Over her career Susan Sherratt has questioned our basic assumptions in many areas of the later prehistory of the Mediterranean and Europe, deploying a canny eye for detail, but never losing sight of the big picture. Her collected works include contributions on the relationship between Homeric epic and archaeology; the economy of ceramics, metals and other materials; the status of the 'Sea Peoples' and other ethnic terminologies; routes and different forms of interaction; and the history of museums/collecting (especially relating to Sir Arthur Evans). The editors of (Athyrmata) have brought together a cast of thirty-two scholars from nine different countries who have contributed these twenty-six papers to mark Sue's 65th birthday - a collection that seeks to reflect both her broad range of interests and her ever-questioning approach to uncovering the realities of life in Europe and the Mediterranean in later prehistory.

Placard is a major Upper Palaeolithic site in France, known from as early as the middle of the nineteenth century. Paradoxically, owing to the antiquity of the poorly-documented early excavations, dozens of thousands of remains that were uncovered then are either unpublished to this day, or have only been the subjects of limited and often obsolete studies. This is the case in particular for the human remains, for which, until recently, the cultural attribution was moreover still under debate. Dating makes it clear they belong to various periods, yet most of them form a homogeneous group remarkable by traces of a specific treatment. Thanks to radiocarbon dating and to data from further excavations carried out some thirty years ago, this group can be dated from the Badegoulian period. Les restes humains badegouliens de la Grotte du Placard presents a detailed study of the Badegoulian human remains. On the basis of quantification and bone modification analyses, they describe and identify the treatments of the dead. Whereas the general treatment pertains to the practice of cannibalism, more specific ones, focused on the head, can be explained by the crafting of trophies. On the whole, these treatments can be interpreted in a consistent manner by one or several episodes of armed conflicts, begging the question of the possible existence of warfare during the Upper Palaeolithic. Thus, despite the antiquity of the discovery, the Badegoulian human bones from le Placard still constitute a unique assemblage that contributes greatly to our knowledge of the behaviours of hunter-gatherer populations in European prehistory.

As research continues on the earliest migration of modern humans into North and South America, the current state of knowledge about these first Americans is continually evolving.
Especially with recent advances in human genomic studies, both of living populations and ancient skeletal remains, new light is being shed in the ongoing quest toward understanding the full complexity and timing of prehistoric migration patterns.
"Paleoamerican Odyssey" collects thirty-one studies presented at the 2013 conference by the same name, hosted in Santa Fe, New Mexico, by the Center for the Study of the First Americans at Texas A&M University.
Providing an up-to-date view of the current state of knowledge in paleoamerican studies, the research gathered in this volume, presented by leaders in the field, focuses especially on late Pleistocene Northeast Asia, Beringia, and North and South America, as well as dispersal routes, molecular genetics, and Clovis and pre-Clovis archaeology.

This book re-assesses archaeological research into holy well sites in Ireland and the evidence for votive deposition at watery sites throughout northwest European prehistory. Ray examines a much-ignored and diminishing archaeological resource; moving beyond debates about the possible Celticity of these sites in order to gain a deeper understanding of patterns among sacred watery sites. The work considers how and why sacred springs are archaeologically-resistant sites and what has actually been found at the few excavated in Ireland. Drawing on the early Irish literature (the myths, hagiographies, penitentials and annals), the author gives an account of pre-Christian supermundane wells in Ireland and what we know about their early Christian use for baptism, and concludes by considering the origins of "rounding" rituals at holy wells.

The site of Chipana-1 is located in the middle of the Atacama Desert, in the Pampa del Tamarugal (PdT), 1200 m asl. The site is a good example of past societies adaptation to hyper-arid environments, and provides new insights into the early human occupations of South America. The well-preserved stratigraphic record, together with 13 radiocarbon dates, show that the site was occupied around 11,480 cal BP. Chipana-1 is a lithic raw-material extraction and workshop site, of a silicified rock of good quality, mainly related to the production of bifacial tools (faconnage), and to a lesser extent, of flakes (debitage) on surface. This is the first site in northern Chile that provides information on the first stages of lithic production, such as raw-material selection and reduction (degrossissage). In addition, flakes resulting from faconnage (shaping method) suggest the local elaboration of large bifacial pieces that have not been recovered on site, indicating that part of the production was probably exported elsewhere, within and outside the borders of the PdT. Some smaller flakes also suggest a local production of "Tuina" type projectile points, a morphotype well-known in the regions south of the Atacama Desert. One can highlight the presence of flakes of allochthonous raw-materials, imported from other areas, which have been flaked at Chipana-1 in order to produce bifacial tools. Chipana-1 was an important location for Late Pleistocene hunter-gatherer groups, poorly known until now, for the gathering of raw-materials and lithic production in the Atacama Desert. The site was integrated within a broader network of mobility that we are just starting to discover. | El sitio Chipana-1, situado en pleno corazon del Desierto de Atacama en la Pampa del Tamarugal (PdT) a 1200 msnm, refleja la adaptacion de antiguas sociedades humanas a un ambiente hiper-arido, y aporta nuevos datos al debate sobre las primeras ocupaciones humanas en America del Sur. La buena conservacion estratigrafica y 13 dataciones 14C muestran que el sitio fue frecuentado alrededor de los 11.480 cal BP. Chipana-1 es un sitio de produccion litica esencialmente de faconnage (modelado) bifacial, con un minimo de debitage (desbaste) de lascas, observables en la superficie de esta gran cantera-taller de roca silicificada de buena calidad. Este tipo de sitio es inedito dentro del norte de Chile, debido a que permite observar las etapas iniciales de elaboracion como la seleccion cualitativa de la materia prima y su preparacion (degrossissage). Ademas, lascas del faconnage indican la elaboracion de grandes piezas bifaciales no encontradas en el sitio, probablemente fueron exportadas a otras areas dentro y fuera de la PdT. Algunas lascas mas pequenas senalan la produccion de una punta de proyectil tipo "Tuina", conocida en tierras altas hacia el sur del Atacama. Destacamos tambien la presencia de lascas de faconnage bifacial de materias primas aloctonas, que fueron importadas a la cantera como productos ya trabajados en otros sitios. Asi Chipana-1 fue, para grupos de cazadores recolectores aun desconocidos al final del Pleistoceno, un punto importante de adquisicion de roca tallable y de produccion litica en el Desierto de Atacama, insertado en un circuito de movilidad que recien comenzamos a develar.

This volume presents the proceedings of Session XXVIII-4 of the XVIII UISPP World Congress (4-9 June 2018, Paris, France), Caracterisation, continuites et discontinuites des manifestations graphiques des societes prehistoriques. Papers address the question of exchange and mobility in prehistoric societies in relation to the evolution of their environments through the prism of their graphic productions, on objects or on walls. This volume offers the opportunity to question their symbolic behaviours within very diverse temporal, chrono-cultural or geographic contexts. It also provides the framework for a discussion on cultural identity and how this was asserted in the face of environmental or social changes or constraints.

Recipient of the Jo Anne Stolaroff Cotsen Prize This volume publishes the excavation and analysis of the Early Iron Age cemetery at Torone in Chalkidike, in the north Aegean, Greece. Spanning the period between the twelfth or eleventh century down to ca. 850 BC, the cemetery represents one of the few burial grounds of the period in Greece to have been excavated virtually in its entirety (yielding 134 tombs, of which 118 were cremations and 16 inhumations).

Linguistic diversity is one of the most puzzling and challenging features of humankind. Why are there some six thousand different languages spoken in the world today? Why are some, like Chinese or English, spoken by millions over vast territories, while others are restricted to just a few thousand speakers in a limited area? The farming/language dispersal hypothesis makes the radical and controversial proposal that the present-day distributions of many of the world's languages and language families can be traced back to the early developments and dispersals of farming from the several nuclear areas where animal and plant domestication emerged. For instance, the Indo-European and Austronesian language families may owe their current vast distributions to the spread of food plants and of farmers (speaking the relevant proto-language) following the Neolithic revolutions which took place in the Near East and in Eastern Asia respectively, thousands of years ago. In this challenging book, international experts in historical linguistics, prehistoric archaeology, molecular genetics and human ecology bring their specialisms to bear upon this intractable problem, using a range of interdisciplinary approaches. There are signs that a new synthesis between these fields may now be emerging. This path-breaking volume opens new perspectives and indicates some of the directions which future research is likely to follow.

High Pasture Cave, located on the island of Skye, Scotland, occupies a liminal location on the very edge of a settlement, and appears to have been a focus for specific and special activities. Its extended period of use is indicated by ephemeral signs of Neolithic Activity, limited Bronze Age usage, and vast artefactual and environmental assemblages recovered dating to the Early to Middle Scottish Iron Age, c. 800 BC to AD 150. High Pasture Cave details the research-led excavations at the cave and its context in the landscape, including geology and stratigraphy, the use and transformation of the cave from the Neolithic, post-Medieval activity after the site’s closure, chronology and radiocarbon dating, the human remains, and stable isotope analysis. The examination of the site indicates that the High Pasture Cave Complex was a special place, a focus for significant communal events, for undertaking ritual and special activities, and a place for deposition of significant objects – a place whose significance remained embedded in social memory long after active use ceased. These findings challenge our current understanding with regards to cave use and function, and with relation to the wider understanding of Iron Age cultural and religious beliefs.

The existence of an opposition between rural and urban spaces is an important question for our societies, and one that has been posed since the radical transformations of the 20th century and the so-called 'end of the peasants'. In this context it becomes also a question for archaeologists and historians. This book assembles contributions on the place of agricultural production in the context of urbanization in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age Mediterranean. The contributions concentrate on the second-millennium Aegean and the protohistoric northwestern Mediterranean. They offer a reflection on the nature of urbanization and its consequences for rural spaces near cities and on the many ways in which rural spaces and agricultural activities may be intertwined with urban spaces - a reconsideration of the very nature of urbanism. A deliberate accent is laid on the comparative perspectives between different regions and periods of Mediterranean protohistory, and on the integration of all kinds of sources and research methods, from texts to survey to environmental archaeology. Highlighted throughout are the original paths followed in the Peloponnese or in the Troad with regard to the Minoan model of urbanization, and the many aspects and periods of Minoan urbanization (as in development in Languedoc vis-a-vis Catalonia). Thus a new perspective on Mediterranean urbanization is offered.

Archaeological investigations in the north-western part of the Arabian Peninsula has increased during the last 15 years. One of the major sites in the region is the ancient oasis of Taym�’, known as a commercial hub on the so-called Incense Road connecting South Arabia with the Eastern Mediterranean. In the context of this new research a multidisciplinary project by the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage (SCTH) and the Orient Department of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) has been investigating the archaeology and ancient environment of Taym�’ since 2004. A major aim of this project was the development of new perspectives of the site and the region, characterised by elaborating the local socio-cultural and economic contexts. So far, Taym�’ has been known mainly through exogenous sources. The present volume is the first of the publication series of the Saudi-German archaeological project and focuses on three fundamental aspects of research at Taym�’: the current archaeological exploration of the oasis is contextualised with previous and ongoing research within the region, while at the same time offering a first overview of the settlement history of the site, which may have started as early as more than 6000 years ago. New information on the palaeoenvironment has been provided by multiproxy- analysis of sediments from a palaeolake immediately north of the settlement. The results indicate an Early Holocene humid period in the region that is shorter than the so-called African Humid Period. The abrupt aridification at around 8 ka BP, known from other regions in the Near East, is also attested in north-western Arabia. The reconstruction of the past vegetation of the site and its surroundings demonstrates that oasis cultivation at Taym�’ started during the 5th millennium BCE with grapes and figs, rather than with the date palm. According to hydrological investigations on water resources, groundwater aquifers provided the main source of local water supply. These were exploited through wells, some of which have been identified in the area of the ancient oasis. Finally, since the time of early travellers to Northwest Arabia evidence of cultural contacts has been observed in the records from the site, which had been occupied by the last Babylonian king, Nabonidus (556–539 BCE) for ten years. A historical-archaeological essay on Egypt and Arabia as well as a study on the ambiguous relationship between Assyria and Arabia – characterised by conflict and commerce – shed new light on the foreign relations of ancient Taym�’.

The Aztecs and Mixtecs of ancient Mexico recorded their histories in long oral narratives and in images painted on hide, paper, and cloth, which served to keep the fundamental features of the stories pure. The tradition of painting history continued even after the Spanish Conquest, for the indigenous rulers and important native families still needed documents to support their respective positions, and the Spaniards accepted the pictorial histories as valid records of the past. Out of the wealth of documentation that once existed, five Pre-Columbian and some 150 early colonial painted histories survive today.

This extensively and beautifully illustrated book offers the first comprehensive analysis of the Mexican painted history as an intellectual, documentary, and pictorial genre. Elizabeth Hill Boone explores how the Mexican historians conceptualized and painted their past and introduces readers to the major pictorial records: the Aztec annals and cartographic histories and the Mixtec screenfolds and lienzos.

Boone focuses her analysis on the kinds of stories told in the histories and on how the manuscripts work pictorially to encode, organize, and preserve these narratives. This twofold investigation broadens our understanding of how preconquest Mexicans understood and presented themselves and how they used pictographic history for political an social ends. It also demonstrates how graphic writing systems developed, like mathematical or musical notation, to convey meaning directly and without a detour through speech, creating a broadly understood corpus of visual conventions that communicated effectively across ethnic and linguistic boundaries.

This book will be important readingnot only for scholars of ancient Mexico, but also for avocational students of Pre-Columbian history who want to learn to read the Aztec and Mixtec codices and learn their stories and legends. Likewise, it offers food for thought to scholars in a variety of disciplines who think comparatively about histories and/or graphic systems of communication.

From its first adoption of writing at the beginning of the Late Bronze Age, ancient Cyprus was home to distinctive scripts and writing habits, often setting it apart from other areas of the Mediterranean and Near East. This well-illustrated volume is the first to explore the development and importance of Cypriot writing over a period of more than 1,500 years in the second and first millennia BC. Five themed chapters deal with issues ranging from the acquisition of literacy and the adaptation of new writing systems to the visibility of writing and its role in the marking of identities. The agency of Cypriots in shaping the island's literate landscape is given prominence, and an extended consideration of the social context of writing leads to new insights on Cypriot scripts and their users. Cyprus provides a stimulating case to demonstrate the importance of contextualised approaches to the development of writing systems.

The Archaeology of Death: Proceedings of the Seventh Conference of Italian Archaeology held at the National University of Ireland, Galway, April 16-18, 2016 includes more than 60 papers, with contributors from the British Isles, Italy and other parts of continental Europe, and North and South America, which consider recent developments in Italian archaeology from the Neolithic to the modern period. Each region of Italy is represented, with specific sections of the volume devoted to Etruria, South Italy, and Sicily. Other sections have a chronological focus, including Italian Prehistory, the Roman period, and Post Antiquity. Following the primary theme of the meeting, the majority of papers revolve around the archaeology of death; numerous contributions analyse the cultural significance of death through examinations of funerary rituals and mortuary practices, while others analyse burial data for evidence of wider social and political change. Various papers consider new and recent discoveries in Italian archaeology, while others ask fresh questions of older datasets. In addition, a number of contributions showcase their employment of new methodologies deriving from technological innovations. The volume opens with a dedicatory section to mark the achievements of the Accordia Research Institute, and to celebrate the careers of two of its founders, Ruth Whitehouse and John Wilkins. The following paper(s) are available to download in Open Access: Cremation structures and funerary dynamics in Roman Veneto. New perspectives from Padua/Patavium - Cecilia Rossi and Irene Marini: Download

Stone containers have been made and used in the Middle East for over eleven millennia where they pre-dated the invention of pottery and were widely traded. The appearance or properties of the stone helped govern how stone vessels were valued or used and many classes were strictly utilitarian, being used for storage, cooking or lighting. Others were decorated and at times they were considered valuable exotica, particularly in regions far removed from their source areas. The subject of stone vessels is attracting growing attention but this is the first attempt to bring together different approaches to the study of softstone vessels, particularly but not exclusively those carved from varieties of chlorite, and covering all periods from prehistory to the present.

Mountain landscapes were first exploited by farming populations at the very beginning of the Neolithic. However, there are controversies regarding when and where these specific types of human behaviour developed as a result of adaptation processes to these special environments. The aim of People in the Mountains: Current Approaches to the Archaeology of Mountainous Landscapes is to present research results from different scientific contexts. To discuss these issues, and to study different aspects of human activity in the mountains and adjacent regions we incorporate archaeological, botanical, zooarchaeological and ethnological information. The chapters explore, among many other themes, several principal areas of research: environmental history and human impact in mountain environments; specificities of different mountain landscape zones; long-term changes of human activity in different mountain regions, and the origins of such changes; seasonal herding, and short and long-distance transhumance; exploitation of different raw materials e.g. siliceous raw material, salt etc.; mountains as borders, roads and zones of contact; creation of new customs, rights and social relations; symbolic and ritual locations in the mountains; dialogue between different methodological perspectives and analytical methods. The book consists of 15 chapters prepared by 27 authors from 10 countries. The chapter topics cover mountains located in Europe, America and Asia.

As one of the few surviving artefacts from the late prehistory of north-east Africa, pottery serves as an essential material category by which to explore long-term human development. This book presents a major study on the ceramics recovered from early and mid-Holocene sites in Egypt's Dakhleh Oasis, which come from 96 registered sites and five other findspots and comprise more than 10,000 sherds. In addition, there is little proxy evidence to support the manufacture of pottery in the form of kilns, clay firedogs, and other firing equipment. None of the ceramic objects come from burials. They derive instead from settlement sites that display evidence of living activities (hut circles, hearths, chipped stone scatters, etc.), or sites for which there is no other evidence of human activity. Through detailed description, classification and quantification, a detailed cultural sequence has been determined, demonstrating descrete stylistic variations between sites and over time, and highlighting growing diversity and innovation in local pottery-making from the late seventh to mid-third millennia cal. BC. These shifts help to refine the characterisation of local cultural units within the Holocene sequence for Dakhleh Oasis, and to compare against parallel pottery traditions elsewhere in the desert. A firmer grounding in the oasis ceramics, as detailed here, offers inroads to examine social practices and the interconnectedness of desert groups of the ancient Eastern Sahara.

A companion to The Archaeology of Rock-Art (Cambridge, 1998), this new collection addresses the most important component of the rock-art panel: its landscape. The book draws together the work of many well-known scholars from key regions of the world known for rock-art and rock-art research. It provides insight into the location and structure of rock-art and its role within the landscapes of ancient worlds.

These objects do not have a single purpose. This is the central premise that guides the research within this book. Throughout the volume the reader will follow a representation of a marine hunter-gatherer society, a projection deriving from one of its iconic and most important material assets, the harpoon. This very technical object will be studied not only for its most evident function - hunting at sea - and the work delves into the structural, symbolic, technological and world-building aspects of the human societies that used them. To achieve this goal the text begins with a judgment about the role of marine hunting, its prey, and the agents involved in different coastal societies on the American continent, in order to create a comprehensive framework of reference for the subject. It continues by focussing on clarifying, defining and discussing the concept of harponage from technology compared with other historical and ethnographic cases of marine hunters across the globe. A typology of harpoon points from the Atacama Desert is presented, with classification based on their technical attributes, constituent units, composition features and articulation mechanisms, in order to evaluate the chronological scope and geographical distribution of each one of the types of harpoon heads from the last 7000 years of coastal history. The text then explores the multiple values and meanings of the harpoons of the Atacama Desert. The book finally examines the social reasons that influenced the development of an incredibly sophisticated and complex technology of marine hunting. Inferences that take it out of the sea and away from hunting, towards hypotheses that seek answers in the cultural determinism stemming from technical decisions, to utilise technology as another mechanism to establish and strengthen social bonds in the construction of worlds between different agents and collectives, and no longer as a simple tool to satisfy subsistence needs. | Les objets n'ont pas un seul objectif. Premisse centrale qui guide le denouement de ce livre. Dans les pages suivantes le lecteur trouvera une reflexion sur une societe des chasseurs-collecteurs marins a partir d'un de ces biens materiaux iconiques et un des plus importantes, le harpon. Cet objet technique sera etudie hors de sa fonction la plus evidente, au-dela de la chasse marine, pour penetrer les aspects structurels, symboliques, technologiques et de construction du monde de ces collectifs humains. Pour entreprendre ce defi, le texte nous submerge dans un premier temps dans une revision critique sur le role de la chasse marine, leurs proies et les agents impliques dans ces activites et dans differentes societes cotieres du continent americain, afin de pourvoir un cadre de reference adequate sur cette thematique. Dans un deuxieme moment, nous nous centrons dans l'eclaircissement, la definition et la concretisation du concept de harponnage depuis la technologie comparee avec d'autres cas historiques et ethnographiques de chasseurs-cueilleurs du monde. Une typologie de tetes de harpon pour le desert d'Atacama est ensuite presentee, fondee sur leurs solutions techniques, leurs unites constitutives, leurs normes de composition et leurs mecanismes d'articulation, pour evaluer ensuite la portee chronologique et la distribution geographique de chaque type au cours des dernieres 7000 annees d'histoire littorale. Par la suite, le texte tente d'explorer les multiples valeurs et significations des harpons du desert d'Atacama. Dans sa partie finale, notre recit aborde les raisons sociales qui ont permis le developpement d'une technologie de chasse marine aussi sophistiquee et complexe. Interpretations qui nous emmenent hors de la mer et loin de la chasse, vers des hypotheses qui cherchent des reponses sur les contraintes culturelles qui se trouvent derriere les decisions techniques, pour concevoir a la technologie comme un mecanisme employe afin d'etablir les liens sociaux dans la construction des mondes et rapprocher differents agents sociaux et collectifs, plus que comme un simple outil destine a satisfaire des besoins de subsistance. | Los objetos no tienen un solo objetivo. Esta es la premisa central que guia el desenlace de este libro. A lo largo de sus paginas el lector conocera una reflexion acerca de una sociedad cazadora-recolectora marina a partir de uno de sus bienes materiales iconicos y mas importantes, el arpon. Este objeto tecnico sera estudiado fuera de su funcion mas evidente, mas alla de la caza en el mar, para adentrarse en aspectos estructurales, simbolicos, tecnologicos y de construccion de mundo de estos colectivos humanos. Para llevar a cabo este programa, el texto se sumerge en una primera instancia en un juicio acerca del rol de la caza marina, sus presas y los agentes involucrados en diferentes sociedades costeras del continente americano, con tal de crear un marco de referencia comprensivo y adecuado sobre el tema. En segundo lugar, se aboca a clarificar, definir y concretizar el concepto de arponaje desde la tecnologia comparada con otros casos historicos y etnograficos de cazadores marinos del planeta. Se presenta una tipologia de cabezales para el desierto de Atacama fundada en sus soluciones tecnicas, unidades constitutivas, normas de composicion y mecanismos de articulacion, para luego evaluar el alcance cronologico y la distribucion geografica de cada uno de los tipos de cabezales de arpon definidos para los ultimos 7000 anos de historia litoral. Posteriormente, el texto intenta explorar en torno a los multiples valores y significados de los arpones del desierto de Atacama. El libro indaga en su desenlace final acerca de las razones sociales que dieron cabida al desarrollo de una tecnologia de caza marina tan sofisticada y compleja. Inferencias que lo llevan fuera del mar y lejos de la caza, hacia hipotesis que buscan respuestas en las condicionantes culturales tras las decisiones tecnicas, para concebir a la tecnologia como un mecanismo mas para entablar y estrechar lazos sociales en la construccion de mundos entre distintos agentes y colectivos, y ya no como una simple herramienta para satisfacer necesidades de subsistencia.

One of the first interdisciplinary discussions of taphonomy (the study of how fossil assemblages are formed) and paleoecology (the reconstruction of ancient ecosystems), this volume helped establish these relatively new disciplines. It was originally published as part of the influential Prehistoric Archeology and Ecology series. Taphonomy is plainly here to stay, and this book makes a first class introduction to its range and appeal.--Anthony Smith, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews

This volume presents the proceedings of the session 'Intellectual and Spiritual Expression of Non-literate Peoples' part of the XVII World UISPP Congress, held in Burgos (Spain), the 4th September 2014. The session brought together experts from various disciplines to share experience and scientific approaches for a better understanding of human creativity and behaviour in prehistory.

The earliest finds of wheeled vehicles in northern and central Europe date to 3900-3600 BC. However finds (3400-3300 BC) from the Boleraz sites of Arbon/Bleiche 3 and Bad Buchau/Torwiesen II, linked to pile-dwelling settlements, indicate methods of transport typical for higher altitudes (slides, sleds, etc.). The Boleraz and Baden cultures overlap in the Carpathian Basin between 3300-3000 BC and this period seems to have produced transport models that parallel finds in today's Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, and other regions. These suggest that generally the Boleraz settlers inside the Carpathian Basin did not know, or use, the wheel in the fullest sense. Cart and wheel forms are indicated only from Grave 177 at Budakalasz (2800-2600 BC). The Hungarian Baden finds follow the Danube and to the East there are no certain vehicle remains. It is difficult to tell whether the Boleraz finds are linked to the wider Alpine zone, and the Baden finds are perhaps associated with the mixed-culture sites along the eastern slopes of the Carpathians. The four-wheeled wagon was a development linked to the plains and the Steppes (Cucuteni-Tripolje, Pre-Yamnaja, Yamnaja). The nature of the finds relating to vehicles associated with lake and riverine settlements reveal technical and material features: there is evidence of a high degree of carving, if not decoration, and these communities pointed the way for future skills and developments in wheel and cart/wagon manufacture.

The title of Edmonson's work refers to the Mayan custom of first predicting their history and then living it, and it may be that no other peoples have ever gone so far in this direction. The Book of Chilam Balam was a sacred text prepared by generations of Mayan priests to record the past and to predict the future. The official prophet of each twenty-year rule was the Chilam Balam, or Spokesman of the Jaguar--the Jaguar being the supreme authority charged with converting the prophet's words into fact.

This is a literal but poetic translation of one of fourteen known manuscripts in Yucatecan Maya on ritual and history. It pictures a world of all but incredible numerological order, slowly yielding to Christianity and Spanish political pressure but never surrendering. In fact, it demonstrates the surprising truth of a secret Mayan government during the Spanish rule, which continued to collect tribute in the names of the ruined Classic cities and preserved the essence of the Mayan calendar as a legacy for the tradition's modern inheritors.

The history of the Yucatecan Maya from the seventh to the nineteenth century is revealed. And this is history as the Maya saw it--of a people concerned with lords and priests, with the cosmology which justified their rule, and with the civil war which they perceived as the real dimension of the colonial period.

A work of both history and literature, the Tizimin presents a great deal of Mayan thought, some of which has been suspected but not previously documented. Edmonson's skillful reordering of the text not only makes perfect historical sense but also resolves the long-standing problem of correlating the two colonial Mayan calendars. The book includes both interpretative and literal translations, as well as the Maya parallel couplets and extensive annotations on each page. The beauty of the sacred text is illuminated by the literal translation, while both versions unveil the magnificent historical, philosophical, and social traditions of the most sophisticated native culture in the New World.

The prophetic history of the Tizimin creates a portrait of the continuity and vitality, of the ancient past and the foreordained future of the Maya.

Au large des cotes atlantiques vendeennes (France), l'ile d'Yeu est un territoire occupe depuis la Prehistoire. Les sites a vocations domestiques, artisanales, funeraires ou encore symboliques dates du Neolithique sont nombreux. Leur etat de conservation est exceptionnel car les architectures baties en pierre sont preservees en elevation pour beaucoup d'entre eux. C'est le cas, par exemple, sur les habitats du IVeme millenaire avant J.-C., qui ont fait l'objet de plusieurs programmes de recherche depuis 2010. Cet ouvrage regroupe la documentation, les informations inedites et les principaux resultats des etudes, prospections, fouilles et releves realises sur les habitats, les monuments funeraires, les carrieres et les sites symboliques. Les premiers travaux tentent de proposer un etat des lieux de l'environnement mineral ainsi que les principales formes d'exploitation, les strategies d'approvisionnement et les usages des roches. Le coeur de l'ouvrage est consacre a la fouille des deux principaux habitats dates du Neolithique recent, la pointe de la Tranche et Ker Daniaud. L'accent est mis sur les architectures de pierre de ces eperons barres directement ouverts sur l'Ocean mais dont I'occupation semble non permanente. Enfin, les releves (plan, photogrammetrie, microtopographie) et la modelisation numerique des sepultures megalithiques des Tabernaudes, de la Planche a Puare et des Petits Fradets autorisent une restitution tridimensionnelle des architectures funeraires neolithiques. Pour les rochers marques de cupules, dont la concentration actuelle est une des plus importantes, une premiere analyse du corpus des signes est proposee; en depit de leur datation encore mal assuree. Cette contribution est l'occasion d'offrir les resultats de l'observation du reel et de l'imaginaire, percus par I'analyse des temoignages et expressions, physiques et symboliques, des populations de la fin de la Prehistoire installees - et non piegees - sur un territoire restreint battu par les vents et cerne par les flots.

The long Palaeolithic sequence of Karain (Antalya, Turkey) began around 500,000 years ago and continued until the final Palaeolithic around 10,000 BC. This volume presents all the cultural and technical variations during this immense period, situated in a context which joins Africa, Asia, and Europe. In brief, the assemblage of tools appears to belong to Asian traditions; no Acheulian bifaces were observed. The earlier half of the sequence (stages 9 and 10) corresponds to centripetal industries with thick flakes and with denticulates and racloirs, classified as 'Proto-Charentian'. 'Modern archaic' human remains were sporadically discovered there. The upper phase is by far the most important: stages 8 to 5. These are superb Levallois industries with good quality exogenous materials. The tools are made from elongated flakes and transformed into racloirs with very elegant points. They have been termed 'Karain Mousterian'. Human remains are also associated with this phase (mandible and phalanges). The final phase (stage 4) is classically Mousterian with Neanderthal human remains.