Fourteen papers plus four posters from the Acts of the XIVth UISPP Congress held at the University of Liege in 2001. The contributors cover a series of subjects including technology in archaeology, statistical approaches to hominid evolution, palaeolithic cognition, analysing lithic tool use, the use of GIS and survey techniques, with case studies from Italy, France, Romania, Belgium and the United States.

Based on the author's thesis, this detailed study analyses lithic assemblages from epipalaeolithic and mesolithic sites in southern and south-west France - sites such as Fontfaures, de la Balma de la Margineda and de Buholoup et de l'Abeurador. Philibert presents much of the data in tabular form and uses this to interpret patterns of use and human behaviour such as the equipment used for hunting, the different subsistence strategies practised and the role of certain sites in the exploitation of regions as a whole. French text.

A translation of the rather long subtitle reveals the subject of this study as an analysis of the community interred in the prehistoric cemetery of Cova des Carritx on the island of Menora, which dates to c.1450-800 Cal BC. A description of the discovery of the site and the aims and methodology of the recovery of material from it are followed by detailed analyses of the human remains and other artefacts deposited as grave goods. Issues of taphonomy, funerary ritual, demography, biological characteristics of the population represented (also compared with other populations), stress indicators, diet and palaeopathology, and the possible representation of social inequalities at the site, are all discussed. Spanish text.

The theme of this 15th seminar of research by the Unite Mixte de Recherches 154 du CNRS de Lattes, held in Lattes-Montpellier in 2000, is the archaeology of animals. The thirteen French and two English papers represent the work of groups of specialist individuals and projects working in the field of archaeozoology during the Holocene. Subjects include: the movement and displacement of animals in the Mediterranean, animals at altitude in the southern Alps, extinctions on Sardinia, bovine populations in France, pastoral specialisation, fish populations in the Iron Age.

Two major issues feature in this collection of papers which derives from two conference symposia held at the XIVth UISPP congress in Liege in 2001: how to identify Upper Palaeolithic domestic structures from structural features and archaeological finds, and how to classify and compare usefully these domestic structures. These seventeen papers present raw data and provide interpretation on a range of Upper Palaeolithic sites from across Eurasia, including Spain and Portugal, France, Alpine regions, the Levant and Siberia. Papers in French and English.

A study of the symbolism and iconography of anthropomorphic coroplastic art from Neolithic Italy. A discussion of the history of research, and of the background to the subject as a whole, precedes a catalogue of examples. Although there is great variety in the forms and styles represented, Giannitrapani links certain examples to a system of divinities.

One of the most haunting and enigmatic archaeological discoveries of recent times was the uncovering in 1998 at low tide of the so-called Seahenge off the north coast of Norfolk. This circle of wooden planks set vertically in the sand, with a large inverted tree-trunk in the middle, likened to a ghostly ‘hand reaching up from the underworld’, has now been dated back to around 2020 BC. The timbers are currently (and controversially) in the author’s safekeeping at Flag Fen.Francis Pryor and his wife (an expert in ancient wood-working and analysis) have been at the centre of Bronze Age fieldwork for nearly 30 years, piecing together the way of life of Bronze Age people, their settlement of the landscape, their religion and rituals. The famous wetland sites of the East Anglian Fens have preserved ten times the information of their dryland counterparts like Stonehenge and Avebury, in the form of pollen, leaves, wood, hair, skin and fibre found ‘pickled’ in mud and peat.Seahenge demonstrates how much Western civilisation owes to the prehistoric societies that existed in Europe in the last four millennia BC.

The Northeastern Trans-Pecos region of Texas is an unforgiving environment for anyone living off the land, yet nomadic hunters and gatherers roamed its deserts and mountains and sheltered in caves and sinkholes from around AD 200 to 1450. This book provides detailed insights into the lifeways of these little-known prehistoric peoples. It places their occupation of the region in a wider temporal and cultural framework through a comprehensive description and analysis of the archaeological remains excavated by Donny L. Hamilton at Granado Cave in 1978. Hamilton begins with a brief overview of the geology and environment of the Granado Cave area and reviews previous archaeological investigations. Then he and other researchers present detailed analyses of the burials and other material remains found in the cave, as well as the results of radiocarbon dating. From these findings, he reconstructs the subsistence patterns and burial practices of these Native Americans, whom he identifies as a distinct group that was pushed into the environment by surrounding peoples. He proposes that they should be represented by a new archaeological phase, thus helping to clarify the poorly understood late prehistory of the Trans-Pecos.

Only rarely in Europe do the surface remains of Neolithic flint mines remain so dramatically for all to see as those located along the South Downs and in the Breckland of England. Even within England they represent a diminishing resource and only ten sites have been recorded with any certainty. As examples of our earliest industrial heritage they represent archaeological sites of the first importance and have a special part to play in the history of technology. However, despite a lengthy history of archaeological investigation, they have rarely been considered nationally as a class of monument. Although some sites such as Grime's Graves are well known through excavation campaigns, others are known only through obscure articles and unpublished archival material. Many of those that survive as earthworks or cropmarks have never been surveyed previously or accurately planned. Consequently, English Heritage has compiled detailed plans of the surface areas of all of the known flint mines and investigated the sites of other potential examples. Using a combination of field survey, aerial photography and archival research, this volume looks at each site in its own right as a major and important complex and - for the first time - offers a synthesis of the evidence to date.

This major work, the result of collaboration among scholars who worked at dozens of sites from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, is the first volume in English to summarize the massive quantity of archaeological data on the Paleolithic occupation of Siberia. Written by leading Russian experts and edited by scholars including the late Demitri Shimkin, the book presents the results of field studies conducted over some twenty-five years. It traces the routes of human migration throughout Eurasia, shows Siberian lithic industries as they evolved from the Early through the Middle and Late Paleolithic, and correlates them with reports from Mongolia, China, Japan, and America. "A major, singular contribution. . . . Several more geographically or temporally restricted texts exist, but none I've seen can match the breadth or depth of this massive work." -- John W. Olsen, coeditor of Paleoanthropology and Paleolithic Archaeology in the People's Republic of China "A much needed work marked by uniformly high scholarship and clear writing, this will be a standard reference of value for years to come." -- J. M. Adovasio, Mercyhurst Archaeological Institute and Archaeology Research Program, Mercyhurst College

This book presents the results and discussion of archaeofaunal studies which took place in the northern San Matias Gulf (Rio Negro Province) during the last six years, focussing on terrestrial mammals and birds. The general objective of this research is to determine what was the mode of operation of terrestrial vertebrates (small and big), and the importance that they had in the survival of human populations that occupied the coastline during the late Holocene (last 3000 years).

Of all the great kingdoms that flourished in Africa, the Kongo is one of the most famous. It remains an important historical and cultural reference for Africans and their diaspora. The KongoKing inter-university project (2012-2016), funded by the European Research Council, aimed, through an interdisciplinary approach, to understand the origin of the kingdom and to shed light on the phenomena of political centralization, economic integration and linguistic evolution that took place there. This book presents in detail the results of archaeological research carried out by the KongoKing project in the former northern provinces of the Kongo Kingdom, currently located in the Democratic Republic of Congo. | De tous les grands royaumes qui fleurirent en Afrique, le royaume Kongo est l'un des plus celebres. Il reste une reference historique et culturelle importante pour les Africains et leur diaspora. Entraines tres tot dans le commerce de traite, les esclaves originaires de la region font que du Bresil a New York, en passant par les Caraibes, la culture Kongo a laisse de nombreuses traces. Le projet interuniversitaire KongoKing (2012-2016), finance par le Conseil Europeen de la Recherche a ete coordonne par Koen Bostoen, tandis que Bernard Clist et Pierre de Maret en ont dirige le volet archeologique. Ce projet visait par une approche interdisciplinaire a comprendre l'origine du royaume et a eclairer les phenomenes de la centralisation politique, d'integration economique et d'evolution linguistique qui s'y sont deroules . Cet ouvrage presente de facon detaillee les resultats des recherches archeologiques menees par le projet KongoKing dans les anciennes provinces septentrionales du royaume Kongo, situees actuellement en Republique Democratique du Congo. Dans une premiere partie on presente le contexte general, l'evolution du milieu, l'histoire du groupe linguistique kikongo et ce que l'on sait des periodes qui precedent le royaume, ainsi que des informations recoltees dans diverses sources historiques sur ces provinces. Les prospections et fouilles des differents sites etudies sont ensuite presentees. Puis vient le bilan des recherches archeologiques avec une synthese des datations, une esquisse de la sequence chrono-culturelle de la poterie kongo et les etudes systematiques des differents types de vestiges recoltes. Pour conclure, on presente la synthese de l'ensemble de ces decouvertes et la facon dont celles-ci viennent completer les donnees issues des autres disciplines pour eclairer d'un jour nouveau l'histoire du royaume Kongo.

Bringing together the latest work on the Mesolithic in Scotland and Northern England, this is a fundamental re-assessment of early prehistory from the key researchers in the area. Based firmly on archaeological evidence from recent excavations, this important book also includes work on the environmental background.

In this fascinating and authoritative work, acclaimed science writer Virginia Morell brings to vivid life the famous and infamous Leakey family, pioneers in the field of paleoanthropology: Louis Leakey, the patriarch, who persisted through initial scientific failures and scandal-ridden divorce to achieve spectacular success in digs throughout East Africa; Mary, his second wife, who worked alongside Louis as they made their outstanding discoveries at Olduvai Gorge and elsewhere; and Richard, their son, who ascended to the top of the field in his parents' wake, only to be threatened with both near-fatal illness and fierce professional rivalry. Morell transports us into the world of these compelling personalities, demonstrating how a small clan of highly talented and fiercely competitive people came to dominate an entire field of science and to contribute immeasurably to our understanding of the origins of humanity.

This volume presents for the first time in the archaeological history of Greece a full and detailed analysis of the artifacts discovered in the course of a large-scale and intensive regional survey. It sets out the results of a ten-year study of tens of thousands of ceramic and lithic artifacts recovered in the course of the Argolid Exploration Project, an environmental and archaeological survey of the Argolid peninsula in southern Greece conducted by Stanford University.

Beginning over 10,000 years ago and continuing until the arrival of the Spanish in the 1500s, hunter and gatherer societies occupied the Edwards Plateau of central Texas. Archaeological studies over the past eighty years have reconstructed their subsistence, technology, and settlement patterns, but until now little information has been available on their burial practices, due to the scarcity of known burial sites. This detailed archaeological report describes the human skeletal remains, burial furnishings, and fauna recovered from Bering Sinkhole in Kerr County, the first carefully excavated hunter-gatherer burial site in central Texas.

The remains in Bering Sinkhole were deposited from 7,500 to 2,000 years ago. Leland Bement's analysis reveals a growing elaboration in burial rituals during the period and also uncovers important data on the diet and health of the hunter-gatherers. He discusses climate change based on faunal remains and compares burial goods such as bone, antler, freshwater shell, marine shell, turtle, and stone artifacts with those found at other Texas mortuary sites and with deposits at hunter-gatherer habitation sites in Central Texas.

The objective of this book is the reconsideration of the practices of personal adornment during the Neolithic period in Greece, through the assemblage, extensive bibliographic documentation, and critical evaluation of all the available data deriving from more than a hundred sites in the mainland and the Aegean islands -an archaeological archive of wide geographical and chronological scope. In addition, a thorough study of the personal ornament corpus from the Middle-Late Neolithic Dispilio in Kastoria, an important lakeside settlement in north-western Greece, was conducted. The book begins with an overview of the anthropological and archaeological literature on theoretical and methodological issues concerning practices of personal adornment. Then follows an examination of the problems and key points of study regarding personal adornment in Neolithic Greece, as well as a critical evaluation of the methodological approaches and classification schemes that have been applied in previous archaeological works. Subsequently, the technologies and processes of production, consumption, recycling, deposition, and distribution of personal ornaments in Neolithic Greece are discussed. Finally, the social correlates of personal adornment are explored, as they are reflected in the choice of different raw materials (shell, clay, bone, stone, and metal) and ornament types (beads, pendants, annulets, and so forth).

This volume concerns the bioanthropological analysis and the investigation of Second Iron Age (also known as the La Tene period: 470-25 BC) funerary practices in central Valais. More precisely, it deals with the study of two necropolises lately discovered in this mountainous region of southern Switzerland: Randogne-Bluche (excavated between 2001 and 2005) and Sion-Parking des Remparts (excavated in 2006). The matter of Second Iron Age funeral practices has been investigated since the late 19th century in Switzerland and has ever since yielded many exceptional finds. In archaeological terms, the research presented in this work introduces a consistent summary of the current archaeological and historiographical state of knowledge regarding Second Iron Age funeral practices in southern Switzerland. | Etude paleoanthropologique et analyse des rituels funeraires de deux sites lateniens valaisans : Randogne - Bluche et Sion - Parking des Remparts porte sur l'analyse bioanthropologique et l'etude des rituels funeraires lateniens en Valais central. Plus precisement, elle traite des ensembles funeraires de Randogne - Bluche (fouille entre 2001 et 2005) et de Sion - Parking des Remparts (fouille en 2006). Le premier objectif de cette etude a consiste a attribuer une identite et des caracteristiques biologiques aux individus inhumes au sein de ces deux ensembles. Ensuite, il s'est agi de caracteriser ces deux ensembles funeraires par leur insertion au cadre geographique et archeologique, de s'interesser a leur organisation chronologique et spatiale et a l'architecture des sepultures, ainsi qu'aux positions d'inhumation, de meme qu'au mobilier funeraire present. Par la suite, nous avons developpe une vision comparative de ces deux ensembles funeraires, avant de finalement les confronter a l'integralite du corpus funeraire latenien actuellement connu pour le Valais central et ainsi chercher a proposer une vision synthetique de la question.

The year 1066 has been regarded traditionally as a great divide in English history, an apparent break with the past which has gained even greater status recently as historians have pushed back the origins of English society to earlier and earlier medieval generations. Further than 1066 it is difficult to go, for this marks the point beyond which the English peasantry cannot be identified from written sources. Archaeology, however, concerned as it is mainly with small farms and simple town dwellings, has yielded a wealth of data on life in pre-Conquest England, opening a vista on the Anglo-Saxon peasantry, the Anglo-Saxon state and the Anglo-Saxon social and economic structure as a whole which alters radically our perspective of England's past. In this book Dr Hodges draws on the growing archaeological record to trace the genesis of English Culture right back to King Alfred, and even to the Anglo-Saxon migrations that followed the end of Roman occupation. In a profound analysis of what gave the English their individuality he offers a new assessment of the achievements of the first millennium, showing that a more of less continuous line connects the age of Bede with the Industrial Revolution.

It was in the second half of the first millennium A.D. that northern Europe took on the basic configuration that it now presents. Recently a wealth of new archaeological evidence has emerged to enable historians to assess the growth of international trade and the evolution of towns in this crucial period. This book analyses models of economic evelopment in the light of this new evidence to evaluate not only the changing character of the first post-Roman urban centers but also the organization of the countryside which supported them. Boat remains, coins and trade artifacts are all examined. Finally, a general account is offered of the role of towns and trade in the creation of Western Europe. This is the first synthesis of its kind for the medieval period, and confirms the importance of archaeology as a major source of evidence for an understanding of the economic history of the Dark Ages.

Scientists have long speculated on the impact of extreme natural catastrophes on human societies. Archeology and Volcanism in Central America provides dramatic evidence of the effects of several volcanic disasters on a major civilization of the Western Hemisphere, that of the Maya. During the past 2,000 years, four volcanic eruptions have taken place in the Zapotitan Valley of southern El Salvador. One, the devastating eruption of Ilopango around A.D. 300, forced a major migration, pushing the Mayan people north to the Yucatan Peninsula. Although later eruptions did not have long-range implications for cultural change, one of the subsequent eruptions preserved the Ceren site-a Mesoamerican Pompeii where the bodies of the villagers, the palm-thatched roofs of their houses, the pots of food in their pantries, even the corn plants in their fields were preserved with remarkable fidelity. Throughout 1978, a multidisciplinary team of anthropologists, archeologists, geologists, biologists, and others sponsored by the University of Colorado's Protoclassic Project researched and excavated the results of volcanism in the Zapotitan Valley-a key Mesoamerican site that contemporary political strife has since rendered inaccessible. The result is an outstanding contribution to our understanding of the impact of volcanic eruptions on early Mayan civilization. These investigations clearly demonstrate that the Maya inhabited this volcanically hazardous valley in order to reap the short-term benefits that the volcanic ash produced-fertile soil, fine clays, and obsidian deposits.

Among Mesoamericanists, the agricultural basis of the ancient Maya civilization of the Yucatan Peninsula has been an important topic of research—and controversy. Interest in the agricultural system of the Maya greatly increased as new discoveries showed that the lowland Maya were not limited to slash-and-burn technology, as had been previously believed, but used a variety of more sophisticated agricultural techniques and practices, including terracing, raised fields, and, perhaps, irrigation. Because of the nature of the data and because this form of agricultural technology had been key to explanations of state formation elsewhere in Mesoamerica, raised-field agriculture became a particular focus of investigation. Pulltrouser Swamp conclusively demonstrates the existence of hydraulic, raised-field agriculture in the Maya lowlands between 150 B.C. and A.D. 850. It presents the findings of the University of Oklahoma's Pulltrouser SwampProject, an NSF-supported interdisciplinary study that combined the talents of archaeologists, anthropologists, geographers, paleobotanists, biologists, and zoologists to investigate the remains of the Maya agricultural system in the swampy region of northern Belize. By examining soils, fossil pollen and other plant remains, gastropods, relic settlements, ceramics, lithics, and other important evidence, the Pulltrouser Swamp team has clearly demonstrated that the features under investigation are relics of Maya-made raised and channelized fields and associated canals. Other data suggest the nature of the swamps in which the fields were constructed, the tools used for construction and cultivation, the possible crops cultivated, and at least one type of settlement near the fields, with its chronology. This verification of raised fields provides dramatic evidence of a large and probably organized workforce engaged in sophisticated and complex agricultural technology. As record of this evidence, Pulltrouser Swamp is a work of seminal importance for all students and scholars of New World prehistory.

A major problem confronting archeologists is how to determine the function of ancient stone tools. In this important work, Lawrence H. Keeley reports on his own highly successful course of research into the uses of British Paleolithic flint implements. His principal method of investigation, known as "microwear analysis," was the microscopic examination of traces of use left on flint implements in the form of polishes, striations, and breakage patterns.
The most important discovery arising from Keeley's research was that, at magnifications of 100x to 400x, there was a high correlation between the detailed appearance of microwear polishes formed on tool edges and the general category of material worked by that edge. For example, different and distinctive types of microwear polish were formed during use on wood, bone, hide, meat, and soft plant material. These correlations between microwear polish and worked material were independent of the method of use (cutting, sawing, scraping, and so on). In combining evidence of polish type with other traces of use, Keeley was able to make precise reconstructions of tool functions. This book includes the results of a "blind test" of Keeley's functional interpretations which revealed remarkable agreement between the actual and inferred use of the tools tested.
Keeley applied his method of microwear analysis to artifacts from three excavation sites in Britain--Clacton-on-the-sea, Swanscombe, and Hoxne. His research suggests new hypotheses concerning such Paleolithic problems as inter-assemblage variability, the function of Acheulean hand axes, sidescrapers, and chopper-cores and points the way to future research in Stone Age studies.

This book provides an overview of the sites of Mycenaean pottery finds in Egypt and Nubia. Data from thirty-six sites in Egypt and twelve sites in Nubia are presented. The context of the vessels and sherds dates from the reign of Akhenaten (18th Dynasty) to that of Ramesses VI (20th Dynasty). The imported vessels were found in the capital cities as well as in fortresses, other cities and tombs. Stirrup jars and flasks came to light frequently. Copies of Mycenaean stirrup jars made from clay, faience and stone were also found. The oldest sherd of an imitation vessel was found in Amarna; hence, the Mycenaean vessel shape (stirrup jar prevailing) was copied outside of Mycenaean Greece in the 18th Dynasty and filled with local liquids-possibly oil-and traded with Egypt. Egyptians not only imported vessels from the Levant but also produced imitation vessels themselves. Apparently, these vessels circulated only within Egypt. Chemical analyses of sherds from different sites reveal that the vessels found in 18th Dynasty contexts were made on the Mycenaean mainland. During the Ramesside period (19th-20th Dynasty) trading contacts with Mycenaean Greece shifted to Cyprus, where high quality Mycenaean pottery was produced.

Salento is a peninsula in Southern Italy, the heel of the Italian boot, characterised both by an abundance of Middle Palaeolithic sites and a scarcity of raw material suitable for knapping. The research question at the basis of this book concerns the managing of raw materials by Neanderthals, through both the procurement and use of the locally available raw materials and the exploitation of possibly more distant sources. | Le Salento est une peninsule du sud de l'Italie, le talon de la botte italienne, caracterisee a la fois par l'abondance des sites du Paleolithique moyen et par une penurie des matieres premieres propres a la taille. La question de recherche a la base de ce livre concerne la gestion des matieres premieres par les Neandertaliens, a travers l'approvisionnement et l'utilisation des matieres premieres disponibles localement et l'exploitation eventuelle de sources plus eloignees.