This volume provides the results of the application of non-destructive archaeological methods (geophysical prospection and systematic surface collections) to the study of the urban site. It includes a review of what was known of the town and a discussion of the development, potential and limitations of the kind of high-resolution, extensive ground-penetrating radar survey which was carried out. Special emphasis is placed on the earliest colonial phase as well as later transformations, and explores how the inhabitants of Interamna Lirenas responded to the challenges and opportunities presented by a growing Roman world.

Wie lässt sich Subalternität in der Vergangenheit untersuchen, wenn heute fast ausschließlich Hinterlassenschaften der Eliten erhalten sind? Warum lohnt sich eine solche Untersuchung und wo führt sie hin? Diesen Fragen wird in dem vorliegenden Buch über die Beziehung von Assyrien und Urartu im eisenzeitlichen Nordmesopotamien (ca. 9. bis 7. Jh. v.u.Z.) nachgegangen. Denn zwischen den kriegerischen Nachbarn gab es eine Vielzahl Deportierter und Kriegsgefangener, deren Erfahrungen und Leben in der Forschung bisher wenig Beachtung fanden. Dabei konnten postmoderne und postkoloniale Denker:innen aus Literaturwissenschaften, Humangeographie oder Soziologie unlängst darlegen, dass historisch oft gerade diese ausgegrenzten, vergessenen gesellschaftlichen Gruppen zum Motor von Veränderung werden.Dieses Buch reiht sich ein in einen interdisziplinären Diskurs über Subjektivierung, Produktion von (sozialem) Raum, Subalternität und Habitus, und integriert diese Konzepte in die Archäologie Westasiens. Dabei werden verschiedene Orte mittels Methoden aus dem Feld der „Archäologie der Sinne“ quantitativ und qualitativ untersucht, um auf die Grundzüge der sinnlichen Organisation Urartus und Assyriens zu schließen. Die Gegenüberstellung der so rekonstruierten sensorischen Welten geschieht vor dem Hintergrund der Frage, wie Deportierte und Kriegsgefangene nach ihrer Verschleppung die neue Umgebung wahrnahmen. Welche Auswirkungen hatte dieser abrupte Wandel der Lebensverhältnisse durch Gefangenschaft und Zwangsumsiedlung? Wie wurden die neuen, subalternen Subjektpositionen nonverbal mittels räumlicher Ordnung kommuniziert und evoziert – und gab es Stellen, an denen es durch Irritation, Missverständnis und ungeplantes Verhalten zu niedrigschwelliger Subversion kam?English abstractHow can subalternity be studied in the past when today almost exclusively the remains of the elites are preserved? Why is such an investigation worthwhile and where does it lead? These are the questions Vera Egbers explores in her book on the relationship of Assyria and Urartu in Iron Age northern Mesopotamia (c. 9th to 7th centuries BCE). For between these neighbors, who were engaged in an ongoing violent conflict, there were the numerous deportees and prisoners of war whose experiences and lives have received little attention in research to date. Yet postmodern and postcolonial thinkers from literary studies, human geography, and sociology have already demonstrated that historically it is often these marginalized, forgotten social groups that become the engine of change.This book joins an interdisciplinary discourse on subjectivation, production of (social) space, subalternity, and habitus, and integrates these concepts into the archaeology of West Asia. In doing so, various sites are examined quantitatively and qualitatively using methods from the field of the so-called archaeology of the senses, in order to infer the basic features of the sensory organization of Urartu and Assyria. The comparison of these reconstructed sensory worlds takes place against the background of the question of how deportees and prisoners of war perceived the new environment after their deportation. What were the effects of this abrupt change in living conditions due to captivity and forced resettlement? How were the new, subaltern subject positions communicated and evoked nonverbally by means of spatial organization – and were there places where low-threshold subversion occurred through irritation, misunderstanding, and unplanned behavior?

Across Western Asia, the astonishing increase in the availability of durable ceramic containers in the seventh millennium BCE had significant societal repercussions – so much so that vital social, economic, and symbolic activities became dependent upon the availability of pottery containers. These early ceramic containers, however, established themselves alongside flourishing pre-existing container traditions, with vessels made in a wide range of materials including clay, bitumen, basketry, leather, wood, and stone. How did prehistoric people respond to the emergence of containers as a key factor in their lives? Building on Olivier Nieuwenhuyse’s rich scholarly legacy, this volume brings together 18 papers by leading scholars in the field of container technology, discussing cases from eastern Asia to Africa, but with a focus on prehistoric Western Asia. Looking not just at pottery but also explicitly beyond, the contributions consider and address the cross-overs of different kinds of raw materials for containers and their crafting; the multiplicity of temporal scales in the production, use and discard of pottery; the social anchoring of vessels’ use and deposition as evident in their specific contexts; and local as well as regional variations in early pottery.

The archaeological study of quarries focuses mainly on the reconstruction of the extraction process, while rock-hewn spaces have often been approached from the point of view of architectural styles or art-history. Nevertheless, a holistic structural approach to the study of these spaces could allow a better understanding of the agency of those who carved the stone. Stone quarries and rock-cut sites have rarely been included in global studies of historical landscapes and few are the forums dedicated to the theoretical and methodological debate over the importance that these sites have for the understanding of past societies. To fill the gap, the proceedings volume aims at providing new data on sites located in Africa (Ethiopia, and Egypt), Europe (France, Croatia, Italy, Spain) and Asia (Turkey, Saudi Arabia) studied with a diachronic approach, as well as new theoretical reflections for the international debate on the archaeological investigation of rock-cut spaces and stone quarries. Two directions structure this volume: the analysis of the individual rock walls, considering the study of tool traces as a proxy for understanding the carving phases, as well as the analysis of the structure (site/quarry) as a whole, by contextualizing the results of the study of the single walls.The volume mainly targets researchers who are willing to discover quarries and rock-cut sites as aspects of the same mining phenomenon: places in which specific empirical and handcrafting knowledge related to stone working is expressed and conveyed, but also a wider audience that is interested in these peculiar and impressive sites.

This is a study of the commemoration of Classical Greek battles, approaching monuments and other mnemonic practices as vital elements in the creation and curation of memories. It analyses the diachronic development of battlefield, sanctuary, and city spaces, as evidenced by archaeological remains and ancient literary sources. In addition, it explores the experience of the commemorative spaces through the application of theories of space, phenomenology, and social memory. Following a biographical approach, the commemoration of each battle is organised into stages of initial commemoration, official monumentalisation, memory curation, memory lapse, and reception.The research has led to several conclusions. While the commemoration of each battle can be divided into stages, these stages are not always discrete. There is variation in the types of commemorations within the stages, dependent on time, surrounding space, and the parties involved. Single commemorations can resonate differently with multiple audiences. The processes within the stage of memory curation lead to the subsequent lapse. The final stage of commemoration for each battle begins with the rediscovery of ancient monuments and continues to this day. The battles of Marathon, Leuktra, and Chaironeia are case studies for three reasons. First, they effectively span the period of Classical Greece (Marathon in 490 BCE to Chaironeia in 338 BCE). Secondly, these battles had different participants, thus allowing a variety of perspectives of both the victorious and the defeated. Lastly, these were battles that left lasting impacts in the material and literary record, making their commemoration relevant not only in antiquity, but also in the modern world.

What is Hadrian’s Wall made of, where did this material come from and how has it been reused in other buildings in the communities that emerged in the centuries after the Roman Empire? By studying the fabric of Hadrian’s Wall using a geological approach combined with archaeological methods, is it possible to refine our answers to these questions? This study describes how the relationship between the geology of the Wall’s landscape and its fabric may be used to further understand the Wall and presents a significant set of new geological and archaeological data on the Wall’s stones from across the length of the Wall. This data set has been collected in two complementary ways. First as a citizen-science project, where volunteers from local communities were trained to visually characterise sandstones and resulting in data collecting on large numbers of the Wall’s stones along the length of the Wall. Secondly, analytical research was used to gather in scientific data for a selected sets of rocks and stones. Geochemical data was captured using an X-ray fluorescence spectrometer, and petrographic observations made using a petrographic microscope and thin sections.The combined methods provide a framework for geological analysis of the Wall supported by robust data. It builds on earlier work on Roman quarrying and stone preparation highlighting not only stone sources, but the criteria for choosing stone, stone preparation methods, and the implied routes to the Wall. At the heart of this study lies the ability to uniquely identify different sandstone types. Geological methods used to achieve this are explored, as are the ways in which the sandstones form. This highlights both the possibilities and limits of this approach.

Archaeology in the past century has seen a major shift from theoretical frameworks that treat the remains of past societies as static snapshots of particular moments in time to interpretations that prioritise change and variability. Though established analytical concepts, such as typology, remain key parts of the archaeologist’s investigative toolkit, data-gathering strategies and interpretative frameworks have become infused progressively with the concept that archaeology is living, in the sense of both the objects of study and the discipline as a whole. The significance for the field is that researchers across the world are integrating ideas informed by relational epistemologies and mutually constructive ontologies into their work from the initial stage of project design all the way down to post-excavation interpretation. This volume showcases examples of such work, highlighting the utility of these ideas to exploring material both old and new. The illuminating research and novel explanations presented contribute to resolving long-standing problems in regional archaeologies across Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and Oceania. In this way, this volume reinvigorates approaches taken towards older material but also acts as a springboard for future innovative discussions of theory in archaeology and related disciplines.

Renowned archaeologist, Dale Serjeantson, tells the story of human engagement with birds from the end of the last Ice Age to around AD 1650. In this book, she integrates the study of archaeological bird remains with ethnography and the history of birds and avian biology. It identifies changing patterns of wetland, water bird and game species through time, and in addition to their food value, examines our changing interactions with them. This includes considering evidence for use of bird body parts in religious rituals; taboos, totemism and superstitions surrounding eating certain species; their capture and role in falconry and as companion animals; and their importance in the economy from the Viking period onwards. Essential reading for archaeologists, zooarchaeologists, and historians, it is an eye-opening, accessible introduction to the archaeology of wild birds in Britain and Ireland for anyone interested in our natural history.

Since the eighteenth century, many if not most ancient and medieval manuscripts or other text-bearing or associated objects have been procured through imperial expropriation or through the antiquities market with little or no evidence of findspot or place of original deposition and with no assurance of legal provenance or authenticity. The consequences of these questionable acquisition practices for scholarship and for our understanding of the past are the focus of much enquiry. Recent high-profile acquisitions (and subsequent returns) of text-bearing objects by prominent private collectors and museums and the appearance on the market of demonstrably modern forgeries have resulted in increased scrutiny of the intellectual and commercial impacts of academic engagement. Scholarly research can abet the antiquities market directly or indirectly through identification, authentication and legitimation of illegally traded text-bearing objects. These harmful complications of well-established academic practice raise important questions about how and even if the academy should engage with ancient texts and text-bearing objects of uncertain provenance. Through a wide-ranging set of case studies, variant scholarship focuses on the methodological, theoretical, and ethical dilemmas facing scholars when working with ancient texts in modern contexts. This book is intended for those interested in the historical practices of research into ancient manuscripts, ethical quandaries in studying unprovenanced textual materials, and the unintended consequences of scholarly interactions with problematic text-bearing objects.

Dress is at the core of dance. It adorns dancers, defines various roles and forms symbolic expressions that, for example, either bind people together or opposes them. It is a communicative tool that gives crucial information for understanding the dance as well as the culture and the sociological effects of a group of people. As such, dress transcends how it is seen visually to address what is being communicated. Nonetheless, studies in ancient dance have rarely taken clothing into consideration. This volume provides new perspectives and insights on ancient dances and their ancient textiles. Comprehension of ancient dance benefits from investigations undertaken through the lens of dress, and research on ancient dress is understood through its relation to body movement and performative rituals, thus reinforcing the progressive integration of an anthropological and sociological dimension into historical analysis of ancient textiles. For the first time, the two-way transfer of knowledge between dance studies and costume studies is connected via an innovative approach. Among the issues that are specifically addressed are the movement design of dress for dance, its sensory experience, gender and identity, re-enactment and reception. The chronological range of the book is focused on the ancient world (3rd-millennium BC to 5th-century AD), with a broad geographical definition in order to promote a comparative, interdisciplinary approach and cross-cultural dialogue.

Between 2018 and 2019, Cornwall Archaeological Unit undertook two projects at Mount’s Bay, Penwith. The first involved the excavation of a Bronze Age barrow and the second, environmental augur core sampling in Marazion Marsh. Both sites lie within an area of coastal hinterland, which has been subject to incursions by rising sea levels. Since the Mesolithic, an area of approximately 1 kilometre in extent between the current shoreline and St Michael’s Mount has been lost to gradually rising sea levels. With current climate change, this process is likely to occur at an increasing rate. Given their proximity, the opportunity was taken to draw the results from the two projects together along with all available existing environmental data from the area. For the first time, the results from all previous palaeoenvironmental projects in the Mount’s Bay area have been brought together. Evidence for coastal change and sea level rise is discussed and a model for the drowning landscape presented. In addition to modelling the loss of land and describing the environment over time, social responses including the wider context of the Bronze Age barrow and later Bronze Age metalwork deposition in the Mount’s Bay environs are considered. The effects of the gradual loss of land are discussed in terms of how change is perceived, its effects on community resilience, and the construction of social memory and narratives of place.The volume presents the potential for nationally significant environmental data to survive, which demonstrates the long-term effects of climate change and rising sea levels, and peoples’ responses to these over time.

The shift from a hunting and gathering economy to a productive economy, based on the domestication of plants and animals, is one of the most important changes in human history. This change, which manifested itself in different forms and at different times in different areas of the Old and New Worlds, is still a subject of debate and discussion today. How and why does such a profound change occur in the relationship with the environment and the land? Could the arrival of foreign settlers with a mature and structured Neolithic cultural heritage be the cause of this change in the Mediterranean?The archaeological excavations conducted at the settlement of La Marmotta (Anguillara Sabazia, Rome, Italy), today submerged under the waters of Lake Bracciano, represents one of the most relevant Neolithic villages of the entire Mediterranean. The exceptional nature of this site is given by the conservation of the organic remains. Not only are the piles and architectural remains of the houses well preserved at La Marmotta, but so are small finds and fragile artefacts such as spoons, textile crafts, baskets, ropes, sickles and bows. In addition, there are a huge variety of remains of both animal and vegetal nature, such as seeds, spikelets, bundles of wheat and other plants, possible cheese and milk derivatives and other mixtures of foodstuff. This set of materials has an enormous potential for changing and deepening our understanding of the first farming societies, of their technological complexity, their know-hows, their lifestyle and food habits. Thanks to La Marmotta it is truly possible to rewrite the evolution of techniques for processing plants and wood during prehistoric times. Until now, published information on the site is very limited and partial. The main aim of this book is to make visible the extreme richness of the La Marmotta archaeological record and provide insights into Neolithic woodworking, basketry, textile production and other crafting and subsistence activities.

Over the last 30 years, the Connecticut Office of State Archaeology and the Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resource Conservation Service have entered into a partnership employing ground-penetrating radar (GPR) to the study of the state’s archaeology and history. As a result, many historical cemeteries and places of note in Connecticut have been investigated. The authors have selected 10 geophysical surveys, which have used GPR as a non-intrusive, non-destructive exploratory tool, that have elicited positive results in the search for unmarked burials, confirmation of marked burials and to authenticate areas of known historical events. This book narrates the stories of GPR studies at 10 historical sites in Connecticut, spanning the 17th to the 20th centuries. Each chapter investigates and highlights a ‘history mystery’ and differing aspects of our research, including the ‘lost’ grave of an African-American Revolutionary War veteran, the verification of French Revolutionary War military personnel in a mass grave, the detection of a below-ground hidden 19th-century family burial tomb, the discovery of hurriedly dug, unmarked burials associated with the 1918 influenza pandemic and the detection of the unknown location of a 1941 military plane crash site, among others.Professionally, the authors have over 40 years’ experience in GPR, soil science and archaeology. They bring their collective expertise to the reader in a scientific approach with a personal, story-telling touch. Each chapter delves into the history of the sites and the nature of the geophysical search (i.e., how the equipment was used) and the interpretation of the data in regard to solving a historical problem.

While terrestrial archaeology has engaged with contemporary philosophy, maritime archaeology has remained in comparative disciplinary – or subdisciplinary – isolation. However, the issues that humans face in the Anthropocene – from global warming to global pandemics – call for transdisciplinary cooperation, and for thinking together beyond the confines of the human-centered philosophical tradition. Growing areas such as the “blue humanities” and “oceanic thinking” draw directly on our maritime past, even as they ponder the future. Theoretically engaged maritime archaeologists could contribute significantly to these areas of thought, as this volume demonstrates. The essays collected here serve as jumping off point, which opens new ways for maritime archaeologists to engage with the most important problems of our time and to benefit from the new insights offered by object-oriented and flat ontologies. The book gathers the analytical thinking of archaeologists, philosophers, marine biologists, and media theorists, and pushes those observations deep into the maritime realm. The contributions then branch out, like tentacles or corals, reaching into the lessons of oil spills, cephalopod hideouts, shipwreck literature, ruined monuments, and beached plastics. The volume concludes with a series of critical responses to these papers, which pushes the dialogue into new areas of inquiry. Taken as a whole, the volume emphasizes that the study of the past is more relevant than ever because serious consideration of our watery world and all its inhabitants is increasingly necessary for our collective survival. This volume takes the first steps toward this reckoning and, as such, it promises to be an important new contribution to lecture and conference halls around the world where oceans and the Anthropocene are under study.

The Roman world was diverse and complex. And so were religious understandings and practices as mirrored in the enormous variety presented by archaeological, iconographic, and epigraphic evidence. Conventional approaches principally focus on the political role of civic cults as a means of social cohesion, often considered to be instrumentalised by elites. But by doing so, religious diversity is frequently overlooked, marginalising ‘deviating’ cult activities that do not fit the Classical canon, as well as the multitude of funerary practices and other religious activities that were all part of everyday life. In the Roman Empire, a person’s religious experiences were shaped by many and sometimes seemingly incompatible cult practices, whereby the ‘civic’ and ‘imperial’ cults might have had the least impact of all. The authors rethink these methodologies, arguing for a more dynamic image of religion that takes into account the varied and often contradictory choices and actions of individual, which reflects the discrepant religious experiences in the Roman world. Is it possible to ‘poke into the mind’ of an individual in Roman times, whatever his/her status and ethnicity, and try to understand the individual’s diverse experiences in such a complex, interconnected empire, exploring the choices that were open to an individual? This also raises the question whether the concept of individuality is valid for Roman times. In some periods, the impact of individual actions can be more momentous: the very first adoption of Roman-style sculpture, cult practices or Latin theonyms for indigenous deities can set in motion long-term processes that will significantly influence people’s perceptions of local deities, their characteristics, and functions. Do individual choices and preferences prevail over collective identities in the Roman Empire compared to pre-Roman times? To examine these questions, this volume presents case studies that analyse individual actions in the religious sphere.

This volume collects different case studies of rediscovery of Christian antiquities between 1860-1930 in Europe and the Mediterranean basin, in order to stimulate reflections about the impact of these rediscoveries on our culture in a period of great political transition. By turning the light on lesser-known stories on a wider European and Mediterranean horizon (Greece, Holy Land, Eritrea, Malta, Norway), this book gives a strong contribution to the history of Christian archaeology. All articles deal with many topics of the field (museology, cultural heritage protection law, history of religious orders, field archaeology, military explorations), and therefore offer a strong interdisciplinary cut. This book is first product of the international online workshop series “Revealing Christian Heritage. Talks on the rediscovery of Christian archaeology between 1860-1930”.