Following its appearance, arguably in Orkney in the 32nd century cal BC, Grooved Ware soon became widespread across Britain and Ireland, seemingly replacing earlier pottery styles and being deposited in contexts as varied as simple pits, passage tombs, ceremonial timber circles and henge monuments. As a result, Grooved Ware lies at the heart of many ongoing debates concerning social and economic developments at the end of the 4th and during the first half of the 3rd millennia cal BC.Stemming from the 2022 Neolithic Studies Group autumn conference, and following on from Cleal and MacSween’s 1999 NSG volume on Grooved Ware, this book presents a series of papers from researchers specializing in Grooved Ware pottery and the British and Irish Neolithic, offering both regional and thematic perspectives on this important ceramic tradition. Chapters cover the development of Grooved Ware in Orkney as well as the timing and nature of its appearance, development, and subsequent demise in different regions of Britain and Ireland. In addition, thematic papers consider what Grooved Ware can contribute to understandings of inter-regional interactions during the earlier 3rd millennium cal BC, the possible meaning of Grooved Ware’s decorative motifs, and the thorny issue of the validity and significance of the various Grooved Ware sub-styles.The book will be of great value not only to archaeologists and students with a specific interest in Grooved Ware pottery but also to those with a more general interest in the development of the Neolithic of Britain and Ireland.

Supplementary Exercises for Old Norse - Old Icelandic is a new volume in the Viking Language Old Norse Icelandic Series. A workbook of 17 lessons designed for those who want to learn or sharpen their skills in Old Norse with innovative exercises, word games, and map questions. With a full vocabulary and a free Answer Key at oldnorse. org. It also contains Old Norse readings drawn from the Saga of Ragnar Lodbrok (recounting Ragnar’s attack on England and his death in the snake pit) and mythic passages from The Prose Edda describing a journey of the Norse gods, the great dragon´s treasure, and the magical ring of the dwarves. Supplementary Exercises master Old Norse.

Bradley J. Parker made numerous contributions to the field of archaeology and Assyriology on a broad array of topics spanning six millennia of archaeological history in both ancient Mesopotamia and the Andes. His varied research interests included the archaeology of empires and imperial dynamics, frontiers and borderlands, households and micro-archaeology, ethnoarchaeology, aerial drone mapping, and the politics of archaeology and nationalism. This volume contains a collection of essays from his friends, colleagues and former students that cover three broad themes: household archaeology, frontiers and borderlands, and the archaeology of empire. Our goal is to explore Bradley’s indelible legacy in the field of archaeology and how his work will contribute to academic discourses in the future.

Economic circularity is the ability of a society to reduce waste by recycling, reusing, and repairing raw materials and finished products. This concept has gained momentum in academia, in part due to contemporary environmental concerns. Although the blurry conceptual boundaries of this term are open to a wide array of interpretations, the scholarly community generally perceives circular economy as a convenient umbrella definition that encompasses a vast array of regenerative and preservative processes. Despite the recent surge of interest, economic circularity has not been fully addressed as a macrophenomenon by historical and archaeological studies. The limitations of data and the relatively new formulation of targeted research questions mean that several processes and agents involved in ancient circular economies are still invisible to the eye of modern scholarship. Examples include forms of curation, maintenance, and repair, which must have had an influence on the economic systems of premodern societies but are rarely accounted for. Moreover, the people behind these processes, such as collectors and scavengers, are rarely investigated and poorly understood. Even better-studied mechanisms, like reuse and recycling, are not explored to their full potential within the broader picture of ancient urban economies. This volume stems from a conference held at Moesgaard Museum supported by the Carlsberg Foundation and the Centre for Urban Networks Evolutions (UrbNet) at Aarhus University. To enhance our understanding of circular economic processes, the contributions in this volume expand the framework of the discussion by exploring circular economy over the longue durée and by integrating an interdisciplinary perspective. Furthermore, the volume gives prominence to classes of material, processes, agents, and methodologies generally overlooked or ignored in modern scholarship.

This book casts light on a much neglected phase of the UNESCO world heritage site of Palmyra, namely the period between the fall of the Palmyrene ‘Empire’ (AD 272) and the end of the Umayyad dominion (AD 750). The goal of the book is to fill a substantial hole in modern scholarship - the late antique and early Islamic history of the city still has to be written. In late antiquity Palmyra remained a thriving provincial city whose existence was assured by its newly acquired role of stronghold along the eastern frontier. Palmyra maintained a prominent religious role as one of the earliest bisphoric see in central Syria and in early Islam as the political center of the powerful Banu Kalnb tribe. Post-Roman Palmyra, city and setting, provide the focus of this book. Analysis and publication of evidence for post-Roman housing enables a study of the city’s urban life, including the private residential buildings in the sanctuary of Ba’alshamin. A systematic survey is presented of the archaeological and literary evidence for the religious life of the city in Late Antiquity and Early Islam. The city’s defenses provide another focus. After a discussion of the garrison quartered in Palmyra, Diocletian’s military fortress and the city walls are investigated, with photographic and archaeological evidence used to discuss chronology and building techniques. The book concludes with a synthetic account of archaeological and written material, providing a comprehensive history of the settlement from its origins to the fall of Marwan II in 750 AD.

The volume in hand throws light on historical encounters with troubled pasts in contemporary Dutch and Greek historiography. Contributors, experts in their respective research fields with a wide range of scholarly publications, eschew dominant national accounts, deconstruct top-down narratives, and situate the historical subject(s) at the centre of the analysis. Troubled pasts are the outcome of local, national and international conflicts, of the continuous quest for growth and dominance, of Colonialism and Great Power rivalry, of ideologically-motivated purges, of Genocide, of National Liberation Struggles, and of Civil Wars. They go hand-in-hand with a great deal of human suffering and horrendous atrocities against civilians on ethnic, religious, racial and political grounds. The examination of troubled pasts and their accompanying imagery raise enduring questions: Whose past is remembered? How is the past appropriated and memorialised? Which pasts are at best neglected, at worst silenced - and why? Encounters with Troubled Pasts addresses such issues by reference to Dutch colonialism in the New World and South East Asia, the Greek campaign in Asia Minor, the Shoah and its aftermath in Greece and the Netherlands, the Greek Civil War of the 1940s, Transitional Justice in Post-Soviet Russia and the Massacre of Srebrenica. It will be of interest to postgraduate students and academics working on Colonialism, the Shoah, modern Dutch and Greek History, Memory and on Oral History.

Writing does not begin and end with the encoding of an idea into a group of symbols. It is practised by people who have learnt its principles and acquired the tools and skills for doing it, in a particular context that affects what they do and how they do it. Nor are these practices static, as those involved exploit opportunities to adapt old features and develop new ones. The act of writing then has tangible and visible consequences not only for the writers but also for those encountering what has been produced, whether they can read its content or not – with potential for a wider social visibility that can in turn affect the success and longevity of the writing system itself.With a focus on the syllabic systems of the Bronze Age Aegean, this book attempts to bring together different perspectives to create an innovative interdisciplinary outlook on what is involved in writing: from structuralist views of writing as systems of signs with their linguistic values, to archaeological and anthropological approaches to writing as a socially grounded practice. The main chapters focus on the concepts of script adoption and adaptation; different methods of logographic writing; and the vitality of writing traditions, with repercussions for the modern world.Contexts of and Relations between Early Writing Systems (CREWS) is a project funded by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 677758), and based in the Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge.

This book shows how analysis of Scandinavian-influenced place-names in their landscape contexts can provide crucial new evidence of differing processes of Viking migration and settlement in East Anglia between the late ninth and eleventh centuries.The place-names of East Anglia have until now received little attention in the academic study of Viking settlement. Similarly, the question of a possible migration of settlers from Scandinavia during the Viking period was for many years dismissed by historians and archaeologists – until the recent discovery by metal-detectorists of abundant Scandinavian metalwork and jewellery in many parts of East Anglia. David Boulton has synthesised these two previously neglected elements to offer new insights into the processes of Viking settlement.This book provides the first comprehensive analysis of Scandinavian-influenced place-names in East Anglia. It examines their different categories linguistically and explores the landscape and archaeological contexts of the settlements associated with them, with the aid of GIS-generated maps. Dr Boulton shows how the process of Viking settlement was influenced by changes in rural society and agriculture which were then already occurring in East Anglia, such as the late Anglo-Saxon expansion of arable farming and the associated recolonisation of the inland clay plateau. These developments resulted in patterns of place-name formation which differ significantly from some of the previously accepted, orthodox interpretations of how Scandinavian-influenced place-names (especially those containing the bý and thorp elements, and the ‘Grimston-hybrids’) came into being in the Danelaw.In view of these discrepancies, David Boulton proposes an innovative, hypothetical model for the formation of the Scandinavian-influenced place-names in East Anglia, which explores differing patterns and phases of Viking settlement in the region and the possible pathways of migration that preceded them.

Religious heritage has long been within the scope of academia, but very little research has been conducted on the heritagization of Catholic monasteries. This is remarkable considering the longstanding historical presence and social impact of these institutes that, in recent times, have also become well-visited spiritual centers and much-cherished heritage objects. This book addresses this lacuna. It does so through examining the heritagization process of De Heilige Driehoek (The Holy Triangle), a religious site comprised of three living monasteries in the south of the Netherlands. Ever since the turn of the millennium, the monastic communities living there have increasingly experienced the involvement of heritage groups. In this dynamic, the distinctive religious tradition of the monastics has led to a distinctive heritage perception of the area; one in which the spiritual and historical values of this tradition are recognized. However, as these values are translated into a secular heritage discourse, the question arises how this translation relates to the self-understanding and needs of the monastics. The aim of this book is to conceptualize through a historical lens the evolving and differing ways in which the different parties involved envision the meaning, potential, and nature of the monasteries. This study shows the struggle of heritage groups with creating a compelling narrative for their intended audiences and the often problematic impact this has on religious communities. In doing so, it offers a new perspective on the complicated relationship between religion and heritage

Now hard to believe, Eilean Donan Castle was once one of the largest castles in the west Highlands, known to have featured seven towers, the remains of which lie buried on the island. This book provides a refreshed view of the lost medieval guise of the castle, of its 13th-century origins and form, and of who was responsible for building it, allowing the castle to be positioned accurately in the complex dynamics of powerholding and display of the earls of Ross and associated militarised kindreds of the west Highlands during six centuries of change up to the castle’s destruction in 1719. A new history and the details of the below-ground archaeology allow us to see the lost medieval castle in our mind’s eye 500 years after it vanished. Focusing on the wealth of archaeological material unearthed during the campaign shows the castle hosted master craftspeople including goldsmiths, shipwrights and hereditary swordsmiths. Exquisite personal items, decorative mail armour and weapons, musical instruments, gaming pieces, imported pottery and animal bones bring the castle and its inhabitants back to life.

Developed in response to the 1899 Hague Convention, the 37-mm gun met the restrictions on the size of weapons that could fire explosive shells, yet was also light and lethal enough to be used in battle. After World War I, in which the French Model 1916 37-mm was used extensively, several countries developed or adopted the 37-mm gun. Behind in their development of an anti-tank gun, the United States relied on the German Pak 36 37-mm design as a basis for development. By the mid 1930s, the US Ordnance Department designed the M3 37-mm gun and M4 carriage resulting in a towed anti-tank gun, the first anti-tank gun in the U.S. Army. This gun proved effective at the beginning of World War II, but as German armour protection increased, it could not penetrate the frontal armuor of many German tanks and was relegated to lesser roles. However, the gun proved effective against the Japanese tanks and Japanese strong points in the Far East. The US military used the gun on several production and experimental armoured vehicles including the M3 Lee Medium Tank, the M3 Stuart Light Tank, the M5 Stuart Light Tank, the M8 Armored Car, the T17E1 Staghound Armored Car and the M3A1E3 Scout Car. The gun was also used on several non-armoured vehicles, the P39 Aeracobra, and selected naval vessels. Despite its small size, the U.S. M3 37-mm gun served throughout the war, on many vehicles and performed exactly as designed. Fully illustrated, this is the first complete account of the development and use of the US 37-mm gun in World War II.

“What Does This Have to Do with Archaeology?” is a collection of essays published on the occasion of Reinhard Bernbeck’s 65th birthday. The distinguished archaeologist Reinhard Bernbeck from the Institute of Near Eastern Archaeology at Freie Universität Berlin is an internationally highly esteemed colleague. This commemorative volume (Festschrift) reflects his great influence on many different areas of archaeological research from the Neolithic in Central Asia to contemporary archaeology in Europe. The essays are written by an international circle of colleagues who contributed scientific papers, photographs, and personal memories of joint research and scientific exchange with Reinhard Bernbeck. The book covers a wide range of subjects, from analytical discussions on ethnology, spatial theory, and digital archaeology to more practical considerations of research practices related to fieldwork, data management, and alternative modes of archaeological writing. Case studies provide insights into new investigations and re-interpretations of ancient material culture of Southwest and Central Asia. Other contributions address the political use of archaeology in the present, as well as the heritage management and the study of the most recent past.

During the roughly hundred years (ca. 1225 – 1125 BCE) that the Middle Assyrian dunnu at Tell Sabi Abyad was in operation, some forty-nine individuals were interred in graves of a striking diversity. In this book their burial type, location, orientation, position, grave goods and osteological data are analysed in order to generate new insights on Middle Assyrian society. Most graves appear to have been inhumation graves dug into abandoned spaces in and around the settlement. Men, women, and children were placed in mudbrick-lined cists, unlined pits, pre-existing architecture, and jars. Burial practices similar to those at Tell Sabi Abyad are found at many other Middle Assyrian sites, and suggest they were part of an overarching Middle Assyrian funerary repertoire. At the same time, Tell Sabi Abyad also contained cremation graves – a burial practice that is at odds with Mesopotamian views of the afterlife. These may belong to (Hurrian) deportees that chose to adhere to the funerary traditions of their homelands. The cremated remains were deposited in jars that were subsequently buried in the ground or buried at the place of the funeral pyre. While almost all graves contained some form of grave goods – usually consisting of items of bodily adornment and ceramic bowls placed close to the head and hands – the two graves with the most grave goods were both cremation graves. Their inventories contained sumptuous items of Middle Assyrian style and iconography, suggesting people of non-Assyrian backgrounds were just as capable of socio-economic success in Assyrian society.

Excavations between 2016–2018 revealed a series of structures that were re-organised and rebuilt over time, which culminated in a stone-built winged corridor villa in the mid to late 4th century AD. Wings were added to the buildings and a portico at the front opened out onto a courtyard. The outer courtyard was flanked by ancillary buildings, one of which contained a hypocaust and another a small bath suite. Finds included a rare copper alloy figurative lamp with probable foreign origins, a lion mask and a range of pottery, glass worked stone and bone. Environmental remains indicate a mixed arable and pastoral agricultural economy that supported its inhabitants and may have produced a surplus. Wood for fuel and other purposes was obtained from surrounding hedges and copses.

Although household goods are a well-establish topic in Medieval and Early Modern archaeology, more recent research is overcoming simple typological and technological aspects and pointing to broader approaches, which relates to the understanding of goods’ production, consumption strategies, other economic activities and structures of social organization. Thus, the understanding of past societies and cultures relies heavily in the study of their household goods to understand people, groups and societies. In this context, the aim of the Ruralia XIV Conference was to emphasize the significance of household archaeology to the study of the European countryside in Medieval and Modern times under a cross-cultural approach. Detailed analysis of single contexts, small parts of sites, faunal, botanical and soil studies enables us to reconstruct common peoples’ activities and interactions within their homes. House functions can be detected by means of specific installations but also by inventories and location of goods, evidence for particular activities inside, such as cooking and eating, storage, weaving, refuse disposal, resting, etc. or by a comprehensive overview of outdoor surroundings. All this is evidence of functional purposes but it can also tell us about the rank and wealth of their owners, their daily lives, household compositions, family concepts and even gender statuses. Moreover, structural analysis can give evidence about spheres of interaction and patterned behaviours within a house. In different sections (archaeology and household; temporary households; living conditions; spatial structure; household objects and social and economic status) case studies across Europe are presented.

Despite extensive archaeological investigations in Norwich over many decades, its Middle Saxon origins as Norvic/Northwic remain obscure and elusive, and its Anglo-Scandinavian aspects have seen relatively little recognition until recently. This report focuses on five excavations in the historic core of the settlement. Lying on either side of the River Wensum, linked by a crossing, they revealed archaeological remains of the 7th to 11th centuries. The excavations were significant in revealing in-situ archaeological features of Middle Saxon date, along with a range of contemporary finds including a dispersed ‘coin hoard’ of the late 7th or early 8th century, sufficient to add weight to the hypothesis of an early trading centre.Triggered by the Danish invasion of East Anglia of AD 865, a burh to the north of the river enclosed the earlier mercantile centre and its river crossing during the early 10th century. Sites further south lay within Conesford – again, an area with Middle Saxon origins. It formed part of Norwich’s second burh which was enclosed in the 10th or early 11th century. Much of the archaeological evidence finds parallels at other Anglo-Scandinavian centres of the period. Of particular note are the different techniques of building construction exhibited on either side of the river, including sunken-floored buildings of urban form, one of which held the remains of a fishing net.This new analysis provides the opportunity to review the pre-Norman settlement at Norwich and its relationship to the river, trade and overseas contacts, agricultural activity and the fishing industry.