The crucial earliest phases of palatial Knossos are not well known, in part due to over-building by neopalatial structures and floors. This volume represents the first complete publication of substantial deposits dating to this period, specifically the Middle Minoan IB and IIA phases. This is a first not only for Knossos but for Crete as a whole, and will act as a crucial point of reference for future work on these key phases in the islands prehistory. The five Protopalatial deposits in question, excavated in 1973, 1987 and 199293, are fully published with their contexts, the stratified pottery and small finds including the earliest inscribed clay document from Crete, clay sealings, horn-cores and chipped stone; radiocarbon dates are also presented. The deposits come from the south-west of the palace area, and provide evidence for a range of activities such as ceremonial feasting, workshop production and administration, as well as showing the early development of individual town dwellings on terraces just a few metres from the palace. The volume concludes with a full discussion of the form and function of the Old Palace, stressing that the plans laid down in the first 150 years were far more closely followed over the next 400 years than has hitherto been suspected.

This collection of fourteen papers presents the latest research into the Neolithic and Bronze Age barrows of Britain.

This collection of thirteen papers focuses on what it meant to be 'on the move' at different times in prehistory. Ideas of journeys and travel are integral to many traditions of interpreting the prehistoric archaeological record. Travel was after all the driving force behind the formation and trans formation of identity. How ironic it is that this feature of prehistory has been so overlooked when the ancient world's 'discovery' in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries occurred primarily as the result of travel. The contributors to this volume see journeys as an integral part of prehistoric life - socially meaningful - which must be understood within their (pre)historic contexts.

The current conception of the absolute chronology of the Italian Copper Age to the end of the Early Iron Age is set out in this new title from the British Museum. Some 850 objects have been arranged chronologically from the Copper Age, through the Bronze Age, to the Early Iron Age. Within these headings, the objects are organised typologically e. g. axes, swords etc. A major result of this study has been the reassembly of several groups of bronzes probably originally from hoards. Each entry includes a description, bibliogrpahy and comparanda and line drawing or photgraph.

Excavations at nine sites along the route of the Great Barford Bypass provided a rare opportunity to investigate an extensive area of the South Midlands claylands, a landscape that has hitherto seen little archaeological work. The excavations produced evidence for the long-term development of the social landscape, agrarian economy and environment of the area from prehistory to the Middle Ages. Sporadic occupation took place during the Neolithic and Bronze Age, with systematic colonisation first occurring in the later Iron Age. One of the four excavated Iron Age settlements showed striking ritual activity, including what is believed to be the first conclusive evidence for the long-term curation of human bone within Iron Age Britain. In the Roman period, two of the settlements continued to be occupied and two new sites were founded. Associated features included pottery kilns and cremation and inhumation cemeteries. Early Saxon activity was also present at one of the Roman sites. A new settlement pattern appeared in the late Saxon/early medieval period, with the establishment of three farmsteads or hamlets, all of which were abandoned by the 13th century. The implications of the evidence for our understanding of the archaeology of the wider region are fully discussed.

This volume is based upon a conference which took place in 1999, reflecting the developing interest in intertidal archaeology and concentrating on the Neolithic period, as well as elements of associated Mesolithic and Bronze Age archaeology. Since then, the papers have been revised to include new discoveries and reflect the increasing interest and importance attached to the intertidal zone. All papers have supporting environmental data and radiocarbon dates. The volume has a wide geographical spread and details the work of archaeologists working in fragile and rapidly eroding environments is evaluated: the papers demonstrate the high quality research being undertaken around the British coast to salvage archaeology by record and undertake detailed research to place it in its proper context.

The Romney Marsh / Dungeness Foreland depositional complex comprises an extensive tract of marshland and associated sand and gravel barrier deposits, located in the eastern English Channel. This monograph presents the results of a programme of palaeoenvironmental investigation aimed at improving our understanding of this internationally-significant coastal landform. The focus is on the evidence for landscape change during the late Holocene, from c. 3000 BC onwards, and on identifying the local, regional and global driving mechanisms responsible for the changes observed. The research details the results from two related projects, each funded as part of English Heritage's Aggregate Levy Sustainability Fund scheme. The first project concerns the late Holocene evolution of the port of Rye, located in the southeast part of the complex, and the second the depositional history of the gravel foreland. Topics explored include the vegetation and land-use history of the study area, methodological issues relating to the collection and interpretation of radiocarbon dates from coastal lowlands, the role of compaction in influencing landscape and sea-level change, and the effects of medieval storms on coastal flooding and landscape change. This monograph is intended for students and researchers interested in Holocene coastal evolution and sea-level change, coastal vegetation history and land-use history, and the development of new techniques for reconstructing past environmental change in coastal lowlands.

This book examines social change in Cyprus during the 6th to 4th millennia BC; a period that is traditionally viewed as one of prolonged cultural continuity and isolation from the mainland. Through the documentation and integration of technological practice and up-to-date climatic, ecological and environmental data, it is proposed that many of the observable differences between mainland southwest Asia and Cyprus during this period are the result of divergent adaptive strategies in response to different environmental conditions, low population density and low resource stress. The book draws upon theories in ecological and evolutionary biology and adapts it to cultural change in general. By employing a holistic approach with a focus on technological practice the book seeks to show that cultural change on Cyprus is concomitant with broadly similar cultural trajectories taken in other regions on the margins of southwest Asia. The conclusion reached is that if all of the pressures that drove cultural change on the mainland were relaxed the result would be a stable hunter-gatherer economy with a bit of farming and herding: exactly what appears to be the case on Cyprus.

The excavations at Fairfield Park revealed a later Bronze Age hilltop enclosure and an extensive early Iron Age settlement. As one of the first large-scale excavations of an early Iron Age settlement in eastern England, the site makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the later prehistory of the region. In particular, the evidence sheds much light on issues of the organisation of settlement space and practices of ritual deposition. The settlement dates to around the 5th-4th centuries BC, and incorporated enclosures, roundhouses and numerous storage pits. The large artefact assemblages included high status metalwork, pottery with unique forms of decoration, and a set of 49 bone weaving tools from a single pit. Human remains and animal burials had been placed in several other pits. Good environmental evidence was also obtained.

The archaeological investigation of shell middens has a long and rich history. By the mid 1830s, the presence of artefacts found with large accumulations of shell along the Danish coast had successfully demonstrated that these sites were the result of human activity rather than natural processes. At about the same time in other parts of Europe, shell middens were also being discovered and written about - a process which continued throughout Europe as time went on. Until recently, European Atlantic shell middens attracted only sporadic interest from archaeologists and scientists. However, there has been a notable resurgence in the excavations of shell middens over the last few decades which has been accompanied by the development of a range of new scientific methods applicable to shells and other midden components. There now exists a sizeable amount of information on shell middens, their variability and insights that they have revealed through scientific investigation. A workshop was organised in September 2005 in the Department of Archaeology, University of York, which brought together colleagues working on shell middens along the Atlantic façade of Europe. The aims were to discuss the current work that was being carried out in each country, to consider the use of coastal resources through prehistory and to present new scientific techniques which were being developed. This volume presents the papers from that conference, and is organised geographically, starting with Scandinavia, moving down to Britain, Ireland and France and then to Iberia. For each of these areas there are some papers which provide reviews of the overall state of shell midden research of coastal archaeology. There are also some case studies which provide more in-depth information on sites which are less well known. In addition, several of the papers provide information on scientific techniques which have recently been developed and which are being applied to shell midden sites along the Atlantic façade. Finally, there is a discussion chapter, which suggests ways forward for shell midden research in Atlantic Europe from a Pacific perspective.

This volume of thirteen essays came out of a conference in December 2004 at Bristol University, to celebrate the career of Mick Aston on the occasion of his retirement. They reflect his enthusiam for landscape and monastic archaeology in particular, and range in time from prehistory to the nineteenth century. Mick's ability to communicate archaeology to the masses has rightly seen him earn the title of 'The Ambassador of British Archaeology'.

This volume is concerned with the investigation of three complexes of prehistoric ceremonial monuments in the immediate environs of Dumfries in the south-west of Scotland, conducted between 1994 and 1998. These were the Pict's Knowe henge, the Holywood cursus complex, and the post alignments/cursus at Holm. The field research was designed in such a way as to recognise that prehistoric monuments often have complex and individual sequences of construction and use, while also acknowledging that detailed studies of particular sites and local contexts will ultimately advance our understanding of monumentality in prehistoric Europe. The three sites of the Pict's Knowe, Holywood and Holm have proved especially helpful in addressing questions of how particular places maintained their importance over long periods of time. In each instance the location was characterised by features which possess a high degree of archaeological visibility. In the former case it was the upstanding earthwork of the bank and ditch that identified the site as a henge monument, while Holywood and Holm were discovered through aerial photography. Each of the sites investigated had complex sequences of development, in which the structural elements that were recognised prior to fieldwork were not necessarily the most important or the most long-lived. This book considers the details of the excavated features, environmental and artefactual evidence, as well as more general concerns. The first part of the volume concentrates on the Pict's Knowe, while the second looks at the more spatially and typologically related sites of Holywood and Holm.

The Cotswold Water Park Project is a landscape study centred upon parts of the Upper Thames Valley within what is now the Cotswold Water Park. The report is based upon four key excavated rural settlements, the most extensive being that at Claydon Pike, which dated primarily from the middle Iron Age to the late Roman period. A number of middle Saxon burials were also found. The other Water Park settlements dated to the late Iron Age-Roman period and the 2nd to 3rd century AD. The report has incorporated the results of these excavations into a wider synthesis of landscape development in the region, including aspects of material culture, environment and the economy.

Drawing on the experience of the Temper project ( Training, Education, Management and Prehistory in the Mediterranean ) and wider examples from the Mediterranean, this volume explores the issues inherent in managing, interpreting and presenting prehistoric archaeological sites. The first section of the book contains thematic chapters on conservation, visitor management and interpretation, public participation, and issues of managing sites within their cultural landscape; the second section focuses on archaeology and education and the politics of national curricula, and presents detailed case studies. Written by academics and those working in the fields of archaeology, architecture, heritage management and education, this volume will be invaluable to students and practitioners alike.

It is just over forty years since the start of the excavations of the Ascott-under-Wychwood long barrow (1965-69) under the direction of Don Benson. The excavations belonged to the latter part of a great period of barrow digging in southern Britain, which was ending just as, by striking contrast, intensified investigation and fieldwork at causewayed enclosures were beginning. Although a long gap has passed since the excavations took place, they have nonetheless produced a rich and important set of results, and the analysis has been enhanced by more recent techniques. The site now joins Burn Ground and Hazleton North as one of only three Cotswold long barrows or cairns to have been more or less fully excavated. The barrow had been built in two main stages, in a series of bays defined by lines of stakes and stone, and filled mainly with earth and turf, with some stone; it was enclosed or faced by stone walling, the outermost being of very fine quality. The barrow contained two opposed pairs of stone cists, each with a short passage from the long sides of the monument. The cists and passages contained the remains of some 21 people (of all ages and both sexes), probably deposited in a variety of forms from fleshed inhumations to incomplete secondary remains and cremations. The barrow was built in the 38th century cal BC and was probably one of the earliest such constructions in the region. It was probably in use for only three to five generations, lasting into the 37th century cal BC. Occupation features from the early fourth millennium cal BC included small pits, hearths and two small timber post structures, and there were finds of pottery, flint, axe fragments, stone querns and animal bone. People used cattle, sheep and pigs, and there is a range of wild species, especially in the midden. The authors of this report not only document the finds and research, but also address wider questions of how the early Neolithic inhabitants viewed their society through the barrow, and how the development of the site reflected memory and interaction with a changing world.

GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION: Land, People, Mountains-Plateaux, Ravines, Plains, Rivers and Lakes, Coastline, Communications, Climate, Cultivation and Production, Geological Past, Flora, Fauna.CRETAN MYTHS,Gods and Heroes, Birth of Zeus, Zeus and Europa, Kingdom of Minos, Talos, Art during the Minoan Period, Pasiphae and the Minotaur, Ariadne and Theseus, Daidalos and Ikaros. HISTORICAL REVIEW. ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXCAVATIONS - HISTORY: Neolithic Period (6000-2600 B.C.), Pre-Palace Period (2600-2000 B.C.), Old Palace Period (1900-1700 B.C.), New Palace Period (1700-1450 B.C.), Post-Palace Period (1450-110 B.C.), Proto-Geometric Period (1100-900 B.C.), Geometric and Orientalizing Periods (900-650 B.C.), Archaic Period (650-500 B.C.), Classical and Hellenistic Periods (500-67 B.C.), Roman Period (67 B.C.-A.D. 330), First Byzantine Period (330-824), Arab Occupation (824-961), Second Byzantine Period (961-1204/10), Venetian Occupation (1204-1669), Turkish Occupation (1669-1898), Modern Times. TOURING HERAKLEION: History of the Town, Tour of the Town, THE MUSEUMS - Archaeological Museum , Historical Museum of Crete, Church of Saint Catherine -Collection of Byzantine Icons, EXCURSIONS: Archaeological Site of Knossos, Archaeological Site of Archanes, Archaeological Site of Phaistos, Archaeological Site of Aghia Triada, Archaeological Site of Tylissos, Sedoni Cave, Idaian Cave, Kastelli Pediados (Venetian fortress), Eileithyia Cave, Archaeological Site of Malia, Milatos Cave, Diktaian Cave. AGHIOS NIKOLAOS: History of the Town, Archaeological Museum, Connections for Spinalonga, Church of Panaghia Kera at Kritsa, Archaeological Site of Gournia, Chamezi Folk Museum. SITEIA: Archaeological Museum, Archaeological Site of Zakros, Toplou Monastery,Kapsa Monastery, Melidoni Cave. RETHYMNON: History of the Town, Archaeological Museum, Arkadi Monastery, Amari Valley, Preveli Monastery, Kourna Lake. CHANIA: History of the Town, Tour of the Town, Archaeological Museum, Gouverneto Cave, Chrysopigi Monastery, Askyphou Plateau, Samaria Ravine, Graeco-Roman town of Elyros, Kasteli (Kisamos), Chrysoskalitissa Monastery, Kastelli Selino.