Chariots and Other Wheeled Vehicles in Italy before the Roman Empire presents evidence for transport by wheeled vehicle in Italy before the Roman Imperial period, the beginning of which is often thought to be marked by Augustuss conquest of Egypt in 30 BC. The study begins with a glossary of technical terms and with evidence for roads and the animals that were used in draught. The major part is concerned with the vehicles themselves - two-wheeled chariots and carts and four-wheeled wagons - their construction, the ways in which their draught animals were harnessed and controlled, and the uses to which the equipages were put. A wide range of evidence is drawn upon including figured documents such as architectural terracottas, stone reliefs, vase- and wall paintings; bronze and terracotta models and the remains of actual vehicles, in a few cases accompanied by their harness teams recovered from tombs, primarily from central and northern Italy of the eighth and seventh centuries BC onwards. The concluding chapter looks at the history of wheeled vehicles in Italy before the Roman Imperial period. It traces local, Italic characteristics and possible foreign influences, and assesses the relative economic and social importance of the different kinds of wheeled vehicles and of other means of land transport - by pack and riding animals. In appendices the vehicles depicted in so-called Situla Art and the 'Celtic chariot' are discussed. Lavishly illustrated with over 170 plates and figures, this book is important for the history of transport, technology and draught.

Leading scholars in these 29 commissioned papers in honour of Richard Bradley discuss key themes in prehistoric archaeology that have defined his career, such as monumentality, memory, rock art, landscape, material worlds and field practice. The scope is broad, covering both Britain and Europe, and while the focus is very much on the archaeology of later prehistory, papers also address the interconnection between prehistory and historic and contemporary archaeology. The result is a rich and varied tribute to Richard's energy and intellectual inspiration.

Field survey has been making a major contribution to our understanding of the rural landscapes of the Mediterranean for nearly forty years. During that time the techniques used to map ancient settlement patterns have grown in sophistication from being a process of simply identifying sites in the landscape, to one which provided nuanced understandings of their layouts, chronologies and contexts. This has led to a revolution in how archaeologists approach urban sites, with survey techniques being used increasingly often to generate a plan of a town site prior to excavation as a way of ensuring that the excavation can be used to address site-specific questions in a way that had not been possible before. Most recently, research has begun to reveal the advantages of integrating a range of different non-destructive techniques on urban sites. In combination with exciting new computer-based means of data visualization, all of this work means that it is now possible to virtually reconstruct a buried town within a relatively short space of time, as opposed to the old and destructive excavation-centered approach that could take generations. Unsurprisingly these advances are starting to make a very important understanding to urbanism in general and the Roman Empire in particular. Urban Landscape Survey in Italy and the Mediterranean builds upon all these new developments and is one of the first publications to focus exclusively upon the contribution of survey techniques to our understanding of ancient towns. It addresses methodology led enquiry into the nature of urban settlements primarily in Italy, but also in Greece, Turkey, Croatia, Portugal and Spain. The twenty-two papers from leading specialists in the field focus on two underlying themes. The first deals with the characterization of urban sites and draws upon a wide range of case studies. These range from key protohistoric centres in central and south Italy, to towns that epitomise the contradictions of cultural change under Rome, such as Paestum, Aquinum and Sagalassos, to Roman centres such as Teano, Suasa and Ammaia. The second theme is inter-urban relationships, looking in particular at wider urbanized landscapes in Italy. The fascinating selection of recent and on-going projects presented here significantly moves the limits of our current knowledge about ancient towns.

Archaeological investigations carried out during improvements to five key junctions along a stretch of the A13 trunk road through the East London Boroughs of Tower Hamlets, Newham and Barking and Dagenham have revealed evidence for activity spanning the Mesolithic through to the post-Roman period. Regionally important evidence of Neolithic activity included artefact assemblages of pottery and worked flint. A rare cache of charred emmer wheat provides definitive evidence of early Neolithic cereal cultivation in the vicinity and a fragment of belt slider made from Whitby jet attests the long distance exchange networks. The greatest concentration of activity, however, dates to the 2nd Millenium BC and includes several waterlogged wooden structures and trackways, burnt mounds and other evidence associated with wetland edge occupation. Extensive geoarchaeological and palaeoenvironmental sampling provides an important record of landscape evolution and periods of major change can be detected, both natural and anthropogenically induced. As well as providing a context for the archaeology along the A13, this raises a number of issues regarding the interaction of local communities with the natural environment, how they responded to change and to a certain extent exploited it. Ultimately this is of relevance not only to understanding the past but also to current concerns regarding environmental management along the Thames estuary.

The Chalcolithic, the phase in prehistory when the important technical development of adding tin to copper to produce bronze had not yet taken place, is not a term generally used by British prehistorians and whether there is even a definable phase is debated. Is there a British Chalcolithic? brings together many leading authorities in 20 papers that address this question. Papers are grouped under several headings. Definitions, Issues and Debate considers whether appropriate criteria apply that define a distinctive period (c. 2450 - 2150 cal BC) in cultural, social, and temporal terms with particular emphasis on the role and status of metal artefacts and Beaker pottery. Continental Perspectives addresses various aspects of comparative regions of Europe where a Chalcolithic has been defined. Around Britain and Ireland presents a series of large-scale regional case studies where authors argue for and against the adoption of the term. The final section Economy, Landscapes and Monuments , looks at aspects of economy, land-use and burial tradition and provides a detailed consideration of the Stonehenge and Avebury landscapes during the period in question. The volume contains much detailed information on sites and artefacts, and comprehensive radiocarbon datasets that will be invaluable to scholars and students studying this enigmatic but pivotal episode of British Prehistory.

Caves in Context provides the thriving inter-disciplinary field of cave studies with a European-scale survey of current research in cave archaeology. It is unified by a contemporary theoretical emphasis on the cultural significance and diversity of caves over space and time. Caves and rockshelters are found all over Europe, and have frequently been occupied by human groups, from prehistory right up to the present day. Some appear to have only traces of short occupations, while others contain deep cultural deposits, indicating longer and multiple occupations. Above all, there is great variability in their human use, both secular and sacred. The aim of this book is to explore the multiple significances of these natural places in a range of chronological, spatial, and cultural contexts across Europe. The volume demonstrates, through a diversity of archaeological approaches and examples, that cave studies, whist necessarily focussed, can also be of significance to wider, contemporary, archaeological research agendas, particularly when a contextual approach is adopted. The book is also of relevance to other scholars working in the related fields of speleology, earth sciences, landscape studies, and anthropology, which together comprise the inter-disciplinary field of cave studies.

Lunar calendars suffer from an inherent uncertainty in the length of each month and the number of months in the year. Variable atmospheric conditions, weather and the acuity of the eye of an observer mean that the first sighting of the new moon crescent can never be known in advance. Calendars which rely on such observations to define the beginning of a new month therefore suffer from this lack of certainty as to whether a month will begin on a given day or the next. The papers in this volume address the question of how ancient and medieval societies lived with the uncertainties of a lunar calendar. How did lack of foreknowledge of the beginning of the month impact upon administration, the planning of festivals, and historical record keeping? Did societies replace the observation of the new moon crescent with schematic calendars or calendars based upon astronomical calculations and what were the ideological and practical consequences of such a change? The contributors to this volume address these topics from the perspectives of a variety of Ancient Near Eastern, Jewish, Ancient and Medieval European, Asian and American cultures.

Block M is a substantial architectural complex comprising three large buildings at the heart of the Minoan town of Palaikastro. With traces of activity stretching back to the Prepalatial period, and occupation in the Protopalatial period, Block M sees its most intensive use in the Neopalatial period, in the 17th century BC. This period sees widespread construction, followed by two severe destruction horizons: the first seismic, the second associated with the Theran eruption, by which time the Block may already have been in ruins. Its subsequent history is very different from that usually encountered elsewhere in the town - it became an open area used only for the dumping of refuse in two abandoned wells, without widespread reoccupation in the LM II-III periods. This volume presents the results of excavations conducted by the British School at Athens, which uncovered these extensive remains in the late 1980s, 1990s and 2003. These investigations have helped to elucidate the character of this important town during the Middle and early Late Bronze Ages, and offer valuable evidence for relations between eastern Crete and sites in the centre of the island such as Knossos.

Excavations at the adjacent sites of Gorham's Cave and Vanguard Cave have yielded a rich combination of archaeological and palaeoenvironmental finds covering a timespan of over 100,000 years. This volume deals with the primary results of the 1995-1998 excavations at both caves. The 24 chapters by leading specialists cover a range of topics from information concerning the nature and sequence of Middle Palaeolithic Neanderthal occupations to the reconstruction of the environmental context of these activities, based on proxy indicators such as sediments, charcoal, amphibians, reptiles, avifaunal remains, and small and large mammals. The Gibraltar evidence provides a rare insight into the lives of Neanderthals in a western Mediterranean coastal setting. It also presents site information on some of the last Neanderthal populations and the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition.

This collection of essays and tributes to Glynn Isaac marks the 26th anniversary of Glynns premature death on October 5th, 1985. These contributions document the work of many of Glynns colleagues students and collaborators, and reflect their continuing respect for a great scholar

The main concern of this volume is the multi-layered concept of ethnicity. Contributors examine and contextualise contrasting definitions of ethnicity and identity as implicit in two perspectives, one from the classical tradition and another from the prehistoric and anthropological tradition. They look at the role of textual sources in reconstructing ethnicity and introduce fresh and innovative archaeological data in reconstructing ethnicity, either from fieldwork or from new combinations of old data. Finally, in contrast to many traditional approaches to ethnicity, they examine the relative and interacting role of natural and cultural features in the landscape in the construction of ethnicity. The volume is headed by the contribution of Andrea Carandini whose work challenges the conceptions of many in the combination of text and archaeology. He begins by examining the mythology surrounding the founding of Rome, taking into consideration the recent archaeological evidence from the Palatine and the Forum. Here primacy is given to construction of place and mythological descent. Anthony Snodgrass, Robin Osborne, Tim Cornell and Christopher Smith offer replies to his arguments. Overall, the nineteen papers presented here show that a modern interdisciplinary and international archaeology that combines material data and textual evidence - critically - can provide a powerful lesson for the full understanding of the ideologies of ancient and modern societies.

Acts of a workshop held at the Danish Institute of Athens in collaboration with the INSTAP Study Center for East Crete, 27-29 June 2007.

Materiality and Social Practice investigates the transformative potential arising from the interplay between material forms, social practices and intercultural relations. Such a focus necessitates an approach that takes a transcultural perspective as a fundamental methodology and, then a broader understanding of the inter-relationship between humans and objects. Adopting a transcultural approach forces us to change archaeology's approach towards items coming from the outside. By using them mostly for reconstructing systems of exchange or for chronology, archaeology has for a long time reduced them to their properties as objects and as being foreign. This volume explores the notion that the significance of such items does not derive from the transfer from one place to another as such but, rather, from the ways in which they were used and contextualised. The main question is how, through their integration into discourses and practices, new frameworks of meaning were created conforming neither with what had existed in the receiving society nor in the area of origin of the objects.

In 2008, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Council for British Archaeologys Wessex group, archaeologists gathered in Southampton to review what we have learnt from the huge amount of research carried out in the region during the past 50 years and to identify the challenges for the next half-century. The conference was also a chance for those involved to tell the exciting story of discovery from their own, personal angle. The contributors to this volume include many of the UKs most influential archaeologists of the later 20th century, making this book an overview not only of the history of Wessex, but of the development of archaeological thinking and techniques during this period. Interspersed amongst these papers are profiles of the regions most influential sites and the memories of some of its leading characters.

The present publication is concerned with the rock art from two sections of the Nile Valley in Lower Nubia surveyed in the scope of the UNESCO-organised salvage campaign by the Czechoslovak Institute of Egyptology (Charles University in Prague). It has two main objects, first to complete the catalogue of the rock art documented or localised in the two sections of the Czechoslovak concession with hitherto unpublished rock-art surfaces and occurrences (both petroglyphs and rock paintings) and, second, to provide a critical revision of the data published in Katalog der Felsbilder aus der Tschechoslowakischen Konzession in Nubien (edited by F. Váhala and P. Červíček, Prag 1999). With a view to presenting the results of the critical revision, made on the basis of the field documentation gathered by the Czechoslovak expedition and deposited in the archive of the Czech Institute of Egyptology (Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague), all rock-art data – both unpublished and published – are arranged in the present volume in a tabular form. Tables 1–4 containing the description and revision of the rock-art data from the two sections of the Czechoslovak concession in a succession from north to south and, as distinct from Katalog, separately for each bank of the Nile, are accompanied by introductory notes on the formation of the corpus, hitherto unpublished distribution maps of the completed and revised corpus, 155 hitherto unpublished black-and-white photographs, and four colour plates with the sheets of the colour scale used for the recording of patina difference or colour value of preserved paints. With the two objects accomplished, the present publication constitutes a kind of manual to the rock-art corpus from the Czechoslovak concession in Lower Nubia and is to be regarded, together with Katalog, as the complete and authoritative source of data for evaluation of the significance of the evidence from the two sections of the Nile Valley in Lower Nubia.

This volume present a detailed study of the thin, usually rectangular, pieces of pierced fine stone that occur in inhumation graves of Beaker date mainly of the second half of the third millennium cal BC. These objects are considered to be archer's bracers or wristguards. The study forms part of a more wide-ranging research project to identify more accurately the significance of burial assemblages from Beaker and Early Bronze Age contexts in England and Wales. The key objective is to produce a detailed analysis of the nature and function of these grave goods, beginning with the bracers, and to test the hypothesis that many of the artefacts were originally designed for use as components of ritual costume or as equipment for use in religious acts and ceremonies. The volume includes an illustrated database of all recorded bracers.