Over 15,000 years ago, a band of hunter-gatherers became the first people to set foot in the Americas. They soon found themselves in a world rich in plants and animals, but also a world still shivering itself out of the coldest depths of the Ice Age. The movement of those first Americans was one of the greatest journeys undertaken by ancient peoples. In this book, David Meltzer explores the world of Ice Age Americans, highlighting genetic, archaeological, and geological evidence that has revolutionized our understanding of their origins, antiquity, and adaptation to climate and environmental change. This fully updated edition integrates the most recent scientific discoveries, including the ancient genome revolution and human evolutionary and population history. Written for a broad audience, the book can serve as the primary text in courses on North American Archaeology, Ice Age Environments, and Human evolution and prehistory.

Archaeologists have yet to consider seriously the impact of slaving and enslavement on socio-cultural developments in Iron Age Europe. Commonly treated as a mere byproduct of incessant tribal warfare, it is generally held that slavery was not a significant phenomenon in temperate Europe before the Roman era. This is a curious state of affairs considering the clear cross-paradigmatic recognition of competition and conflict as prime movers of historical transformation. How is it that prehistorians see evidence for social stratification and inter-group conflict in so many contexts, yet grant slavery so little attention? If slaving and enslavement can be shown to have been a significant transformative phenomena in Iron Age Europe, how would this affect the interpretation of (old and new) archaeological evidence, and how would this change ideas about broader socio-cultural developments that have long been considered known by those who have looked at these things through the lens of 'acculturation' or 'complexification'? Comparative research shows how slavery is a multifaceted phenomenon with complex interrelated material, behavioral, and ideological dimensions. Therefore, any meaningful archaeological study has to take a multi-thread approach whereby a wide range of material categories and domains of social practice are examined, contextually, relationally, and comparatively. In taking such an approach, this exploratory study of the dynamics of Iron Age slaving and enslaving in Northwest Europe contributes to a complex but neglected topic.

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.

Irish Late Iron Age Equestrian Equipment in its Insular and Continental Context is the first practical archaeological study of Irish Iron Age lorinery. The volume examines the bits and bosals (Y-pieces) holistically, using practical stable-yard knowledge merged with archaeological techniques such as morphometrics, use-wear, GIS, functional comparison to European and British equipment and distribution analysis to place it within its time and place. Irish Iron Age artefacts have always been beset by issues of chronology, but by using these various analytical methods, a more precise timeframe for the objects is indicated. A complex relationship with Roman Britain and the Empire also becomes visible, with aspects of identity and belief being expressed through the sophisticated equestrian equipment. The analysis of the bridle components reveal that the Ireland of the first centuries AD shares some characteristics with other boundary zones of the Roman Empire, such as Scotland and northern Germany, but also has its own unique interpretation of introduced technology. The Ireland of the Late Iron Age, then, is a society in flux, picking and choosing which traditions it maintains. The horse and associated equipment were very much at the heart of the social changes set in motion by contact with the Roman Empire, and as such, the examination of the snaffles and bosals allows us to bring the people of the Late Iron Age in Ireland into focus.

Although occupied only relatively briefly in the long span of world prehistory, Scandinavia is an extraordinary laboratory for investigating past human societies. The area was essentially unoccupied until the end of the last Ice Age when the melting of huge ice sheets left behind a fresh, barren land surface, which was eventually covered by flora and fauna. The first humans did not arrive until sometime after 13,500 BCE. The prehistoric remains of human activity in Scandinavia - much of it remarkably preserved in its bogs, lakes, and fjords - have given archaeologists a richly detailed portrait of the evolution of human society. In this book, Doug Price provides an archaeological history of Scandinavia-a land mass comprising the modern countries of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway-from the arrival of the first humans after the last Ice Age to the end of the Viking period, ca. AD 1050. Constructed similarly to the author's previous book, Europe before Rome, Ancient Scandinavia provides overviews of each prehistoric epoch followed by detailed, illustrative examples from the archaeological record. An engrossing and comprehensive picture emerges of change across the millennia, as human society evolves from small bands of hunter - gatherers to large farming communities to the complex warrior cultures of the Bronze and Iron Ages, which culminated in the spectacular rise of the Vikings. The material evidence of these past societies - arrowheads from reindeer hunts, megalithic tombs, rock art, beautifully wrought weaponry, Viking warships - give vivid testimony to the ancient humans who once called home this often unforgiving edge of the inhabitable world.

This illistrated guide, written by experts, offers up-to-date descriptions and plans of all the major and minor archaeological sites in England, dating from prehistoric times to the end of the middle ages. There is extensive background information on each site and on the general history and archaeology of England in these periods.

Studies of creativity frequently focus on the modern era yet creativity has always been part of human history. This book explores how creativity was expressed through the medium of clay in the Bronze Age in the Carpathian Basin. Although metal is one of the defining characteristics of Bronze Age Europe, in the Carpathian Basin clay was the dominant material in many areas of life. Here the daily experience of people was, therefore, much more likely to be related to clay than bronze. Through eight thematic essays, this book considers a series of different facets of creativity. Each essay combines a broad range of theoretical insights with a specific case study of ceramic forms, sites or individual objects. This innovative volume is the first to focus on creativity in the Bronze Age and offers new insights into the rich and complex archaeology of the Carpathian Basin.

Sited at the furthest limits of the Neolithic revolution and standing at the confluence of the two great sea routes of prehistory, Britain and Ireland are distinct from continental Europe for much of the prehistoric sequence. In this landmark study, Richard Bradley offers an interpretation of the unique archaeological record of these islands. Highlighting the achievements of its inhabitants, Bradley surveys the entire archaeological sequence over a 5,000 year period, from the last hunter-gatherers and the adoption of agriculture in the Neolithic period, to the discovery of Britain and Ireland by travellers from the Mediterranean during the later pre-Roman Iron Age. His study places special emphasis on landscapes, settlements, monuments, and ritual practices. This edition has been thoroughly revised and updated. The text takes account of recent developments in archaeological science, such as isotopic analyses of human and animal bone, recovery of ancient DNA, and more subtle and precise methods of radiocarbon dating.

The Bouros-Kastri peninsula at the south-eastern tip of the Greek island of Euboia has previously been overlooked in the archaeological literature. This survey by the Southern Euboea Exploration Project, conducted under the aegis of the Canadian Institute in Greece, now provides a wealth of intriguing information about fluctuations in long-term use and habitation in this part of the Karystia. While the peninsula is agriculturally poor, its coast is blessed with several small coastal inlets and one important ancient port, Geraistos. These provide access to vital maritime routes and connect the peninsula to Athens and other Aegean ports. The survey revealed modest use of the peninsula during the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age; it was then virtually abandoned for the following two and a half millennia. Occupation resumed in the Late Archaic-Early Classical period, followed by near desertion in the 3rd century BC of all but some coastal sites, a resurgence of activity in the Late Roman period, and modest use in Byzantine and Ottoman times. The authors analyse the ways in which the peninsula's use was connected to that of the main urban centre at Karystos, and how the peninsula and the greater Karystia were integrated into the political, economic, and cultural spheres of Athens and the broader region.

How did past communities view, understand and communicate their pasts? And how can we, as archaeologists, understand this? In recent years these questions have been approached through studies of the extended occupation and use of landscapes, monuments and artefacts to explore concepts of time and memory. But what of objects that were already old in the past? Interpretations for these items have ranged from the discard of scrap to objects of veneration. Evidence from a range of periods would suggest objects of the past were an important part of many later societies that encountered them, either as heirlooms with remembered histories or rediscovered curiosities from a more distant past. For the first time, this volume brings together a range of case studies in which objects of the past were encountered and reappropriated. It follows a conference session at the Theoretical Archaeological Group in Cardiff 2017, in which historians, archaeologists, heritage professionals and commercial archaeologists gathered to discuss this topic on a broad (pre)historical scale, highlighting similarities and contrast in depositional practices and reactions to relics of the past in different periods. Through case studies spanning the Bronze Age through to the 18th century AD, this volume presents new research demonstrating that the reappropriation of these already old objects was not anomalous, but instead represents a practice that recurs throughout (pre)history.

The two volumes bring together the contributions of the members of the International Union of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences (UISPP), to a project launched in 2017, with the support of the International Academic Union (UAI), under the title Human societies facing climate change in prehistory and protohistory: from the origins of Humanity to the beginning of historical times. The first volume concerns prehistory from the earliest humans to the end of the Pleistocene, twelve thousand years ago. For three million years human societies have experienced a great alternation of glacial and interglacial periods. Which climates have been most favorable to human settlement? Which the least favorable? And did they involve the abandonment of territories, the collapse of societies and extinction of some human populations? When and in what climates did human groups colonize each of the continents of the planet? Is a period of climatic improvement with a hot and humid climate more or less favorable to the development of human societies than a period of climate depreciation? Is climate change a factor of change for human societies, forcing them to adapt and find sustainable solutions?

The Bronze Age is frequently framed in social evolutionary terms. Viewed as the period which saw the emergence of social differentiation, the development of long-distance trade, and the intensification of agricultural production, it is seen as the precursor and origin-point for significant aspects of the modern world. This book presents a very different image of Bronze Age Britain and Ireland. Drawing on the wealth of material from recent excavations, as well as a long history of research, it explores the impact of the post-Enlightenment 'othering' of the non-human on our understanding of Bronze Age society. There is much to suggest that the conceptual boundary between the active human subject and the passive world of objects, so familiar from our own cultural context, was not drawn in this categorical way in the Bronze Age; the self was constructed in relational rather than individualistic terms, and aspects of the non-human world such as pots, houses, and mountains were considered animate entities with their own spirit or soul. In a series of thematic chapters on the human body, artefacts, settlements, and landscapes, this book considers the character of Bronze Age personhood, the relationship between individual and society, and ideas around agency and social power. The treatment and deposition of things such as querns, axes, and human remains provides insights into the meanings and values ascribed to objects and places, and the ways in which such items acted as social agents in the Bronze Age world.

In The Crucible of Creation, paleontologist Simon Conway Morris describes the marvelous finds of the Burgess Shale--a fantastically rich deposit of bizarre and bewildering Cambrian fossils, located in Western Canada.
Conway Morris is one of the few paleontologists ever to explore the Burgess Shale, having been involved in the dig since 1972, and thus he is an ideal guide to this amazing discovery. Indeed, he provides a complete overview of this remarkable find, ranging from an informative, basic discussion of the origins of life and animals on earth, to a colorful description of Charles Walcott's discovery of the Burgess Shale and of the painstaking scientific work that went on there (as well as in Burgess collections held at Harvard and the Smithsonian), to an account of similar fossil finds in Greenland and in China. The heart of the book is an imaginative trip in a time machine, back to the Cambrian seas, where the reader sees first-hand the remarkable diversity of life as it existed then. And perhaps most important, Conway Morris examines the lessons to be learned from the Burgess Shale, especially as they apply to modern evolutionary thinking. In particular, he critiques the ideas of Stephen Jay Gould, whose best-selling book Wonderful Life drew on Conway Morris's Burgess Shale work. The author takes a fresh look at the evidence and draws quite different conclusions from Gould on the nature of evolution.
This finely illustrated volume takes the reader to the forefront of paleontology as it provides fresh insights into the nature of evolution and of life on earth.

At the heart of this book is a comparative study of the stone rows of Dartmoor and northern Scotland, a rare, putatively Bronze Age megalithic typology that has mystified archaeologists for over a century. It is argued that these are 'symbols' of Neolithic long mounds, a circumstance that accounts for the interregional similarities; other aspects of their semantic structures are also analysed using rigorous semiotic theory. The research presented here takes an evolutionary approach, drawing on biological theory to explain the active role of these monuments in social evolution and to investigate the processes at work in the development of prehistoric landscapes. New theory is developed for analysing such archaeological sequences, and for understanding and explaining material culture more generally. The local sequences are contextualised by examining European megalithic origins, tracing the long mound concept back to the LBK longhouses. It is argued that all of these related forms - longhouses, long mounds, and stone rows - are implicated in a process of competitively asserting ancestral affinities, which explains the constraint on cultural variation, and thus the formation of remarkably stable monument traditions, that led to the convergence between Dartmoor and northern Scotland in the Early Bronze Age.

Megaliths of the Vera Island in the Southern Urals presents the results of the study of the largest megalithic complex in the Urals, located on Vera Island. The complex is represented by three chambered megaliths and sanctuaries dated to the Eneolithic period (mid-4th - 3rd millennium BC). The book discusses the features of the architecture and building technologies, their astronomical orientation, chronology, religious context, and explores their relation to social organisation and the possible migration of peoples. Small finds - especially the ceramic assemblages - are presented. The authors discuss problems associated with the origin of megaliths, the approaches of European researchers and the possibilities of applying these approaches to the Ural megaliths. Against the background of the lack of agriculture - in contrast to Europe - there was no demographic basis in the Urals for the emergence and existence of the megalithic phenomenon. In addition to the megalithic complex, there are many unexplored objects on the island, the purpose of which remain, as yet, unclear. Ancient settlements of the same period have also been discovered on the island. The complex on Vera Island is unique precisely due to the combination of objects with so many different functions found within a relatively small area (6 ha).

This volume brings together a diverse set of new studies--archaeological, ethnohistoric, and ethnographic--that focus on agricultural intensification and hydraulic systems around the world. Fifteen chapters--written by many of the world's leading experts--combine extensive regional overviews of agricultural histories with in-depth case studies. In this volume are chapters on agriculture in the Middle East, South Asia, Europe, Oceania, Mesoamerica, and South America. A wide range of theoretical perspectives and approaches are used to provide a framework for agricultural land-use and water management in a variety of cultural and historical contexts. This book covers the co-evolutionary relationships among sociopolitical structure, agriculture, land-use, and water control. Agricultural Strategies is an invaluable resource for those engaged in ongoing debates about the role of intensification and agriculture in the past and present.

What was daily life like in Italy between 6000 and 3500 BC? In this book, first published in 2007, John Robb brings together the archaeological evidence on a wide range of aspects of life in Neolithic Italy and surrounding regions (Sicily and Malta). Exploring how the routines of daily life structured social relations and human experience during this period, Robb provides a detailed analysis of how people built houses, buried their dead, made and shared a distinctive cuisine, and made the pots and stone tools that archaeologists find. He also addresses questions of regional variation and long-term change, showing how the sweeping changes at the end of the Neolithic were rooted in and transformed the daily practices of earlier periods. Robb links the agency of daily life and the reproduction of social relations with long-term patterns in European prehistory.

This volume presents the lithic assemblage from Howburn in South Lanarkshire, Scotland, which at present is the oldest prehistoric settlement in Scotland (12,700-12,000 BC), and the only Hamburgian settlement in Britain. The site also included a scatter from the Late Upper Palaeolithic Federmesser- Gruppen period (12,000-10,800 BC), as well as lithics from the Mesolithic, Neolithic and Early Bronze Age. The book focuses on the Hamburgian finds, which are mainly based on the exploitation of flint from Doggerland, the then dry bed of the North Sea. The Hamburgian tools include tanged arrowheads, scrapers, piercers, burins, and other implement forms which show similarities with tools of the same age on the European continent. The shape of one scatter suggests that the Palaeolithic settlers lived in tent-like structures. The Palaeolithic finds from Howburn shed light on several important general trends, such as the ‘acclimatization’ of pioneer settlers, as well as the development of regional differences following the initial Late Glacial recolonization of Scotland. Palaeo-environmental work focused on whether there was a small lake (‘Loch Howburn’) in front of the terrace on which the camp was situated, and it was concluded that there was indeed a lake there, but it was neither contemporary with the Hamburgian, nor the Federmesser-Gruppen settlement. Most likely, ‘Loch Howburn’ dates to the Loch Lomond stadial.

Hillforts are among the most dramatic and visually striking of prehistoric monuments in the British Isles. Dorset, in southern England, is particularly rich in these Iron Age earthwork enclosures, with over 30 examples being so far recorded, including the internationally famous sites of Maiden Castle, Hod Hill, Badbury Rings and Hambledon Hill. Many have been the subject of archaeological investigation, such as the excavations conducted at Maiden Castle in the 1930s by Tessa and Mortimer Wheeler, but few have, to date, been intensively examined. This volume sets out the results of a detailed programme of non-intrusive geophysical survey conducted across the Dorset hillforts, generating detailed subsurface maps of archaeological features, in the hope of better resolving the phasing, form and internal structure of these iconic sites. The dataset presented here not only helps to change our perception of what hillforts were, how they functioned and what went on within them, but also provides a way of assessing their longevity, reconsidering how they were perceived and reused in subsequent periods. Given the oft-cited association between the Dorset enclosures and the Durotriges tribe, who are thought to have occupied the area in the Later Iron Age, serious consideration is also for the first time given to the belief that hillforts formed the focus of conflict between the native tribes and the armies of imperial Rome in the first century AD.

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.

In this book, Benoit Dubreuil explores the creation and destruction of hierarchies in human evolution. Combining the methods of archaeology, anthropology, cognitive neuroscience and primatology, he offers a natural history of hierarchies from the point of view of both cultural and biological evolution. This volume explains why dominance hierarchies typical of primate societies disappeared in the human lineage and why the emergence of large-scale societies during the Neolithic period implied increased social differentiation, the creation of status hierarchies, and, eventually, political centralisation.

White Castle: The evaluation of an upstanding prehistoric enclosure in East Lothian describes the results of a four year research programme of archaeological works between 2010 and 2013, at the later prehistoric enclosure of White Castle, East Lothian, carried out under the auspices of the Rampart Scotland project. The site is a Scheduled Monument, but, despite being subject of mapping and survey for some 200 years, it has never been examined by excavation prior to the Rampart Scotland project’s interventions. White Castle was the first of the series of comparable sites to be excavated in the Lammermuir area. The programme of archaeological evaluation and sequence of radiometric dates furnished evidence for four major phases of activity at White Castle – with the main enclosure period dating to the second half of the first millennium BC. The excavations demonstrated a clear sequence of enclosure development over time, whereby the design and visual impact often appeared to be more important than defence alone. White Castle’s location on the main route through the Lammermuirs with surrounding upland pasture is also highly suggestive to its function and it seems probable that the site’s economy was concerned primarily with controlling access to grazing. The final phase of the prehistoric enclosure appears to combine two key factors: impressing visitors and stock control. While maintenance of White Castle’s enclosure system was abandoned in the closing centuries BC, it is unlikely that the area was deserted and there is also limited evidence for two later phases of activity on site around the Medieval and Early Modern Periods.

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.

Are we to believe that Late Minoan Crete was over-run with dancers and bull leapers? As Senta German shows, dancing and bull-leaping were the most prevalent themes of Late Bronze Age glyptic art although, aside from their demonstration of a social and perhaps symbolic activity, they also had a much deeper function in Late Minoan society. German examines archaeological and art-historical evidence and uses it to create a typology of performance art (performativty, performative art and social drama). She questions the role of gender, class and age as social categories within this art and concludes that the seals, as vehicles of the value-laden message of performace at the palaces', were symbolic of power centred around palatial life.

This book explores the roles of agricultural development and advancing social complexity in the processes of state formation in China. Over a period of about 10,000 years, it follows evolutionary trajectories of society from the last Paleolithic hunting-gathering groups, through Neolithic farming villages, and on to the Bronze Age Shang dynasty in the latter half of the second millennium BC. Li Liu and Xingcan Chen demonstrate that sociopolitical evolution was multicentric and shaped by inter-polity factionalism and competition, as well as by the many material technologies introduced from other parts of the world. The book illustrates how ancient Chinese societies were transformed during this period from simple to complex, tribal to urban, and preliterate to literate.