This book sketches the first archaeological history of the lower Sirwan/upper Diyala river valley of north-east Iraq and adjacent landscapes over a period of c. 12,000 years, from the earliest signs of human presence until the mid-first millennium BCE, based on data gathered between 2013 and 2023 by the Sirwan Regional Project (SRP).The central research objective of the SRP is to move beyond traditional historical topoi and their predominantly external and state-centric perspectives that have dominated narratives of the region thus far. Instead, we develop an in-depth, archaeological understanding of the nature of the region’s past communities, their cultural and economic practices, the modes of socio-political organisation they developed, adopted, and rejected, and their long-term developments.In order to reconstruct past Sirwan lifeways, the book interweaves regional-scale datasets with the results of ongoing and completed excavations at the Late Chalcolithic site of Shakhi Kora and the Late Bronze to Early Iron Age site of Kani Masi, as well as the results of a wide range of archaeological, Assyriological, art historical, and archaeometric analyses.

The essays in this book focus on archaeological approaches to the utilization of highland regions in southwestern and central Asia, examining the interplay between human communities and highland landscapes from the Paleolithic era to the present.Contributions combine case studies with theoretical considerations to explore adaptive strategies of movement. They discuss the significance of mobility within archaeological and anthropological discourse. Contributors engage with critical questions: How can archaeologists discern traces of movement and unravel material footprints of diverse mobility? How can they track shifts in mobility through time or regions? By systematizing observations on human spatial behavior across epochs and settings, these essays seek to test and refine traditional archaeological methodologies. They present nuanced frameworks and shed light on the adaptability and resilience of these communities.“Appropriating Height” aims to understand the human experience in highland environments. It is essential for those fascinated by the entanglement between people, place, and time, providing a comprehensive perspective on the legacy of human movement.This book is the second volume of a series published by the German-Iranian research cooperation “The Iranian Highlands: Resiliences and Integration in Premodern Societies”. The goal of the research project is to shine a new light on communities and societies that populated the Iranian highlands and their more or less successful strategies to cope with the many vagaries, the constant changes and risks of their natural and humanly shaped environments.

This study considers the detailed archaeological and documentary records of Cyprus and Ugarit (Syria) to gain new insights into the long-term relations between two of the best known, well-connected polities in the Late Bronze Age eastern Mediterranean.I engage with concepts such as maritime space and spheres of interaction, merchants and mercantilism, actors and agents. Some background on both Ugarit and Cyprus is presented, followed by examination of the common material features of both (e. g., ashlar masonry, urban mortuary practices, composite anchors, the Cypro-Minoan script). The study then zeroes in more specifically to present the Cypriot material uncovered in Ugarit (especially seals, metals and pottery), followed by some of the Levantine materials found on Cyprus.All known documentary evidence related to these two polities is presented and discussed with respect to three factors: people, politics and professions. The discussion section that follows takes a broader look at material and mercantile connectivity in the Late Bronze Age eastern Mediterranean, considering in turn the merchants of Ugarit and Cyprus, maritime spheres of interaction, and the actors and agents involved in these mercantile worlds. Although Ugarit and Cyprus were two very different kinds of society, they shared a vital, commercial link, one that — over time — had a transformative impact on Cyprus.

The aim of the thesis was to provide a framework for the identification and analysis of individual craftspeople in bifacial flint production. Flint production flakes from replications of South Scandinavian Late Neolithic daggers and Early Bronze Age sickles were the focus of the study, in contrast to research so far, mostly relying on finished and often exceptional pieces.To identify technical traditions within technological systems and/or personal approaches to production, it is necessary to analyse the complete production process. Studies concerned with the process have mostly relied on typical and easy to identify production flakes. This facilitates the identification of tool manufacture and prevents mixing with other production processes, but it also prevents the actual identification of individual approaches to bifacial flint production. Typical flint flakes are typical because physical laws restrict the mode of possible removal. They are, by definition, strategic moments in the production process, which cannot be changed without altering the outcome, so everyone has to work the flint in more or less the same way. Personal or traditional approaches will not be found there, but in the small, flexible steps in between. This is what the volume presents.By detailed analysis of the working procedures of modern knappers, combined with statistical analysis of technical attributes on the production flakes, the possibilities for identification of differing approaches are explored. The analysis shows that the differences on personal or traditional levels are not to be found in the process of removal, but are more clearly distinguished in the preparation for removal. Likewise, the preferences for certain working techniques can be reconstructed and used to distinguish between knappers’ approaches. The results and the approach of the thesis can help us gain a clearer picture of local technical traditions of flint production. They also provide opportunities to identify and analyse processes of knowledge transmission and by this to reconstruct possible paths of learning, contacts between groups and the development and change of technological systems.

Cremation in the Early Middle Ages draws together the latest research and thinking on early medieval cremation practices. The book takes you on a journey through 19 chapters exploring cremation practices from the fifth to the eleventh centuries CE in Fennoscandia, the UK and Ireland, Frisia, Denmark, Germany, Belgium, and France. In this way, the book aims to be a central resource for anyone interested in early medieval cremations, or indeed funerary practices more generally. Notably, the structure and style of this book represent a departure from the norm. As well as a co-authored introduction, chapters constitute a conversation between the editors and key researchers captured via structured interviews, supported by a series of fact boxes highlighting key ideas, methods and techniques, sites, graves and discoveries.Cremation was no single disposal tradition in the Early Middle Ages: it constituted but one dimension of local, regional and supra-regional deathways operating across different locales and with varying degrees of expenditure, meanings and materials, as well as involved a complex range of resources, environments, practices and performances both before, during and after the burning of the bodies. Where cremation is not the dominant burial rite, our authors reflect on the potential under-representation of cremation in our models. Ethnic and cultural labelling of the early medieval cremated dead are countered and critiqued by various authors.Important themes that are touched upon are the long-term collectivity and longue durée of cremation depositions, variability within cremation practices, the pre-burial life of cinerary containers, ideas of personhood, the immersion of cremains in watery locations, the socio-political and economic context of burial rites, monumentalisation, the interpretation of mixed-rite (bi-ritual) cemeteries, the importance of human-animal entanglements viewed through the lens of cremated deposition, the potential for greater experimental and osteoarcheological, experimental, isotopic, radiocarbon, and genomic research, and the effect and usefulness of written texts as a window onto early medieval cremation practices, in particular regarding the relationship between cremation and Christianisation.

Strategies for the preservation of health and for the prevention and treatment of illness and disease have been discerned in the surviving written records and material remains of most societies since earliest times. Compared to the prehistoric past the evidence for the ancient Greek and Roman periods is comparatively full, though still sparse or lacking in some key areas. Most accounts of the history of Greek and Roman medicine are based on ancient medical texts. As a study of the subject through its material remains, this book will be a unique and major contribution to the understanding of ancient medical implements and surgical instruments, of surgery, and of the history of medicine. In addition to medical instruments, the British Museum collection also includes an important range of objects which help to illustrate the multi-faceted approach to healing in antiquity. They include one of the largest holdings of collyrium-stamps − small inscribed stone tablets which were used to mark sticks of eye medicine; Greek inscriptions honouring public physicians; stone statues, bronze figurines and engraved gemstones depicting the principal healer deities; and marble and terracotta models of body parts (‘anatomical votives’) dedicated to the healer deities by those seeking divine cures. Together with the instrumentation, the publication will show how they encompass most aspects of ancient medicine and represent starting points from which to develop discussions of strategies for health and healing.

This is an inter-disciplinary study of pathways to regional rulership and territorial lordship in early post-Roman Britain which takes as its starting point the East Anglian royal centre at Rendlesham and its contexts.This book examines the origins and development of the East Anglian kingdom in the fifth to eighth centuries AD through the lens of the elite settlement complex at Rendlesham, Suffolk using an interdisciplinary approach involving field survey, landscape history, excavation and metal-detecting finds. It also examines the wider regional context and proposes a new narrative of kingdom formation.

This volume highlights the excellent, wide-ranging work of a diverse collection of Iranian archaeologists, the new voices in Iranian archaeology. Archaeology in Iran has developed in lockstep with the discipline of archaeology itself, in part due to the colonial endeavors that provided impetus for Europeans to travel to distant lands and extract antiquities and other commodities. But centuries before western archaeologists broke ground on excavations in the lands that would in 1935 be called Iran, a deep and meaningful engagement with and reverence for the past was a thread running through Iranian culture since antiquity. For millennia, the residents and rulers of ancient Iranian lands have admired, interacted with, inscribed, invented stories about, and imitated the visible, often ruined, monuments of their ancestors that dotted the landscape.Following numerous interruptions in the twentieth century occasioned by revolution, war, and the geopolitical climate, Iranian archaeology has experienced a resurgence, and these papers offer case studies on the archaeological and scientific sophistication of the work currently being done in Iran by Iranian archaeologists. As a collection, these papers show the chronological and geographical breadth of archaeology in Iran, with papers analyzing the earliest evidence for human-object interaction in the Paleolithic era, the bustling medieval cities and their hinterlands, and many stages in between. The case studies deliberately highlight archaeological work across the entirety of the vast and varied geography of Iran, from the fertile plains of Fars in the southwest, to the rugged Zagros Mountains in the northwest, from the peaks of the Elburz Mountains south of the Caspian Sea, across the broad expanse of the Plateau, to the eastern regions bordering Afghanistan and Turkmenistan.This volume also features the work of many women in Iranian archaeology, a testament to the expansion and evolution of the field and its participants in Iran. In sum, these papers demonstrate the commitment of a new generation of Iranian archeologists to their land’s diverse and complex past.

Following the success of The Anomie Review of Contemporary British Painting in 2018 and The Anomie Review of Contemporary British Painting 2 in 2021, a third volume has been created to showcase solo exhibitions that have defined contemporary painting since the second volume. This new, even larger anthology presents the work of eighty-five artists born or living in Britain through documentation and discussion of solo exhibitions of their work in museums and galleries nationally and internationally. Featuring artists at different stages of their careers, from senior figures exhibiting at major museums to emerging artists presenting some of their first commercial gallery exhibitions, The Anomie Review of Contemporary British Painting 3 offers an overview of recent activity in the medium of painting in Britain. Artists and venues featured in this new volume include Andrew Cranston at Ingleby, Edinburgh; Jadé Fadojutimi at The Hepworth Wakefield; Sahara Longe at Timothy Taylor, London; Kathryn Maple at The Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool; Mohammed Sami at Camden Art Centre, London; Lucy Stein at Spike Island, Bristol; Caroline Walker at the Fitzrovia Chapel and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London; and Jonathan Wateridge at Nino Mier, Brussels.The anthology, which features cover artwork by Louise Giovanelli from her autumn 2021 exhibition at GRIMM, New York, has been selected by London-based publisher and writer Matt Price, who in addition to editing dozens of catalogues, monographs and books including Phaidon’s international anthologies of painting and drawing Vitamin P2 and Vitamin D2, authored the first two volumes of The Anomie Review of Contemporary British Painting.The publication, which has been project edited by Birmingham-based editor, curator and writer Anneka French, features text entries by Amah-Rose Abrams, Melissa Baksh, Holly Black, Lauren Dei, Yasmina Floyer, Anneka French, Kathryn Lloyd, Anna McNay, Matthew James Holman and Matt Price.

This work deals with topics related to mobility, contacts and transmission of knowledge. The study of these topics regarding the past can promote an understanding of the social implications of migration, communication and learning today through long-term perspectives of change. This volume focuses on these topics in the Mesolithic by analysing a specialised lithic concept known previously from Scandinavia and Northern Germany. The implementation of the Handle Core Pressure Concept (HCPC) is based on a pressure technique to produce small regular blades from single-fronted cores, often utilised in slotted bone points. The use of pressure technique means that the HCPC requires social learning for maintenance and diffusion of the tradition.The research questions focus on three aspects of the HCPC: technology, chronology and the transmission of knowledge that are involved in the diffusion process. Materials from across Northern Europe have been studied and analysed. The results show that the morphology of the materials is similar across Europe, but that there are differences in the technological choices made by knappers in different parts of the area. These variations relate to the core preparation. The technological differences are also connected to two different chronologies that are centred east and west of the Baltic Sea, which would indicate two separate technological and social traditions.The cores east of the Baltic Sea still require more research in order to understand how they relate to other concepts in and around Northern Europe. The cores from Scandinavia, however, exhibit strong technological similarities to an older pressure-based blade concept that was already used in Scandinavia in the Early Mesolithic. The long-term use and the rapid diffusion of the HCPC indicate that knowledge and know-how must have diffused via both vertical and horizontal directionalities. These results exemplify the complex ways that mobility, social learning, material availability, tradition and many other aspects played a role in the transmission of knowledge in Mesolithic societies.

For over 60 years, spectacular discoveries have been made on a wooded hillside at Snettisham, overlooking the northwest Norfolk coast, close to Hunstanton. The location of the discoveries, at Ken Hill, is known as the ‘gold field’ because of the large number of gold and silver alloy neck-rings (‘torcs’) and coins recovered from the site. Known as the ‘Snettisham Treasure’, these objects represent one of the largest collections of prehistoric precious metal objects ever discovered, and one of the largest concentrations of Celtic art. The objects were found in at least 14 separate hoards buried between 150 BC and AD 100 – spanning the late Iron Age and early Roman periods, but with a peak of activity during the late Iron Age. The objects from Snettisham are widely known, but the site has never been fully published.This book is the first comprehensive account of the discoveries and excavations at the site and presents a full catalogue of the finds. The majority are in the British Museum, with a significant collection also held by Norwich Castle Museum. The book also presents the results of extensive scientific analysis, revealing new and exciting details about how torcs were manufactured. The final section places Snettisham in its wider social and landscape context. The authors argue that each hoard represents different collection and depositional histories. The repeated, yet varied, acts of deposition at the site were part of creating, negotiating and reinforcing social structures, as well as performing and creating social change.

This third volume of Solomons Air War chronicles aerial warfare in the Solomon Islands theatre during the months of November and December 1942. It can be read alone or as part of the ongoing Solomons Air War series.At the start of November 1942, the American position on Guadalcanal was precarious. Cactus Air Force had suffered extremely high attrition in October and virtually all of the available reserves had been drawn on, while the damaged USS Enterprise was the only carrier that could lend assistance. Against this environment the Japanese continued to wage a savage air war and determined to try to wipe out Cactus Air Force through battleship bombardments, while they rolled the dice with the largest yet Tokyo Express convoy.Hence the Americans were pushed to the brink as the frenzied activity known as the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal played out over 12-15 November. Following this the Japanese were forced to admit that they couldn’t supply their troops on Guadalcanal and began to focus on building a new airfield at Munda. In response American bombers returned to Henderson Field and took the fight north to Munda and beyond for the remainder of 1942.This period saw new tactics being trialled, including the use of P-38s as long-range escort fighters and the first PBY-5A Black Cat missions. Meanwhile Cactus Air Force expanded, gaining P-40s, B-26s, OS2U Kingfishers and RNZAF Hudsons.This chronicle has been written using primary Allied and Japanese sources, to give a fresh, factual and highly detailed account of all aspects of the complex Solomons air campaign.

Terrence Malick is the most enigmatic film director currently working. Since the early seventies, his work has won top prizes at film festivals worldwide and brought him wide recognition as the cinematic equivalent of a poet. His life is shrouded in mystery, leaving audiences with rumors, few established facts, and virtual silence from the filmmaker himself following his last published interview in 1979. This has done nothing to dim the luminous quality of his films, from Badlands (1973) and Days of Heaven (1978), to later works such as The Thin Red Line (1998), The Tree of Life (2011), and A Hidden Life (2019).The Magic Hours: The Life and Films of Terrence Malick is the first true biography of this visionary filmmaker. Through interviews and in-depth research, John Bleasdale reveals the autobiographical grounding of many of Malick's greatest films as well as the development of an experimental form of filmmaking that constantly expands the language of cinema. It is the essential account for anyone wishing to understand Malick and his work.

The story of the true savior of Little Round Top at Gettysburg—a 26-year-old Harvard-educated lawyer, who paid with his life to defend that hill.Citizen-soldier Strong Vincent was many things: Harvard graduate, lawyer, political speaker, descendent of pilgrims and religious refugees, husband, father, brother. But his greatest contribution to history is as the savior of the Federal left on the second day at Gettysburg, when he and his men held Little Round Top against overwhelming Confederate numbers. Forgotten by history in favor of his subordinate, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, Vincent has faded into relative obscurity in the decades since his death.This book restores Vincent to his rightful place among the heroes of the battle of Gettysburg: presenting his life story using new, never-before-published sources and archival material to bring the story of one of the most forgotten officers of the American Civil War back to the attention of readers and historians.

Susie Hamilton’s dynamic practice is concerned with a wide range of subjects but often focuses on solitary people in impersonal public spaces or natural wildernesses. From the heroic, isolated exploits of astronauts and Arctic explorers to lone shoppers in supermarkets, all subjects are equal under her gaze. Other works turn attention towards crowds on beaches and in hotel dining rooms, who, as in Hamilton’s paintings of single figures, are invaded by blooms and veils of paint. Comprising over 300 paintings in oil and acrylic and numerous works on paper, Hamilton’s work is here divided into thematic sections that bring insight to her research. As critic and broadcaster Charlotte Mullins observes, ‘Hamilton often uses literature as a springboard for her work. Her paintings draw out the ambiguities of Shakespeare, the fragmentary chaos of TS Eliot, the melancholy of Andrew Marvell.’ From the power of her transmutative, barely human figures presented at the Ferens Art Gallery (2002), to the more recent progression of Hamilton’s solitary forms which move across desert, tundra and forests under attack from natural and unknown forces, her often otherworldly figures remain resilient.As Mullins reflects in her introduction, however, Hamilton’s work is not all ‘pain and suffering.’ Nor is it solely concerned with the human figure. Mullins writes, ‘There is joy too, particularly when she turns her probing eye to the natural world. She captures the quizzical gaze and lightning speed of monkeys, white paint splattering the surface as they race through salt flats. We see the lethal precision of a shark in the depths, the pale camouflage of an owl in a snowstorm, the perfect balance of an ape as it leaps from vine to vine.’The development of Hamilton’s work further unfolds in an enlightening interview with writer and broadcaster Louisa Buck, from the night-time desolation of motorways and petrol stations to an evolving interest in human and animal figures. Buck’s in-conversation also details Hamilton’s series ‘Plumpers’ and ‘Mutilates’, uneasy figures who border categories of abstraction and representation.Writer, editor and international curator Anna McNay, in her eight-part extended essay commissioned for the publication, discusses Hamilton’s literary influences in detail, drawing out the ways that Hamilton’s own biography shapes the work and informs her perspectives on landscapes, people and animals.Designed by Hyperkit and edited by Anneka French, the publication has been produced by Hurtwood and published by Anomie, London.Susie Hamilton (b. London, 1950) studied Fine Art at St Martins School of Art and Byam Shaw School of Art. She read English Literature at London University, gaining a PhD in Shakespeare studies (1989). She lives and works in London and has been represented by Paul Stolper Gallery since 1996. Since 2018 Hamilton has been commissioned by mental health charity Hospital Rooms to create wall-paintings in psychiatric intensive care units and made three works for the central staircase of the new Springfield Hospital, London (2022).Recent solo exhibitions include Unbound, Paul Stolper, London (2022);in atoms, Paul Stolper, London (2016);Here Comes Everybody, St Paul’s Cathedral, London (2015);Black Sun, Studio Hugo Opdal, Flø, Norway (2009);World of Light, Triumph Gallery, Moscow (2008);New Paintings, Galleri Trafo, Oslo (2007);Leisure Paintings, Paul Stolper, London (2006);Dissolve to Dew, St Edmund Hall, Oxford (2005);Immense Dawn, Paul Stolper, London (2003);Paradise Alone, Ferens Art Gallery, Hull (2002);Mutilates, St Giles’ Cripplegate Church, London (2001).Hamilton’s work is represented in collections including Government Art Collection, British Museum, Science Museum, Imperial College Healthcare Art Collection, Richard Heaton Collection, Murderme Collection, Deutsche Bank, St Paul’s Cathedral, The Women’s Art Collection, Brehman Collection, The Methodist Modern Art Collection, The Priseman Seabrook Collection and The Groucho Club.

Certain cocktails carry societal connotations and cultural meaning. Some drinks are regional symbols such as the mint julep, which is inextricably tied to the Kentucky Derby. Classic drinks like the old fashioned or the Manhattan tend to denote a more sophisticated or refined palate, whereas wine coolers and tropical cocktails are often associated with new or inexperienced drinkers. Enter the whiskey sour. A cocktail from the sour family, the iconic drink is usually made with bourbon whiskey, lemon juice, and sugar. While its ingredients seem strikingly similar to an old fashioned, the whiskey sour's reputation is far less revered, and in certain circles, maligned for its sweetness.The Whiskey Sour elevates the reputation of the classic cocktail by exploring its rich history— starting in the 1600s with punch, the predecessor to sours, and bringing the reader through to the twentieth century when the whiskey sour was well-established. Seasoned mixologists and new cocktail enthusiasts will be educated about the development of the traditional recipe and encouraged to make their own creations by incorporating modern riffs, syrup additions, and fun enhancements. Part historical narrative, part recipe book, this friendly and approachable guide challenges the stigma surrounding the cocktail as a drink for unrefined tastes and illustrates the elegant, romantic, and complex facets of the whiskey sour—a perfectly sweet, tart, and balanced cocktail.