This is the first book to present a comprehensive review of the archaeology of Syria from the end of the Paleolithic period to 300 BC. Syria has become a prime focus of field archaeology in the Middle East in the past thirty years, and Peter Akkermans and Glenn Schwartz discuss the results of this intensive fieldwork, integrating them with earlier research. Alongside the major material culture types of each period, they examine important contributions of Syrian archaeology to issues like the onset of agriculture, the emergence of private property and social inequality, the rise and collapse of urban life, and the archaeology of early empires. All competing interpretations are set out and considered, alongside the authors’ own perspectives and conclusions.

Archaeological research in Sweden and Denmark has uncovered a startling array of evidence over the last 150 years, but until now there has been no comprehensive synthesis and interpretation of the material. An Ethnography of the Neolithic bridges this gap, giving an accessible and up-to-date analysis of a wide range of evidence, from landscapes to monumental tombs to portable artifacts. Christopher Tilley also uses this material as a basis for a provocative and novel reconstruction of late Mesolithic and earlier Neolithic societies in southern Scandinavia, over a period of 3,000 years. His skilful integration of archaeological evidence with new anthropological approaches makes this book an original contribution to an important topic, whose significance stretches outside Scandinavia, and beyond the Neolithic.

Obsidian-bearing sites spanning the temporal framework of the Palaeolithic and located in Africa and Europe are analysed in this volume with the aim of elucidating the evolution of modern social behaviour. Obsidian is a rock that forms only under very special conditions; its geological sources are infrequent and distinguished from each other on the basis of unique chemical properties. As such it is possible to reconstruct the distances of its movement and use these data to infer the scale of social life during the Palaeolithic. A strong correlation between obsidian use and long distances is observed implying that the hominins involved in the circulation of the specific material were behaving in a socially modern way.

This book uses comparative island archaeology to reinterpret a vital phase in early Aegean history. Cyprian Broodbank presents the first modern analysis of Cycladic culture, tracing the development of Neolithic and Early Bronze Age societies in these islands from first colonisation through to incorporation, three millennia later, in the world system of the Minoan palaces and the wider Near East. The archaeology of this region is rich and well documented, and allows Dr Broodbank to reformulate early Cycladic history and to deploy detailed examples that challenge established approaches to island archaeology. He shows that islanders can actively define their cultural space and environments, and that their communities are linked by complex relations to the non-insular world. This book provides fresh perspectives and challenges for island archaeologists and Mediterranean specialists.Winner of the James R. Wiseman Book Award 2003 and the Runciman Award 2001.

Man and Bird in the Palaeolithic of Western Europe considers the nature of the interaction between birds and hunter-gatherers. It examines aspects of avian behaviour and the qualities that could be (and were) targeted at different periods by hunter-gatherers, who recognised the utility of the diversity of avian groups in various applications of daily life and thought. It is clear from the records of excavated sites in western Europe that during the evolution of both the Neanderthal period and the subsequent occupations of Homo sapiens, avian demographics fluctuated with the climate along with other aspects of both flora and fauna. Each was required to adapt to these changes. The present study considers these changes through the interactions of man and bird as evidenced in the remains attached to Middle and Upper Palaeolithic occupation sites in western Europe and touches on a variety of prey/predator relationships across other groups of plant and animal species. The book describes a range of procurement strategies that are known from the literature and artistic record of later cultures to have been used in the trapping, enticement and hunting of birds for consumption and the manufacture of weapons, domestic items, clothing, ceremony and cultural activities. It also explores how bird images and depictions engraved or painted on the walls of caves or on the objects of daily use during the Upper Palaeolithic may be perceived as communications of a more profound significance for the temporal, seasonal or social life of the members of the group than the simple concept of animal. Certain bird species have at different times held a special significance in the everyday consciousness of particular peoples and a group of Late Glacial, Magdalenian settlements in Aquitaine, France, appear to be an example of such specialised culling. A case study of the treatment of snowy owl at Arancou in the Atlantic Pyrenees seems to illustrate such a specialisation. Discussion of the problems of reconciling dating and research methods, of the last two hundred years of Palaeolithic research, and of possible directions for future research offer an open conclusion to the work.

Two decades of strontium isotope research on Neolithic European burials - reinforced by high-profile ancient DNA studies - has led to widespread interpretations that these were patrilocal societies, implying significant residential mobility for women. The Not Very Patrilocal European Neolithic questions that narrative from a social anthropological perspective on kinship. It introduces models for inferring residence and descent with isotope and genetic data and provides in-depth descriptions of archaeological kinship analysis. From social anthropological insights to reassessments of data, an alternative perspective on the social dynamics of Neolithic European societies emerges from this new guide for prehistorians working with biological and archaeological materials.

The European Bronze Age, roughly 2500 to 750 BC, was the last fully prehistoric period and crucial to the formation of the Europe emerging in the later first millennium BC. This book provides a detailed account of its material culture, comparing and contrasting evidence from different geographical zones, and drawing out the essential characteristics of the period. It looks at settlement, burial, economy, technology, trade and transport, warfare, and social and religious life. The result is a comprehensive study that will interest specialists and students, and be accessible to nonspecialists.

This innovative study analyzes the great cultural and economic changes occurring in the Near East between 10,000 and 7,000 BC as Palaeolithic societies of hunter-gatherers gave way to village communities of Neolithic food-producers. Challenging the orthodox, materialist interpretations, and drawing on French theories of mentalities, Jacques Cauvin argues that the Neolithic revolution must be understood as an intellectual transformation, revealing itself above all in symbolic activities. He describes the emergence of the first agricultural villages, pastoralism and nomadism, and the diffusion of Neolithic ideas and practice to the region's periphery.

Palaeolithic societies have been a neglected topic in the discussion of human origins. But in the past forty years archaeologists have recovered a wealth of information from Palaeolithic sites throughout the European continent that reveal many illuminating facets of social life over this 500,000-year period. Clive Gamble, introducing a new approach to this material, interrogates the data for information on the scale of social interaction, and the forms of social existence. The result is a reconstruction of ancient human societies, and a fresh perspective on the unique experience of human beings.

Ground Stone Tools and Past Foodways brings together a selection of papers presented at the 3rd meeting of the Association of Ground Stone Tools Research, which was held at the University of Copenhagen in 2019. Ground stone artefacts are one of the most enduring classes of material culture: first used by Palaeolithic gatherer-hunters, they are still used regularly by people in many parts of the world to grind, mash and pulverize plants, meat and minerals. As such, ground stone artefacts provide a well preserved record at the nexus of interaction between humans, plants and animals. The papers in this volume focus especially on the relationship between ground stone artefacts and foodways and include archaeological and ethnographic case studies ranging from the Palaeolithic to the current era, and geographically from Africa to Europe and Asia. They reflect the current state of the art in ground stone tool research and highlight the many ways in which foodways can be studied through holistic examinations of ground stone artefacts.

The Iberians inhabited southern and eastern Spain between the Greek and Phoenician colonization beginning in the eight century BC and the Roman conquest. This was a period of urban growth, and the adoption of ideological symbols and technological innovations from the colonists created an important and unique Iron Age culture. The Archaeology of the Iberians is an up-to-date, theoretically informed synthesis of what is now known about the world of the Iberians and a fascinating case study of change within a specific complex society.

The contribution of Neandertals to the biological and cultural emergence of early modern humans remains highly debated in anthropology. Particularly controversial is the long-held view that Neandertals in Western Europe were replaced 30,000 to 40,000 years ago by early modern humans expanding out of Africa. This book contributes to this debate by exploring the diets and foraging patterns of both Neandertals and early modern humans. Eugene Morin examines the faunal remains from Saint-Cesaire in France, which contains an exceptionally long and detailed chronological sequence, as well as genetic, anatomical and other archaeological evidence to shed new light on the problem of modern human origins.

Gender in African Prehistory provides methods and theories for delineating and discussing prehistoric gender relations and their change through time. Sites studied range from Egypt to South Africa and Ghana to Tanzania, while time periods span the Stone Age to the period just prior to colonialization.

Globalization in Prehistory challenges traditional historical and archaeological discourse about the drivers of social and cultural connectivity in the ancient world. It presents archaeological case studies of emerging globalization from around the word, from the Mesolithic period, through the Bronze and Iron Ages, to more recent historical times. The volume focuses on those societies and communities that history has bypassed - nomads, pastoralists, fishers, foragers, pirates and traders, among others. It aims for a more complex understanding of the webs of connectivity that shaped communities living outside and beyond the urban, agrarian states that are the mainstay of books and courses on ancient civilizations and trade. Written by a team of international experts, the rich and variable case studies demonstrate the important role played by societies that were mobile and dispersed in the making of a more connected world long before the modern era.

This book presents a theoretically informed, up-to-date study of interactions between indigenous peoples of Mediterranean France and Etruscan, Greek, and Roman colonists during the first millennium BC. Analyzing archaeological data and ancient texts, Michael Dietler explores these colonial encounters over six centuries, focusing on material culture, urban landscapes, economic practices, and forms of violence. He shows how selective consumption linked native societies and colonists and created transformative relationships for each. "Archaeologies of Colonialism" also examines the role these ancient encounters played in the formation of modern European identity, colonial ideology, and practices, enumerating the problems for archaeologists attempting to re-examine these past societies.

Studies on the Palaeolithic of Western Eurasia presents the papers from Sessions XVII-4 and XVII-6 of the 18th UISPP World congress (Paris, June 2018). The geographic areas discussed in the Session 4, Central and Eastern Europe, are prehistorically strongly articulated, their cultural successions are highly similar, and they share several common archaeological issues for investigation. The papers disseminate a wealth of archaeological data from Bavaria to the Russian Plain, and discuss Aurignacian, Gravettian, Epigravettian, and Magdalenian perspectives on lithic tool kits and animal remains. The papers of Session 6 are concerned with lithic raw material procurement in the Caucasus and in three areas of the Iberian peninsula.

The book draws on the evidence of landscape archaeology, palaeoenvironmental studies, ethnohistory and animal tracking to address the neglected topic of how we identify and interpret past patterns of movement in the landscape. It challenges the pessimism of previous generations which regarded prehistoric routes such as hollow ways as generally undatable. The premise is that archaeologists tend to focus on 'sites' while neglecting the patterns of habitual movement that made them part of living landscapes. Evidence of past movement is considered in a multi-scalar way from the individual footprint to the long distance path including the traces created in vegetation by animal and human movement. It is argued that routes may be perpetuated over long timescales creating landscape structures which influence the activities of subsequent generations. In other instances radical changes of axes of communication and landscape structures provide evidence of upheaval and social change. Palaeoenvironmental and ethnohistorical evidence from the American North West coast sets the scene with evidence for the effects of burning, animal movement, faeces deposition and transplantation which can create readable routes along which are favoured resources. Evidence from European hunter-gatherer sites hints at similar practices of niche construction on a range of spatial scales. On a local scale, footprints help to establish axes of movement, the locations of lost settlements and activity areas. Wood trackways likewise provide evidence of favoured patterns of movement and past settlement location. Among early farming communities alignments of burial mounds, enclosure entrances and other monuments indicate axes of communication. From the middle Bronze Age in Europe there is more clearly defined evidence of trackways flanked by ditches and fields. Landscape scale survey and excavation enables the dating of trackways using spatial relationships with dated features and many examples indicate long-term continuity of routeways. Where fields flank routeways a range of methods, including scientific approaches, provide dates. Prehistorians have often assumed that Ridgeways provided the main axes of early movement but there is little evidence for their early origins and rather better evidence for early routes crossing topography and providing connections between different environmental zones. The book concludes with a case study of the Weald of South East England which demonstrates that some axes of cross topographic movement used as droveways, and generally considered as early medieval, can be shown to be of prehistoric origin. One reason that dryland routes have proved difficult to recognise is that insufficient attention has been paid to the parts played by riverine and maritime longer distance communication. It is argued that understanding the origins of the paths we use today contributes to appreciation of the distinctive qualities of landscapes. Appreciation will help to bring about effective strategies for conservation of mutual benefit to people and wildlife by maintaining and enhancing corridors of connectivity between different landscape zones including fragmented nature reserves and valued places. In these ways an understanding of past routeways can contribute to sustainable landscapes, communities and quality of life.

Archaeological investigation ahead of residential development was undertaken on land adjacent to Upthorpe Road, Stanton between November 2013 and March 2014 by MOLA. The scope of these works was set out in a brief prepared by Suffolk County Council (Tipper 2011) and a WSI (NA 2011) and was undertaken in accordance with the National Planning Policy Framework (DCLG 2012, now MHCLG 2019). Prior evaluation of the development area had uncovered evidence for a Bronze Age ditch and a small number of undated burials (Brown and Yates 2011). Subsequent excavation revealed a significant archaeological site far in excess of what was expected. Over the course of the five-month long excavation, the remains of a prehistoric round barrow and a cemetery containing the remains of 67 inhumations with associated grave goods were carefully investigated. Subsequent post-excavation analysis has sought to place the discovery in its regional context and to expand what we know about the prehistoric remains for the area as well as the early origins of Stanton. This book documents the discovery of the site and the results of the detailed analysis of the archaeological features, skeletal assemblage and other artefacts. Includes contributions by Sander Aerts, Lyn Blackmore, Paul Blinkhorn, Esther Cameron, Andy Chapman, Steve Critchley, Val Fryer, Sue Harrington, Tora Hylton, Samantha Leggett, Estelle Praet, Adam Reid, Ina Vanden Berghe, and Yvonne Wolframm-Murray. Illustrations by Olly Dindol, Joanne Clawley and Izabela Jurkiewicz.

The exploration and colonisation of the Pacific is a remarkable episode of human prehistory. Early sea-going explorers had no prior knowledge of Pacific geography, no documents to record their route, no metal, no instruments for measuring time and none for exploration. Forty years of modern archaeology, experimental voyages in rafts, and computer simulations of voyages have produced an enormous range of literature on this controversial and mysterious subject. This book represents a major advance in knowledge of the settlement of the Pacific by suggesting that exploration was rapid and purposeful, undertaken systematically, and that navigation methods progressively improved. Using an innovative model to establish a detailed theory of navigation, Geoffrey Irwin claims that rather than sailing randomly downwind in search of the unknown, Pacific Islanders expanded settlement by the cautious strategy of exploring upwind, so as to ease their safe return. The author has tested this hypothesis against the chronological data from archaeological investigation, with a computer simulation of demographic and exploration patterns and by sailing throughout the region himself.

In the late spring some 13,000 years ago, the Laacher See volcano in present-day western Germany erupted. The area in the immediate vicinity of the volcano was completely destroyed, covering and preserving, Pompeii-like, a prehistoric landscape complete with traces of plant, animal and human activity. But what was the impact of this cataclysm on the Final Paleolithic hunter-gatherer communities that occupied nothern Europe at that time? This book presents a new take on the cultural evolution of these forager groups, seen in light of the Laacher See eruption. Rooted in a framework of vulnerability and resilience, the author makes a powerful and multidisciplinary argument for how the ecological and sociological consequences of the eruption led to, in particular, the emergence of the hitherto ill-understood Bromme culture that comes into existence in southern Scandinavia just after the eruption. The primary aim of this book is to integrate archaeology and volcanology in a better understanding of this remarkable episode of culture change in Europe's deep past. At the same time the author makes and argument that archaeological and historical studies of extreme event such as volcanic eruptions can and should play a greater role in historically informed, evidence-based decision making procedures in contemporary risk reduction policies.

Human understanding of time and space has been developing since the most primitive societies began to record an awareness of their history and environment. Grahame Clark, a distinguished prehistorian, describes that process and its extension with the emergence of technology, social organisation and the capacity for abstract thought. Moving from preliterate to civilised societies, he charts the various phases of transition, marked most notably by the growth of geographical discovery culminating in the circumnavigation of the earth, and the growth of a deeper, more critical view of human history. Our own period takes this fascinating account into the exploration of outer space and the search for an understanding of man's place in the cosmos.

Gudenus Cave summarises the author's 60 years of research (1962 to 2021) at the earliest human occupation site known in Austria. The cave had been excavated in 1883-84 without separation of sediment layers, and subsequent endeavours to clarify its stratigraphy and dating have failed. The book describes the strategies and methods of studying a Pleistocene cave site that had been regarded as fully excavated, and their long-term applications. A significant part of the fieldwork was conducted before 1967, but the use of analytical processes and literature review continued for several decades after that. Through sustained interrogation of the site's clear palynology and lithic typology, the volume succeeds in clarifying the cave's stratigraphical sequence and placing its several Palaeolithic occupations chronologically. This has significant effects on our understanding of the local Palaeolithic sequence that has been the subject of various controversies. These are discussed in the concluding chapter, which places Gudenus Cave first within its Austrian context and then into the wider picture. The book thus shows that intensive archaeological research can reinstate the scientific importance of a site even after it has been declared bereft of all sediment.

This report combines the data from previously recorded earthworks and excavations, with new observations of previously unexplained crop-marks to reasses settlement patterns in the watershed of the Bristol Avon River. The survey identifies several strands of evidence which suggest that the Bristol Avon Region has a distinctive character of settlement which distinguishes it from surrounding areas. The research indicates that the River Avon fulfilled a multiplicity of roles, providing boundaries, route ways, exchange zones and settlement foci for the various communities living within its watershed.

Hunebedden are the megalithic tombs of the Neolithic Funnel Beaker Culture in the Netherlands. Jan Albert Bakker is one of the few archaeologists in Holland to have excavated a Dutch megalithic tomb, and here he not only draws on and presents the knowledge acquired through excavations, but gives also an overview of the history of Dutch megalithic tomb investigations and an abundantly illustrated compendium of data on all the known megalithic tombs in Holland.