This first monograph in the EARTH: The Dynamics of Non-Industrial Agriculture: 8,000 years of Resilience and Innovation series, approaches the great variety of agricultural practices in human terms. It focuses on the relationship between plants and people, the complexity of agricultural processes and their organisation within particular communities and societies. Collaborative European research among archaeologists, archaeobotanists, ethnographers, historians and agronomists using a broad analytical scale of investigation seeks to establish new common ground for integrating different approaches. By means of interdisciplinary examples, this book showcases the relationship between people and plants across wide ranging and diverse spatial and temporal milieus, including crop diversity, the use of wild foodstuffs, social context, status and choices of food plants.

Lindsay Allason-Jones has been at the forefront of small finds and Roman frontier research for 40 years in a career focussed on, but not exclusive to, the north of Britain, encompassing an enormous range of object types and subject areas. Divided into thematic sections the contributions presented here to celebrate her many achievements all represent at least one aspect of Lindsay’s research interests. These encompass social and industrial aspects of northern frontier forts; new insights into inscribed and sculptural stones specific to military communities; religious, cultural and economic connotations of Roman armour finds; the economic and ideological penetration of romanitas in the frontiers as reflected by individual objects and classes of finds; evidence of trans-frontier interactions and invisible people; the role of John Clayton in the exploration and preservation of Hadrian’s Wall and its material culture; the detailed consideration of individual objects of significant interest; and a discussion of the widespread occurrence of mice in Roman art.

The twenty-third Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference (TRAC) was held at King’s College, London in spring 2013. During the three-day conference nearly papers were delivered, discussing issues from a wide range of geographical regions of the Roman Empire, and applying various theoretical and methodological approaches. Sessions included those looking at Roman–Barbarian interactions; identity and funerary monuments in ancient Italy; migration and social identity in the Roman Near East; theoretical approaches to Roman small finds; formation processes of in-fills in urban sites; and new reflections on Roman glass. This volume contains a selection of papers from the conference sessions.

Spiral stairs, galleries and upper chambers in medieval cathedrals, abbeys and parish churches have been an enduring source of fascination to scholars since the eighteenth century. But what were these secret stairs, mysterious galleries and hidden upper rooms actually used for – and how can we know? This book presents the evidence for the practical functions of ecclesiastical upper spaces from c. 1000-1550 as revealed through the widest selection of medieval visual, documentary, and artistic media ever assembled for the purpose, taking in treasuries to dovecotes, libraries to lights, and secret games of skittles over the vaults to the daring exploits of the twelfth-century 'Flying monk'. Toby Huitson considers these topics with many others, offering a radically new understanding of medieval high-level function.Dr Toby Huitson teaches at the University of Kent, Canterbury.

Identity is relational and a construct, and is expressed in a myriad of ways. For example, material culture and its pluralist meanings have been readily manipulated by humans in a prehistoric context in order to construct personal and group identities. Artefacts were often from or reminiscent of far-flung places and were used to demonstrate membership of an (imagined) regional, or European community. Earthworks frequently archive maximum visual impact through elaborate ramparts and entrances with the minimum amount of effort, indicating that the construction of identities were as much in the eye of the perceivor, as of the perceived. Variations in domestic architectural style also demonstrate the malleability of identity, and the prolonged, intermittent use of particular places for specific functions indicates that the identity of place is just as important in our archaeological understanding as the identity of people. By using a wide range of case studies, both temporally and spatially, these thought processes may be explored further and diachronic and geographic patterns in expressions of identity investigated.

Recently, a travel account and 700 photographs came to light by the hand of Leo Boer, a former student of the École Biblique et Archéologique Française in Jerusalem who, at the age of 26 in 1953–4 visited many archaeological sites in the area of present-day Israel and the Palestinian Territories. These documents inspired 20 internationally-renowned scholars – many of whom excavated at the sites they describe – to report on what we know today of nine particular sites chosen from the many that Leo Boer visited 60 years ago: Jerusalem, Khirbet et-Tell (Άi?), Samaria & Sebaste, Tell Balata (Shechem), Tell es-Sultan (Jericho), Khirbet Qumran, Caesarea, Megiddo, and Bet She’an. Rather than focusing on the history of these sites, the contributors describe the history of the archaeological expeditions. Who excavated these sites over the years? What were the specific aims of their campaigns? What techniques and methods did they use? How did they interpret these excavations? What finds were most noteworthy? And finally, what are the major misconceptions held by the former excavators?Several themes are interwoven amongst the contributions and variously discussed, such as ‘identification of biblical sites’, ‘regional surveys’, ‘underwater archaeology’, ‘archaeothanatology’, ‘archaeology and politics’, ‘archaeology and science’, and ‘heritage management’. This unique collection of images and essays offers to scholars working in the region previously unpublished materials and interpretations as well as new photographs. For students of archaeology, ancient or Biblical history and theology it contains both a detailed archaeological historiography and explores some highly relevant, specific themes. Finally, the superb quality of Boer’s photography provides an unprecedented insight into the archaeological landscape of post-war Palestine for anyone interested in Biblical history and archaeology.

Whether it is the binding of shattered bones or the creation of herbal remedies, human agency is a central feature of the healing process. Both archaeological and anthropological research has contributed much to our understanding of the performative aspects of medicine. The papers contained in this volume, based on a session conducted at the 2010 Theoretical Archaeology Conference, take a multi-disciplinary approach to the topic, addressing such issues as the cultural conception of disease; the impact of gender roles on healing strategies; the possibilities afforded by syncretism; the relationship between material culture and the body; and the role played by the active agency of the sick.

This is the first major analysis of the Roman pottery from excavations in Lincoln (comprising more than 150,000 sherds). The pottery is presented in seven major ware groups. Fine wares include a modest range of imports and are dominated by Nene Valley products. Oxidised wares are mostly local products with a few imports as are the shell- and calcite-tempered wares and reduced wares. The final three are the standard specialised wares: mortaria, mostly of German and Mancetter-Hartshill manufacture; amphorae (80% Spanish Dressel 20) and samian, mostly from Les Martres/Lezoux and 75% undecorated! The discussion explores the chronological range of the entire ceramic assemblage across the three discrete parts of the Roman fortress and later colonia.

Puspika 2 is the outcome of the second International Indology Graduate Research Symposium and presents the results of recent research by young scholars into pre-modern South Asian cultures with papers covering a variety of topics related to the intellectual traditions of the region. Focusing on textual sources in the languages in which they were composed, different disciplinary perceptions are offered on intellectual history, linguistics, philosophy, literary criticism and religious studies.

The site of Tepe Yahya in southeastern Iran is famous, among other important aspects, for the Proto-Elamite complex dated to around 3000 BC (Period IVC). The material culture of Period IVC is not exclusively limited to its Proto-Elamite component, but is also characterized by the presence of elements from other Middle-Asian cultural ceramic traditions. In addition to a synthesis of the Proto-Elamite period and the material assemblage at Tepe Yahya, The Proto-Elamite Settlement and Its Neighbors provides an updated review and comprehensive discussion of the Proto-Elamite sphere, its relations to Mesopotamia, and its eastern Middle Asian neighbors. This innovative book illustrates that the “multi-cultural” situation at Tepe Yahya Period IVC was present across many sites in Middle Asia and that, in addition to the Proto-Elamite sphere and the cities of Mesopotamia, Middle Asia around 3000 BC was incorporated within an interactive “multi-players” network of polities.Benjamin Mutin, Author, is a Research Fellow for the American School of Prehistoric Research, Harvard University. He is an archaeologist who specializes in Middle Asian proto-history and who has worked in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Tajikistan, and Oman. He holds a Ph.D. in Prehistory, Anthropology, and Ethnology from University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.C. C. Lamberg-Karlovsky, General Editor, and Project Director for Tepe Yahya, is the Stephen Phillips Professor of Archaeology, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, Peabody Museum (Director 1977–1990).

This collection of essays begins with the premise that violence, in its relationship to order, is a central element of history. Taking a broad definition of violence, including structural and symbolic violence, the contributions move beyond the problematic of civilization’s mitigating or foundational role, instead seeing violence as inherently social, and, perhaps, socially inherent (if variable). The question then becomes what forms of harm are authorized or banned in which social orders and how they change over time. Beginning with a theoretical introduction, this interdisciplinary volume includes seven papers representing cultural anthropology, history, archaeology and international relations. The papers range from China to the Americas and from the 2nd millennium BCE to the 21st century CE. Some deal with long-term developments while others focus on a single time and place. Many treat the issue of the visibility/invisibility of violence, while all in one way or another deal with the role of violence in the re-production of community. Together, the volume aims to paint, with a few strokes, the outlines of a deep historical anthropology of social violence. The volume is based on the proceedings of a symposium hosted at Brown University.

Ritual happens in distinct places – in temples, in caves, along pilgrimage routes – and religious activities there incorporate a diverse set of objects such as holy water, cult statues, and sacred texts. Understanding religious ritual requires viewing it not as a disembodied event, but as emplaced, grounded in both built and natural surroundings, and integrated with its associated material objects. Here authors examine various religious practices in the Greco-Roman world and pilgrimage routes in contemporary Israel. Other contributions focus on the East, on domestic religion in prehistoric Taiwan, and the palimpsest of ritual activity in Buddhist China. One author considers not just ritual’s built and natural setting, but also the landscape of the human mind. By way of conclusion, many of the recurring issues concerning the material and topographic matrix of ritual practice are expanded upon in a final meditation on sacred space. The papers in this volume, with their disciplinary, geographic, and chronological diversity, will serve as a resource for theoretical approaches to the study of ritual practice that may have broad cross-cultural application and provide new insight into the relationship between ritual and place.The volume is based on a conference held at Brown University.

In July 1834 excavation of a barrow at Gristhorpe, near Scarborough, Yorkshire, recovered an intact, waterlogged, hollowed-out oak coffin containing a perfectly preserved Bronze Age skeleton that had been wrapped in an animal skin and buried with worked flints, a bronze dagger with a whalebone pommel, and a bark vessel apparently containing food residue. Gristhorpe Man became the centrepiece of the Scarborough Philosophical Society’s museum display.In 2004, planned refurbishment of the renamed Rotunda Museum provided the opportunity for a scientific re-examination of the burial and grave goods in order to eluciate the life and death of this extraordinary survival of the British Early Bronze Age. Tree-trunk coffin burials are relatively rare and Gristhorpe Man, with his range of grave goods was likely to have held a special role in society. Analysis of the skeleton included an examination of its skeletal morphology and palaeopathological conditions combined with isotopic analyses of the bones and teeth in order to investigate mobility, diet, and status of the individual whose unusual large stature, dentition, and novel methods of conservation were of particular interest. These analyses, combined with examination of the surviving coffin lid, including the unique ‘face’ carved onto one end of it, the grave goods, and radiocarbon and dendrochronological dating, reveal fascinating insights into the social position, inter-regional contacts and the burial rite associated with this enigmatic mature man who probably saw active combat and who suffered from a benign brain tumour that may have seriously altered his personality in his later years.

The fourth millennium BC was a critical period of socio-economic and political transformation in the Iranian Plateau and its surrounding zones. This period witnessed the appearance of the world’s earliest urban centres, hierarchical administrative structures, and writing systems. These developments are indicative of significant changes in socio-political structures that have been interpreted as evidence for the rise of early states and the development of inter-regional trade, embedded in longer-term processes that began in the later fifth millennium BC. Iran was an important player in western Asia especially in the medium- to long-range trade in raw materials and finished items throughout this period. The 20 papers presented here illustrate forcefully how the re-evaluation of old excavation results, combined with much new research, has dramatically expanded our knowledge and understanding of local developments on the Iranian Plateau and of long-range interactions during the critical period of the fourth millennium BC.

It is perhaps commonplace to say that India is one of the world's richest and most enticing cultures. One thousand years have passed since Albiruni, arguably the first "Indologist", wrote his outsider's account of the subcontinent and two hundred years have passed since the inception of Western Indology. And yet, what this monumental scholarship has achieved is still outweighed by the huge tracts of terra incognita: thousands of works lacking scholarly attention and even more manuscripts which still await careful study whilst decaying in the unforgiving Indian climate. In September 2009 young researchers and graduate students in this field came together to present their cutting-edge work at the first International Indology Graduate Research Symposium, which was held at Oxford University. This volume, the first in a new series which will publish the proceedings of the Symposium, will make important contributions to the study of the classical civilisation of the Indian sub-continent. The series, edited by Nina Mirnig, Péter-Dániel Szántó and Michael Williams, will strive to cover a wide range of subjects reaching from literature, religion, philosophy, ritual and grammar to social history, with the aim that the research published will not only enrich the field of classical Indology but eventually also contribute to the studies of history and anthropology of India and Indianised Central and South-East Asia.

A fundamental component of the study of worked osseous objects is the identification of the raw materials chosen to make them. In archaeological contexts many objects become degraded to the point where identification is very difficult and the way in which these materials decay during burial and upon excavation can vary greatly. Correct identification is crucial to the investigation of objects, their conservation and future curation. Above all, understanding raw material selection aids our understanding of human-animal interaction in the past both on pragmatic and symbolic levels since the choices made by artisans vary by cultural tradition as well as availability.The 20 papers presented here explore a wealth of information pertaining to the use of osseous materials over the long period of human craftsmanship and tool manufacture by exploring several key themes:· Raw material selection and curation within tool types· Social aspects of raw material selection· New methods of materials identificationIt is demonstrated that the issue of raw material identification has numerous implications for conservation work, reproduction of objects, the physical characteristics of the tool or ornament, availability of raw materials, the materials chosen for procurement and the cultural reasons that lie behind the choice of raw materials from particular species and skeletal elements to produce planned tool and ornament types. Together, these papers emphasize the need for confident and correct materials identification and demonstrate that functionality is by no means the only, nor necessarily the most important, factor in the selection of osseous raw materials for the fabrication of tools and other cultural objects