The body is the main forum for learning about how to do, think and believe and it is a starting point for the granting and forming of many forms of meaning. Fourteen papers explore the relationship between knowledge and the body through a series of historical and archaeological case studies. More specifically, it considers the concept of embodied knowledge by exploring some of the apparent diverse and yet shared forms of what may be called embodied knowledge. The papers share a focus on knowledge as it is implicit and expressed through the human body and bodily action, and as it formed through intentional practices. But what is this kind of knowledge? Using specific case studies of knowledgeable actions, the book explores embodied knowledge through a focus on practice. It does so through two different, yet interconnected aspects of how such knowledge expresses itself: belief and technology.

The latest in a series on post-medieval burial produced by MOLA, this volume reports on three non-Church of England burial grounds in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, excavated between 2004 and 2010. It looks at over 1350 burials of Baptists, Roman Catholics and Nonconformists, the majority of whom died in 1820-54, and examines the archaeological and osteological evidence, along with the historical and documentary sources. The discussions aim to place the three populations within the wider context of 19th-century London and Britain, with the findings well illustrated and fully tabulated throughout.

Excavations along the new road line have revealed nearly 6000 years of human activity, from a massive marker post erected by early Neolithic farmers at the head of a dry valley to a bizarre burial of several different animals dating to the sixteenth century AD. Prehistoric discoveries include two enclosures of the middle Bronze Age, both associated with some of the earliest cobbled roads in Kent, a collection of Iron Age storage pits rich in diverse deliberate offerings, and the emergence of a nucleated hamlet in the middle Iron Age. Most exciting were rich cremation burials of the late Iron Age and early Roman periods, probably successive generations of a local family, whose rise to prominence coincides with the growth of the cult centre at Springhead nearby. The metal vessels include types new to Britain, the pottery stamps suggest the movement of continental potters to Kent, and one grave has the clearest evidence of furniture yet found from early Roman Britain. Medieval settlements of the late 11th-14th centuries mirror the renewed importance of Watling Street after the Norman conquest, and its eventual return to obscurity due to competition from the ferry from London to Gravesend.

The new interdisciplinary study of modern conflict archaeology has developed rapidly over the last decade. Its anthropological approach to modern conflicts, their material culture and their legacies has freed such investigations from the straitjacket of traditional 'battlefield archaeology'. It offers powerful new methodologies and theoretical insights into the nature and experience of industrialised war, whether between nation states or as civil conflict, by individuals as well as groups and by women and children, as well as men of fighting age. The complexities of studying wars within living memory demand a new response - a sensitised, cross-disciplinary approach which draws on many other kinds of academic study but which does not privilege any particular discipline. It is the most democratic kind of archaeology - one which takes a bottom-up approach - in order to understand the web of emotional, military, political, economic and cultural experiences and legacies of conflict. These 18 papers offer a coherent demonstration of what modern conflict archaeology is and what it is capable of and offers an intellectual home for those not interested in traditional 'war studies' or military history, but who respond to the idea of a multidisciplinary approach to all modern conflict.

This book deals with the relationship between the material culture of humans, i.e. our technologies, arts and environments, and our mental worlds. Emphasising the close interdependence of mind and matter, the volume resonates with current developments within sociology, psychology and the cognitive sciences, yet it aims to supplement the focus on modern, predominantly Western societies and individuals with studies of different cultural contexts and processes in the evolutionary and historical past as well as the ethnographic present. With contributions from cognitive and social archaeology as well as anthropology, semiotics and the history of religion, the book combines well-illustrated case studies covering a wide chronological and geographic span - from Neolithic Europe to the present-day South Pacific - with incisive discussion of particular theoretical issues in the study of mind and material cultur

The ancient Egyptian city of Tell el-Amarna (or Amarna, ancient Akhetaten) was the short-lived capital built by the controversial Pharaoh Akhenaten, probably the father of the famous Tutankhamun, and abandoned shortly after his death (c. 1336 BCE). It is one of the few Pharaonic cities to have been thoroughly excavated and is a rich source of information about the daily life of the ancient Egyptians. This volume, the first of two, presents the leatherwork excavated at the site by these various expeditions. The book consists of two parts: the catalogue and the preliminary analysis. The former presents the detailed description of the objects (among which chariot leather and footwear), accompanied by colour photographs and, where necessary, line- and construction drawings. The latter includes an explanation of the Amarna Leatherwork Project as well as preliminary interpretations of the finds.

This books discusses one of the most frequently discussed subjects in history education during the last two decades, namely how secondary school pupils use the World Wide Web for their learning activities. Based on two case studies in two Dutch schools, the book shows some ways in which the use of the Web has changed history education in at least three respects: first, the findings of the two case studies show that the Web has a huge potential to turn the history class - previously described as boring and too abstract - into a livelier and more attractive environment, where concepts, events, phenomena and processes of the past almost always have textual and/or [audio]visual representations; second, strong indications were observed showing that the Web fosters historical understanding, not only by triggering thinking processes that take pupils beyond the shown contents, but also by prompting them to evaluate sources and sample relevant fragments for their assignments; third, the Web has brought into history education sources that were previously excluded, including those described as unconventional. This book shows, among other things, that convergence is underway on both the user side - since pupils use both conventional and unconventional online sources - and the content-production side, where heritage institutions are increasingly getting involved in unconventional platforms like Wikipedia. The latter emerged from the two case studies as the most popular source of historical information, while the websites of heritage institutions tended to appear at the bottom of the list of references. Unlike personal sites, which also scored better, heritage sites face some obstacles, including the still dominant desire to preserve institutions' identity and uniqueness, conservatism - which often prevents the redefinition of collection management tasks -, and the tax-payers' dilemma. For that reason, collections are not hyperlinked and, therefore, remain invisible and not easy to find online.

This volume was derived from the twenty-first annual Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference, which took place at the University of Newcastle (14-17 April 2011).

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.

This volume represents the final publication of the Olympias project, which saw the building of a full-scale reconstruction of a 170-oared Athenian trireme of the 4th century BC and its operation in five series of sea-trials in the Aegean Sea. The first three sea-trials in 1987, 1988 and 1990 have already been published in separate volumes (the last two by Oxbow) and this completes the series with reports of the 1992 and 1994 trials. The 1992 report by Paul Lipke of Trireme Trust USA, which collaborated with the Trireme Trust in the operation of the ship, offers an alternative view of the project as a whole from that presented in previous reports. The rest of the volume is devoted to some twenty-six papers presenting more recent research on the trireme, some of them originally presented at a conference held in Oxford and Henley in 1998. One group of papers by Timothy Shaw and John Coates presents the argument for making relatively small adjustments to the hull and oar-system of Olympias , which would enable the crew to generate far more power and so match the performance under oar which is implied by the ancient sources. The papers, therefore show the detailed thinking behind the modifications proposed in the second edition of The Athenian Trireme (2000). Another set of papers offers further critiques of the project, some positive and some sceptical and hostile. A third group investigates aspects of operation and performance under both oar and sail, including slipping and launching, the ancient evidence for speed under oar and physiological aspects of the ship's "human engine". A fourth group looks at aspects of construction and maintenance and a final set of papers presents some of the latest research inspired by the project, including an investigation of the effects of ramming, a reconsideration of the evidence for the dimensions of the ancient trireme and the modelling of battle manoeuvres based on the data produced by the trials of Olympias .

Community Archaeology is an assessment of the aims, results and validity of the broad spectrum of community archaeology initiatives taking place today. The project arose from a shared belief in cooperation between professional and non-professional archaeologists and the belief that archaeology does not have to take place in private between consenting companies. The 15 papers presented here are startlingly and pleasingly diverse, drawing on the expertise and experience of student archaeologists, academics, professionals, amateurs, educators and independent practitioners. A number of interesting common themes emerge, including general theoretical reflections on the nature and significance of community archaeology, education (which highlights the common concentration on excavation within community archaeology and the concomitant neglect of post-excavation work), funding and sustainability, namely the dichotomy between one-off or medium-term projects that are funded and long-term projects that tend to be staffed by volunteers. As well as the difficulties involved, the collection also highlights the pleasures and emotional dimensions of engaging with material remains of the past.

The San Vincenzo Project began in 1980 as a collaboration with the Soprintendenza Archaeologica del Molise. Its initial focus was the small frescoed crypt of 'San Lorenzo' (later known as the Crypt Church), which was in urgent need of conservation. Over the following eighteen years, a large multidisciplinary project was undertaken involving archaeologists, historians and art historians. This consisted of major open-area excavations of the early medieval monastery, of which the celebrated crypt proved to be a modest funerary oratory at the northern limits of the site. The project also involved a study of settlement history in the Upper Volturno valley. This book presents the finds of this excavation.

How does "heritage" become objectified within public institutions and representative of a national past? This book proposes a model for this process and contains five case studies that explore variety in the transformation of heritage. The model proposes that heritage is transformed from concept to object and the agency of change is "management". It explores management using strategic management analysis to understand the relationship between public institutions, heritage objects and their use. The analysis shows a development from administration to strategic management as a way of effecting change in public institutions over time, producing new heritage objects and markets for them, and demonstrates the need for public institutions to be aware of the way in which the adoption of management strategies creates "new" heritage as a cultural resource.

An interest in places of pilgrimage is very much a part of the life of many people in the modern world. For Christians, it is the Holy Land that holds specific interest - the area where the events described in the Bible, in both the Old and the New Testament, are located. This volume focuses on early Christian pilgrimage in Jordan, the region east of the Jordan River which has so far been little explored by pilgrims and tourists to the Holy Land. Yet many biblical events are said to have taken place here: Moses seeing the Promised Land, the ascension of the prophet Elijah and John the Baptist's ministry and beheading, to name but a few. This book takes an innovative approach to studying these sites. After a general introduction to each site, its biblical significance and a citation of the relevant biblical sources with commentary, the author lists the literary sources that pertain specifically to early Christian pilgrimage activity. This information is complemented with a description of the early Christian archaeological remains found at the site and their interpretation. Illustrated throughout with maps, plans, and photographs and including travel directions as well as suggestions about visits to the sites, this volume is made for scholars, pilgrims and tourists with an interest in early Christian and modern pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

Sharing Knowledge & Cultural Heritage (SK&CH), First Nations of the Americas, testifies to the growing commitment of museum professionals in the twenty-first century to share collections with the descendants of people and communities from whom the collections originated. Thanks to collection histories and the documenting of relations with particular indigenous communities, it is well known that until as recently as the 1970s, museum doors - except for a handful of cases - were shut to indigenous peoples.This volume is the result of an "expert meeting" held in November 2007 at the National Museum of Ethnology (NME) in Leiden, the Netherlands. Since then SK&CH projects have developed. The NME invited leading indigenous as well as non-native professional experts in the field from the Americas and Europe to explore and discuss case studies based on fieldwork, collecting material culture and/or work with indigenous communities in Greenland, the Canadian Arctic, North America and Central and South America.

The Death of Archaeological Theory? addresses the provocative subject of whether it is time to discount the burden of somewhat dogmatic theory and ideology that has defined archaeological debate and shaped archaeology over the last 25 years. Seven chapters meet this controversial subject head on, also assessing where archaeological theory is now, and future directions. John Bintliff questions what theory is and argues that archaeologists should be freed from 'Ideopraxists', or those who preach that a single approach or model is right to the exclusion of all others. Marc Pluciennik again questions what we mean by archaeological theory and argues that the role of intellectual fashion is underestimated. He predicts pressure from outside archaeology to redirect our dominant theories towards genetic and human impact theory. Kristian Kristiansen argues that theory cannot die, but it can change direction and sees signs of a retreat from the present post-modern and post-processual cycle towards a more science based, rationalistic cycle of revived modernity. To Mark Pearce the most striking thing about the present state of archaeological theory is that there is no emerging paradigm to be discerned; he proposes that Theory is not dead, but has instead become more eclectic and nuanced. Two papers offer a different perspective from other areas of the world; Alexander Gramsch examines the issue from the German tradition and shows that in Central and Eastern Europe not only has Anglo-American Theory had limited impact, but current discussions on the future of method and theory offer a broader view of the discipline in which older traditions are seen to form the foundation. Kent Flannery and Joyce Marcus demonstrate that American archaeologists do not foresee the death of a genuinely archaeological theory (which they believe has never existed) but fear the real catastrophe would be the death of anthropological theory, because some anthropology today has become decidedly anti-scientific, rejecting not only the controlled comparison and contrast of cultures, but also the use of generalisation, both of which are crucial to theories and models and without which the longue durée will always be invisible.