This book offers a series of studies focused on the analysis of stone tool technology of the Folsom Culture, bison-hunting inhabitants of the North American prairie grasslands during the terminal Pleistocene. Recent work on Folsom lithic assemblages has revealed considerable complexity in the factors that generated similarities and differences in Folsom chipped stone economy, beyond simply the manufacturing sequence and technique of fluting Folsom projectile points. The analyses presented here use comparative methods to identify patterns of lithic assemblage structure and variation that provide insights into the organization of Folsom technology and lifeways, considering multiple aspects of Folsom technology including: tool manufacture and reduction system modeling, studies of raw material variation, use-wear, technological variation in weaponry assemblages, and the organization of technology. They thus contribute substantially to a growing understanding of the patterns and processes in Folsom technology and the causes of diversity within Folsom lithic assemblages.

During the last few decades, there has been great interest in the problems of defining the extent and nature of kingship in the Mycenaean world. Questions concerning the degree of economic and religious power held by the king have been given special emphasis. This book surveys the conclusions drawn by individual scholars studying the Linear B tablets, contrasts their theories with our knowledge of the Mycenaean kingdoms as derived from the archaeological record, and finally compares this evidence with possible reflections in the oral tradition, specifically in the Iliad and Odyssey. This approach leads to the suggestion that the king in the Mycenaean period had only limited power over the society and its economy. Although the king appears to have controlled a large segment of the economy, it is argued here that other individuals and family groups within the kingdom also had a certain degree of economic independence.

In this book, Julia Guernsey examines the relationship between human figuration, fragmentation, bodily divisibility, personhood, and community in ancient Mesoamerica. Contending that representation of the human body in the pre-classic period gradually became a privileged act, she argues that human figuration as well as the fragmentation of both human representations and human bodies reveals ancient conceptualizations of personhood and the relationship of individual to the community. Considering ceramic figurines and stone sculpture together with archaeological data, Guernsey weaves together evidence and ideas drawn from art history, archaeology, and anthropology to construct a rich, cultural history of Mesoamerican practices of figuration and fragmentation. A methodologically innovative study, her book has ramifications for scholars working in Mesoamerica and, more generally, those interested in the significance of human representation.

An extensive review of the Mesolithic sites in the Iron Gates Gorge of the Danube River, between Yugoslavia and Romania. The important sites of Lepenski Vir, Vlasac, Padina, and Hajducka Vodenica are among the many covered in this comprehensive work, which includes much previously unpublished data. The author offers fundamental re-analyses and interpretations of stratigraphies, relative and absolute chronologies, architecture and settlement organization, the placement and styles of altars and sculptural elements, the chipped and polished stone industries, the bone and antler artifacts, the mortuary practices, ecology, and social organization of this remarkable archaeological culture. In conclusion, all of these materials, analyses, and interpretations are placed both within their broader, European archaeological context, and in an explicit theoretical framework. An important and thought-provoking work.

In this volume, Odell presents a detailed comparative analysis of standardized lithic data from 10 Illinois Valley components spanning 7500 years from the Early Archaic through the Mississippian perhaps the first time that such a comprehensive set of lithic variables has been analyzed for the entire Holocene of a region. A major part of this study constitutes the most extensive application of low-power lithic use-wear analysis to be found in the literature, accompanied by full discussion of the technique and a suite of new experimental data. The results provide significant information on prehistoric mobility and technological organization in mid-continental North America, revealing clearly for the first time a number of significant behavioral trends: e.g., an increase in the hafting of tools, economizing behavior in chert-poor areas, apparent change in projectile technology, changes in tool use intensity, and symboling behavior. These trends are supported by a massive set of easily accessible tables of data located in the appendix."

Since their initial discovery in the nineteenth century, the enigmatic prehistoric lake-dwellings of the Circum-Alpine region have captured the imagination of the public and archaeologists alike. Over 150 years of research have identified hundreds of lacustrine settlements spanning from the Neolithic to the Late Bronze Age, when apparently, they ceased to be built. Studies of Bronze Age material across Europe have often superficially identified bronze objects as being of 'Alpine lake-dwelling origin' or 'lake-dwelling style'. Through a combination of material culture studies, multiple correspondence analysis, and the principle of object biographies, the role of the Late Bronze Age lake-dwelling communities in Central European exchange networks is addressed. Were the lake-dwellers production specialists? Did they control material flow across the Alps? Did their participation in exchange routes result in cultural assimilation and the ultimate decline of their settlement tradition? Travelling Objects: Changing Values offers insights and answers to such questions.

Northumberland has a great many attractive sites that are well-recorded, and are frequently visited and written about. However, in this new book Dr Stan Beckensall focuses upon places that are off the beaten track, not so well known, but all of enormous interest for their stunning locations and stories. They are scattered across the county in the hills, valleys, scarplands and on the coast. Sites featured include locations off the 'Alemouth Road' from Hexham to Rothbury; hidden valleys and waterfalls at Linhope Spout, Roughting Linn and Hareshaw Linn; seascapes; abandoned settlements and industry centres; pilgrimage routes; graveyards, and the remarkable rock formations that make up much of the landscape. Northumberland hides some of its history in names, and these too are revealed. Throughout are the author's reflections on the significance of what is seen and known.

A series of papers by a wide range of authors from different countries and backgrounds focuses firmly on the question of the origin and development of social complexity, from the Neolithic through the Bronze Age, in Iberia writ large. A wide range of specific topics is covered with this specific focus, from results of field projects, laboratory analyses, and theoretical overviews.

"Prehistoric Europe: Theory and Practice" provides a comprehensive introduction to the range of critical contemporary thinking in the study of European prehistory.
Presents essays by some of the most dynamic researchers and leading European scholars in the field today
Ranges from the Neolithic period to the early stages of the Iron Age, and from Ireland and Scandinavia to the Urals and the Iberian Peninsula

In this worldwide survey, Clive Gamble explores the evolution of the human imagination, without which we would not have become a global species. He sets out to determine the cognitive and social basis for our imaginative capacity and traces the evidence back into deep human history. He argues that it was the imaginative ability to 'go beyond' and to create societies where people lived apart yet stayed in touch that made us such effective world settlers. To make his case Gamble brings together information from a wide range of disciplines: psychology, cognitive science, archaeology, palaeoanthropology, archaeogenetics, geography, quaternary science and anthropology. He presents a novel deep history that combines the archaeological evidence for fossil hominins with the selective forces of Pleistocene climate change, engages with the archaeogeneticists' models for population dispersal and displacement, and ends with the Europeans' rediscovery of the deep history settlement of the Earth.

Contributions by 37 scholars are brought together here to create a volume in honor of the long and fruitful career of Costis Davaras, former Ephor of Crete and Professor Emeritus of Minoan Archaeology at the University of Athens. Articles pertain to Bronze Age Crete and include mortuary studies, experimental archaeology, numerous artifactual studies, and discussions on the greater Minoan civilization.

Contributions by 34 scholars are brought together here to create a volume in honour of the long and fruitful career of Guenter Kopcke who is the Avalon Foundation Professor in the Humanities at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. Articles pertain to various topics on the ancient art, architecture, and archaeology of the greater Eastern Mediterranean region: from Pre-Dynastic Egypt to the Bronze Age Aegean and Anatolia, Cyprus and the Near East, and Etruscan Italy.

This book provides a general self-reflexive review and critical analysis of Scandinavian rock art from the standpoint of Chris Tilley’s research in this area over the last thirty years. It offers a novel alternative theoretical perspective stressing the significance of visual narrative structure and rhythm, using musical analogies, putting particular emphasis on the embodied perception of images in a landscape context. Part I reviews the major theories and interpretative perspectives put forward to understand the images, in historical perspective, and provides a critique discussing each of the main types of motifs occurring on the rocks. Part II outlines an innovative theoretical and methodological perspective for their study stressing sequence and relationality in bodily movement from rock to rock. Part III is a detailed case study and analysis of a series of rocks from northern Bohuslän in western Sweden. The conclusions reflect on the theoretical and methodological approach being taken in relation to the disciplinary practices involved in rock art research, and its future.

The people who inhabited Southwest Europe from 30,000 to 13,000 years ago are often portrayed as big game hunters - and indeed, in some locations (Cantabrian Spain, the Pyrenees, the Dordogne) the archaeological record supports this interpretation. But in other places, notably Mediterranean Iberia, the inhabitants focused their hunting efforts on smaller game, such as rabbits, fish, and birds. Were they less effective hunters? Were these environments depleted of red deer and other large game? Or is this evidence of Paleolithic people's adaptability? This volume explores these questions, along the way delving into the history of the "bigger equals better" assumption; optimal foraging theory and niche construction theory; and patterns of environmental and subsistence change across the Pleistocene-Holocene transition.

Clachtoll broch is one of the most spectacular Iron Age settlements on the northern mainland of Scotland. When it became clear that the structure was threatened by coastal erosion, community heritage group Historic Assynt launched a major programme of conservation and excavation works designed to secure the vulnerable structure and recover the archaeological evidence of its occupation and use. The resulting excavation provided evidence of a long and complex history of construction and rebuilding, with the final, middle Iron Age occupation phase ending in a catastrophic fire and collapse of the tower by the early years of the first century AD. The internal deposits span perhaps 50 years of the broch’s final occupation and were remarkably well preserved, with no evidence for secondary re-use or disturbance after the fire. As a result, the excavation provides a remarkable snapshot of life in Iron Age Scotland, with an artefact assemblage attesting to daily agricultural life as well as long-range contacts that sets the broch within a wider Atlantic community. Specialist analysis of the artefactual and palaeoenvironmental evidence coupled with detailed analysis of the structure in its local geographical context combine to provide a major new contribution to the archaeology of north-west Scotland, with wider implications for our understanding of late prehistoric society in northern Britain. This report comprises the results of the archaeological investigations at Clachtoll, compiled by a team of archaeologists and specialists from AOC Archaeology Group, and brings together evidence from a range of specialist analyses as well as environmental and landscape investigations.

Walter Benjamin observed that it is precisely the modern which conjures up prehistory. From Yanagita's 'mountain people' to Umehara's 'Jomon civilisation', Japan has been an especially resonant site of prehistories imagined in response to modernity. Conjuring Up Prehistory: Landscape and the Archaic in Japanese Nationalism looks at how archaeology and landscapes of the archaic have been used in Japanese nationalism since the early twentieth century, focusing on the writings of cultural historian Tetsuro Watsuji, philosopher Takeshi Umehara and environmental archaeologist Yoshinori Yasuda. It is argued that the Japanese nationalist project has been mirrored by the continuing influence of broader Romantic ideas in Japanese archaeology, especially in Jomon studies.

The present publication attempts to make the collection of Prehistoric Aegean and Near Eastern bronzes in the National Museum of Denmark known to scholars in the field. The catalogue contains all Aegean metals kept in the Department of Ancient Cultures of Denmark and the Mediterrenean. In the section on the Near Eastern metals, bronzes from Hama, however, are not included. Except for that, all metal objects from the Near East dated before 1000 BC are found in the catalogue.

This book is the first of a two-volume final report on the excavation of the Minoan cemetery and associated finds at Livari Skiadi in the south-eastern end of Crete. This volume deals with the excavation of the site and its architecture, pottery, and other small finds, dating to the Prepalatial, Neopalatial, and Late Hellenistic/Early Roman periods.

Cultural evolution, much like general evolution, works from the assumption that cultures are descendent from much earlier ancestors. Human culture manifests itself in forms ranging from the small bands of hunters, through intermediate scale complex hunter-gatherers and farmers, to the high density urban settlements and complex polities that characterize much of today's world. The chapters in the volume examine the dynamic interaction between the micro- and macro-scales of cultural evolution, developing a theoretical approach to the archaeological record that has been termed evolutionary processual archaeology. The contributions in this volume integrate positive elements of both evolutionary and processualist schools of thought. The approach, as explicated by the contributors in this work, offers novel insights into topics that include the emergence, stasis, collapse and extinction of cultural patterns, and development of social inequalities. Consequently, these contributions form a stepping off point for a significant new range of cultural evolutionary studies.

Gwithian, on the north coast of Cornwall, is a multiperiod archaeological site. Excavations by Charles Thomas in the mid-twentieth century provided evidence of human activity from the Mesolithic to the post-medieval period. The present work explores the palaeoenvironment of the area around the settlement sites, from the Neolithic, when sand dunes initially developed in the Red River valley, to the present post-industrial landscape. Multiproxy analyses on sediments from coring, a test pit and mollusc columns provide a view of the changing landscape and how it may have influenced, or been influenced by, human presence and settlement. Mollusc studies are used as the principal analytical method. Multiple radiocarbon and optically stimulated luminesce dates permit these changes to be studied on a tighter time frame than was previously possible. Mining activity from the Bronze Age to the present is explored using fine-resolution geochemistry. Dating allows the timing of the extinction and introduction of some mollusc species to be refined.

Britain's leading expert on stone circles turns his attention to the greatest example of them all - Stonehenge. Every aspect of Stonehenge is re-considered in Aubrey Burl's new analysis. He explains for the first time how the outlying Heel Stone long predates Stonehenge itself, serving as a trackway marker in the prehistoric Harroway. He uncovers new evidence that the Welsh bluestones were brought to Stonehenge by glaciation rather than by man. And he reveals just how far the design of Stonehenge was influenced by Breton styles and by Breton cults of the dead. Meticulously research sets the record straight on the matter of Stonehenge's astronomical alignments. Although the existence of a sightline to the midsummer sunrise is well known, the alignment and the viewing-position are different from popular belief. And the existence of an earlier alignment to the moon and a later one to the midwinter sunset has been largely unrealized. One almost unexplained puzzle remains. The site of Stonehenge lies at the heart of a vast six-mile wide graveyard, but before it was built there appears to have been a mysterious gap two miles across on that site.Burl argues that earlier totem-pole style constructions served a ceremonial purpose for the living - to celebrate success in the hunt.

Since the eighteenth century, the concept of prehistory was exported by colonialism to far parts of the globe and applied to populations lacking written records. Prehistory in these settings came to represent primitive people still living in a state without civilization and its foremost index, literacy. Yet, many societies outside the Western world had developed complex methods of history making and documentation, including epic poetry and the use of physical and mental mnemonic devices. Even so, the deeply engrained concept of prehistory-deeply entrenched in European minds up to the beginning of the twenty-first century-continues to deny history and historical identify to peoples throughout the world. The fourteen essays, by notable archaeologists of the Americas, Africa, Europe, and Asia, provide authoritative examples of how the concept of prehistory has diminished histories of other cultures outside the West and how archaeologists can reclaim more inclusive histories set within the idiom of deep histories-accepting ancient pre-literate histories as an integral part of the flow of human history.

This is an account of the Neolithic period in Scotland from its earliest traces around 4000 BC to the transformation of Neolithic society in the Early Bronze Age fifteen hundred years later. Gordon Noble inteprets Scottish material in the context of debates and issues in European archaeology, comparing sites and practices identified in Scotland to those found elsewhere in Britain and beyond. He considers the nature and effects of memory, sea and land travel, ritualisation, island identities, mortuary practice, symbolism and environmental impact. He synthesises excavations and research conducted over the last century and more, bringing together the evidence for understanding what happened in Scotland during this long period. His long-term and regionally based analysis suggests new directions for the interpretation of the Neolithic more generally. After outlining the chronology of the Neolithic in Europe Dr Noble considers its origins in Scotland. He investigates why the Earlier Neolithic in Scotland is characterised by regionally-distinct monumental traditions and asks if these reflect different conceptions of the world. He uses a long-term perspective to explain the nature of monumental landscapes in the Later Neolithic and considers whether Neolithic society as a whole might have been created and maintained through interactions at places where large-scale monuments were built. He ends by considering how the Neolithic was transformed in the Early Bronze Age through the manipulation of the material remains of the past. Neolithic Scotland provides a comprehensive, approachable and up-to-date account of the Scottish Neolithic. Such a book has not been available for many years. It will be widely welcomed.

Human settlement has often centered around coastal areas and waterways. Until recently, however, archaeologists believed that marine economies did not develop until the end of the Pleistocene, when the archaeological record begins to have evidence of marine life as part of the human diet. This has long been interpreted as a postglacial adaptation, due to the rise in sea level and subsequent decrease in terrestrial resources. Coastal resources, particularly mollusks, were viewed as fallback resources, which people resorted to only when terrestrial resources were scarce, included only as part of a more complex diet.

Recent research has significantly altered this understanding, known as the Broad Spectrum Revolution (BSR) model. The contributions to this volume revise the BSR model, with evidence that coastal resources were an important part of human economies and subsistence much earlier than previously thought, and even the main focus of diets for some Pleistocene and early Holocene hunter-gatherer societies.

With evidence from North and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia, this volume comprehensively lends a new understanding to coastal settlement from the Middle Paleolithic to the Middle Holocene.