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.

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.

Initially, the aim of this study was to examine technological, cognitive and symbolic aspects of metallurgy in southern Norway in the Bronze Age, i.e. 1700-500 cal. BC. To contextualize and understand the Norwegian data material, the scope was soon widened geographically as well as chronologically. As a result, evidence from the whole Nordic region has been considered and the time frame extended to the beginning of the Late Neolithic, i.e. c. 2400 cal. BC. In unexpected ways, the investigation ended up as an exploration of ideas, ideas belonging to the present as well as ideas belonging to the past. Basically, two sets of ideas are scrutinized: 1) ideas that have governed and still govern archaeological concepts of the Bronze Age, and 2) ideas that moulded Bronze Age mentality, arising, it is argued, from physical experience with metallurgy. In keeping with this, the 'webs of significance' - a phrase borrowed from Clifford Geertz (1973) - are to be understood as, on the one hand, the changing scientific discourses within which current archaeological ideas about Bronze Age metallurgy have evolved, and on the other, the prehistoric contexts and relations which gave meaning to metallurgy in the Bronze Age.

The aim of this work was to examine land-use and settlement on the Berkshire Downs from the Bronze Age to the end of the Romano-British period. Earlier research in this region had presented a landscape history that was in contrast to elsewhere on the Wessex chalklands and rather than a land that grew organically over 2.5 millennia, the area is seen as one which was sporadically occupied, worked, and possibly abandoned. In the west of the region late Bronze Age linear ditches mark a major reorganization in the scale of the landscape, but only a small number of contemporary settlements are known, and field systems appear to be absent. This is followed by an apparent hiatus until the establishment of organised farming communities in the Romano-British period engaged in large-scale cereal production. In the east, Segsbury Camp is seen to signal the emergence of early Iron Age occupation into an area of previously unoccupied and unused land, with later settlement on the Downs continuing into the late Iron Age. Beyond this period little is known and the fragmentary field systems in this region remain undated. It is proposed that these interpretations are illusory, created by large-scale Romano-British arable expansion in the west masking earlier occupation, and post Roman land-use in the east destroying upstanding monuments and creating a bias in our interpretation. Today, these former landscapes, some of which survived into the 20th century, are mostly plough-levelled. As such, further understanding lies beyond the limit of many conventional fieldwork methods. A multi-disciplinary approach was used to rebuild this landscape. Aerial transcription from the National Mapping Programme is used to provide a view of the landscape before its destruction through modern agriculture, while maps and documents, lidar, woodland survey, geophysics and metal detected finds are used to create a theoretical account of activity across this region.

Archaeobotanical investigation was conducted on a total of thirty two thousand (n=32,000) pot fragments, baked clay and fired clay collected from different sites belonging to five Cultural Groups in Eastern Sudan. The Cultural Groups include Amm Adam, Butana, Gash, Jebel Mokram, and Hagiz. Soil samples (6 kilos) were also analyzed from various excavation spots at Mahal Teglinos, a major site that rendered data on Butana, Gash, Jebel Mokram and Hagiz Groups. The objective of the study was to reconstruct ancient food systems of the pre-historic inhabitants of a region of Northeast Africa and its environmental milieu. The result of the study demonstrated the subsistence bases of the inhabitants from ca. 6,000 B.C. to 200/300 A.D. Crops like the small seeded millets (Setaria sp., Eleusine sp., Paspalum sp., Echinochloa sp., Pennisetum sp.), Sorghum verticilliflorum, Sorghum bicolor bicolor, Hordeum sp., Triticum monococcum/dicoccum, and seeds and fruit stones (Vigna unguiculata, Grewia bicolor Juss., Ziziphus sp. (mainly Ziziphus spina christi) and Celtis integrifolia) were cultivated for consumption during this period. The study has also shed new light on the domestication history of Sorghum bicolor. The wild Sorghum, Sorghum bicolor verticilliflorum and its cultivated variety, Sorghum bicolor were simultaneously exploited by the Jebel Mokram Group people between 2,000 B.C. and 1,000 B.C. One of the oldest domesticated morphotype of Sorghum bicolor, i.e. an intermediary phase between the wild progenitor and its domesticated variety was revealed by the same investigation. Morphological change that has occurred while the species was evolving from wild to cultivated is measured using a Leica Qwin software.

This research focuses on the Bronze Age in selected areas of Korea; Seoul, Incheon, and Gyeonggi province. Two forms of evidence - settlements and monuments - are taken into account to identify their relationship with landscape and the social changes occurring between ca. 1500 to 400 cal BC. Life and death in the Bronze Age in Korea has not been synthetically investigated before, due to the lack of evidence from settlements. However, since academic and rescue excavations have increased, it is now possible to examine the relationship between settlements and monuments on a broad scale and over a long-term sequence, although there are still limitations in the archaeological evidence. The results of GIS (Geographical Information System) analysis and Bayesian modelling of the radiocarbon dates from this region can be interpreted as suggesting that Bronze Age people in the mid-Korean peninsula had certain preferences for their habitation and mortuary places. The locations of two archaeological sites were identified and statistical significance was generated for their positioning on soil that was associated with agriculture. It was found that settlements tended to be located at a higher elevation with fine views and that monuments tended to be situated in the border zones between mountains and plains and also within the boundary of a 5km site catchment adjusted for energy expenditure, centring on each settlement. This configuration is reminiscent of the concept of the auspicious location, as set out in the traditional geomantic theory of Pungsu. It can be argued that Bronze Age people chose the place for the living and the dead with a holistic perspective and a metaphysical approach that placed human interaction with the natural world at the centre of their decision-making processes. These concepts were formed out of the process of a practical adaptation to the Bronze Age landscape and environment in order to practice agriculture as a subsistence economy, but they also exerted a profound influence upon later Korean peoples and their identities.

The 150th anniversary of the discovery of the famous Neanderthal fossils gave reason for an international and interdisciplinary symposium in Bonn/Germany. The present book arose from this congress and focuses on multiple aspects of archaeological investigation on Neanderthal lifeways. In-depth studies of top-ranking scientists provide a detailed and comprehensive survey of contemporary research on our Pleistocene relatives. Examinations and debates are embedded in a variety of regions and time frames. Chronology, subsistence, land use, and cultural adaptations among late Neanderthals form the major trajectories of the book. The wide range of approaches involved, leads to an increasing understanding of the facets of and the variability of Neanderthal behavioural patterns. The present volume is complemented by a paleontologically orientated publication of the same congress (edited by Gerd-Christian Weniger and Silvana Condemi).

Bronze Age metalwork has always caught the interest of archaeologists, largely due to the very large volume and variety of objects that is still being recovered on an almost daily basis. Regional catalogues have been repeatedly undertaken in an attempt to manage the sheer wealth of data and analyse the implications. In 1983, one Susan Pearce published such a study of south western Britain (BAR 120, 1983), contributing a catalogue of 896 find spots. This discussion embraced the wider understanding of metalworking in the region, how this fitted with traditions across the rest of the country and the European continent, and how the metalwork was integrated into prehistoric society. This volume is intended to bring the 1983 corpus of south western Bronze Age metalwork finds up to date by documenting finds made in the four counties between January 1980 and July 2014.The intention here is not to undertake a full re-examination of the south western metalwork and its context - such a discussion is beyond the confines of this publication - but instead to suggest some of the broad parameters within which such a discussion might take place, and to point to several key themes that have become prominent in Bronze Age studies since 1983 and to some that remain relatively underexplored. A digital copy of the 1983 corpus has been included on CD as part of this publication to allow access to the complete collection of find spots in south western Britain.

In 2002-2003, the construction of a new road to bypass the village of Toomebridge, Co Antrim, through which the main Belfast to Derry Road (A6) passed, was commenced by Roads Service; an Agency within the Department of Regional Development. As part of the overall planning permission for the Toomebridge Bypass, the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) raised a requirement for archaeological mitigation. Northern Archaeological Consultancy Ltd was appointed to undertake the archaeological excavation of this site. In the course of topsoil stripping a small drumlin on part of the road scheme 2,100 flint artefacts were uncovered. While the majority (approximately 70%) of these dated from the Late Mesolithic, the Earlier Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age periods were also represented. Archaeology was uncovered on the western side of the drumlin. It formed 14 discrete areas (Features 1-14). The features were for the most part structures and ranged in date from the Mid-Mesolithic (Features 1-4), through the Late Mesolithic (Features 5-8), the Bronze Age (Features 9-11), and the late Bronze Age or Iron Age (Feature 13) and the 19th to 20th centuries (Feature 14).

The Neolithic period is noted primarily for the change from hunter-gatherer societies to agriculture, domestication and sedentism. This change has been studied in the past by archaeologists observing the movements of plants, animals and people. But has not been examined by looking at the domestic architecture of the time. Along with tracking the movement of sedentism, Neolithic houses are also able to show researchers the beginnings of cultural identity, group representation through the construction and decoration of these structures. Additionally as agriculture moved west and north in this era, the architecture and material culture shows this change and its significance. Chapters are arranged chronologically so that authors can address differences and similarities of their region to neighboring ones. To ensure continuity, authors have framed the chapters around the following considerations: construction materials and architectural characteristics; how houses facilitated or perpetua

The Tuscany habitation site (EgPn-377) located in northwest Calgary was excavated between 1995 and 1997. The site stratigraphy of the large depression contained a series of buried paleosols situated between Mazama tephra above, dating to 6730 +- 40 14C years BP, and Glacial Lake Calgary sands below, dating to approximately 13,900 calendar years ago. These paleosols comprised the focus of this volume. One of the research objectives was to examine the site for spatial information via the processing of bulk sediment samples. Such samples had the potential to yield information on the distribution of small-scale archaeological remains throughout the site. Sediment samples representing 1% volumes were collected from each excavated level of each unit in the site grid. Through flotation processing an inventory of bone, lithics, insects, fungal spores, mollusks and charred macrobotanical remains were recovered. The charred macrobotanical remains were the focus of this research. Though the inventory is small, it provides a representative sample of the remains of plants that grew locally in the depression through the early Holocene. The charred botanical remains were compared with pollen and soil studies along with modern vegetation and climate records to develop a model for open parkland in the area for the early Holocene. The reconstructed landscape appears to have provided a habitat for a broad spectrum of fauna along with a diverse inventory of potentially useful plants for early Holocene peoples to exploit.

Presents analysis and catalogue of finds from graves excavated in 2001-2003 as part of the archaeological excavations at the hillfort of Dragisic, located in the region of the Iron Age Liburnians (present-day Croatian Littoral region). Typology and chronology is presented for the following groupings: fibulae; pins; rings and other circlet-shaped jewellery; bracelets; pendants; elements of attire and toiletry accessories; buttons and appliques; temple-rings, hair-pins, and earrings; glass beads; cowry shell; Roman glass vessels and pottery finds.

Since the first explorations of causewayed enclosures, archaeologists have attempted to define these early Neolithic monuments in relation to territorial patterns, pottery typologies, and ultimately though the concept of structured deposition. While these concepts have been important in advancing our knowledge of causewayed enclosures, the interpretations of the material from the enclosures ditch segments and other areas of these sites have failed to take into account the importance of how objects and materials came to be at the sites, were produced and used there, preceding deposition. This book argues that activities at enclosures should not be categorically separated from the everyday activities of those who visited the enclosures; that by looking in detail at the spatial and temporal distribution of objects in association with chronology that the practical activities people engaged in at enclosures have been overshadowed by interpretations stressing the ritual nature of structured deposits. These activities had a direct relationship with enclosures and local landscapes. This argues that perhaps more deposits within causewayed enclosures were the result of everyday activities which occurred while people gathered at these sites and not necessarily the result of a 'ritual' act. A re-interpretation of the detail from nine causewayed enclosures within three 'regions' of the British Isles (East Anglia, Sussex and Wessex) are examined. This theoretical approach to activity goes beyond the deposition of objects and also includes enclosure construction, object modification such as flint knapping, animal butchery, and the use of pottery and wood. On a micro scale this indicates that each community who constructed an enclosure deposited objects in a unique and 'personal' manner which was acceptable within their defined social system. On a macro scale, this indicates that although all British causewayed enclosures seem to 'function' in the same way, the individual sites were constructed, modified and used in distinctive ways. Some enclosures seem to have existed quite independently from their neighbours while other enclosures within close proximity to each other had a specialised role to play. These specialised roles indicate that some enclosures may have been constructed and used by groups who primarily came to them in order to carry out a specific set of activities which were then defined through deposition.

This volume gathers the individual presentations from The International Meeting: Recent Prehistory Enclosures and Funerary Practices. From England to Germany, from Portugal to Italy, the individual papers present this cohesive European trend in Prehistory, that of enclosing, and the particular relationship between enclosures and prehistoric funerary practices and manipulations of the human body. Through a plurality of approaches, the volume covers several European regions, providing an overview of how prehistoric Europeans dealt with their dead, and how they experienced and organized their world. From cremating to dismembering bodies, from skulls used as cups to naturalistic anthropomorphic ivory figurines, from fragmented pottery to animal limbs, from deviance to collectiveness, this volume ranges all the different practices currently discussed in European Prehistory. The first paper, by Alasdair Whittle, poses as an introduction to the theme of enclosures throughout Europe, focusing his approach on time and timing of enclosure. Alex Gibson then takes us through the middle and late Neolithic British enclosures and Jean-Noel Guyodo and Audrey Blanchard through those of Western France. The Portuguese enclosures follow, with papers both on walled and ditched enclosures, by the hand of Antonio Valera, Ana Maria Silva, Claudia Cunha, Filipa Rodrigues, Michael Kunst, Anna Waterman, Joao Luis Cardoso and Susana Oliveira Jorge. Moving East, Andrea Zeeb-Lanz discusses the cannibalistic premise regarding the funerary remains from the Neolithic site of Herxheim (Germany). Andre Spatzier, Marcus Stecher, Kurt W. Alt. and Francois Bertemes, on the other hand, focusing on the remains from a henge like enclosure near Magdeburg (Germany), explore the premise of violence and war-like scenarios. To the south, Alberto Cazzella and Giullia Recchia write about a copper age enclosure near Conelle di Acervia (Italy) and Patricia Rios, Corina Liesau and Concepcion Blasco take through the funerary practices of Camino de las Yeseras (Spain).

Human development is a long and steady process that began with stone tool making. Because of this skill, humans were able to adapt to climate changes, discover new territories, and invent new technologies. "Pressure knapping" is the common term for one method of creating stone tools, where a larger device or blade specifically made for this purpose is use to press out the stone tool. Pressure knapping was invented in different locations and at different points in time, representing the adoption of the Neolithic way of life in the Old world.

Recent research on pressure knapping has led for the first time to a global thesis on this technique. The contributors to this seminal work combine research findings on pressure knapping from different cultures around the globe to develope a cohesive theory. This contributions to this volume represents a significant development to research on pressure knapping, as well as the field of lithic studies in general.

This work will be an important reference for anyone studying the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic periods, lithic studies, technologies, and more generally, cultural transmission.

The book publishes the proceedings of the workshop held in Rome in March 2012 that was intended to bring together archaeologists, scientists and students involved in the study of use-wear traces on prehistoric stone tools and/or in the identification of micro residues that might be present in them in order to hypothesize their function. Use-wear analysis carried out with microscopic analysis at low or high magnification is, at present, a settled procedure. The individuation and identification of residues is attempted using morphological and chemical techniques, these latter divided between invasive and non-invasive. Each employed technique has its own advantages and limitations. Both traces and residues analysis require a comparison to useful replicas. Even with regard to the making of replicas, no shared protocol exists.

The title of this volume, ke-ra-me-ja in Linear B, was chosen because it means "potter" ( , from Greek , "potter's clay") and combines two major strands of Cynthia Shelmerdine's scholarship: Mycenaean ceramics and Linear B texts. It thereby signals her pioneering use of archaeological and textual data in a sophisticated and integrated way. The intellectual content of the essays demonstrate not only that her research has had wide-ranging influence, but also that it is a model of scholarship to be emulated.

Recent archaeobotanical results from early Neolithic sites on Cyprus have put the island in the forefront of debates on the spread of Near Eastern agriculture, with domestic crops appearing on the island shortly after they evolved. The results from these early sites changed what was known about the timing of the introduction of farming to the island. However, what happened after the introduction of agriculture to Cyprus has been less discussed. This book explores the role of new crop introductions, local agricultural developments, and intensification in subsequent economic and social developments on Cyprus corresponding with the island's evidence of ongoing social transformations and changing off-island patterns of contacts. In addition to contributing to discussions on the origins and spread of Near Eastern agriculture, it contributes to current archaeological debates on external contact and the influence of the broader Near East on the development of the island's unique prehistoric economy. This research is a chronological and regional analysis of the botanical record of Cyprus and a comparison of data from similarly dated sites in the Levantine mainland, Turkey, and Egypt. Further, it includes data from four recently excavated Cypriot prehistoric sites, Krittou Marottou-'Ais Yiorkis, Kissonerga-Skalia, Souskiou-Laona, and Prastion-Mesorotsos.

Thisstudyexploresthechangingrelationshipbetweenhumansandtwoimportantanimals, pigsandcattle, duringtheMesolithicandNeolithicperiodsinBritain.FaunalremainsfromprehistoricsitesinsouthernBritainwerestudiedinordertounderstandchangesinthesizeandshapeofanimals, changesinpopulationstructureandotherinformationusefulforunderstandingchanginghumanmotivations.ItsresultscontributetoourunderstandingofNeolithisationprocessinBritain, earlyanimalhusbandrypracticesinthestudyareaandtherolethatpigsandcattlehadinMesolithicandNeolithicsociety."