Böcker i British Archaeological Reports International Series-serien

Proceedings of a conference covering many aspects of human use of caves: from Palaeolithic carvings in France to present-day man-made cave dwellings in Baranja, Croatia.

This book is an attempt to reconstruct a Mesolithic framework around a little-known artefacts that express probable social complexity within a so-called functional hunter/gatherer system. Artistic representation in the form of decorated bone, antler and amber portrays a society that not only hunted, fished and gathered, but also believed in totemics.

This book, based on reviews of existing evidence and on original ethnographic and archaeological data, addresses the issue of when, how and why food production emerged in Ethiopia. This problem is examined through both cultural and economic context. The conclusion is that significant phases of development can be identified in Ethiopian Holocene prehistory. The suggestion is that the introduction of domesticated animals in Ethiopia occurred as early as the 6th millennium BP, and domesticated temperate crop plants were introduced from the 5th millennium BP. The book includes appendices featuring Ethiopian resources, pollen diagrams and archaeological evidence.

The so-called Coligny Calendar was discovered in November 1897 by a Monsieur Roux in a field north of Coligny (Ain, France). He came across the fragments of a buried statue of a young male deity and, with it, the broken-up remains of what had once been alarge bronze plaque. The more than 150 individual fragments, most of which bore writings and numerical values aligned to vertical lines of holes, were quickly recognized as pieces of a calendar, written in Roman capitals. The language was later recognized as Gaulish. Archaeological analysis showed that the fragments had been collected in a container made from a vegetal fibre. Archaeologists have suggested several hypotheses for this strange circumstance. The most accredited of them is that a druid wanted to save the remaining fragments of the calendar, burying them underground in a wood, and for the statue, evidently a sacred object, that it had been broken up for some dramatic event. The analysis proposed in this volume is that the plaque does not bear a solar calendar, but shows essentially the structure of a lunar calendar, based on a given yearly lunation pattern, and adapted to the solar course by means of two intercalary months. Therefore it could be a scientific instrument, the result of a cognitive study that perhaps was not used alone, but together with the solar Julian Calendar.

with English summary and abstract.

An investigation of the relations between heterogeneity in the material world and variations in human behaviour, particularly landscape settlement and stone tool fabrication, in the European Lower and Middle Palaeolithic. A theoretical approach termed ecological geography is developed.

This book presents the proceedings of Red Sea Project III held in the British Museum, London, in October 2006.

This book presents eleven papers from a session held at the EAA conference in Cork, Ireland, in 2005.

With a definite economic focus, this work utilises a broad spectrum of information, including structural, artefactual, environmental, technological and documentary to examine the economy of early medieval Ireland and the domestic life of the non-elite population.

Interest in studying historical environments expanded quite rapidly parallel to a passion for romantic landscapes in the 19th century and the knowledge of natural resources among the ecologists of the 20th century. From the point of view of geomorphology, this interest has generated a wealth of research on coevolution between relief and human population. Later, with the study of recent sediment deposits in the Mediterranean Basin, the concept of parallel development between the spread of the Oikumene anderosive phenomena has emerged. Since then, numerous and sometimes contradictory studies have highlighted the diversity of the Holocene sedimentation and morphogenic response to human settlement and population growth according to the geographical variety. With the present work, the author contributes to this line of research by studying a semi-arid Mediterranean environment, the island of Cyprus. The work focuses on the Gialias River watershed which extends from the piedmont of the Troodos range to the Eastern Messaoria plains. The goal is to reconstruct the history of the Holocene morphogenesis in connection with the forms and structures of fluvial landscapes. This work is inscribed in a both geomorpholigical and geoarchaeological perspective and adds to recent advances on the evolution of sub-arid and semi-arid environments in the oriental part of the Mediterranean Basin.

In this work the author analyses the remains of the settlement of Cádiz (Spain) in the Phoenician and Punic period. Since the discovery of the masculine anthropoid sarcofagus in Punta de la Vaca (Cádiz) in 1887, the investigations into the Phoenician and Punic settlement of Cádiz have shown the magnitude of the site. This volume investigates the excavations made in Cádiz that show evidence of the Phoenician and Punic settlement of Cádiz that was occupied since the 8th century.

This book includes papers from the Symbolism in Rock Art session held at the XV UISPP World Congress, Lisbon, in September 2006.

The purpose of this volume is to reveal as much information as possible on the nature of dance in Old Kingdom Egypt. This is achieved through the thorough examination of the primary evidence pertaining to dance in the old Kingdom, which comes to us in the form of pictures, letters, captions and titles. Scenes of dance abound in tomb decoration, in particular, but can also be found in solar temples attended by the living. Indeed, when a clear definition of what constituted dance in Ancient Egypt is reached, the number of pictorial examples relating to dance became so vast that it necessitated restricting this study to material from the old Kingdom. While the study of pictures of dance reveals much about the history and development of art, much regarding the nature of dance can also be perceived. It is reasonable to assume that much of the information recorded regarding dance; the poses, costumes, props and gender of dancers as depicted in scenes of dance, should reflect the nature of dance as it was performed at the time and even the region in which it was recorded. Therefore, the developments traced in the course of this study relate to the art history record of dance as much as to dance itself.

The cemetery at R12 was one of a number of Neolithic sites found by the Sudan Archaeological Research Society's Northern Dongola Reach Survey between 1993 and 1997 on the east bank of the Nile.

This investigation consists of updates to the chronology of Achaemenid Persia (539 BCE-304 BCE). The state of Achaemenid chronology was the subject of a series of studies published by this writer about ten to fifteen years ago. Newly emerged evidence has necessitated the present updates. Errata in those earlier studies are listed in an appendix. The focus of the present investigation is on what is new. A comprehensive statement on Achaemenid chronology that progresses from first principles and combines all that is new with all that is old remains desirable. Few historical events are as transforming in the history of nations as the death of one ruler and the accession of the next. Accordingly, the chronology of regnal transitions deserves special attention in the study of ancient chronology. This study provides updates for the chronology of nine regnal transitions in the Achaemenid empire: Xerxes I to Artaxerxes I (465); Artaxerxes I to Darius II (424-23); Darius II to Artaxerxes II (405/4); Artaxerxes IIto Artaxerxes III (359/58); Artaxerxes III to Arses (338); Arses to Darius III (336/35); Darius III to Alexander III (331); Alexander III to Philip Arridaios (323); and Arridaios to Alexander IV (317). A comprehensive tabulation of the regnal years of the final years of the empire (340-304) is presented at the end.

This book includes papers from the session entitled 'Megalithic Quarrying' presented at the XV UISPP World Congress (Lisbon, 4-9 September 2006).

This volume presents the reader with a selection of installations for the production of wine and oil from Israel of the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine periods. Many such installations have been found in Israel from earlier periods also but the peak in their development, in the number of installations found, in the technology used and in their variety is towards the end of the Byzantine period. Several factors combined to create this situation. This comprehensive study investigates their archaeological remains. The installations presented in this volume reveal the remarkable variety of techniques and devices found in one small section of the complicated mosaic of local technical cultures that were spread throughout the Mediterranean basin, each developing separately but influenced by and influencing the others. Even techniques such as the use of the screw developed in different ways in different regions. The extent and borders of these technical cultures are in many cases closely related to those of political entities changing in extent and character together with these. Thus the study of these ancient crafts not only reveals important aspects of ancient technology, economics and day to day life but mapping the variegated regional technical cultures contributes a new and independent delineation of ancient human geography.

This book includes papers from the session (Vol. 30, Session WS19) 'Rock Art and Museum' presented at the XV UISPP World Congress (Lisbon, 4-9 September 2006).

The objective of this research is to advance the understanding of the Egyptian Eastern Desert region petroglyphs by means of three steps: 1) To order and analyse the available data; 2) To compare the Eastern Desert petroglyphs with those of neighbouring regions and 3) To determine what the Eastern Desert petroglyphs can tell us about the people responsible for them. The study then moves towards an interpretation of the petroglyphs in terms of what they can tell us about the origins and development of Egyptian society.

This volume is a collection of papers presented at the Association of Environmental Archaeologists conference in Exeter, 2006. The nine papers within this volume consider how social archaeological questions can be investigated utilising environmental remains.

A study of the food supply of the Roman army and the local populations. Food provision, principally wheat, was in the hands of an institution known as Annona. This institution mainly oversaw the adequate supply of food supplies for the city of Rome (annona civica) and the army (annona militaris). Both were the beneficiaries of the redistribution system promoted by the emperors in terms of agrarian policy.

'The 'Ordos bronzes' are well known to collectors and many museums, named for the many finds in and around the Ordos plateau in north China. They are ...the subject of many catalogues and parts of catalogues of collections [and] have much to tell of contacts and of iconographic inspiration passing, in both directions, from China and from the Steppes... I am dealing with what are generally regarded as belt plaques, not the many animal-only 'Ordos bronzes' of various forms and attachments, which may have been applied to harness or dress or furniture, and which are equally numerous; nor with daggers and the like. The main series considered here (the 'Rope-border' plaques) ...begins with works of art of amazing intricacy of composition, combining a certain horror vacui with a desire to indicate all parts of the animal figures involved... The series takes us from over a century before the Qin dynasty 'unification' of China, well into early Han times, roughly from the fourth/third to first centuries BC. Coeval with them, especially in the later period, are other plaque series of different shapes and many of them far less ambitious. These represent more decidedly 'nomad art', even when their forms and iconography are employed for luxury items of some intricacy, of the type that reached Siberia, and which characterize Peter the Great's Treasure which had been assembled there, and whether or not some were made by the Chinese for their nomad rivals...Over the whole period studied the interfaces with the arts of Scythians and Sarmatians are apparent, and noted where important, but the subject is only part of the far wider phenomenon of Eurasian arts, a daunting subject. And like all 'art-historical' studies it carries a historical element involving the nature of relations between nomad and settled (to put it at its simplest), as well as the behaviour of owners/wearers. Many 'nomads' of the areas we visit were virtually 'settled', while among the 'settled' Chinese many lived a transhumance 'nomad' existence. I address this as best I can in the Conclusions, realizing that for many this should be the main reason for such a study. It is likely, however, in the face of the very plentiful material, that a mainly art-historical approach may lead more readily to conclusions of social and historical significance.' (From the author's Preface)

This work represents a study of the hunter-gatherer societies that occupied the Central Plateau of Santa Cruz, with a special focus on La María Archaeological Locality. The broad objective is to try and understand the technological organization of the groups which lived in this area between the final Pleistocene and the late Holocene, and by so doing provide a discussion on the issues relating to other aspects of the society, such as the economic and social strategies of mobility, the use of the space and the exploitation of economic resources implemented in the different periods studied. Other specific objectives include: to identify the environmental changes which occurred since the beginning of the first human occupation in the region; to establish the regional structure of lithic resources; to analyze the variability of the set of artefacts; to characterize the sequences of artefact production for each raw material; to analyze the design of the artefacts; to define the different ways lithic technology was organized in every temporal range; to understand if there were differential technical skills for each of these particular episodes; and, to analyze the different ways the region was occupied during these specific temporal contexts. Full Title: La organización tecnológica en grupos cazadores recolectores desde las ocupaciones del Pleistoceno final al Holoceno tardío, en la Meseta Central de Santa Cruz, Patagonia

This is a second study of the auxiliary units of the Roman Imperial Army, listing all the known cohortes. The study expands and updates the work of Conrad Cichorius that first appeared one hundred years ago. Each known unit is listed with the bulk of the evidence for the unit's name and personnel who served in it. The lists are compiled from military diplomas, stone inscriptions, papyri, wood, tile and other materials.

This monograph (in the series Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology) compares lithic materials excavated from Shumai and Kakwa Lelash, two deeply stratified dry rockshelters located in the Mukogodo Hills of the Laikipia and Isiolo districts of Central-North Kenya. The analysis forms a key part of the reconstruction of the sequence of human occupation in the region back to the Middle Stone Age (c. 200,000 BP). Lithic components from these two sites are analyzed and compared in terms of their raw material, techno-morphological attributes, function, and styles.

A lavish festschrift to John Onians with contributions by 28 distinguished academics. Any summary as to the direction of these contributions is, perhaps, best left to Martin Kemp and his affectionate preface, "Above all, he (John Onians) reminds us of the researchers', writers' and teachers' true mission, that is the need to be radical in both asking and answering questions, and above all for the historian of visual things to be instinctively radical in every act of looking."

The Pythian Games are not as well known as the Olympic Games but were nonetheless important over a period of more than a thousand years of Greek and Roman history (c.580 BC to AD 395).

The aim of the book is to identify and characterize the archaeological evidence for the Roman house in northern Italy and to determine its place in the larger study of Roman domestic architecture. It includes an extensive catalogue.

The aim of this research is to reconstruct the landscape evolution in the lower Rio Grande drainage basin during the Late Holocene and to detect interrelations between landscape evolution, cultural development, climatic changes and extreme events. Central to this is to identify and, if possible, quantify factors of landscape change. In doing so, the author differentiates natural from anthropogenic factors, i.e. to determine both the natural and the human impacts on the landscape. An important question is whether climatic changes and extreme events have had an influence on past societies. To answer these questions, this work goes beyond physical geography approaches to paleoenvironmental reconstruction and includes the wealth of archaeological evidence and interpretations available for the research area. The volume consists of a main section and an extensive appendix containing sketches and detailed interpretations of the investigated sediment profiles as well as graphs showing the results of the laboratory analyses.

If Oceanic canoes, by their very strangeness were surprising to the earliest European observers, it was not long before their descriptions shifted from being impressed, enthusiastic or fascinated and gave way to detailed observations, measurements, comparisons and representations. Canoes are also the means by which the islanders apprehend space. In this perspective, this interesting volume on the study of canoes of the 'Grand Ocean' remains a vehicle for discovery.