This book explores different aspects of LA-ICP-MS (laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry). It presents a large array of new analytical protocols for elemental or isotope analysis. LA-ICP-MS is a powerful tool that combines a sampling device able to remove very small quantities of material without leaving visible damage at the surface of an object. Furthermore, it functions as a sensitive analytical instrument that measures, within a few seconds, a wide range of isotopes in inorganic samples. Determining the elemental or the isotopic composition of ancient material is essential to address questions related to ancient technology or provenance and therefore aids archaeologists in reconstructing exchange networks for goods, people and ideas. Recent improvements of LA-ICP-MS have opened new avenues of research that are explored in this volume.

How do researchers use dynamic network analysis (DYNA) to explore, model, and try to understand the complex global history of our species? Reduced to bare bones, network analysis is a way of understanding the world around us - a way called relational thinking - that is liberating but challenging. Using this handbook, researchers learn to develop historical and archaeological research questions anchored in DYNA. Undergraduate and graduate students, as well as professional historians and archaeologists can consult on issues that range from hypothesis-driven research to critiquing dominant historical narratives, especially those that have tended ignore the diversity of the archaeological record.

This book explores different aspects of LA-ICP-MS (laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry). It presents a large array of new analytical protocols for elemental or isotope analysis. LA-ICP-MS is a powerful tool that combines a sampling device able to remove very small quantities of material without leaving visible damage at the surface of an object. Furthermore, it functions as a sensitive analytical instrument that measures, within a few seconds, a wide range of isotopes in inorganic samples. Determining the elemental or the isotopic composition of ancient material is essential to address questions related to ancient technology or provenance and therefore aids archaeologists in reconstructing exchange networks for goods, people and ideas. Recent improvements of LA-ICP-MS have opened new avenues of research that are explored in this volume.

The causes and consequences of violence and warfare have long interested social scientists, historians, and philosophers. While economic motivations for conflict are among the most commonly discussed drivers of human violence, prehistorians have often downplayed economic factors when studying non-state society. This volume explores linkages between conflict and socioeconomic organization during the early Neolithic of eastern Belgium (c. 5200-5000 BC), using compositional analysis of ceramics from Linienbandkeramik villages to assess production organization and map intercommunity connections against the backdrop of increasing evidence for conflict.