The Neolithic period was one of the great transformations in human history with profound, long-term consequences. In Europe, there were no farmers at 7000 cal BC, but very few hunter-gatherers after about 4000 cal BC. Although we understand the broad chronological structure of this shift, many pressing research questions remain. Archaeologists are still vigorously debating the identity of those principally involved in initiating change, the detail of everyday lives during the Neolithic, including basic questions about settlement, the operation of the farming economy and the varied roles of material culture, and the character of large-scale and long-term transformations. They face the task not only of working at different scales, but of integrating ever-expanding amounts of evidence. As well as the data coming from larger and more intensive excavations, there has been a radical increase in the information released by many kinds of scientific analysis of archaeological remains. These now include, alongside longer established methods of looking at food remains and material, the isotopic analysis of the diet and lifetime movement of people, isotopic analysis of cereal remains for indications of manuring, a DNA analysis of genetic signatures, detailed micromorphological analysis of deposits where people lived, and the close examination of the origin and production of varying materials and artefacts. The 21 chapters by leading experts in the field demonstrate how the combination of archaeological and scientific evidence now provides opportunities for new and creative understandings of Europe's early farmers. They make an important contribution to the debate over how best to integrate these multiple lines of evidence, scientific and more traditionally archaeological, while keeping in central focus the principal questions that we want to ask of our data.

How humans adapt to life in an area prone to natural disasters is an intriguing study for the social sciences. In this volume, experts from several disciplines explore the adaptation process of prehistoric societies in the volcanic Arenal region of Costa Rica from about 2000 BC to the Spanish Conquest at about AD 1500.

The data in this volume come from a survey of the region conducted with the latest remote sensing technology. Sheets and his coauthors have compiled a detailed record of human settlements in the area, including dozens of archaeological sites and a network of prehistoric footpaths that reveals patterns of travel and communication across the region. The Arenal peoples prospered in their precarious environment apparently by taking advantage of food and lithic resources, keeping population levels low, and avoiding environmental degradation. These findings will interest a wide interdisciplinary audience in anthropology and archaeology, earth sciences, technology, geography, and human ecology.

The extensive archaeological excavations of multicultural sites in western Slovakia offer a remarkable amount of material that mostly consists of entirely new and unpublished finds. This monograph presents a multilateral synthesis of the information obtained and processed over the last two decades, presenting a fascinating picture of evolution of the western inner Carpathian world and its neighbourhood in prehistoric times and beyond.

This book is concerned with the developments that followed on from the introduction of farming into Britain and Southern Scandinavia (Denmark and Southern Sweden), and the idiosyncratic social and cultural patterns that emerged as the revolutionary potential of the Neolithic was gradually realised. Fundamental to the contributors approach is a concern with the ways in which communities inhabit their landscapes. If the Neolithic involved the introduction of new species of plants and animals and new forms of material culture into indigenous contexts, the longer-term consequences of this development should be gauged through changing practices of dwelling: patterns of occupation and mobility, the organisation of space, the location of ritual activities, the dead, and the sacred; and degrees of impact in ecological conditions. The authors examine the implicit knowledge, habitual practice and material culture as forms of cultural inheritance which are passed between generations, and modified by innovation. Click on the blue button above for a contents PDF.

This study examines developments in British archaeology over the last 30 years or so (between 1975-2010), focusing in particular on transformations in prehistoric research. Ultimately it seeks to foreground the extent to which recent historical developments (at all levels of the discipline and in various working contexts) are implicated in contemporary research practices. Advocating the need for taking a multi-stranded and interdisciplinary approach, the author consulted a range of sources - digital archives, documentary and oral material - and draws on ideas from archaeology, sociology, anthropology and oral history. Through a detailed analysis of a leading disciplinary newsletter, key concerns are highlighted which have shaped archaeological practice over this period, and how particular roles and relationships have been defined and developed.

This volume features a group of select peer-reviewed papers by an international group of authors, both younger and senior academics and researchers. It has its origins in a conference held at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, which aimed to bring up the frequently-neglected popular cult and other ritual practices in prehistoric and ancient Greece and the eastern Mediterranean. The topics covered by the chapters of the volume include the interplay between elite and popular ritual at cemeteries and peak sanctuaries just before and right after the establishment of the first palaces in Minoan Crete; the use of conical cups in Minoan ritual; the wide sharing of religious and other metaphysical beliefs as expressed in the wall-paintings of Akrotiri on the island of Thera; the significance of open-air sanctuaries, figurines and other informal cult and ritual paraphernalia in the Aegean, Cyprus and the Levant from the late bronze age to the archaic period; the role of figurines and caves in popular cult in the classical period; the practice of cursing in ancient Athens; and the popular element of sports games in ancient Greece.

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.

In this book, Justin Jennings argues that globalization is not just a phenomenon limited to modern times. Instead he contends that the globalization of today is just the latest in a series of globalizing movements in human history. Using the Uruk, Mississippian, and Wari civilizations as case studies, Jennings examines how the growth of the world's first great cities radically transformed their respective areas. The cities required unprecedented exchange networks, creating long-distance flows of ideas, people, and goods. These flows created cascades of interregional interaction that eroded local behavioral norms and social structures. New, hybrid cultures emerged within these globalized regions. Although these networks did not span the whole globe, people in these areas developed globalized cultures as they interacted with one another. Jennings explores how understanding globalization as a recurring event can help in the understanding of both the past and the present.

For more than a century, the study of hunting and gathering societies has been central to the development of both archaeology and anthropology as academic disciplines, and has also generated widespread public interest and debate. The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Hunter-Gatherers provides a comprehensive review of hunter-gatherer studies to date, including critical engagements with older debates, new theoretical perspectives, and renewed obligations for greater engagement between researchers and indigenous communities. Chapters provide in-depth archaeological, historical, and anthropological case-studies, and examine far-reaching questions about human social relations, attitudes to technology, ecology, and management of resources and the environment, as well as issues of diet, health, and gender relations - all central topics in hunter-gatherer research, but also themes that have great relevance for modern global society and its future challenges. The Handbook also provides a strategic vision for how the integration of new methods, approaches, and study regions can ensure that future research into the archaeology and anthropology of hunter-gatherers will continue to deliver penetrating insights into the factors that underlie all human diversity.

Welcoming 800,000 visitors each year, Stonehenge is the most famous pre-historic monument in all of Europe. It has inspired modern replicas throughout the world, including one constructed entirely of discarded refrigerators. This curious structure is the subject of cult worship, is a source of pride for Britons, and offers an intellectual challenge for academics. It has captured the imagination and the attention of thousands of people for thousands of years. Over the centuries, "experts" have tried to discover the meaning behind Stonehenge. While each new theory contradicts earlier speculation, every new proposal attributes a purpose to the site. From bards of the twelfth century to Black Sabbath, from William Blake to archaeologists of the twenty-first century, Stonehenge has embodied a wealth of intention. Was it designed for winter solstice, for goddess worship, or as a funerary temple? While all have been suggested, even "proven," the mystery continues. Through the eyes of its most eloquent apologists, Rosemary Hill guides the reader on a tour of Stonehenge in all its cultural contexts, as a monument to many things-to Renaissance Humanism, Romantic despair, Victorian enterprise, and English Radicalism. In the end, the stones remain compelling because they remain mysterious-apparently simple yet incomprehensible-that is the wonder, the enchantment, of Stonehenge.

This is the first book to focus on the role of Southern Asia and Australia in our understanding of modern human origins and the expansion of Homo sapiens between East Africa and Australia before 30,000 years ago. With contributions from leading experts that take into account the latest archaeological evidence from India and Southeast Asia, this volume critically reviews current models of the timing and character of the spread of modern humans out of Africa. It also demonstrates that the evidence from Australasia should receive much wider and more serious consideration in its own right if we want to understand how our species achieved its global distribution. Critically examining the 'Out of Africa' model, this book emphasises the context and variability of the global evidence in the search for human origins.

A Gazetteer representing practical field observations of most of the prehistoric Standing Stones in Great Britain and some 'Other Stones' which post-date AD 1. The list also includes 34 prehistoric Standing Stones known to be extant but which the author was unable to visit, a list of Standing Stones of unknown provenance, and of interesting 'Other Stones'. The motivation for this work was the Wimblestone (Somerset, ST434585) which is an extant prehistoric Standing Stone close to the author' childhood home and which started his interest in these monuments

Contents: Introduction (Alex Gibson); Earthen Enclosures in Britain & Ireland: An Introduction to the study of henges: time for a change? (Alex Gibson); Henging, mounding and blocking: the Forteviot henge group (Kenneth Brophy & Gordon Noble); Henges in Ireland: new discoveries and emerging issues (Muiris O'Sullivan, Stephen Davies & Geraldine Stout); Journeys and Juxtapositions. Marden Henge and the View from the Vale (Jim Leary & David Field); Conformity, Routeways and Religious Experience - the Henges of Central Yorkshire (Jan Harding); Ringlemere: A Pit/Post Horseshoe and Henge Monument in East Kent (Keith Parfitt & Stuart Needham); Living with Sacred Spaces: The Henge Monuments of Wessex (Joshua Pollard); Neolithic enclosures: European case studies: Mid Neolithic Enclosures in Southern Scandinavia (Lars Larsson); Mid- Late Neolithic Enclosures in the South of France (Fabien Convertini); Kreisgrabenanlagen - Middle Neolithic Ritual Enclosures in Austria 4800-4500 BC (Wolfgang Neubauer); Mind the gap: Neolithic and Chalcolithic enclosures of south Portugal (Antonio Carlos Valera); The Neolithic enclosures in transition. Tradition and change in the cosmology of early farmers in central Europe (Jan Turek); Journey to the Centre of the Earth (Richard Bradley).

Music is possessed by all human cultures, and archaeological evidence for musical activities pre-dates even the earliest-known cave art. Music has been the subject of keen investigation across a great diversity of fields, from neuroscience and psychology to ethnography, archaeology, and its own dedicated field, musicology. Despite the great contributions that these studies have made towards understanding musical behaviours, much remains mysterious about this ubiquitous human phenomenon - not least, its origins. In a ground-breaking study, this volume brings together evidence from these fields, and more, in investigating the evolutionary origins of our musical abilities, the nature of music, and the earliest archaeological evidence for musical activities amongst our ancestors. Seeking to understand the true relationship between our unique musical capabilities and the development of the remarkable social, emotional, and communicative abilities of our species, it will be essential reading for anyone interested in music and human physical and cultural evolution.

The village of Stanton Drew in north Somerset is host to a remarkable group of ancient monuments which together comprise the third largest collection of standing stones in England. Its Great Circle, the largest of three stone circles, exceeds the dimensions of Stonehenge. Recent archaeology has revealed that a substantial woodhenge once occupied the site, underlining its importance as a major ritual centre of the Neolithic age. Gordon Strong, a regular lecturer on the subject, has spent many years exploring this fascinating site on multiple levels. In this well illustrated book he presents archaeological detail, local folklore and the views of various commentators from 18th century antiquarians to dowsers, discussing mythology, mediumship and earth energies. His insights are gleaned from his long love-affair with the site, and offer the visitor some clues for making their own inner connection to this unique monument which still retains its ancient magic.

Practice and Prestige: An Exploration of Neolithic Warfare, Bell Beaker Archery, and Social Stratification from an Anthropological Perspective investigates the appearance of the 'archer's package' in select Bell Beaker burials raising questions of daily life, warfare, and social stratification during the Neolithic period. It draws on a recent study by the author that applied an anthropological methodology to assess the bone morphology of these skeletons for signs of specialised archery activity. These analyses revealed results at both a population as well as an individual level. In order to contextualise these osteological findings, the book explores the evidence for warfare and archery throughout the Neolithic period in general and the Bell Beaker period in particular. This perspective considers warfare to be a primary function of archery, thereby associating 'archer' burials with concepts of warfare and the warrior. A second perspective delves into prehistoric concepts of specialisation and social hierarchy in order to situate archers, archery, and warfare within potentially stratified populations. These two perspectives allow for the contextualisation of the anthropological results within a broad archaeological framework in which archers and archery were prominent parts of a complex Bell Beaker society.

Excavations at Late Neolithic Toumba Kremastis Koiladas, near the modern town of Kozani in north-western Greece, have yielded one of the largest faunal assemblages of this period from Greece (and probably also from Europe). This assemblage is important not only because of its large size, but also because of the character of the site and the apparently distinctive nature of bone deposition. Although near to a settlement mound or tell, the excavated area from which the assemblage is drawn appears to be of the 'flat/extended' type of site. As such, much of the bone assemblage is derived from clearly defined pits and ditches cut into the bedrock, offering much greater opportunities for contextual analysis than is usually possible on tell sites with complex vertical stratigraphy. Furthermore, the excavator's observation of complete animal skeletons in some pits suggested the possibility of structured deposition of a sort that, though well known from the Aegean Bronze Age, is as yet rare in the Neolithic of Greece. The assemblage studied here thus offers unusually high potential for investigation of patterns of bone deposition and animal consumption and also for exploration of the extent to which these processes may have obscured or distorted the evidence commonly used to infer patterns of animal management and land use. The questions addressed in this book are centred within four main contexts: Types of Neolithic settlements (tells vs. 'flat/extended' sites); The Neolithic household in Greece; Neolithic husbandry regimes in Greece; Scales and contexts of consumption during the Greek Neolithic.

The results of archaeological investigations undertaken in advance of quarrying within a 53ha concession at Little Paxton, to the north of St Neots in Cambridgeshire (England) from 1992 to 1998. The archaeological fieldwork involved a total of 10ha of open-area excavation, as well as watching briefs and salvage recording, preceded by air photograph plotting, geophysical survey, fieldwalking and trial-trenching. The fieldwork was undertaken for the predecessor companies of Aggregate Industries by Birmingham University Field Archaeology Unit (now Birmingham Archaeology). The investigations recorded flint scatters of Mesolithic-Bronze Age date, pits containing Neolithic-Bronze Age pottery, extensive ditched field boundaries and ditched enclosures of Iron Age and Romano-British date, including livestock enclosures and associated droveways.

With an estimated 10,000 ancient rock art sites, Nine Mile Canyon has long captivated people the world over. The 45-mile-long canyon, dubbed the "World's Longest Art Gallery," hosts what is believed to be the largest concentration of rock art in North America. But rock art is only part of the amazing archaeological fabric that scholars have been struggling to explain for more than a century. Jerry D. Spangler takes the reader on a journey into Nine Mile Canyon through the eyes of the generations of archaeologists
who have gone there only to leave bewildered by what it all means.
The early visitors in the 1890s were determined to recover collections for museums but never much cared to understand the people who left the artifacts. Then came a cadre of young scientists--the first to be trained specifically in archaeology--who found Nine Mile Canyon to be an intriguing laboratory that yielded more questions than answers. Scholars such as Noel Morss, Donald Scott, Julian Steward, John Gillin, and John Otis Brew all left their boot prints there.
Today, archaeological research is experiencing another renaissance--a new generation of university-trained archaeologists is determined to unravel the mystery of Nine Mile Canyon using scientific tools and techniques that were unavailable to past generations. Through the words and thoughts of the archaeologists, as well as the more than 150 photos, readers will come to see Nine Mile Canyon as an American treasure unlike any other. As the first book that is devoted exclusively to the archaeology of this unique
place, "Nine Mile Canyon "will evoke fascination among scholars and the general public alike.

This study examines female representation in British Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age (2500 - 1500 BC) funerary practices. Chronology relating to the burial practices is studied, from large scale change over time through to small scale individual chronologies; looking at age representation. In contrast to previous approaches, this study moves beyond purely looking at the grave goods and instead places greater emphasis upon other features of the burials, such as location, form and method. As a result, the methodology used in this study examines the varied forms of this period's burials, yet still considers them as a unit.

The late Palaeolithic Ahrensburgian site at Zonhoven-Molenheide was situated in a sandy podzol. It comprised several concentrations with more than 11,500 flint artefacts, of which more than 1,800 were refitted. Both horizontal and vertical distribution of the remains is discussed in detail. 76 figures illustrate profile sections, artefacts and refits. The occupation fits into the Younger Dryas (Late Glacial) period with an AMS date of 10,760 BP. Regionally, the Ahrensburgian is defined typologically as an assemblage with numerous Zonhoven points, a variable number of Ahrensburgian points and numerous endscrapers and burins. Connections with other European sites are discussed.

In this study of prehistoric innovation, the author argues that a range of technologies and practices need to be considered in order to place innovation into the pre-existing social and technological systems in which it functioned and to assess the means by which it was accepted and valued. In particular the study focuses on how archaeological interpretations of stone objects and stone-working can help understand the adoption and continued presence of metal and metallurgy in prehistoric Europe.

Papers from the 2011 conference marking ten years of Centre for the Archaeology of Human Origins (CAHO, University of Southampton). Contents: Introduction (Clive Gamble); 1) Lower Palaeolithic of Central and Eastern Europe: Critical Re-evaluation of the Current State of Knowledge (Iza Romanowska); 2) The Earliest Middle Stone Age of Northern South Africa: The Cave of Hearths and Bushman Rock Shelter (David Underhill); 3) Quaternary Environments and Archaeology of Jersey: A New Multidisciplinary project looking at the early prehistoric occupation of the English Channel Region (Matt Pope et al.); 4) Interglacial Neanderthal Ecology: evidence of absence? (Rachel Bynoe); 5) Neanderthal land-use and related tool-kits at the MIS 5/4 boundary in the South-East portion of the French Massif Central (Jean-Paul Raynal et al.); 6) Creating Country: Late Middle Palaeolithic Landscape Enculturation (Rebecca Wragg Sykes); 7) Changing Scales of Obsidian Movement and Social Networking (Theodora Moutsiou); 8) Analyzing the Child Burials of Upper Palaeolithic Europe (Jessica Cooney); 9) Ancient Magdalenian of the French Massif Central revisited: a reappraisal of unit F2 of the Rond du Barry cave (Polignac, Haute-Loire, France) (Audrey Lafarge et al.); 10) The social contexts of Palaeolithic Figural Art: Performativity, Materialisation and Fragmentation (Liliane Janik); 11) Differentiating French Magdalenian portable art assemblages: new analyses of low-relief technologies on antler (Rebecca Farbstein); 12) Scatters, Patches, and Palimpsests: Solving the Contemporaneity Problem (Matt Grove); 13) People, places and things: understanding Lateglacial personhood through mobility and exchange (Fotini Kofido); 14) CAHO 10 Closing words (John McNabb and William Davies).

A collection of recent papers on the prehistoric Jequetepeque Valley, Peru. Contents: (1) Introduction: State and Empire in the Jequetepeque Valley (Ilana Johnson and Colleen M. Zori); 2) Social Roles of Cemeteries in the Jequetepeque Valley System (Colleen M. Zori); 3) The Development of Semi-Autonomous Communities in the Late Moche Period (AD 600-900) (Ilana Johnson); 4) The Northern Moche World at the Beginning of the Eighth Century and the Role of the Jequetepeque Valley (Alana Cordy-Collins); (5) Food for the Dead, Cuisine for the Living: Mortuary Food Offerings from the Jequetepeque Valley, Peru (Robyn Cutright); (6) Lambayeque Norte and Lambayeque Sur: Evidence for the Development of an Indigenous Lambayeque Polity in the Jequetepeque Valley (William Sapp); (7) Chicha Production during the Chimu Period at San Jose de Moro, Jequetepeque Valley, North Coast of Peru (Gabriel Prieto B.); ( 8) Architectural Renovation as Ritual Process in Late Intermediate Period Jequetepeque (Edward Swenson); ( 9) The Persistence of Lambayeque Ethic Identity: The Perspective from the Jequetepeque Valley, Peru (Carol Mackey); (10) A Case for Local Ceramic Production in the Jequetepeque Valley during the Late Horizon (Abigail R. Levine); (11) Late Horizon Sites in the Chaman Valley (Scott Kremkau); (12) Reflections on the Prehispanic Jequetepeque Valley (Tom Dillehay).