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 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.

"Fitzsimmons is the first to attempt to survey the entire corpus of Lowland Maya hieroglyphic texts, iconography, and archaeological site documentation relating to royal death, burial, and afterlife. It is an ambitious undertaking, but Fitzsimmons rises to the challenge and has produced a book that makes a lasting contribution to Maya archaeology." --Patricia A. McAnany, Boston University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, author of Living with the Ancestors: Kinship and Kingship in Ancient Maya Society

Like their regal counterparts in societies around the globe, ancient Maya rulers departed this world with elaborate burial ceremonies and lavish grave goods, which often included ceramics, red pigments, earflares, stingray spines, jades, pearls, obsidian blades, and mosaics. Archaeological investigation of these burials, as well as the decipherment of inscriptions that record Maya rulers' funerary rites, have opened a fascinating window on how the ancient Maya envisaged the ruler's passage from the world of the living to the realm of the ancestors.

Focusing on the Classic Period (AD 250-900), James Fitzsimmons examines and compares textual and archaeological evidence for rites of death and burial in the Maya lowlands, from which he creates models of royal Maya funerary behavior. Exploring ancient Maya attitudes toward death expressed at well-known sites such as Tikal, Guatemala, and Copan, Honduras, as well as less-explored archaeological locations, Fitzsimmons reconstructs royal mortuary rites and expands our understanding of key Maya concepts including the afterlife and ancestor veneration.

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).

This monograph aims to shed light on just one facet of the comparatively understudied field of Minoan religion - that of animal sacrifice. As such it is a detailed disucussion and analysis of faunal remains, and takes issue with much of the methodology of what has gone before it. Robert Cromarty points out that other ritual practices such as libations and votive offerings have a far wider distribution and that faunal remains occur only at a limited number of specific sites. Indeed he goes as far, given the nature of the sites, as to question whether the remains are evidence of sacrifice at all in the classical thusia sense, preferring the term 'commensal meat ritual'.

Oxbow says: This thesis re-examines evidence for the distribution of hominin populations focusing particularly on the period 1.8-0.6 million years ago in Africa. Various theories and scenarios are assessed as MacDonald takes an evolutionary and ecological approach to interpreting hominin geographic ranges. The challenges and problems in studying this subject are discussed and the utility of comparative analyses being used to fill in the gaps in archaeological data are considered in theory and in practice (comparisons are made with the distribution of modern primate species and of African mammal taxa).

This collection of essays from a 2006 congress detail the current state of Rockshelter studies around the world. Rockshelters have long been recognised as crucial to our understanding of prehistory and of the lives of early hominids in particular. The essays take the form of either broad, regional overviews, looking for the most part at North America and Eastern Europe, or reports on work at specific sites, with the Americas and Europe again prominent.

Explores the pre-historical defensive architecture in Crete by discerning four types of architectural feature: enclosure walls, tower-like structures; 'guard houses' and guardrooms.

The study investigates why the scientific construction of knowledge about the prehistoric inhabitants of Lancastria has focused so much on individual artefacts and single sites removed from their landscape context. It asks why the knowledge and understanding assembled by archaeologists has had so little to do with studies of change over the long term. It examines some of the circumstances that shaped these approaches over the past 400 years tracing the parting of the ways between scientific and popular knowledge of the past. Specific research objectives of the study are to recontextualise the interrelationships between objects, monuments and landscape to facilitate a diachronic study of change in later prehistoric Lancastria; to explore the influence of local and regional contexts on strategies of exploitation, interaction, connectivity and interdependence amongst the prehistoric inhabitants of the region; to explore the changing role of technology and material culture in ordering and representing changing social identity; and to develop a model for the social reproduction of small-scale society through time within the region.

This study centres upon a database of some 50,000 examples of imported material in the Italian peninsula, Sardinia, and Sicily dating from approximately 800 to 500 BC, which has been constructed in order to study the beginnings of trade with this region. Fletcher's conclusions tackle a few sacred cows - that metals were the items which lured people westward to trade, and that primacy in this early trade fell to the Phoenicians.

28 papers from Sections 17 (American Prehistory) and 17.1 (Change in the Andes: Origins of Social Complexity, Pastoralism and Agriculture), Acts of the XIVth UISPP Congress, University of Liege, Belgium, 2-8 September 2001.

This volume contains the proceedings of the 15th World Congress of the International Union for Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences. The theme of the conference was subsistence strategies in the Palaeolithic, and an attempt was made to integrate lithic studies, zooarchaeology and archaeobotany to produce a more interdisciplinary approach. Essays range from site-specific reports to more general discussions, with a focus on the environmental factors which influenced human behaviour. Essays mostly in French with a few in English.

Enigmatic, esoteric and fascinating, the rock-art of the British Isles has for a long time been a well kept secret at home and abroad. However, dedicated work by rock-art researchers over the last few decades has seen the discovery of hundreds of new panels and the publication of several high quality regional surveys and numerous survey reports and academic articles, and the creation of a highly successful world-class website on Northumberland rock-art. British rock-art has arrived on the world stage. Drawing on these exciting developments, this volume brings together a carefully selected collection of papers that cover British prehistoric rock-art from over 10,000 years ago. Some of the topics addressed include: recent discoveries of Palaeolithic cave art and probable Mesolithic; inscriptions; new perspectives on Neolithic-Early Bronze Age and Pictish rock-art; regional studies on the rock-art of Cumbria, Northumberland, North Yorkshire and South West Britain; relationships between rock-art and ritual and funerary monuments and between rock-art and landscape; experiential approaches to understanding passage grave art within chambered tombs; the history of British rock-art research. Contents: 1) A coming of age (Aron Mazel, George Nash and Clive Waddington); 2) Rock-art and art mobilier of the British Upper Palaeolithic (Paul Pettitt and Paul Bahn); 3) Possible Mesolithic cave art in southern England (Graham Mullan & Linda Wilson); 4) Neolithic rock-art in the British Isles: retrospect and prospect (Clive Waddington); 5) Pictish symbol stones: caught between prehistory and history (Meggen Gondek); 6) Rock-art in Cleveland and north-east Yorkshire: contexts and chronology (Blaise Vyner);7) Exploring links between cupmarks and cairnfields (Philip Deakin); 8) Light at the end of the tunnel: the way megalithic art was viewed and experienced (George Nash); 9) Rock-art and rough outs: exploring the sacred and social dimensions of prehistoric carvings at Copt Howe, Cumbria (Kate E. Sharpe); 10 ) A scattering of images: the rock-art of southern Britain (George Nash); 11) How the study of rock-art began and developed (Stan Beckensall); 12) On the fells and beyond: exploring aspects of Northumberland rock-art (Aron D. Mazel).

This volume focuses on the phenomenon of the Transition from the Middle to the Upper Palaeolithic in the Iberian Peninsula, with special reference to the site of Abric Romani (Capellades, Barcelona), more broadly the northern Iberian sites, and the theoretical and typological systematics that have been used hitherto in the study of the transitional process. The core of the study is the development of the Transition from the latest Mousterian facies, to the appearance of the earliest Upper Palaeolithic. A secondary focus concentrates on the methods used until now to conduct similar studies.

Intrigued by this mundane, ubiquitous vessel, the author of this study began to collect data from amphora related burials with the intention of drawing parallels between Roman lifestyles and changing funerary practices in Gaul. As the data collection grew, it became apparent that not all of the burial contexts that contained amphorae qualified as elite burials. Some contained sherds rather than complete amphorae, together with potsherds and fragmentary goods. Convinced that sherd burials hinted at a localised tradition, details were added to the growing database of evidence. This study therefore aims to understand this relationship through interrogation of the reasons for the selection of amphorae and their treatment in the light of mortuary practice. While amphorae are still the key to this study, it is recognised that the significance of the vessels must be relative to cultural and social contexts; therefore the focus of this study widens from being a study of amphora in burials to a study of funerary behaviour and attitudes in which amphorae are incidental. The work is divided into three parts. The first section explores the development of feasting rituals in Iron Age Europe using the evidence of mythic literature, classical texts and iconography. Chapters 2 and 3 identify, describe, differentiate and analyse the feasting customs of Greek and Roman societies in order to lay a foundation for a comparative interpretation of Celtic or Gallic feasting ritual in Chapter 4. Chapter 4, as well as reviewing the classical observation of authors such as Tacitus and Strabo who describe the Gauls through Roman eyes, also introduces the corroboration of later Irish mythic in which 'Celtic' feasting plays a part. In Chapter 5 the textual sources are supported by the artefactual evidence of feasting vessels, furnishings and accommodation which were particular to feasting. Chapter 6 comments on the rise of powerful individuals and the social changes which may have culminated in a series of Gallic burials containing wine-related vessels. In part II three chapters are concerned with the disposal of both human and non-human material. Chapter 7 lists 265 Late Iron Age burials of Gallic Europe which contain amphorae, either in complete or sherd form. Though the initial recording of interments may have been included in a cemetery record, in this instance each burial is treated as a unique ceremony and is accorded an individual account. The amphora burials of the Champagne region are considered in full detail in Chapter 8. A body of evidence presenting similar ideology to that of amphorae burials is that of 'funerary' pits, which contain artefactual deposits associated with wine. These are considered in Chapter 9. Part III, the concluding Chapter 10, provides an interpretation of the assembled evidence, and attempts to justify conclusions.

Analysis of Lithic Artefact Microdebitage for Chronological Determination of Archaeologica Aby George J Susino This study explores several different techniques to isolate and determine the age of lithic microdebitage in relation to archaeological deposits and sedimentation. This research proposes the integration of techniques available in archaeology and geomorphology to ascertain the shape and features of quartz microdebitage, and the use of OSL for direct dating of the artefacts and sediments. In this research, sedimentary samples from two archaeological sites in northern Australia are analysed using experimental methodologies to isolate and date quartz microdebitage, derived from the process of manufacturing stone tools. The central aim of this research is to apply the OSL dating technique for direct dating of quartz artefactual material.

A celebration of Patricia Smiths distinguished career, the papers presented in this Festschrift focus on a region and research topics that have fascinated and challenged her since her student days. The broad intellectual and geographic range covered by the papers offers a wealth of information and insights into the biology of past and present populations of the Eastern Mediterranean, a region rich in history and human diversity.