editors. The session focused mostly on examining this issue at a European level, and less on the study of the Beaker package itself, as a way of looking at the economic foundations that helped these individuals attain their higher social statuses. The proximity of Beaker sites to natural routes of communication highlights the importance of exchange networks through which people, objects and ideas may have circulated through Europe during this time. The Amesbury Archer in southern England is one of the best examples of interaction within Beaker territories. Having said this, considering that Beaker pots themselves were not exchanged over long distances, attention must be paid to other mechanisms of diffusion. The present volume comprises the papers presented at this session suggesting that Beaker groups may have controlled certain products and technologies.

This is an important book. Too often in the past archaeologists have ignored or underestimated sea travel in early prehistory but the evidence has been growing and now it is presented to us in full in this thought provoking study. No longer can those interested in the human achievement neglect to take into account the astonishing achievements of our palaeolithic, mesolithic and neolithic ancestors. This book gives a full account of stone age seafaring presenting the archaeological evidence in the context of the changing world environment and uses ethnographic sources to broaden the readers understanding of the worlds earliest sea craft. It is essential reading for all concerned to understand the human condition. - Professor Sir Barry Cunliffe, Oxford The book is a comprehensive study of early navigation and its place in the development of human culture from the earliest times to the late Stone Age. This subject is very timely in light of increasing archaeological and palaeoanthropological evidence that the maritime environment had been mastered in prehistory. As the author rightly points out at the beginning of his book, the maritime environment can no longer be marginalised when portraying both hunter-gatherer and early agrarian prehistoric communities. The book is a valuable and inspiring work on a subject which had hitherto not enjoyed such in-depth treatment. It greatly enhances our perception of the beginnings of human culture and enriches it with comprehensive, convincing arguments that the maritime environment had been mastered by early humans. I congratulate the author on the effect he has achieved and on unearthing so many chronologically, geographically and thematically diverse sources. - Prof. Pawel Valde-Nowak, Jagiellonian University, Krakow The title of the book intrigues the reader and promises a fascinating read about issues approached from an innovatively broad perspective. Both the global territorial scope and the chronological range covering almost two million years of human cultural development are worthy of note. What we have here is an aspect of human activity which is often neglected and marginalised in scientific research, which is that directly related to the sea. The fact that up to 90% of Pleistocene coasts, which were after all heavily populated in the Stone Age, have been flooded in modern times is not conducive to large-scale research, as underlined by the author in the Introduction. The beginnings of human activity on the high seas are the subject of research in numerous scientific disciplines, all of which are discussed here. In writing this book the author has drawn on an exceptionally wide range of literature, mostly in English, owing to which the author's own views, as well as those of other researchers whom he cites, are credible and convincing. - Dr hab. Krzysztof Cyrek, professor of Nicolaus Copernicus University, Torun

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.

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 study serves as a source book on domestic food storage in Ancient Israel and Judah by outlining important ethnographic and ancient textual and pictorial sources relevant to the discussion. These allow us to understand the motivated actions in relation to food storage, and the significance of food storage in daily life. On the basis of twenty-two well-excavated buildings from thirteen Iron Age sites, representative archaeological data is examined. For each house the total preserved food storage capacity is calculated, activity areas are identified, and specific patterns are noted. Food storage equipment, the location and role of food storage in the household, and the integration with other activities are analysed. Storage rooms were often located at the margins of houses, but a considerable part of the stored food was kept in other activity areas toward the centre. The data indicates that in Iron Age I food was stored mainly domestically or in shared community facilities, while redistributive food storage became more common in Iron Age II, with significant domestic storage continuing. The ideal of self-sufficiency remained.

This text develops a new perspective on Late Bronze Age (LBA) Ireland by identifying and analysing patterns of ritual practice in the archaeological record. The bookends of this study are the introduction of the bronze slashing sword to Ireland at around 1200 BC and the introduction and proliferation of iron technology beginning around 600 BC. Therefore, it is societal change related to new technology which defines the period discussed as the Irish Late Bronze Age (LBA) herein. Ritual practices find expression in a range of contexts which can be studied separately. However, they require an overarching, integrated ritual system to contextualise and attempt to understand their broader purpose. Similar rituals were consistently enacted in similar locations across the island of Ireland in the LBA. This indicates shared understanding of the way to enact certain rituals as well as shared understanding of what these practices would achieve.