This volume, the result of a symposium held at the University of Edinburgh in 2002, presents new research and new perspectives on prehistoric settlement in the Iron Gates region which straddles the Danube between Serbia and Romania. Although comparatively little recent fieldwork in the region has been undertaken, the contributors show how much more can be gained from existing results by using new scientific techniques.

Twenty-eight essays by a very distinguished collection of contributors who were invited to speak at a conference in Newcastle in 1993 on a number of themes in terms of evidence for cave and rockshelter use in their areas of the world. The contributors include: Lawrence Straus ( Some human uses of caves and rockshelters ); Pavel Dolukhanov ( Cave vs open-air settlement in the European Upper Palaeolithic ); Marcel Otte ( The Belgian Palaeolithic ); Ann Sieveking ( Cave as context in Palaeolithic art ); Paul Bahn ( Pleistocene cave art ); Erwin Cziesla ( The Weidental cave ); Manuel Gonzalez Morales ( Cantabrian Spain ); Keith Branigan ( Caves as workshops ); Vassily Lubin ( The Caucasus ); Andrea Stone ( Pre-Columbian cave utilization in the Maya area ); Josephine Flood ( Aboriginal use of caves ); Penny Dransart ( Northern Chile ).

Beads, beadwork, and personal ornaments are made of diverse materials such as shell, bone, stones, minerals, and composite materials. Their exploration from geographical and chronological settings around the world offers a glimpse at some of the cutting edge research within the fast growing field of personal ornaments in humanities' past. Recent studies are based on a variety of analytical procedures that highlight humankind's technological advances, exchange networks, mortuary practices, and symbol-laden beliefs. Papers discuss the social narratives behind bead and beadwork manufacture, use and disposal; the way beads work visually, audibly and even tactilely to cue wearers and audience to their social message(s). Understanding the entangled social and technical aspects of beads require a broad spectrum of technical and methodological approaches including the identification of the sources for the raw material of beads. These scientific approaches are also combined in some instances with experimentation to clarify the manner in which beads were produced and used in past societies.