The modern-day Caribbean is a stunningly diverse but also intricately interconnected geo-cultural region, resulting partly from the islands’ shared colonial histories and an increasingly globalizing economy. Perhaps more importantly, before the encounter between the New and Old World took place, the indigenous societies and cultures of the pre-colonial Caribbean were already united in diversity. This work seeks to study the patterns of this pre-colonial homogeneity and diversity and uncover some of their underlying processes and dynamics. In contrast to earlier studies of its kind, this study adopts an archaeological network approach, in part derived from the network sciences. In archaeology, network approaches can be used to explore the complex relations between objects, sites or other archaeological features, and as such represents a powerful new tool for studying material culture systems. Archaeological research in general aims to uncover the social relations and human interactions underlying these material culture systems. Therefore, the interdependencies between social networks and material culture systems are another major focus of this study.This approach and theoretical framework is tested in four case studies dealing with lithic distribution networks, site assemblages as ego-networks, indigenous political networks, and the analysis of artefact styles in 2-mode networks. These were selected for their pertinence to key research themes in Caribbean archaeology, in particular the current debates about the nature of ties and interactions between culturally different communities in the region, and the structure and dynamics of pre-colonial socio-political organisation. The outcomes of these case studies show that archaeological network approaches can provide surprising new insights into longstanding questions about the patterns of pre-colonial connectivity in the region.

Presented through 20 case studies covering Europe and the Near East, Neighbours and Successors of Rome investigates development in the production of glass and the mechanisms of the wider glass economy as part of a wider material culture in Europe and the Near East around the later first millennium AD. Though highlighting and solidifying chronology, patterns of distribution, and typology, the primary aims of the collection are to present a new methodology that emphasises regional workshops, scientific data, and the wider trade culture.This methodology embraces a shift in conceptual approach to the study of glass by explaining typological change through the existence of a thriving supra-national commercial network that responded to market demands and combines the results of a range of new scientific techniques into a framework that stresses co-dependence and similarities between the various sites considered. Such an approach, particularly within Byzantine and Early Islamic glass production, is a pioneering concept that contextualises individual sites within the wider region.By twinning a critique of archaeometric methods with the latest archaeological research, the contributors present a foundation for glass research, seen through the lens of consumption demands and geographical necessity, that analyses production centres and traditional typological knowledge. In so doing the they bridge an important divide by demonstrating the co-habitability of diverse approaches and disciplines, linking, for example, the production of Campanulate bowls from Gallaecia with the burgeoning international late antique style. Equally, the particular details of those pieces allow us to identify a regional style as well as local production. As such this compilation provides a highly valuable resource for archaeologists, anthropologists, and art historians.

The British Museum holds approximately 6,000 human remains, the majority of which were recovered in the past century. Regarding the Dead addresses the British Museum’s approach to the ethical issues surrounding the inclusion of human remains in the Museum’s collection and presents solutions to the dilemmas relating to their curation, storage, access management and display. The holding of human remains in museums has long been a matter of academic and public discourse. The issues surrounding the rightful ownership, proper care, research and display of human remains are strongly debated, both within the museums and heritage sector and in the media on an international scale. Using case studies from the British Museum, Regarding the Dead examines these issues and explains how the availability of human remains for study has many benefits. Human remains provide the most direct and insightful sources of information on different cultural approaches to death, burial practices and belief systems. Their study also helps to advance important research concerning the history of disease, changing epidemiological patterns, forensics and human biology. The book draws together diverse strands of research concerning human remains and reflects the great variety of challenges and discoveries associated with this work as well as the sensitivities involved.

The eruption of the Thera (Santorini) volcano in the Aegean Sea in the mid-second millennium BC was a clearly defined, specific moment in Aegean and east Mediterranean prehistory that impacted on all the major cultures of the region. The effects of the eruption have been linked with the destruction of the Minoan palace civilisation of Crete, the legend of Atlantis, and even events described in the Biblical account of the Exodus. Scientists have studied the remains of the volcano and traced eruption products and far-flung climatic impacts throughout the east Mediterranean and in ice cores and tree-ring data. At Akrotiri, a major prehistoric town buried by the eruption, archaeologists unearthed the partially intact remains multi-storey buildings, painted frescoes and myriad objects of everyday life. The date of the eruption has long been a subject of importance and controversy since accurate dating would offer a unique linchpin for the study and synchronisation of the history and cultures of the region in the mid-second millennium. It would provide a key test both for the established historical chronology of ancient Egypt and derived archaeological chronologies. Yet the exact date remained stubbornly unresolved and varied in the literature by over 100 years.A Test of Time, first published in 1999, sought to resolve the issue through a critical review of the archaeological and scientific data, including the presentation of radiocarbon dates, which together suggested a new ‘early’ chronology for the Aegean c. 1700–1400 BC. This edition comprises the original, unrevised text, together with a substantial new appended essay which critically reviews the continuing debate between 1999 and 2012 and presents a raft of new scientific data, including the Bayesian modelling of radiocarbon dates relating to a range of relevant archaeological sequences from Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean.

The twenty-third Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference (TRAC) was held at King’s College, London in spring 2013. During the three-day conference nearly papers were delivered, discussing issues from a wide range of geographical regions of the Roman Empire, and applying various theoretical and methodological approaches. Sessions included those looking at Roman–Barbarian interactions; identity and funerary monuments in ancient Italy; migration and social identity in the Roman Near East; theoretical approaches to Roman small finds; formation processes of in-fills in urban sites; and new reflections on Roman glass. This volume contains a selection of papers from the conference sessions.

The Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in Turkey has been world famous since the 1960s when excavations revealed the large size and dense occupation of the settlement, as well as the spectacular wall paintings and reliefs uncovered inside the houses. Since 1993 an international team of archaeologists, led by Ian Hodder, has been carrying out new excavations and research, in order to shed more light on the people who inhabited the site. The present volume discusses general themes that have emerged in the analysis and interpretation of the results of excavations in 2000-2008. It synthesizes the results of research described in other volumes in the same series. The volume commences with accounts of the recent work on community collaboration at the site, and with discussions of the methods used at the site. It then synthesizes the work on landscape use and mobility, integrating the work of subsistence analysis and the analysis of human remains. The storage and sharing of food is a related topic. The ways in which houses were constructed, lived in and abandoned leads to a broad discussion of settlement and social organization at Çatalhöyük and of their change through time. For example, shifts in the themes that occur in paintings in houses change through time as part of a wider set of social, economic and ritual changes in the upper levels. The social uses of materials and technologies are explored and the roles of materials in personal adornment. Finally, the discussion of variation through place and time is recognized as dependent on scales of analysis and social process.

The book “Similar but Different. Bell Beakers in Europe” deals with a cultural phenomenon, known as the Bell Beaker culture, that during the 3rd millennium B.C. was present throughout Western and Central Europe. This development played an important role in the formation of the Bronze Age at the turn of the 3rd and the 2nd millennium B

Ritual happens in distinct places – in temples, in caves, along pilgrimage routes – and religious activities there incorporate a diverse set of objects such as holy water, cult statues, and sacred texts. Understanding religious ritual requires viewing it not as a disembodied event, but as emplaced, grounded in both built and natural surroundings, and integrated with its associated material objects. Here authors examine various religious practices in the Greco-Roman world and pilgrimage routes in contemporary Israel. Other contributions focus on the East, on domestic religion in prehistoric Taiwan, and the palimpsest of ritual activity in Buddhist China. One author considers not just ritual’s built and natural setting, but also the landscape of the human mind. By way of conclusion, many of the recurring issues concerning the material and topographic matrix of ritual practice are expanded upon in a final meditation on sacred space. The papers in this volume, with their disciplinary, geographic, and chronological diversity, will serve as a resource for theoretical approaches to the study of ritual practice that may have broad cross-cultural application and provide new insight into the relationship between ritual and place.The volume is based on a conference held at Brown University.

This collection of essays begins with the premise that violence, in its relationship to order, is a central element of history. Taking a broad definition of violence, including structural and symbolic violence, the contributions move beyond the problematic of civilization’s mitigating or foundational role, instead seeing violence as inherently social, and, perhaps, socially inherent (if variable). The question then becomes what forms of harm are authorized or banned in which social orders and how they change over time. Beginning with a theoretical introduction, this interdisciplinary volume includes seven papers representing cultural anthropology, history, archaeology and international relations. The papers range from China to the Americas and from the 2nd millennium BCE to the 21st century CE. Some deal with long-term developments while others focus on a single time and place. Many treat the issue of the visibility/invisibility of violence, while all in one way or another deal with the role of violence in the re-production of community. Together, the volume aims to paint, with a few strokes, the outlines of a deep historical anthropology of social violence. The volume is based on the proceedings of a symposium hosted at Brown University.

The Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in Turkey has been world famous since the 1960s when excavations revealed the large size and dense occupation of the settlement, as well as the spectacular wall paintings and reliefs uncovered inside the houses. Since 1993 an international team of archaeologists, led by Ian Hodder, has been carrying out new excavations and research, in order to shed more light on the people who inhabited the site. Çatalhöyük Excavations presents the results of the excavations that took place at the site from 2000 to 2008 when the main aim was to understand the social geography of the settlement, its layout and social organization. Excavation, recording and sampling methodologies are discussed as well as dating, ‘levels’, and the grouping of buildings into social sectors. The excavations in three areas of the East Mound at Çatalhöyük are described: the South Area, the 4040 Area in the northern part of the site, and the IST Area excavated by a team from Istanbul University. The description of excavated units, features and buildings incorporates results from the analyses of animal bone, chipped stone, groundstone, shell, ceramics, phytoliths, micromorphology. The integration of such data within their context allows detailed accounts of the lives of the inhabitants of Çatalhöyük, their relationships and activities. The integration of different types of data in the excavation account mimics the process of collaborative interpretation that took place during the excavation and post-excavation process.

A fundamental component of the study of worked osseous objects is the identification of the raw materials chosen to make them. In archaeological contexts many objects become degraded to the point where identification is very difficult and the way in which these materials decay during burial and upon excavation can vary greatly. Correct identification is crucial to the investigation of objects, their conservation and future curation. Above all, understanding raw material selection aids our understanding of human-animal interaction in the past both on pragmatic and symbolic levels since the choices made by artisans vary by cultural tradition as well as availability.The 20 papers presented here explore a wealth of information pertaining to the use of osseous materials over the long period of human craftsmanship and tool manufacture by exploring several key themes:· Raw material selection and curation within tool types· Social aspects of raw material selection· New methods of materials identificationIt is demonstrated that the issue of raw material identification has numerous implications for conservation work, reproduction of objects, the physical characteristics of the tool or ornament, availability of raw materials, the materials chosen for procurement and the cultural reasons that lie behind the choice of raw materials from particular species and skeletal elements to produce planned tool and ornament types. Together, these papers emphasize the need for confident and correct materials identification and demonstrate that functionality is by no means the only, nor necessarily the most important, factor in the selection of osseous raw materials for the fabrication of tools and other cultural objects

The TAESP Landscape, the second of two volumes, presents an area-by-area analysis of the fieldwork and research undertaken by the Troodos Archaeological and Environmental Survey Project (TAESP) in the Troodos Mountains of Cyprus. Covering four regions of the survey area (The Plains, Karkotis Valley, Upper Lagoudhera Valley and The Mountains) the volume focuses on explicit research questions appropriate to each region. Organised geographically, chronologically and thematically, each region is investigated from the Neolithic to the present day and, through ‘Intensive Survey Zones’ – selected to give a representative range of the physical and cultural terrain – many notable new discoveries are made. These include the pattern of Bronze Age Settlement in the Plains, Archaic rural sanctuaries and cemeteries, the scope of Late Roman copper-mining and isolated Medieval mountain settlements. The TAESP Landscape provides a fully integrated and data-rich analysis of the material from a wide range of contrasting archaeological perspectives. Taken together, these wide-ranging and interdisciplinary perspectives give a nuanced and sensitive approach to a strikingly multi-faceted landscape.

The Troodos Mountain range in central Cyprus is a region of great physical and cultural diversity. The landscapes range from fertile, cultivated plains to narrow, dry valleys and forested mountain regions and this physical topography is overlain by a rich human cultural landscape of farming, mining, industry, settlement, burial and ritual behaviour. Over six field seasons, a team of specialists and fieldwalkers from the Troodos Archaeological and Environmental Survey Project (TAESP) investigated the northern edge of this region and explored the complex and dynamic relationship between landscape and people over 12,000 years. The results of their integrated and interpretative approach are presented here, in the first of two volumes. Beginning with a considered overview of the context, research aims and methodology of the project, Volume 1 provides detailed accounts of the archaeology, material culture, geography and environmental record of the entire survey area. This wealth of information is then bought together to produce a series of chronological and thematic analyses of the interaction between people and landscape in this region of Cyprus from the Prehistoric through to the Modern period.

Between 1999-2006 Addyman Archaeology carried out extensive archaeological excavations on the peninsular site of Kirk Ness, North Berwick, during the building, landscaping and extension of the Scottish Seabird Centre. This book presents the results of these works but its scope is much broader. Against the background of important new discoveries made at the site it brings together and re-examines all the evidence for early North Berwick – archaeological, historical, documentary, pictorial and cartographic – and includes much previously unpublished material. An essential new resource, it opens a fascinating window on the history of the ancient burgh. Kirk Ness is well known as the site of the medieval church of the parish and later royal burgh of North Berwick but it has long been suggested that it was also a centre of early Christian activity. The dedication of the church to St Andrew was speculatively linked to the translation of the Saint's relics to St Andrews in Fife in the 8th century. An early medieval component of the site was indeed confirmed by the excavation, with structural remains, individual finds and an important new series of radiocarbon dates. Occupation of a domestic character may possibly reflect a monastic community associated with an early church. Individual finds included stone tools, lead objects, ceramic material and a faunal assemblage that included bones of butchered seals, fish and seabirds such as the now-extinct Great Auk. The site continued in use as the medieval and early post-medieval parish and burgh church of St Andrew. In this period Kirk Ness and its harbour was an important staging point for pilgrims on route to the shrine of St Andrew in Fife. Domestic occupation discovered in the excavations is likely to be associated with a pilgrims’ hospice, also suggested in historical sources. This publication also provides a new analysis of the church ruin and an account of the major unpublished excavation of the site carried out in 1951-52 by the scholar and antiquary Dr James Richardson, Scotland's first Inspector of Ancient Monuments and resident of North Berwick. The excavations also revealed areas of the cemetery associated with the church, dating to the 12th–17th centuries, where inhumations presented notable contrasts in burial practice. Osteological study shed much light upon the health and demographics of North Berwick’s early population and identified one individual who met with a particularly violent death.

Experimental Archaeology is a volume which aims to bridge the gap in archaeology between empirical testing and humanistic approaches to understanding the material record. The contributors explore a wide variety of different fields including how a phenomenological methodology can be used to increase our understanding of how a Bronze Age temple was ‘experienced’ by people in the past; how experimentation in the production of materials such as rawhide, glass and wine-making can be used to test theories or written sources and the possibilities of studying the three-dimensional morphology of Acheulian handaxes to search for possible idiosyncratic indicators during the Lower Palaeolithic. The papers in the volume reflect the continued diversity of work that experimental archaeology is able to produce and show how experimentation can be integrated with theory to substantiate a variety of hypotheses, whether validating information from written sources or testing the inferences of more recent theoretical ideology. Experimental Archaeology will set a new precedent for the role of experimentation in future archaeological research.

The site of La Grava (or Grove Priory) in Bedfordshire, excavated in advance of quarrying between 1973 and 1985, was one of the most extensive monastic/manorial projects of the 20th century in the UK. Excavated originally as a medieval religious house, identified as an alien priory of the Order of Fontevrault in Anjou, the site was to reveal settlement from the Romano-British period to the 16th century.Granted to the Order of Fontevrault in 1164, the priory became the home of the Procurator of the Order in England. From the later 14th century the site reverted to a lay establishment and was held by high-ranking royal women. The excavations were notable for several reasons, including their extent, the stratification in the remains, and the continuity of settlement from the late Saxon period onwards. Post-excavation analysis and reconstruction of building plans has led the author to suggest detailed sequences of spatial planning across the site.The royal and ecclesiastic connections to the site provided excellent documentary sources, enabling recorded events to be linked to building works. When combined with the large finds assemblage, and detailed reconstruction drawings, a vivid picture of life at La Grava over several centuries can be painted.