Traditionally, the Mesolithic has been regarded a time of cultural regression in northern Europe, relieved only around 4000 BCE when the enlightened villagers of the Neolithic arrived on the scene, bringing with them the beginnings of agriculture. But new evidence in the last 30 years has led archaeologists to think of the early postglacial foragers that lived in the Mesolithic as complex, sedentary coastal dwellers who made the era a time of innovation, interaction and successful adaptation to a rapidly changing environment. The excavations at Smakkerup Huse help to flesh out this revised portrait. Al though the settlement area (5000 to 3900 BCE) on land had suffered marine erosion, submerged deposits adjacent to the settlement included a midden and a fishing and boat-landing area in excellent condition, with numerous organic materials surviving intact. Deposits included fire-cracked rock, charcoal, oyster shells, amber and teeth pendants, a complete rack of antlers, pieces of dugout canoes and a bow, pointed wooden stakes, large pieces of bark and fungus, thousands of hazelnut shells and fishbones, a fish trap fragment, fishhooks, worked bone and antler tools, potsherds and more than 350 projectile points. The most intriguing artefact was a small painted cobble, a type previously unknown from the Danish Mesolithic. The site also yielded remains from some of the earliest domestic cattle in Denmark, raising important questions about foraging adaptations and the transition to agriculture. Besides specialist reports from geology, archaeozoology, palaeoethnobotany, archaeological chemistry and conservation science, there are useful chapters describing the Mesolithic in southern Scandinavia and situating the Smakkerup Huse finds within the context of this time of critical transition.

As Peacock and Williams have noted, amphorae provide us "not with an index of the transportation of goods, but with direct witness of the movement of certain foodstuffs which were of considerable economic importance ..

As its title might suggest, this volume sets out to present a new view of Scotland's Neolithic as seen via its monumental structures. The papers brought together here came out of a research day at Cardiff University's School of History and Archaeology in January 2002 and cover a diverse number of topics. They raise questions of ancestry and worldview, and highlight the amount that can be done in examining the settings of monuments.

This catalogue presents 225 pieces of jewellery, predominantly Etruscan, but also including some Classical Greek and Roman artefacts. Objects include hairpins, hair ornaments, wreaths and diadems, earrings, necklaces, pendants, fibulae, bracelets, rings and gems, whilst appendices detail production techniques and materials.

This paper reports on the excavation of a Bronze Age burnt mound discovered in a woodland clearing in the Fens. A number of waterlogged features were also found in association with it, including a pit containing wooden planks and Beaker pottery. Much of the paper focuses on the finds and environmental remains with specialist reports on the worked flint, pottery, faunal remains, plant remains, molluscs, soil and the tight sequence of radiocarbon dates. The book also reports on the Neolithic features beneath the mound.

Excavations in 1999 at Brandon in Suffolk uncovered the remains of a sequence of middle to late Bronze Age enclosure ditches associated with a number of post-built structures, pits, hearths and three unurned cremations. Some late Neolithic activity was also detected. Of particular interest were an unusual Bronze Age square-ditched enclosure and evidence of `activity surfaces'. Specialist finds reports examine the flint, the Neolithic and Bronze Age pottery, the small finds, human remains, animal bone, soils, waterlogged remains, pollen and charcoal. A final synthesis discusses the nature of this occupation landscape and the place in it of the funerary deposits.

The ancient walled town of Butrint sits at the crossroads of the Mediterranean. In its heyday it could command sea-routes up the Adriatic Sea to the north, across the Mediterranean to the west, and south through the Ionian islands. It also controlled a land-route into the mountainous Balkan interior. For much of its long history it occupied a hill on a bend in the Vivari Channel, which connects the Straits to the large inland lagoon of Lake Butrint. Designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1992, Butrint covers an area of around 16 ha, but geophysical survey has shown that at times it was almost twice this size. The site itself is made up of two parts: the acropolis and the lower city. The acropolis is a long narrow hill, whose sides are accentuated by a circuit of walls that separate it from the natural and artificial terraces gathered around the flanks of the hill. The lower city occupies the lower-lying contours down to the edge of the Vivari Channel. This book brings to life this extraordinary Byzantine town, with chapters on the historical sources, various aspects of the archaeological excavation and survey, finds of pottery and environmental remains.

The volume contains fifteen papers. Ten of them record the genesis and the development of archaeological survey in Cyprus; they also discuss the reasons why the twentieth century ended with serious set-backs in the protection of cultural landscapes, despite the fact that in Cyprus survey was conducted in the name of archaeological resource management as early as 1955. The credit for this accomplishment goes to Hector Catling, who had envisioned the island-wide Cyprus Survey Project, and was instrumental in establishing the Survey Branch in the Cyprus Department of Antiquities. The 'biographies' of eight very different projects offer a representative sample of survey archaeology in Cyprus in the last quarter of the 20th century. The inclusion of four geographically and methodologically diverse projects from Israel, Libya, Italy and Greece provide a trans-Mediterranean perspective against which survey archaeology in Cyprus can be measured. The keynote paper (John Cherry) brings the Mediterranean and the local projects closer together and gives substance to a multifaceted dialogue, which extends from visibility and the degree of isomorphism between surface and sub-surface remains, to the links between regional survey projects and cultural heritage management.

Few areas of the world have played as prominent a role in human evolution as the Levantine Corridor, a comparatively narrow strip of land sandwiched between the Mediterranean Sea on the west and the expanse of inhospitable desert to the east. The first hominids to leave Africa, over 1.5 million years ago, first entered the Levant before spreading into what is now Europe and Asia. About 100,000 years ago another African exodus, this time of anatomically modern humans, colonised the Levant before expanding into Eurasia. Toward the end of the Pleistocene, this Corridor also witnessed some of the earliest steps toward economic and social intensification, perhaps the most radical change in hominid lifestyle that ultimately paved the way for sedentary communities wholly dependent on domestic animals and cultivated plants.

Text in German. The purpose of the present work is to combine the advantages of the various research traditions and at the same time to avoid the respective disadvantages. An attempt will be made to interpret the existing archaeological facts with reference to cultural development in large parts of Europe. As a first step an investigation will be made of all indications of contacts between the Ertebølle culture and the early Funnel Beaker culture (5500-3500 BC) on the one hand, and Neolithic cultures in various parts of Europe on the other hand. This will incorporate an analysis of all imported artefacts and also locally produced artefacts and structures with a form that suggests external influence. The results will subsequently be used for an investigation of a range of local factors -- such as regionality, social structures and communication structures - which are thought to be of significance for understanding the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition. An analysis will also be carried out of the central European background of the Funnel Beaker culture. The results of these investigations will in conclusion be combined into a new theory concerning the introduction of agriculture in the Nordic region.

This book provides a detailed description of the three ancient temples unearthed between 1954-1961 near Barbar on the northern part of Bahrain island in the Persian Gulf. Two of the structures, from the centuries around 2000 BC, reveal traditions going back to Sumerian temples. A number of spectacular objects were found here, including cylindrical alabaster jars, a human-shaped copper mirror handle and the most famous object from the Barbar Temples, a bull's head of copper. Structurally, a chamber was found over a freshwater spring, indicating the presence of a water cult and perhaps forging a connection to Enki, the Mesopotamian god of the subterranean freshwater ocean, apsu. The temple-apsu is well known from cuneiform sources, but has been extremely difficult to identify in Mesopotamian excavations. The Barbar well chamber may be such an apsu, as the authors point out among their highly detailed descriptions and analysis of the finds.

A truly multi-disciplinary book allowing the reader to gain insights into an exceptionally diverse set of topics such as hunting, burial, sword-production and rock art, from the Mesolithic to the Middle Ages.

The four seasons of excavation at Tell Kosak Shamali yielded around 33,000 flaked stone artefacts from the Chalcolithic perid. These discoveries have allowed archaeologists their first oportunity to study lithic manufacturing activities and their development over this period in the Upper Euphrates valley, Syria. The tools are described and documented within their chronological context, and their functional and morphological properties discussed. There are also chapters devoted to bone objects and small finds, as well as some archaeobotanical and archaeozoological observations. This book is a companion title to Volume I, which documents the Chalcolithic architecture and earlier prehistoric remains.

Jordan is part both of the Fertile Crescent and the Holy Land. Its archaeological remains extend in time from prehistory to the British Empire. The country is, of course, renowned for the magnificent ruins at Petra - a World Heritage Site - and the superb remains of the Roman city of Jerash. But beyond these high profile places is a rich and varied cultural heritage. Sites are everywhere in this great outdoor museum: one tally has calculated over 25,000 sites visible above ground alone, making Jordan one of the great treasure houses of the world. Even at ground level these sites are striking and memorable, but the best view, as is so often the case, is seen from the air. The book contains over 200 high quality colour photographs, taken from the air, illustrating the breathtaking range of sites. Chapters deal with periods through history from prehistoric times through the Nabateans, Greeks and Romans, the early Islamic period, the Crusaders and Saracens, to the Ottoman and British Empires. The photographs are accompanied by descriptions of the sites pictured.

From Handaxe to Khan - Essays Presented to Peder Mortensen on the Occasion of his 70th Birthday

Nimrud is an exceptionally generous site, and has richly rewarded those that work there. It was first famous for the Assyrian bas reliefs found by the 19th century archaeologist, Austen Henry Layard, but is also famous for the thousands of ivories found during the 19th and 20th centuries. The ivories were mostly imported from the Levantine kingdoms to the west, either as tribute or booty, although there were some in the distinctive local Assyrian style. They were used to embellish furniture, as well as small objects, and are carved in a great variety of styles, but interestingly with a relatively limited repertoire of subjects. Their time of manufacture probably dates to the early centuries of the first millennium BCE, although their archaeological context is dated by the fall of the Assyrian empire in 614-612 BCE. This publication is a supplement to the volumes already published, which catalogue the ivories, and instead presents scans from the original photographs, where possible, of the ivories from Fort Shalmaneser, which have been published in the first five volumes, so that scholars can select and rearrange ivories as appropriate. In this way, the next generation of work involving deeper stylistic and analytic studies by a range of scholars asking different questions may be undertaken.