This study reinterprets the evidence from the well-known site of Kato Zakro in eastern Crete in the light of Darwinian evolutionary theory. Judith Reid employs a bottom-up approach linking the material evidence to its environmental setting and examining strategies of adaptation. In conclusion the politics, religion and economics of Kato Zakro are all explained in terms of the region's pastoralism.

Fourteen papers, in English or French, describing Palaeolithic sites and discoveries and regional surveys in south east Europe.

Ten papers assess the state of archaeological research in India in the twenty-first century. Topics include an overview of prehistoric research; essays on the Acheulian and Mesolithic cultures of West Bengal; food production in the Neolithic Ganga valley; an experimental approach to tool manufacture from quartz nodules; ancient brass working techniques; the recovery of a middle pleistocene child's skull; and a final assessment of the future of prehistoric archaeology in India.

Papers from the Flint Mining in Prehistoric Europe session held at European Association of Archaeologists 12th Annual Meeting Cracow, Poland, 19th-24th September 2006. Contents: 1) Flint extraction and processing from secondary flint deposits in the north-east of Scotland in the Neolithic period (Alan Saville); 2) Flint working at the early linearbandkeramik settlement of Geleen-Janskamperveld (Marjorie E. Th. de Grooth); 3) An economy of surplus production in the early Neolithic of Hesbaye (Belgium): Bandkeramik blade debitage at Verlaine 'Petit Paradis' (Pierre Allard, Laurence Burnez-Lanotte); 4) The prehistoric flint mining complex at Spiennes (Belgium) on the occasion of its discovery 140 years ago (Helene Collet, Anne Hauzeur, Jacek Lech); 5) A new flint mine at Flins-sur-Seine/ Aubergenville (Yvelines, France) (Francoise Bostyn, Francois Giligny, Adrienne Lo Carmine); 6) The Krzemionki flint mines latest underground research 2001-2004 (Jerzy Babel); 7) Open-cast flint mining, long blade production and long distance exchange: an example from Bulgaria (Laurence Manolakakis); 8) Flint mining in early Neolithic Iberia: a preliminary report on 'Casa Montero' (Madrid, Spain) (Marta Capote, Nuria Castaneda, Susana Consuegra,Cristina Criado, Pedro Diaz-del-Rio); 9) Intensive extraction of non-metallic minerals during the early protohistory in the northern half of Europe (Yoann Gauvry); 10) Ideology and influences behind the Neolithic flint mines of the Southern Britain (Paul Wheeler).

This volume represents the efforts of a significant collaborative project and provides a completely up-to-date interpretation of the Cave of Hearths (Makapan Cave Valley, Limpopo Province, South Africa), which has played a key role in furthering knowledge of hominin prehistory and evolution in southern Africa. This work provides new analyses and interpretations of this important site and its archaeology, geology and palaeontology.

As the editors point out, "rock art is the oldest archive of human activity," and its interpretation, although fraught with difficulty is thus of prime importance. This collection of papers, taken from the 15th UISPP congress, mainly look at specific symbols and their interpretation. Thus there are papers on faceless anthropomorphic symbols, the pentagram, spirals and lozenges, bulls horn symbols, footprint and handprint symbols, cupmarks and triangles, and net patterns and ruled rectangles. The volume is completed by two essays on particular rock art sites in Portugal and Galicia.

"Paleoindian Archaeology provides much needed hemispheric and hands-on analytical perspectives on the early human occupation of the Americas. The contributors explore similarities and differences among the early sites and assemblages in North, Central, and South America, providing a refreshing yet complementary approach to more localized studies."--David G. Anderson, University of Tennessee Since the 1997 report of investigations into the Monte Verde site in Chile, there has been a surge of interest in early habitation sites and a polarization of opinion about the antiquity of humans in the Americas. While Clovis remains the earliest undisputed cultural complex in the New World and one of the fastest and most successful diasporas in human history, many scholars argue that this culture did not enter an empty landscape. This volume samples sites from Alaska to the southern cone of South America to provide a better understanding of the processes by which the early settlement of the Americas occurred at the end of the late Wisconsonian Ice Age. With broad geographical and topical breadth, Paleoindian Archaeology provides theoretical perspectives on early migrations, interpretations of single sites, and comparative studies of material culture. Included are a synthesis on radiocarbon dating, a critique of Paleoindian studies, a reconstruction of the Clovis drought based on geomorphological and paleo-environmental data, several site specific studies (one on the only known Clovis burial in the New World), discussions on fluted points from South America, and three studies comparing North and South American evidence (grassland adaptations, stone technologies, and Paleoindian artifacts). Juliet E. Morrow is associate professor of anthropology at the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville and station archaeologist with the Arkansas Archaeological Survey. Cristobal Gnecco is professor of anthropology at the Universidad del Cauca, Colombia.

Oxbow says: A detailed study, based on the author's doctoral research, of portal tombs in Ireland, Wales and Cornwall, including a synthesis of previous work on this type of megalithic monument, and original fieldwork. The chapters examine tomb morphology, issues of classification and variants from the 'ideal' portal tomb, finds (lithics, pottery and human bone), and radiocarbon dates. Finally, Kytmannow places the tombs within the context of the landscape, exploring links with other monuments and settlements. Further data, including a catalogue of 225 sites, can be found on a CD.

Collaboration by the universities of Sheffield and Kalmar and Stockholm in Sweden led to two conferences being held. The second, held at Sheffield in 2006, sought collaboration and the sharing of information on archaeological data and theoretical thought on material culture diversity in the third millennium BC. Nineteen papers are presented in this volume arranged under three headings: material culture diversity in the Baltic; British Beaker burials and the Beaker People Project; Stonehenge and the Stonehenge Riverside Project. General overviews and wide-ranging discussions are joined by results from particular field orr laboratory projects.

This report details excavations carried out in 1997-98 prior to the building of the second runway at Manchester Airport. The evidence recovered demonstrates a reuse of the site from the Early Neolithic period onwards, primarily as a small agriculturally-based 'farmstead', probably heavily dependent upon livestock-farming, particularly sheep.

This study presents the material assemblage of the Neolithic and Early Helladic strata from the excavations at Ayios Dhimitrios, ancient Triphylia in the SW Peloponnese, Greece. The data is used to compare the culture of Ayios Demetrios with the northern Peloponnese, and show that it was not left outside the cultural evolution of the northern areas, but was involved in and contributed to this evolution.

This study characterises deposition practices in the Middle Thames Valley (England) from the late Mesolithic to early Bronze Age. All available in situ contexts of deposition are considered, such as pits, tree-throw holes, middens, rivers and various monument forms. The study highlights variations in the formality of deposition within contemporary contexts and considers how this relates to ritual activity. Developments in deposition practices are also considered through time from the late Mesolithic to early Bronze Age and processes of ritualisation are explored. This contextual analysis is used as a basis to explore several pertinent issues in Neolithic studies. Deposition practices are used to explore chronological changes in the temporal rhythms of occupation and economy and also variation and developments in funerary and mortuary activity. The use and perception of landscapes in the Middle Thames Valley during the Neolithic are also considered and distinct conceptual changes in relation to these landscapes are highlighted. Deposition practices in the Middle Thames Valley are contrasted with surrounding regions to demonstrate distinct regional patterns. It is argued that differences in deposition practices reflect how aspects of the environment were perceived and the role they held in achieving social reproduction.

The Agricultural Revolution in Prehistory addresses one of the most debated and least understood revolutions in the history of our species, the change from hunting and gathering to farming. Graeme Barker takes a global view, and integrates a massive array of information from archaeology and many other disciplines, including anthropology, botany, climatology, genetics, linguistics, and zoology. Against current orthodoxy, Barker develops a strong case for the development of agricultural systems in many areas as transformations in the life-ways of the indigenous forager societies, and argues that these were as much changes in social norms and ideologies as in ways of obtaining food. With a large number of helpful line drawings and photographs as well as a comprehensive bibliography, this authoritative study will appeal to a wide general readership as well as to specialists in a variety of fields.

An important collection of papers taken from a session of the 2005 EAA in Cork. The contributors ask how far the functions of hoard deposits, and the codification of the arrangement of objects can be compared from one period to another. Aspects such as the symbolic space of deposits and the state of the objects involved (were they intact or deliberately broken) are also discussed, all within the context of the more technical statistical and scientific modes of analysis which have emerged in recent years.

13 papers which focus on the interaction between all aspects of pastoralism and agriculture in the southern Levant, from the Bronze Age to the present. They make the point that agriculture, pastoralism, trade, exchange and other forms of subsistence were all pursued with the same communities, and that the often assumed divide between settled 'sowers' and nomads is largely illusory.

Papers from a symposium held in May 2006 in Rome on the Italian Late Glacial. Contents: 1) Lineamenti della vegetazione tardoglaciale in Italia peninsulare e in Sicilia (Donatella Magri); 2) L'uso degli isotopi nella ricostruzione delle migrazioni delle faune nel Tardiglaciale (Maura Pellegrini, Randolph E. Donahue, Julia Lee-Thorp, Jane Evans, Janet Montgomery, Carolyn Chenery, Margherita Mussi); 3) Il livello di conoscenza sulle strategie di sussistenza e i modelli di insediamento nel Tardiglaciale italiano: un bilancio dopo piu di 15 anni (Francesca Alhaique, Amilcare Bietti); 4) Continuita e discontinuita nel panorama funerario del Paleolitico superiore in Italia (Vincenzo Formicola); 5) Evolution des concepts de productions lithiques et artistiques a l'epigravettien recent: analyses de collections des prealpes de la Venetie et des prealpes du sud Francaises (Cyril Montoya); 6) La caccia a Riparo Dalmeri nel Tardiglaciale dell'Italia nord-orientale (Ivana Fiore, Antonio Tagliacozzo); 7) Grotta del Clusantin, un sito inusuale nel sistema insediativo epigravettiano delle Alpi italiane (Marco Peresani, Ornella De Curtis, Rossella Duches, Fabio Gurioli, Matteo Romandini, Benedetto Sala); 8) Madonna dell'Ospedale, un sito epigravettiano antico al margine dell'Appennino Marchigiano: osservazioni sulla produzione litica (Mara Silvestrini, Emanuele Cancellieri, Marco Peresani); 9) Une approche taphonomique de l'occupation humaine au Tardiglaciaire dans la vallee du Gallero (Prov. de Pescara, Abruzzes) (Yann Le Jeune, Monique Olive); 10) Tempi e modi del ripopolamento dell'Appennino centrale nel Tardiglaciale: nuove evidenze da Grotta di Pozzo (AQ) (Margherita Mussi, Enzo Cocca, Emanuela D'Angelo, Ivana Fiore, Rita Melis, Hannah Russ); 11) Il Gravettiano di Roccia San Sebastiano (Mondragone, Caserta)( Carmine Collina, Ivana Fiore, Rosalia Gallotti, Massimo Pennacchioni, Marcello Piperno, Loretana Salvadei, Antonio Tagliacozzo); 12) Recenti ricerche sul Tardoglaciale del basso versante tirrenico (Fabio Martini, Andre Carlo Colonese, Zelia Di Giuseppe, Massimiliano Ghinassi, Lisa Govoni, Domenico Lo Vetro, Silvia Ricciardi).

Archaeologists across the Midwest have pooled their data and perspectives to produce this indispensable volume on the Native cultures of the Late Woodland period (approximately A.D. 300-1000). Sandwiched between the well-known Hopewellian and Mississippian eras of monumental mound construction, the Late Woodland period has received insufficient attention from archaeologists, who have frequently characterized it as consisting of relatively drab artifact assemblages. The close connections between this period and subsequent Mississippian and Fort Ancient societies, however, make it especially valuable for cross-cultural researchers. Understanding the cultural processes at work during the Late Woodland period will yield important clues about the long-term forces that stimulate and enhance social inequality.

"Late Woodland Societies" is notable for its comprehensive geographic coverage; exhaustive presentation and discussion of sites, artifacts, and prehistoric cultural practices; and critical summaries of interpretive perspectives and trends in scholarship. The vast amount of information and theory brought together, examined, and synthesized by the contributors produces a detailed, coherent, and systematic picture of Late Woodland lifestyles across the Midwest. The Late Woodland can now be seen as a dynamic time in its own right and instrumental to the emergence of complex late prehistoric cultures across the Midwest and Southeast.

This large volume contains 86 papers selected from papers given at the 2003 conference. Papers range from the broadly theoretical, to the discussion of specific techniques and to practical examples of their application. Themes include dating, geophysics, geoarchaeology, palaeodiet, palaeoanthropology, material characterisation techniques, ceramics, glass, stone, mortars, metals, painting media, organics and conservation.

The aim of this book is to demonstrate the value of psychology in the study of ancient art, enabling emphasis on the individual, in the sense of a human being or person in a general way, in addition to denoting a discrete human being possessing an individual identity. Not all aspects of psychology lend themselves to application to the set of data which has been preserved in the archaeological record in Late Bronze Age Greece. This book primarily explores the knowledge of visual perception acquired via psychological research, which has provided valuable information on the production of images by artists. In addition, the nature of aggression, that is, conflict between members of the same species, is discussed. The case studies focus on art from the periods described as 'Early Mycenaean' and 'Mycenaean', roughly the fifteenth to the thirteenth centuries BC. Contents: Introduction: The Mycenaean World; Chapter 1: How Humans See: an introduction to the visual system; Chapter 2: Methods of Representation of the Human Form; Chapter 3: The recognition of the individual; Chapter 4: Composition in Mycenaean Art; Chapter 5: Colour and Form in Mycenaean Art; Chapter 6: Warfare and Aggression: their effects on Mycenaean art.

This volume presents the methodology and results for the excavations at Cairnderry and Bargrennan, south-west Scotland. A comparative chapter compares the excavation results from both sites, and presents interpretations of these results, particularly in terms of the architecture and the early Bronze Age mortuary practices. Chapter 5 considers the architecture of Cairnderry and Bargrennan in terms of wider trends in the construction of chambered cairns throughout the British Isles and throughout the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. Chapter 6 places the early Bronze Age activity at Cairnderry and Bargrennan within a local context by examining mortuary practices across Dumfries and Galloway. It focuses on comparisons with other sites where cremated bones were deposited and cinerary urns used and/or sites where cairns were constructed or re-used in the early Bronze Age. Chapter 7 provides a summary of conclusions as to the finds and revisits the problem of dating Bargrennan chambered cairns, before suggesting avenues for future research in Galloway. The appendices draw together the specialists reports on finds from the excavations (including a substantial contextualisation of some of the early Bronze Age artefacts), context descriptions and radiocarbon dating results.

The Isles of Scilly are located 48km south-west of Lands End (Cornwall) England, and comprise a small archipelago of granite islands. The interpretation of the islands' archaeology has received no recent detailed consideration and has therefore not been studied within a contemporary archaeological framework. This research seeks to redress this by considering the prehistory of Scilly from the earliest evidence for a human presence on the islands until the end of the 1st century BC (Mesolithic until Iron Age). It will draw upon recent approaches to the study of landscapes, seascapes and islands and from within archaeology and anthropology, as well as other approaches developed within the broader social sciences.

This volume presents 10 papers from the 6th Annual Conference of the British Association for Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology, held at the University of Bristol in September 2004. Contents: 1) Climatic influences on craniofacial variability in modern humans (Mallett, X.D.G.); 2) Canopy height utilisation and trauma in three species of cercopithecoid monkeys (Chapman, C., Legge, S.S. and Johns S.E.); 3) Developmental stress and its morphological correlates (Buckley, C.); 4) Teeth and diet: what more is there? Teeth as markers for population history (Zakrzewski, S.R.); 5) Tracing change. Childhood diet at the Anglo-Saxon Blackgate Cemetery, Newcastle upon Tyne, England (Macpherson, P.M., Chenery, C.A., Chamberlain, A.T.); 6) Growth in modern Western children: A representative sample? (Clegg, M.); 7) Tuberculosis at Spitalfields, London: an initial insight into medieval urban living (Gray Jones, A. & Walker, D.); 8) Klippel-Feil syndrome: Examples from two skeletal collections of Alaskan Natives (Legg, S.S.); 9) The specificity of palaeopathological diagnosis: A case of bilateral Scapholunate Advanced Collapse in a Romano-British skeleton from Ancaster (Roberts, A.M. & Robson Brown, K.); 10) A zooarchaeological contribution to Biological Anthropology: Working towards a better understanding of cut marks and butchery (Seetah, K.).

There is a long-standing interest in use efficiency and evolution in prehistoric ground stone tool research. A design and performance analysis conducted with replica tools examines a number of milling tool performance characteristics, including use efficiency, ease of manufacture, and ease of maintenance, as well as their interplay in the design process. This analysis shows that raw material and use surface area affect use efficiency. A paradigmatic artefact classification documents the variation in prehistoric manos from archaeological sites in the Middle Rio Puerco Valley of New Mexico. Contents: Introduction; Background and research; Hypothesis; Methods and procedures; Results; Discussion; Conclusions.

Papers from The Third International Meeting of Anthracology, entitled Charcoals from the Past. Cultural and palaeoenvironmental implications, organized at Cavallino (Lecce) from 28th June to 1st July 2004. Contents: 1) Special techniques for the anatomical study of charcoal (G. Angeles, F. Ortega-Escalona, C. Madero Vega); 2) Archaeo-environmental studies of cultivation terraces in the Enveig Mountain (Cerdagne) in Eastern Pyrenees (France). Use of pedo-anthracology (M.C. Bal, R. Harfouche, P. Poupet, P. Campmajo, C. Rendu); 3) Did calcareous grasslands exist in prehistoric times? An archaeobotanical research on the surroundings of the prehistoric settlement above Kallmunz (Bavaria, Germany) (A. Baumann, P. Poschlod); 4) Charcoals in context: anthracological analysis at Muro Tenente, south-eastern Italy (G.J. Burgers, D. Lentjes); 5) Wood in arid zones prehistoric architecture (I. Caneva); 6) A fuoco lento: strutture di combustione nellabitato delleta del Bronzo di Coppa Nevigata (Manfredonia - FG) (A. Cazzella, G. Recchia); 7) An approach to Holocene vegetation history in the middle Rhone valley (France): anthracological data from the TGV-Mediterranee excavations (C. Delhon, S. Thiebault); 8) Environment and ritual in a late Iron Age context: an example from Raffin Fort, Co. Meath, Ireland (M. Dillon, C. Newman, K. Molloy, M. OConnell); 9) Charred organic matter and phosphorus in black soils in the Lower Rhine Basin (Northwest Germany) indicate prehistoric agricultural burning (E. Eckmeier, R. Gerlach, U. Tegtmeier, M.W.I. Schmidt); 10) Charcoal as environmental and ethnological evidence from medieval archaeological sites in NW-Italy (I. Ferrari Fontana, B.I. Menozzi, C. Montanari); 11) Pollen and micro-charcoal evidence of vegetation dynamics and human impact along the southern Bulgarian Black sea coast (M. Filipova Marinova, H. Angelova); 12) Rapid and accurate estimates of microcharcoal content in pollen slides (W. Finsinger, W. Tinner, F.S. Hu); 13) Arts du feu et du forgeron en Mauritanie (C. Fortier); 14) Metallurgy in ancient Lecce: new evidence from the excavations of Piazzetta Epulione and Piazzetta Castromediano (C. Giardino, A. Quercia); 15) La capanna rituale di Serra Cicora (Nardo-LE) (E. Ingravallo); 16) Recenti ricerche sulla produzione di utensili lignei a Karatepe-Aslantas, Turchia (M.R. Iovino, C. Altinbilek); 17) Experimental charcoal-burning with special regard to anthracological wood diameter analysis (T. Ludemann); 18) Gli accampamenti invernali e primaverili dei nomadi dellArkhangai e dellOvorkhangai settentrionale: i ricoveri per gli animali (Mongolia centro-occidentale) (F. Lugli); 19) Two long micro-charcoal records from central Italy (D. Magri); 20) The fires of Aeolian villages at the end of Middle Bronze Age: the case of Portella site in the Salina island (ME - Italy) (M.C. Martinelli, G. Fiorentino); 21) Combining charcoal and pollen analysis: Holocene vegetation dynamics, tree species composition and woodland use in the Bavarian Forest (O. Nelle); 22) Environment and agriculture in the early Neolithic of the Arene Candide (Liguria) (R. Nisbet); 23) A contribution to the forest history of the Markstein area in the southern Vosges (France) (W. Nolken); 24) Il controllo delle alte temperature e linizio della metallurgia nel Vicino Oriente (A. Palmieri); 25) Food Processing in the Levant during the Middle Bronze Age. Fire installations cooking pots and grinding tools at Tell Mardikh-Ebla (Syria)-Two Case Studies (L. Peyronel, G. Spreafico); 26) High resolution AMS radiocarbon dating of archaeological charcoals (G. Quarta, M. DElia, L.Calcagnile); 27) Environmental history in the Mediterranean basin: microcharcoal as a tool to disentangle human impact and climate change (L. Sadori, M. Giardini); 28) Collapsed beams and wooden remains from a 3200 BC temple and palace at Arslantepe (Malatya, Turkey) (L. Sadori, F. Susanna, F. Balossi Restelli); 29) The Use of Wood: Traditional Building Techniques in the Swat Valley (Pakistan). An Ethno-Archaeological Research (I.E. Scerrato); 30) Environmental and cultural history of South American temperate forests: an interdisciplinary approach (M.E. Solari); 31) A critical assessment and experimental comparison of microscopic charcoal extraction methods (R. Turner, A. Kelly, N. Roberts); 32) Domestic fires and vegetation cover among Neanderthalians and Anatomically Modern Human Groups (>53-30 kyr BP) in the Cantabrian Region (Cantabria, Northern Spain) (P. Uzquiano); 33) Fuel Supplies for Pompeii. Pre-Roman and Roman charcoals of the Casa delle Vestali (R. Veal, G. Thompson); 34) Anthracology and Mediterranean landscape, classical and new approaches (J.L. Vernet); 35) Solar influence on Holocene fire history (K.J. Willis, K.D. Bennett, S.G. Haberle).