Every year thousands of archaeological objects and artefact scatters are discovered by the public, most of them by metal-detector users, but also by people whilst out walking, gardening, or going about their daily work. Once recorded, these finds hold enormous potential in helping us understand the past. In England and Wales these finds are reported to the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS), and since 2003 over one million finds have been recorded. This book explores the significance of PAS data for Lincolnshire, in particular how these finds enhance the 'known' archaeological record, and how they come together to form multi-period artefact scatters, defined here for the first time as 'plough-zone palimpsests'. A bespoke methodology is developed that allows PAS data to be analysed at different scales of time and place. This brings into focus different sources of bias and different interpretative possibilities. A series of case studies then explore these palimpsests on varying scales of time and place. These demonstrate how portable antiquities are important biographical components of 'temporally-sticky' or ‘persistent places’, and have the potential to reveal structuring within the landscape over long-periods of time. Combined with other evidence engrained within the landscape, PAS data help to explain how the past influenced the subsequent use of places, and how the aftershocks of human activity resonate in the landscape today.

Trace a line across a map of London and one will encounter many historic railways. Railways are more dynamic than people may suppose; over time stations are reconfigured, bridges replaced, tracks re-aligned. Sometimes, whole lines or tracts of land, particularly those associated with London’s freight operations, fall into disuse. The designers of Crossrail, London’s latest railway, actively sought these out for adaptation. At many of these places historic buildings were adapted or removed to accommodate the new railway; elsewhere the building of Crossrail has unearthed the archaeological remains of some of London’s earliest railways. Buildings have much to tell us about the lives and livelihoods of others, and Crossrail ensured that any building or site of archaeological significance affected by the works was surveyed by their team of archaeologists. This book presents the results of those surveys in the form of a collection of essays, largely based on the chronology of railway development in the capital. Collected together, the chapters provide new aspects to the history of railways in London; details of the buildings and structures affected, from engine sheds to turntables, are provided in a gazetteer. The results of the Crossrail project archaeology programme are published in this series of reports. Further information for each investigated site can be found in the project digital report archive. Please see www.crossrail.co.uk for further details. Crossrail is building a new rail line for London and the South East. The project is constructing 42km of tunnels under London, building ten new stations and upgrading 30 more. The railway will add 10% to central London’s rail capacity, reduce journey times and improve accessibility. The route will run over 100km through 40 stations from Reading and Heathrow in the west, through central London and to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east.

Much of Crossrail, London’s latest railway, lies hidden beneath its streets. It is visible only where new stations have appeared and tunnel entrances formed. At many of these places existing buildings have had to be adapted or removed to accommodate the new railway. Buildings have much to tell us about the lives and livelihoods of others, and Crossrail ensured that any building affected by the works was surveyed by their team of archaeologists before any work began. This book considers what the buildings and structures examined in this way have told us about the changing face of London. Each chapter takes as its theme buildings that shared common functions or characteristics, such as the offices that lay in the way of the capital’s new stations or the former industrial buildings that clustered around the railway’s new tunnel portals. The background to each theme is set out before specific buildings are described and interpreted. Details of the buildings and structures, from pubs to power stations, appear in the gazetteer at the rear of the book. The results of the Crossrail project archaeology programme are published in this series of reports. Further information for each investigated site can be found in the project digital report archive. Please see www.crossrail.co.uk for further details. Crossrail is building a new rail line for London and the South East. The project is constructing 42km of tunnels under London, building ten new stations and upgrading 30 more. The railway will add 10% to central London’s rail capacity, reduce journey times and improve accessibility. The route will run over 100km through 40 stations from Reading and Heathrow in the west, through central London and to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east.

This, the final title to be published from the sessions of the 2002 ICAZ conference, focuses on the role of man's best friend. As worker or companion, the dog has enjoyed a unique relationship with its human master, and the depth and variety of the papers in this fascinating collection is a testament to the interest that this symbiotic arrangement holds for many scholars working in archaeology today. The book covers an eclectic range of subjects, such as considering dogs as animals of sacrifice and animal components of ancient and modern religious ritual and practice; dogs as human companions subject to loving care, visual/symbolic representation, deliberate or accidental breed manipulation; as working dogs; and finally as co-inhabitors of uman dwelling paces and co-consumers of human food resources. While many of the papers in this volume have a predominant focus, they also demonstate that the relationships between humans and dogs are rarely, if ever singular or simple. Instead these relationships are complex, often combining the practical, the ideological and the symbolic.

This book presents the results of field research and experimental archaeology on Neolithic flint axe production sites and flint mines in the Seine valley (west from Paris) between 2000 and 2010. The first chapter discusses the research history, the cultural and chronological framework of axe production sites in the Paris Basin. The second chapter presents the research results and documentation. The raw materials for the axe production came from the flint mines of Flins-sur-Siene, where Bartonien Flint was mined. This is the subject of the third chapter. The site was first identified in the 1920’s by amateur archaeologists. The data collected at Flins-sur-Seine (geological context, production waste, density of mine shafts) indicates that this mine is very similar to the mines at Jablines. However, no excavations had thus far been carried out at this site. The field research involved geophysical surveys and field walking which led to the identification of workshops and extraction sites. Chapter 4 presents the results of experiments carried out with re-creating mineshafts in 2003. Chapter 5 presents results of other axe workshop sites in the area. These include excavations results and inventarisation of finds in museums. This chapter also discusses the use and findcontext of the axes. The final chapter is a synthesis and places the site in a wider contextual framework. The focus lies on other sites in the Paris basin, questions about territories, production/distribution sites. The technological system and its structuration in terms of specialisation and apprenticeship and its meaning among the regional Neolithic cultures.

Beyond Thalassocracies aims to evaluate and rethink the manner in which archaeologists approach, understand, and analyse the various processes associated with culture change connected to interregional contact, using as a test case the world of the Aegean during the Late Bronze Age (c. 1600–1100 BC). The 14 chapters compare and contrast various aspects of the phenomena of Minoanisation and Mycenaeanisation, both of which share the basic underlying defining feature of material culture change in communities around the Aegean. This change was driven by trends manifesting themselves in the dominant palatial communities of each period of the Bronze Age. Over the past decade, our understanding of how these processes developed and functioned has changed considerably. Whereas current discussions on Minoanisation have already been informed by more recent theoretical trends, especially in material culture studies and post‐colonial theory, the process of Mycenaeanisation is still very much conceptualised along traditional lines of explanation. Since these phenomena occurred in chronological sequence, it makes sense that any reappraisal of their nature and significance should target those regions of the Aegean basin that were affected by both processes, highlighting their similarities and differences. Thus, in the present volume we focus on the southern and eastern Aegean, in particular the Cyclades, Dodecanese, and the north-eastern Aegean islands.

Through an analysis of recently discovered Ptolemaic pottery from Mut al-Kharab, as well as a re-examination of pottery collected by the Dakhleh Oasis Project during the survey of the oasis from 1978–1987, this book challenges the common perception that Dakhleh Oasis experienced a sudden increase in agricultural exploitation and a dramatic rise in population during the Roman Period. It argues that such changes had already begun to take place during the Ptolemaic Period, likely as the result of a deliberate strategy directed toward this region by the Ptolemies.This book focuses on the ceramic remains in order to determine the extent of Ptolemaic settlement in the oases and to offer new insights into the nature of this settlement. It presents a corpus of Ptolemaic pottery and a catalogue of Ptolemaic sites from Dakhleh Oasis. It also presents a survey of Ptolemaic evidence from the oases of Kharga, Farafra, Bahariya and Siwa. It thus represents the first major synthesis of Ptolemaic Period activity in the Egyptian Western Desert.

The primary way of generating knowledge in archaeology is through its collections and archives of objects of past cultures and societies - as was and still is stated quite often. But archaeology has been struggling with the sheer masses of objects since, which steadily grow because of excavations.The following seventeen articles were contributions to a conference in Berlin in 2013, which was organized by the German Association for Theories in Archaeology. This edited volume focuses on two general topics. The essays in the first part of the volume treat the virulent problem of objects stockpiling in collections. The history as well as the psychology of collecting are addressed. There is a focus on the development which began with a passionate, subjective "delight in collecting" but which moved towards a regulated, institutionalized "burden of collecting". However, alternatives which lead to a self-conscious practice of de-collecting, are discussed as well.The contributions in the second part of the volume deal with the established empirical-antiquarian research in the light of the material turn and also show the complexity of the relationship between humans and objects. Last but not least, this volume discusses current attempts at the understanding of objects in other disciplines from an archaeological perspective.

People with Animals emphasises the interdependence of people and animals in society, and contributors examine the variety of forms and time-depth that these relations can take. The types of relationship studied include the importance of manure to farming societies, dogs as livestock guardians, seasonality in pastoralist societies, butchery, symbolism and food. Examples are drawn from the Pleistocene to the present day and from the Altai Mountains, Ethiopia, Iraq, Italy, Mongolia and North America. The 11 papers work from the basis that animals are an integral part of society and that past society is the object of most archaeological enquiry. Discussion papers explore this topic and use the case-studies presented in other contributions to suggest the importance of ethnozooarchaeology not just to archaeology but also to anthrozoology. A further contribution to archaeological theory is made by an argument for the validity of ethnozooarchaeology derived models to Neandertals. The book makes a compelling case for the importance of human-animal relations in the archaeological record and demonstrates why the information contained in this record is of significance to specialists in other disciplines.

Through time people have lived with darkness. Archaeology shows us that over the whole human journey people have sought out dark places, for burials, for votive deposition and sometimes for retreat or religious ritual away from the wider community. Thirteen papers explore Palaeolithic use of deep caves in Europe and the orientation of mortuary monuments in the Neolithic and Bronze Age. It examines how the senses are affected in caves and monuments that were used for ritual activities, from Bronze Age miners in Wales working in dangerous subterranean settings, to initiands in Italian caves, to a modern caver’s experience of spending time in the one of the world’s deepest caves in Russia. We see how darkness was and is viewed at northern latitudes where parts of the year are spent in eternal night, and in Easter Island where darkness provided communal refuge from the pervasive sun. We know that spending extended periods in darkness and silence can affect one physically, emotionally and spiritually. How did interactions between people and darkness affect individuals in the past and how were regarded by their communities? And how did this interaction transform places in the landscape? As the ever-increasing electrification of the planet steadily minimises the amount of darkness in our lives, curiously, darkness is coming more into focus. This first collection of papers on the subject begins a conversation about the role of darkness in human experience through time.

The city of Carchemish in the valley of the Euphrates river can be regarded as one of the iconic sites in the Middle East, a mound complex known both for its own intrinsic qualities as the seat of later Hittite power and Neo-Hittite kings, but also because its history of excavations included well known historical figures such as Leonard Woolley and T. E. Lawrence. However, because of its location within the military zone of the Turkish-Syrian border the site itself has been inaccessible to archaeologists for more than 90 years. Carchemish in Context summarises the results of regional investigations conducted within the Land of Carchemish Project in Syria, as well as other archaeological surveys in the region, in order to provide a regional, historical and archaeological context for the development of the city. A synthesis of the history of Carchemish is presented and a regional overview of the Land of Carchemish as it is defined by archaeological features and key historical references through to the early Iron Age. Insightful snapshots of the dynamics of an ancient state are revealed which can now be seen to have fluctuated dramatically in size throughout 700-800 years, in part depending upon the power of the king of Carchemish or the aggressions of external powers.The results from the Project provide an overview of the main trends of settlement in the region over 8000 years, using a combination of survey databases to both north and south of the Syrian-Turkish border and with a focus on the earlier phases of settlement from the Neolithic until the end of the Bronze Age when Carchemish became an outpost of the Hittite empire. The Iron Age is a period blessed by numerous historical records some of which can be traced in the modern landscape. Further chapters explore site-specific aspects of the regional archaeology, including a series of important sites on the Sajur river, some of which were positioned along the main campaign routes of the Assyrian kings. The close relationship between the nearby Early Bronze Age site of Tell Jerablus Tahtani and Carchemish are examined and the results from the 40 ha Carchemish Outer Town survey described, providing important new data sources regarding the layout, defences and dates of occupation of this significant part of the city. The Classical, Roman, Byzantine and Early Islamic occupations are also discussed in relation to what is known of occupation in the surrounding region.

The 2015 TRAC proceedings feature a selection of 14 papers summing up some of the key sessions presented at the conference held at the University of Leicester in March 2015, which drew over 180 delegates of 17 nationalities from a variety of universities, museums, and research institutions in the UK, Europe, and North America. As this conference marked the 25th anniversary of TRAC, the volume opens with a preface commemorating the last 25 years with an eye toward the future direction of both conference and community. The proceedings begin with Dr Andrew Gardner’s keynote paper on the topic of ‘Debating Roman Imperialism: Critique, Construct, Repeat? ’. This is followed by an array of papers with topics ranging in geographic scope and period, from small finds in early Roman Britain to bathing practices Late Antique North Africa, and from the investigation of deviant burials to the application of urban scaling theory in Roman contexts. Because of this diversity the volume is not broken into specific sections, however, papers with similar themes are grouped accordingly, allowing the text to flow and be read as a whole. The range of contributing authors is also of note, as papers were submitted by PhD students, post-doctoral researchers, and university faculty, all helping to make the 25th anniversary of this series one that continues to emphasise and reflect the aims of TRAC, both as a conference and as a conduit for exploring more theory-driven approaches to the Roman past.

Despite a growing literature on identity theory in the last two decades, much of its current use in archaeology is still driven toward locating and dating static categories such as ‘Phoenician’, ‘Christian’ or ‘native’. Previous studies have highlighted the various problems and challenges presented by identity, with the overall effect of deconstructing it to insignificance. As the humanities and social sciences turn to material culture, archaeology provides a unique perspective on the interaction between people and things over the long term. This volume argues that identity is worth studying not despite its slippery nature, but because of it. Identity can be seen as an emergent property of living in a material world, an ongoing process of becoming which archaeologists are particularly well suited to study. The geographic and temporal scale of the papers included is purposefully broad to demonstrate the variety of ways in which archaeology is redefining identity. Research areas span from the Great Lakes to the Mediterranean, with case studies from the Mesolithic to the contemporary world by emerging voices in the field. The volume contains a critical review of theories of identity by the editors, as well as a response and afterword by A. Bernard Knapp.

Plants are fundamental to life; they are used by all human groups and most animals. They provide raw materials, vitamins and essential nutrients and we could not survive without them. Yet access to plant use before the Neolithic can be challenging. In some places, plant remains rarely survive and reconstructing plant use in pre-agrarian contexts needs to be conducted using a range of different techniques. This lack of visible evidence has led to plants being undervalued, both in terms of their contribution to diet and as raw materials. This book outlines why the role of plants is required for a better understanding of hominin and pre-agrarian human life, and offers a variety of ways in which this can be achieved.Wild Harvest is divided into three sections. In section 1 each chapter focuses on a specific feature of plant use by humans; this covers the role of carbohydrates, the need for and effects of processing methods, the role of plants in self-medication among apes, plants as raw materials and the extent of evidence for plant use prior to the development of agriculture in the Near East. Section 2 comprises seven chapters which cover different methods available to obtain information on plants, and the third section has five chapters, each covering a topic related to ethnography, ethnohistory or ethnoarchaeology, and how these can be used to improve our understanding of the role of plants in the pre-agrarian past.

This collection of papers is presented in honour of Professor David Peacock’s many and lasting contributions to archaeological ceramic studies. Building on Professor Peacock’s legacy of inventive approaches, the volume contains some of the most exciting developments currently taking place within archaeological ceramic studies, including cutting-edge provenanceing techniques, computer-aided visualisations, and contemporary craft and design perspectives. Pottery is approached not as an end to itself but as a vehicle for addressing a wide range of archaeological questions, and the papers thereby demonstrate that ceramic studies represent one of the frontiers in modern-day archaeology. Developing new techniques and finding new uses for old ones open up avenues for research which will enrich our understanding of past societies across the world and through all periods. The volume closes with two thought-provoking papers; one from a ceramic artist and the other reflecting upon the role of ceramic studies in the various sectors of contemporary archaeological practice.

Millstone quarries are the sites where hard and abrasive stones were extracted to be fashioned into the querns or millstones to grind flour for bread, the staple food of our ancestors. These stones equipped the different grinding mechanisms, from the Prehistoric hand-driven saddle quern to the sophisticated industrial mills driven by wind and water. These little known extraction sites, ubiquitous throughout the European landscape, have been largely neglected. This study, focusing on the southern half of the Iberian Peninsula, attempts to draw attention to these often spectacular sites that merge so well with nature.