Linguistic diversity is one of the most puzzling and challenging features of humankind. Why are there some six thousand different languages spoken in the world today? Why are some, like Chinese or English, spoken by millions over vast territories, while others are restricted to just a few thousand speakers in a limited area? The farming/language dispersal hypothesis makes the radical and controversial proposal that the present-day distributions of many of the world's languages and language families can be traced back to the early developments and dispersals of farming from the several nuclear areas where animal and plant domestication emerged. For instance, the Indo-European and Austronesian language families may owe their current vast distributions to the spread of food plants and of farmers (speaking the relevant proto-language) following the Neolithic revolutions which took place in the Near East and in Eastern Asia respectively, thousands of years ago. In this challenging book, international experts in historical linguistics, prehistoric archaeology, molecular genetics and human ecology bring their specialisms to bear upon this intractable problem, using a range of interdisciplinary approaches. There are signs that a new synthesis between these fields may now be emerging. This path-breaking volume opens new perspectives and indicates some of the directions which future research is likely to follow.

Sir Aurel Stein (1862-1943) is renowned for his archaeological expeditions to Central Asia, India, Iran, Iraq and Jordan. The mass of books and correspondence that he collected during his lifetime are distributed among collections in Britain and his homeland of Hungary. Within the collection bequeathed to the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences is a unique source of material including photographs, letters, documents, manuscripts, articles, offprints and reviews within the subjects of Indology, Iranian studies, Central Asian linguistics and archaeology and Oriental manuscripts. This important collection is discussed and presented here.

This report provides a chronological account of excavation findings at 25 Cannon Street, supported by many illustrations and specialist contributions. The dig revealed a long sequence of occupation, and adds to findings made on the site in 1954. Redeposited pottery provided rare evidence for Middle Bronze Age activity in the area of the City of London. Early Roman quarrying and timber buildings were followed by increased development from c. AD 70. By the late 2nd century the area included masonry buildings, some possessing tessellated floors. Building alignments indicate the route of a Roman road immediately to the north of the site, beneath Watling Street. One Roman building was occupied until the late 4th century, its ruins covered by 'dark earth'. Four cellared buildings had been constructed on the site by the mid 11th century, and pre-dated Friday Street and the Church of St Werburga, later St John the Evangelist. The church was founded between 1098 and 1108, and was rebuilt with a wider chancel in the 13th or 14th century. Medieval and later buildings, cellars and cesspits were associated with occupation up to the Great Fire.

These essays, in honour of John Coles, reflect his interests in experimental archaeology and in the exploration of wetland sites. Contents include: Palaeolithic Archaeology: Radiocarbon dating and the origins of anatomically modern populations in Europe ( P Mellars ); The Chauvet cave dates ( J Clottes ); The archaeology of Scotland: The Hidden landscape: the Neolithic of Tayside ( G J Barclay ); The stony limits - rock carvings in passage graves and in the open air ( R Bradley ); Evidence, North and South, in the earlier Neolithic ( R J Mercer ); The birth of the Scottish Bronze Age ( J N Graham Ritchie ); Drinking, driving, death and display: Scottish Bronze Age artefacts since Coles ( A Sheridan ). Bronze Age archaeology: Bronze Age landscapess in Southern Europe ( G Barker ); From Skåne to Scotstown: some notes on amber in Bronze Age Ireland ( G Eogan ); Swords, shields and scholars: Bronze Age warfare, past and present ( A Harding ); Gold reflections ( J J Taylor ); Rise and fall: the deposition of Bronze Age weapons in the Thames valley and the Fenland ( R Thomas ); Bronze Age settlement in south Scandinavia - territorality and organisation ( H Thrane ); Experimental Archaeology: Getting to grips with music's prehistory: experimental approaches to function, design and operational wear in excavated musical instruments ( G Lawson ); Experimental ship archaeology in Denmark ( O Crumli-Pedersen ); Wood-tar and pitch experiments at Biskupin Museum ( W Piotrowski ); The nature of experiment in archaeology ( P J Reynolds ). Wetland Archaeology: Somerset and the Sweet conundrum ( B Coles ); Paths, tracks and roads in early Ireland: viewing people rather than the trees ( B Raftery ); Underwater medieval sites on Lake Paladru (Isère, France): from rescue excavations to cultural project ( M Colardelle & E Verdel ). Epilogue: Of weapons and wetlands ( T Champion ). J M Coles - a bibliography.

The nomadic peoples of the great grasslands of the former USSR have left little in the way of settlement evidence, and archaeologists studying their history have had to rely on environmental remains to reconstruct their pasts. This book contains three major studies: The origins of horse husbandry on the Eurasian Steppe (M Levine) ; The eneolithic of the Black Sea Steppe: The dynamics of cultural and economic development 4500-2300 BC (Y Rassamakin) , and The Eastern Ural steppe at the end of the Stone Age (A Kislenko and N Tatarintseva) . Each presents evidence that has not previously been available to European prehistorians. The whole provides an important contribution to European prehistory, and provides background to the ongoing discussions on the prehistory of language.

Landscape archaeology, a recent theoretical discovery in the west, has long been practised by eastern european scholars. This stimulating collection of papers ranges over the whole of central and eastern Europe and from the Neolithic to the early Medieval periods.

Basing this study of South Scandinavia's Maglemosian economy on a selection of the faunal assemblages of the period, this book uses spatial analysis and multivariate correspondence analysis to draw together theories on human movements of the time.

Over 5650 lamps, largely ceramic, were discovered during excavation of the Hellenistic city of Berenice, North Africa. These date from the foundation of the city in the mid 3rd century through to the 10th- and 11th-century Islamic period. This full report catalogues Hellenistic, Roman and Islamic lamps, both imported and local, and also considers inscriptions, marks and historical context.