Butrint 8 is largely devoted to the Middle Byzantine archaeology discovered by the Butrint Foundation’s projects at Butrint itself, in its environs, and in the nearby port of Saranda, ancient Onchesmos. The volume includes a full report on the excavations in Butrint’s western defenses, built in the 6th century as a proteichisma, and maintained in use until the 9th century when tower 1 partly perished in a fire and tower 2 was abandoned. From these 9th-century levels came a major assemblage of traded and local ceramics as well as glass cullet. The report also describes the reuse of the defenses until the 16th century when Butrint was abandoned. This volume also includes a section devoted to Butrint’s Middle Byzantine enclave occupying its hinterland, including a new study of the Dema (boundary) wall, the hilltop fortress of Çuka e Aitoit and an excavation of a settlement on the plain opposite the town. The third part of the book focuses upon Saranda, ancient Onchesmos. This includes a short report on excavations made in the port that brought to light Middle Byzantine remains as well as a major reassessment of the sanctuary church of Santa Quaranta, re-examining its Late Roman origins and its major rebuilding in the Middle Byzantine period. Butrint 8 is a benchmark for research on the Middle Byzantine period in the southern Adriatic Sea region, shedding light on an age when Butrint lay on the western limits of Byzantium, on the long-distance trade of this period, and on the character of settlement in this period.

Obsidian, a shiny volcanic glass, was first used to make vessels in the mid-sixth millennium BC in the Near East, although other stone had been exploited for vessel manufacture since the thirteenth millennium BC. Unlike the stone used to make the earliest vessels, which was acquired from local and regional sources, obsidian had to be obtained from volcanoes located hundreds of kilometers from where vessels were made and used. The obsidian from these sources had long been exploited for making tools and by the tenth millennium BC obsidian artifacts can be found in communities located far distant from the sources. Nevertheless, it was not until the mid-sixth millennium BC that it was used to make vessels and even then they are rare: less than 200 have been found spread over four millennia (c. 5400–1500 BC). This is perhaps in part due to obsidian’s exotic origins but also because its comparative hardness and brittle nature made it difficult to work.To obtain a wider perspective on the use of obsidian for making vessels this book looks briefly at the properties of obsidian and the characteristics of the relevant sources and gives an overview of how obsidian has been understood and used by various communities around the world. The main part of the book examines the obsidian vessels found in the Near East. Previous studies have tended to take a site-specific viewpoint but here the opportunity has been taken to adopt a more holistic and integrated approach. This approach brings together different aspects of the vessels, including the provenance of the obsidian from which they were made, their morphologies, evidence for techniques of manufacture and the socioeconomic contexts in which they were produced and used, and attempts to determine whether the use of obsidian was of itself meaningful or significant.

Early medieval stone sculptures survive across Europe: at waysides, in architectural settings and in churches and graveyards, and provide an exceptional source for understanding the aesthetics and beliefs of early medieval communities. England is no exception to this. Thousands of intact and fragmentary stone monuments survive from the seventh to eleventh centuries CE, evidencing the emergence of a rich Anglo-Saxon sculptural tradition in stone. These often elaborately carved monuments that were generally painted – some with considerable sophistication – and could be inset with paste glass and metal, provide clear evidence of a rich and new form of visual material culture connected with the Church in the region. Some monuments acted as liturgical markers, others as markers of working relations between secular and ecclesiastical communities, while others still commemorated the dead, and some fragments demonstrate the ways in which stone buildings were decorated both inside and out. By the tenth century, stone crosses and monuments were frequently commissioned by the Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Scandinavian secular elites, demonstrating strong connections between sculptural commemoration, power, and identity. For decades, the celebrated project, the Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture, has provided information on these monuments, cataloguing each example in terms of date, geology, and decoration. This multi-authored volume draws on the expertise of many specialists connected with the Corpus to provide a first accessible national overview of the resource. Thematic chapters reflect on discoveries to date and archaeological and art historical approaches to researching and understanding sculpture. Key themes include quarrying and production, chronology, the intellectual and artistic context for sculpture, aesthetics and iconography, and the places and contexts of sculpture use. This extensively illustrated volume introduces Anglo-Saxon sculpture in its broader European context and offers a stepping-off point for all those wanting to learn more and research these often-enigmatic fragments.

Textile tools offer a fascinating and yet intimate approach to ancient people. Textile production has been one of the core activities for millennia, spanning from domestic production to royal needs. Textiles were light and easy to transport goods, often exchanged over long distances. Technology and knowhow, however, might not have always traveled so easily. This work examines spinning and weaving tools from the Southern Levant (inland and coastal) and Egypt. The chronology of the study is broad, ranging from the Neolithic until the beginning of the Persian period (600 BC). The objects are investigated from both a diachronic and synchronic perspective to understand their evolution and continuity of use, as well as regional differences and textile production methods. The two areas present an only apparent discontinuity, as political boundaries gave way at various historical moments and the two areas had very close contacts, such as during the Second Intermediate Period of Egypt or the Egyptian domination of the Late Bronze Age. This seems to be reflected in textile documentation, which shows the appearance of Egyptian tools in the Levant, such as spinning bowls, and Levantine tools in Egypt, such as loom weights. However, the result is not so predictable.

This volume presents the Greek and Roman pottery collected and analyzed by the Sphakia Survey project and provides a ceramic model for a large section of western Crete, where ceramic traditions, both domestic and imported, are little known. This research integrates two approaches. It first presents a morphological and functional study of a body of pottery from a sizable part of Crete with little known archaeological evidence. Second, fabric analysis identifies and defines clays and clay mixtures, with macroscopic and petrographic analyses providing results from two perspectives. The rigorous application of fabric analysis, combined with the morphological examination, contribute to reconstructions of sites and areas within Sphakia. This data provides information about the history of individual sites, but then more broadly about that of Sphakia itself.Elements like site chronology, activities undertaken in particular areas, available landscape resources and their exploitation, and contact within the region, with other parts of Crete, and the wider Greek and Roman worlds are explored.

Monasticism is a form of religious life in which participants renounce worldly activities to dedicate themselves primarily to spiritual matters, living in small communities subject to a set of rules and isolated from the secular world. Christian monasticism, which originated at the end of the 3rd century in Egypt and North Africa, spread to different parts of Europe in the 6th century. However, it was not until the Middle Ages that monastic communities became one of the most powerful institutions in Europe. Monasteries and convents played a very important role not only as centers of spirituality but also as focal points of economic, technological and cultural activity. This multiplicity of activities carried out alongside their religious, social and political roles make monasteries spaces that can be studied from very different perspectives and that unfailingly provide essential information about our history.This first of two titles originates from an international conference that took place in Barcelona in January 2024, which sought to examine different aspects related to monastic life in the past and to promote and disseminate the results obtained in the latest studies undertaken within the framework of monastic complexes and their environments. These include contributions and multidisciplinary studies from archaeological, bioanthropological and/or documentary perspectives. Specialists from different disciplines present developments on the topic of monasticism from different fields of study, such as zooarchaeology, bioanthropology, palaeopathology, archaeology, history, documentary disciplines, archives, cultural heritage, etc.Volume 1 concentrates on health and lifeways within monastic communities, focusing on palaeopathological information providing insights into physical wellbeing and, in particular, the presence and significance of disabled individuals and evidence for longterm health and dental issues. A variety of scientific methods of analysis are applied to cemetery populations from monasteries and nunneries of different periods to examine both causes of and contributions to the death of individuals, the composition of communities and the treatment of the dead. Studies of assemblages of faunal remains from monastic complexes consider how faunal analysis can help interpret the role of domestic species.

Monasticism is a form of religious life in which participants renounce worldly activities to dedicate themselves primarily to spiritual matters, living in small communities subject to a set of rules and isolated from the secular world. Christian monasticism, which originated at the end of the 3rd century in Egypt and North Africa, spread to different parts of Europe in the 6th century. However, it was not until the Middle Ages that monastic communities became one of the most powerful institutions in Europe. Monasteries and convents played a very important role not only as centers of spirituality but also as focal points of economic, technological and cultural activity. This multiplicity of activities carried out alongside their religious, social and political roles make monasteries spaces that can be studied from very different perspectives and that unfailingly provide essential information about our history.This second of two titles originates from an international conference that took place in Barcelona in January 2024, which sought to examine different aspects related to monastic life in the past and to promote and disseminate the results obtained in the latest studies undertaken within the framework of monastic complexes and their environments. These include contributions and multidisciplinary studies from archaeological, bioanthropological and/or documentary perspectives. Specialists from different disciplines present developments on the topic of monasticism from different fields of study, such as zooarchaeology, bioanthropology, palaeopathology, archaeology, history, documentary disciplines, archives, cultural heritage, etc.Volume 2 focuses on diet, food practices, water management, and the organization and use of space within monastic complexes and landscapes.

For many years now, the main thrust of European prehistory has followed a fundamentally terrestrial plot line. This terrestrial paradigm has undervalued the story of Europe as a peninsula between the Baltic, Mediterranean and Atlantic, and likewise downplayed that of many navigable rivers that reach deeply inland and the large lakes important for travel and subsistence. In vast areas of Europe the survival of incoming groups depended on coping and interacting with a seascape as much as a landscape. From the late Mesolithic onwards, in regions such as Scandinavia, the British Isles and the Mediterranean, most occupation was coastal; seas or rivers provided the most important infrastructure for transport, exchange and communication. Know-how about seascapes, boatbuilding, navigation and maritime networks had a profound impact on social organisation, ritual monuments and iconography, and the spread of materials and ideas, enabled by the adaptation of languages to these new environments. Given these facts the time is long overdue to critique the dominant terrestrial paradigm of European prehistory. This book is the first in the multi-author series Maritime Encounters, outputs of the major six-year (2022–2028) international research initiative funded by Sweden’s central bank. Our programme is based on a maritime perspective, a counterpoint to prevailing land-based vantages on Europe’s prehistory. In the Maritime Encounters project a highly international cross-disciplinary team has embarked on a diverse range of research goals to provide a more detailed and nuanced story of how prehistoric societies realised major and minor sea crossings, organised long-distance exchange, and adapted to ways of life by the sea in prehistory.

Monumental spaces were fundamental in the construction of power, political order and community identities in the ancient and pre-modern world. It was for this reason that authorities invested heavily in the construction of ideal landscapes of power that embodied the basic representation about what a harmonious society and an ordered world under the inspired guidance of the ruler(s) was. Such landscapes conveyed thus powerful cultural values and ideals about the social order that had produced them, not to speak about the authorities’ ability –who designed and built them – to lead their societies. However, far from being fixed over time, those spaces underwent changes to accommodate new values, to express a new balance of power resulting in transformations, rebuilding, integration of selected aspects of the past or, simply, utter destruction of landscapes no longer functional.In some societies, ceremonies were open, addressed to the whole society―at least as witnesses―in which their rulers performed the construction of social order and received divine support. The Maya cities, for example, with their loose urban density and open spaces dominated by autonomous neighbourhoods, epitomize the ideological need to gather society as spectators. Plazas became thus essential to negotiate consent and social consensus. In other cases the absence of open spaces – including cult ones – in which the community may gather and participate in collective performances points to oligarchical and somewhat secluded configurations of power, as in pharaonic Egypt, while, in the Classical world, agoras, forums and open spaces were intended to facilitate collective political deliberation.Urban layouts may bear traces of rival uses of space, for instance between “official” ceremonial areas, reserved to pageantry displays, and areas that were more organic, difficult to control but which favoured the concentration of crafts and guilds, alternative circulation of news and construction of counterpowers, like bazaars. The archaeological focus put on ceremonial spaces and prestige buildings may thus conceal the political importance of those other spaces and the counter-power issued there, with the lack specifically-designed buildings significant in itself.The aim of this book is to explore the relation between built environments, collective identities and political agency and the potential conflicts arising from competing or alternative social uses of the space, be it public, ritual, civic or a mix of all of them. A selection of historical case-studies from different regions of the world may help rethink current concepts and views about the traces that communal political agency left in the organization of settlements and in planning monumental areas. Such cases may also cast some light over the limits of rulers’ authority and the existence of collective institutions―formal or informal―rarely evoked in official sources. In the end, this book explores the importance of comparative research to address collective decision-making and communal identities in the pre-modern world.

From the first steps taken into the darkness of High Pasture Cave, it was clear that this complex site would challenge current thinking on cave use and function in prehistory, and wider understanding of Iron Age cultural practice and beliefs. Situated in a dramatic location under the slopes of the Cuillin Mountains on Scotland’s Isle of Skye, this cave and its monumentalised environs were a focus for specific and special activities throughout the Iron Age – a venue for spectacular and extensive ceremonies featuring feasts, fire, crafts and the symbolic deposition of a plethora of artefacts and environmental materials, as well as human remains. This volume sets out the results of fieldwork carried out at High Pastures between 2004 and 2010, presents results from the extensive post-excavation analysis, and provides a biography of the High Pasture Cave complex from the early Bronze Age through 900 years of Iron Age activity. Recent research has led to a resurgence of interest in caves, in particular the place of these enigmatic sites in the worldviews of later prehistoric communities. Their investigation in the past has generally attributed a domestic function, comprising temporary homes and shelter for hunter-gatherers, farmers and pastoralists, and as workshops and places of refuge. However, it is now proposed that many caves, including High Pasture, were used for rituals involving the preparation and display of human remains, the deposition of material culture and other types of organic materials. These were clearly performative acts and the recurrent use of caves as the arenas for such performances, tells us much about their role in the cosmology of later prehistoric communities.

This edited volume brings together an international group of scholars to address the lives, roles, myths, mythology, and lived experiences of Viking women as well as the impacts of change on women during the turbulent period of the Viking Age. Through interdisciplinary perspectives, this is a book dedicated to the lesserknown aspects of women’s lives as active members of society. It provides an innovative way of bringing together work from archaeological, anthropological, historical, and literary perspectives to address questions about women in trade, in war, in magic, in the household and activities that provided women with power and respect in their communities.

The authors explore multifaceted aspects of the competing cultural landscapes that comprise the northeast of Scotland. This interdisciplinary collection uses a deep temporal perspective at a range of scales, from microlandscape studies to largescale geological and archaeological environments. It presents collaborative research carried out by a local conservation group, the Bailies of Bennachie, and the University of Aberdeen across a twelveyear period – the ‘Bennachie Landscapes Project’. Far from being a cultural backwater, the book shows how key physical and social processes have interacted in the landscape of northeast Scotland since prehistory. Authors present new understandings of glacial geology, Mesolithic settlements, Roman, Viking and medieval settlements and environments, and recent crofting landscapes. Today’s landscape is shown to be an extraordinarily rich resource for cultural and environmental history that is well worthy of continued protection and care. The research is itself used as a means of reaching into the wider community and engaging in a twoway process of education that connects the various participants.This book, therefore, explores ways of ‘doing’ environmental archaeology and cultural landscape studies that are not mainstream. All of the studies have a greater or lesser degree of community input. Some are communitydriven, others more academically oriented. But all add value to the others and help to create a better understanding of the cultural landscapes of northeast Scotland. The narrative flows from late glacial times, through prehistoric and historic periods forward, through the actions of the present engaging communities, seamlessly on and into the future.

A joint Icelandic–US archaeological project in North Iceland examined the development of the farmstead settlement pattern from the initial Norse settlement of Iceland in c. AD 870–1300. The results were compared with the distribution of early Christian household cemeteries following the conversion in AD 1000 and the later institutionalization of the Catholic church in the 12th century. Colonization and Christianity details the methods and results from an innovative systemic regional archaeological survey that integrated extensive soil coring and shallow geophysical surveying with targeted excavation, tephra and AMS dating and documentary research to produce a near complete inventory of Viking Age and medieval occupation in and around the Hegranes region in lowland Skagafjörður, North Iceland. The survey revealed 32 Viking Age and medieval farmstead sites and seven early Christian household cemeteries at 20 modern farm properties. Results included the first complete regional settlement pattern in Iceland based on systematic subsurface reconnaissance with control over negative evidence; identification and mapping of a household cemetery and Viking Age longhouse and ancillary structures; and barley has been identified for the first time in the middens of a broad swath of Viking Age farmsteads.The results of the project confirm that the Viking Age settlement, which started in about AD 870, was rapid and the landscape itself was filled in by immigrants from Northern Europe within 60 years, as the Icelandic Family Sagas suggest. However, the process of creating the medieval agropastoral landscape took much longer.

Strøby Toftegård: Halls, Hierarchies and Social Dynamics in Late Iron Age and Viking Age Denmark presents and considers the archaeological material from the site of Strøby Toftegård in the eastern part of Zealand, Denmark, where comprehensive excavations took place between 1994 and 2013. The book seeks to qualify the interpretation of Farm 1 as the residence of a magnate from c. AD 650 to c. AD 1000 and of the whole settlement consisting of at least nine farm units as a magnate settlement. This is done by means of a detailed survey and analysis of buildings and features, structures, various groups of objects, and a discussion of the landscape, the social context and the creation of social hierarchies that the site fitted into while it was in use.Detailed analyses of pits, wells, a latrine, bone material, macrofossils, pollen, the sherds of glass vessels, sherds of windowpanes, beads, jewelry, tools and pottery all substantiate that Farm 1 was something extraordinary. Its inhabitants appear to have had better access to resources, been in charge of certain activities, had access to knowledge that was not available to everyone and, finally, to have been part of larger social and political networks. It is likewise argued that the rest of the settlement was home to the magnate’s retinue in the form of, inter alia, mounted warriors. Strøby Toftegård’s placement within the hierarchy of power in relation to the other known magnate localities is also discussed. The argument here is that there were close connections between Strøby Toftegård and the royal seat in Lejre, although the material simultaneously indicates that Strøby Toftegård was not quite on the same political level as Lejre.The interpretation of Strøby Toftegård is considered in relation to the surrounding landscape, place names and other archaeological evidence from excavations and metal-detector surveys. The last chapter is a concluding discussion of those elements within the archaeological material that justify interpreting the settlement at Strøby Toftegård as a magnate settlement, what such an interpretation entails and what questions it raises for future treatment of the archaeological material.

The large American Indian city of Cahokia sits amidst a diverse natural landscape within the larger central Mississippi river valley. Well positioned on the rich agricultural soils of the Mississippi river bottomlands of the Amercan Bottom it is at the core of a cultural landscape that its residents helped shape. In this volume the editors and authors attempt to not just focus on Cahokia and its configuration but also the other towns and settlements dispersed throughout the region extant for nearly four centuries. The importance of Cahokia to native peoples and to the world community as a UNESCO World Heritage site resides in its creation as a ‘Cosmological Center of the Universe’. In order to begin comprehending where we are today in an interpretation that respects and pays homage to those that were instrumental in its conception and the implementation of a vision, one must understand the principles that underlie the Indigenous cosmology and rituals of Eastern North America. Mapping the mounds began as early as the late 18th century and thus represents the first efforts to depict what was readily seen. Over 300 sites with earthen mounds have been documented in the region and range from isolated mounds honoring the dead thousands of years ago to an array of over 100 mounds in the case of Cahokia that in some instances honored the ancestors individually and collectively. The editor’s investigations over nearly 25 years have helped elucidate the significance of Cahokia as an urban center and the processes leading to its creation. The history of this sacred place is highlighted by a number of major discontinuities that represent intellectual ‘axis mundi’ of this discussion. However, it is the broader landscape perspectives over the centuries that serve to illuminate the vibrant colors of this narrative.

Trajan's Column, set up in the heart of Rome, was completed in 113 CE to commemorate the emperor Trajan's wars across the Danube. Its reliefs provide a uniquely detailed picture of the army at war in perfect harmony with Trajan who in his own lifetime and forever after was accounted 'The Best of Emperors'. The sculptures are a panegyric to military achievement of the troops and to leadership by their emperor, but, much more than this, they have exerted an enormous influence on modern perceptions of Roman art, architecture, warfare, politics, religion, ethnography and geography. The author's research answers questions which have been asked about Trajan's Column since the first studies of the 16th century. How were the reliefs planned and executed? Can they be used as a reliable historical source for Trajan's reign? How accurate is their depiction of the Roman army at war? What does the Column reveal about the political balance between emperor and army, and about Rome's attitude to the 'barbarian'?The Column's pedestal reliefs depicted more than 600 captured barbarian trophies, and its 200m helical frieze represents 2600 human figures engaged in frontier warfare. Never before has this vast mass of material been studied in detail, in its entirety, using modern methods of recording, comparison and analysis. The author was granted unprecedented access by the Rome authorities to scaffolding erected around the Column for conservation studies, allowing detailed photographic evidence to be collected as well as the chance to study the whole monument at close hand. This book will be of interest to researchers and students of Roman imperial history, art, and the city of Rome.