Mit der Bronzezeit verbreitete sich das begehrte neue Metall über ganz Europa. Es veränderte Arbeitssektoren, Netzwerke, Weltanschauungen und Gesellschaften und brachte unterschiedliche Transformationen in diversen Lebensbereichen mit sich. Mit diesem Buch werden alle Transformationsprozesse der Bronzezeit für den Raum Schleswig-Holstein in den Blick genommen. In diesem Forschungsrahmen entwickelte sich die Fundstelle Mang de Bargen bei Bornhöved (Kreis Segeberg), einst Ziel von Kieswerken, zu einer der bestdatierten bronzezeitlichen Fundstelle in Schleswig-Holstein. Das Gräberfeld wurde vom Spätneolithikum bis in die vorrömische Eisenzeit als Bestattungsplatz genutzt. Während dieser langen Nutzungszeit lassen sich mehrere kulturelle Veränderungen, wie Bestattungsriten, Grabausstattungen und weitere Aktivitäten, nachweisen. Die konsistente Datierung fast aller Gräber erlaubt es insbesondere, den Zeitpunkt des Übergangs von der Körper- zur Brandbestattung und den Übergang von Grabhügeln mit Baumsärgen zum Beginn der Verwendung von Urnen in Norddeutschland genau zu bestimmen.Anthropologische Analysen der Brandgräber aus Mang de Bargen und anderen Fundorten in der Region geben auch Aufschluss über die altersbedingte Platzierung und Ausstattung, was wiederum zu neuen Diskussionen anregt. Ein Vergleich mit Umweltdaten (Archäobotanik und Palynologie) zeigt zudem das Ausmaß des menschlichen Einflusses im Vergleich zu den archäologischen Untersuchungen. Die Einbeziehung von Daten zu Gräbern, Horten und Siedlungen für ganz Schleswig-Holstein ermöglicht die Einbettung dieses vollständig untersuchten Gräberfeldes und zeigt, wie und wie unterschiedlich sich Transformationsprozesse auf lokaler, regionaler und überregionaler Ebene manifestierten.Band 1 umfasst den Haupttext, den Befundkatalog, die Gesamtplana, die Hauptprofile, die Datierungsergebnisse und die vorläufigen Ergebnisse der anthropologischen Voruntersuchungen.English abstractDuring the Bronze Age the new, eponymous, highly-desired metal spread widely across Europe. It changed labour sectors, networks, worldviews and societies, and brought with it different transformations in diverse areas of life and death. With this book, all changes from the Bronze Age for the area of Schleswig-Holstein were put under the spotlight.In this framework of research, the Mang de Bargen site near Bornhöved (district of Segeberg), once the target of gravel works, developed into one of the best-dated Bronze Age sites in Schleswig-Holstein. The cemetery was used from the Late Neolithic to the Pre-Roman Iron Age as a burial site. During this long period of use, several cultural changes, including burial rites, grave furnishings, and further activities, can be traced. The rigorous dating of almost all of the graves allows, in particular, the precise identification of the moment of transition from inhumation to cremation, as well as the shift from burial mounds with log coffins to the beginning of the use of urns in northern Germany.Anthropological analyses of the cremations from Mang de Bargen and other sites in the area also reveal the age-related placement and furnishings, which might in turn stimulate new discussions. A comparison with environmental data (archaeobotany and palynology) also shows the scope of human impact in comparison to the archaeological investigations. The inclusion of data on graves, hoards, and settlements for the whole of Schleswig-Holstein enables this fully-investigated cemetery to be contextually embedded, and shows how — and how differently — transformation processes manifested themselves at local, regional, and supra-regional levels.Volume 1 comprises the main text, the feature catalogue, the site plans, the main site profiles, the results of the radiometric dating and the interim results of the preliminary anthropological investigations.

Mit der Bronzezeit verbreitete sich das begehrte neue Metall über ganz Europa. Es veränderte Arbeitssektoren, Netzwerke, Weltanschauungen und Gesellschaften und brachte unterschiedliche Transformationen in diversen Lebensbereichen mit sich. Mit diesem Buch werden alle Transformationsprozesse der Bronzezeit für den Raum Schleswig-Holstein in den Blick genommen. In diesem Forschungsrahmen entwickelte sich die Fundstelle Mang de Bargen bei Bornhöved (Kreis Segeberg), einst Ziel von Kieswerken, zu einer der bestdatierten bronzezeitlichen Fundstelle in Schleswig-Holstein. Das Gräberfeld wurde vom Spätneolithikum bis in die vorrömische Eisenzeit als Bestattungsplatz genutzt. Während dieser langen Nutzungszeit lassen sich mehrere kulturelle Veränderungen, wie Bestattungsriten, Grabausstattungen und weitere Aktivitäten, nachweisen. Die konsistente Datierung fast aller Gräber erlaubt es insbesondere, den Zeitpunkt des Übergangs von der Körper- zur Brandbestattung und den Übergang von Grabhügeln mit Baumsärgen zum Beginn der Verwendung von Urnen in Norddeutschland genau zu bestimmen.Anthropologische Analysen der Brandgräber aus Mang de Bargen und anderen Fundorten in der Region geben auch Aufschluss über die altersbedingte Platzierung und Ausstattung, was wiederum zu neuen Diskussionen anregt. Ein Vergleich mit Umweltdaten (Archäobotanik und Palynologie) zeigt zudem das Ausmaß des menschlichen Einflusses im Vergleich zu den archäologischen Untersuchungen. Die Einbeziehung von Daten zu Gräbern, Horten und Siedlungen für ganz Schleswig-Holstein ermöglicht die Einbettung dieses vollständig untersuchten Gräberfeldes und zeigt, wie und wie unterschiedlich sich Transformationsprozesse auf lokaler, regionaler und überregionaler Ebene manifestierten.Band II umfasst die Tafeln sowie die folgenden externen Beiträge: das anthropologische Gutachten (Storch), die archäobotanische Untersuchung (Filipović) und die paläoökologische Untersuchung zum Fundplatz (Feeser).English abstractDuring the Bronze Age the new, eponymous, highly-desired metal spread widely across Europe. It changed labour sectors, networks, worldviews and societies, and brought with it different transformations in diverse areas of life and death. With this book, all changes from the Bronze Age for the area of Schleswig-Holstein were put under the spotlight.In this framework of research, the Mang de Bargen site near Bornhöved (district of Segeberg), once the target of gravel works, developed into one of the best-dated Bronze Age sites in Schleswig-Holstein. The cemetery was used from the Late Neolithic to the Pre-Roman Iron Age as a burial site. During this long period of use, several cultural changes, including burial rites, grave furnishings, and further activities, can be traced. The rigorous dating of almost all of the graves allows, in particular, the precise identification of the moment of transition from inhumation to cremation, as well as the shift from burial mounds with log coffins to the beginning of the use of urns in northern Germany.Anthropological analyses of the cremations from Mang de Bargen and other sites in the area also reveal the age-related placement and furnishings, which might in turn stimulate new discussions. A comparison with environmental data (archaeobotany and palynology) also shows the scope of human impact in comparison to the archaeological investigations. The inclusion of data on graves, hoards, and settlements for the whole of Schleswig-Holstein enables this fully-investigated cemetery to be contextually embedded, and shows how — and how differently — transformation processes manifested themselves at local, regional, and supra-regional levels.Volume II comprises the plates, as well as the following external reports: the anthropological report (Storch), the archaeobotanical study (Filipović) and the palaeoecological study on the site (Feeser).

Pictures from the Bronze Age are numerous, vivid and complex. There is no other prehistoric period that has produced such a wide range of images spanning from rock art to figurines to decoration on bronzes and gold. Fourteen papers, with a geographical coverage from Scandinavia to the Iberian Peninsula, examine a wide range of topics reflecting the many forms and expressions of Bronze Age imagery encompassing important themes including religion, materiality, mobility, interaction, power and gender. Contributors explore specific elements of rock art in some detail such as the representation of the human form; images of manslaughter; and gender identities. The relationship between rock art imagery and its location on the one hand, and metalwork and networks of trade and exchange of both materials and ideas on the other, are considered. Modern and ancient perceptions of rock art are discussed, in particular the changing perceptions that have developed during almost 150 years of documented research. Picturing the Bronze Age is based on an international workshop with the same title held in Tanum, Sweden in October 2012.

How did people organize their settlements in later prehistoric societies? How do architecture, spatial organization, land divisions, and landscape use relate to different modes of social organization? The papers in this book contribute to a greater understanding of the complexity and dynamics of settlement and landscape organization in the Nordic countries from the Late Bronze Age to the Renaissance. Among the topics addressed is the notion of the wandering settlements as the standard settlement pattern across southern Scandinavia in the last millennium BC. This idea is nuanced by in-depth regional studies. Up-to-date methodological and theoretical insights are employed to shed light on over-arching patterns of demography and the interaction between humans and the natural world, as well as on technological adaptation and innovation. Contributions to the book explore the nature of the relationships between settlements: both symmetrical relationships, between neighbouring farmsteads, and asymmetrical relationships, between farmsteads representing different levels in a social hierarchy. Spatial and temporal relations between communities of the living and the dead are also discussed. This book provides a comprehensive update on current research and methodologies in settlement archaeology in the Nordic countries. It is intended for students, archaeologists, and the interested reader working with settlements, landscape use, and social organization.

The ERC-funded FRAGSUS Project (Fragility and sustainability in small island environments: adaptation, culture change and collapse in prehistory, 2013–18) led by Caroline Malone has focused on the unique Temple Culture of Neolithic Malta and its antecedents. This third volume builds on the achievements of Mortuary customs in prehistoric Malta, published by the McDonald Institute in 2009. It seeks to answer many questions posed, but left unanswered, of the more than 200,000 fragments of mainly commingled human remains from the Xagħra Brochtorff Circle on Gozo. The focus is on the interpretation of a substantial, representative subsample of the assemblage, exploring dentition, disease, diet and lifestyle, together with detailed understanding of chronology and the affinity of the ancient population associated with the ‘Temple Culture’ of prehistoric Malta. The first studies of genetic profiling of this population, as well as the results of intra-site GIS and visualization, taphonomy, health and mobility, offer important insights into this complex mortuary site and its ritual. These data and the original assemblage are conserved in the National Museum of Archaeology in Valletta as a resource for future study.

The Irish Neolithic has been dominated by the study of megalithic tombs, but the defining element of Irish settlement evidence is the rectangular timber Early Neolithic house, the numbers of which have more than quadrupled in the last ten years. The substantial Early Neolithic timber house was a short-lived architectural phenomenon of as little as 90 years, perhaps like short-lived Early Neolithic long barrows and causewayed enclosures. This book explores the wealth of evidence for settlement and houses throughout the Irish Neolithic, in relation to Britain and continental Europe. More importantly it incorporates the wealth of new, and often unpublished, evidence from developer-led archaeological excavations and large grey-literature resources. The settlement evidence scattered across the landscape, and found as a result of developer-funded work, provides the social context for the more famous stone monuments that have traditionally shaped our views of the Neolithic in Ireland. It provides the first comprehensive review of the Neolithic settlement of Ireland, which enables a more holistic and meaningful understanding of the Irish Neolithic.

Mobilität ist für Formen des sozialen Zusammenlebens grundlegend. Doch welche Rolle spielte räumliche Mobilität in der Vergangenheit? Aus prähistorischen Zeitabschnitten wie etwa dem Neolithikum ist dazu noch immer wenig bekannt. Das gilt auch für die Siedlungsräume des nördlichen Alpenvorlandes. Deren Feuchtbodensiedlungen mit den hervorragend erhaltenen Resten in Seen und Mooren gehören seit 2011 zum UNESCO Welterbe und bieten eine einzigartige Forschungsgrundlage. Die dendrochronologisch datierten Siedlungen eröffnen die seltene Möglichkeit, kulturelle, soziale und ökonomische Transformationen zeitlich und räumlich hochauflösend zu untersuchen. Das gelingt im vorliegenden Band anhand der Keramik aus zeitgleich datierten Siedlungen am Zürichsee und Bodensee aus der Zeit zwischen 3950 und 3800 v.Chr.Prozessphilosophische Überlegungen zum Entstehen und dem Wandel von ‘Dingen’ werden mit relationalen sozialtheoretischen Konzepten wie etwa dem Habitus-Theorem zu einem praxeologischen Ansatz verbunden. Dieser dient als epistemologische Grundlage einer neu ausgearbeiteten ‘Mixed Methods Research’-Methodologie, die ein tieferes Verständnis von Mobilität, Beziehungsgeflechten, sozialen Konfigurationen und Transformationen ermöglicht: Mit qualitativen Klassifikationsmethoden können soziale Praktiken der Keramikherstellung aus der Handlungsperspektive nachvollzogen werden und mit quantitativen Klassifikationsmethoden überregionale Muster der Keramikkonsumption. Anhand solcher materieller Verflechtungen werden Muster räumlicher Mobilität sowie die weitreichenden Beziehungen der jeweiligen Siedlungsgemeinschaften erkennbar. Im Rhythmus einzelner Dekaden lassen sich mobilitätsbezogene Aneignungsphänomene und Transformationen in den Keramikpraktiken nachvollziehen. Darüber hinaus führt die Kombination einer subjektivistischen mit einer ‘objektivierten’ Haltung im Forschungsprozess auf Basis von Pierre Bourdieus Epistemologie, der Praxeologie, zu einem erkenntnistheoretischen, metamodernen ‘dritten Weg’, der zwischen dem Realismus der Moderne (Prozessuale Archäologie) und dem Konstruktivismus der Postmoderne (Postprozessuale Archäologie) vermittelt. Dadurch werden kulturhistorische Gesellschaftsmodelle dekonstruiert, welche ‘Kulturen’ als vermeintlich statische, homogene, räumlich klar abgrenzbare Entitäten konzeptualisierten. Stattdessen verweist die Keramik auf translokale soziale Konfigurationen, durch welche die Siedlungen während des 4. Jahrtausends v.Chr. im nördlichen Alpenvorland miteinander verbunden waren.English abstractMobility is fundamental to forms of social configurations. But what role did spatial mobility play in the past? Regarding prehistoric periods, such as the Neolithic, we still do know little about this. That also applies to the settlement areas of the northern Alpine Foreland. The wetland settlements there were labelled UNESCO World Heritage in 2011. With their excellently preserved remains in lakes and bogs they provide a unique research basis. The dendrochronologically dated settlements open a rare possibility to approach cultural, social, and economic processes based on a high temporal and spatial resolution. In the present volume, this is achieved based on pottery from contemporaneously dated settlements on Lake Zurich and Lake Constance from the period between 3950 and 3800 BC.Process philosophical considerations on the (trans)formation of ‘things’ are combined with relational social theoretical concepts such as the habitus theorem to form a praxeological approach. The latter serves as the epistemological basis of the newly elaborated mixed method research methodology, which allows for a deeper understanding of mobility, social relations and configurations as well as transformations. Qualitative methods (classification of vessel designs) is utilised to understand pottery production practices from the perspective of the makers and quantitative methods (cluster analysis of vessel features) can be used to analyse transregional structures of ceramic consumption. Accordingly, patterns of spatial mobility and far-reaching relationships of settlement communities become apparent based on such material entanglements. Mobility-related appropriation phenomena and change in pottery practices can be approached in the rhythm of individual decades. Furthermore, the combination of a subjectivist with an ‘objectified’ stance during the research process based on Pierre Bourdieu’s epistemology, the praxeology, leads to an epistemological, metamodern ‘third way’ that mediates between the realism of modernity (processual archaeology) and the constructivism of postmodernity (post-processual archaeology). Finally, the research results deconstruct the common social models following the cultural-historical paradigm, which conceptualized ‘cultures’ as supposedly static, homogeneous, spatially distinct entities. Instead, the pottery points to translocal social configurations that related settlements in the northern Alpine Foreland with each other in the 4th millennium BC.

The Bronze Age is a time of increasing interaction with large-scale connections that cover vast parts of Europe. Some parts and regions of the Bronze Age are very well explored and for some very strong narratives of hierarchisation and differentiation, dependence on external raw material supplies and specialisation have been proposed. In other regions, however, only some of these aspects appear, even though networks of contact would at least have been possible. This is the case in the Baltic area, where western and eastern regions show dramatic differences in subsistence, the amounts of metal produced and deposited (and therefore presumably the social role of metal), the settlement pattern and scale of social groups. A particularly interesting question is the intensity of culture contact that the eastern Baltic regions entertained across the sea with Scandinavia and also with directly neighbouring continental regions. This volume brings together scholars from all regions around the Baltic Sea to discuss different aspects of Bronze Age interactions. It offers a perspective on regional and interregional connectivity and exchange beyond the usual large-scale models discussed in Bronze Age archaeology and includes both case studies of individual regions or finds categories and broader overview papers focusing on the diversity of interconnections − and their sometimes striking absence.

This work is an intensive study of the Neolithic deposition of copper objects from Neuenkirchen in North-East Germany. This unique ensemble represents one of the very rare hoard finds from the early Early Neolithic, and is the first of its kind for nearly 100 years, matched only by the famous younger hoard find from Bygholm (Denmark).The beginning of neolithization at the end of the fifth millennium is not only characterised by a change in the subsistence strategy, but also by the development of far-reaching networks of the Neolithic Funnel Beaker societies in Northern Germany. Proof is provided by the first metal finds which also appear at the same time in the North and were imported from the early metallurgical centres in the Balkan-Carpathian area. The hoard of Neuenkirchen is an outstanding example for these new, long-distance contacts.Drawing from a multi-method approach, the study attempts to trace the life and journey of the individual objects in the hoard and the transformation processes they underwent before they finally ended up in the ground. To this end, an intensive typological discussion, use-wear analysis, plus trace element and lead isotopes analyses of the objects are paired with a comprehensive overview of the natural environment, deposition practices, and settlement activities in the vicinity of Neuenkirchen. In the context of comparable hoard finds from the 5th/4th millennium, and the development of early metallurgy in Southeast Europe, these results make the journey and transformation of the objects from Neuenkirchen comprehensible.

The modelling and representation of prehistoric hunter-gatherer behaviours is largely influenced by the investigation of sites with high archaeological visibility, due to the presence of large amounts of knapped lithics, which generally survive the ravages of time. As a consequence, behaviours which were not, or to a limited extent, associated with stone tools are underrepresented in archaeological narratives about hunter-gatherer lifestyles, which, however, have characterised most of the human past. Occasionally, at sites where preservation conditions are good, archaeological finds point to the importance of organic resources for tools and the manufacturing of a broad range of use items, such as clothing, footwear, containers, as well as tent covers and mats. In fact, it is highly likely that organic materials – e.g. wood, bark, bone, antler, hide – were dominant in the creation of material culture, and possibly played a pivotal role in sociocultural communication. The lack of attention for sites and phenomena associated with no or few lithics causes several problems with regard to archaeological insights into the variability in landscape use, technological traditions, and sociocultural interaction. This book presents a collection of articles which address these problems from several angles, with an emphasis on the Mesolithic of NW Europe: dwellings and activities associated with no or few lithics; variability in site location and landscape use, notably in relation to hunting and ethology of game species; and technological aspects of non-lithic material culture. The book intends to increase awareness of the consequences of the issues addressed for our understanding of the past, and boost research and heritage management initiatives in this field.

Seeufersiedlungen mit Feuchtbodenerhaltung sind für die Erforschung des Neolithikums des Alpenvorlandes von herausragender Bedeutung. Die ausserordentlich gute Erhaltung der Siedlungsschichten lässt weitgehende Einblicke in die Lebensweise der prähistorischen Menschen zu. Das Hinterland der grossen Seen ist im Gegensatz dazu weniger gut untersucht. Eine Schlüsselrolle bei dessen Erforschung nehmen die zahlreichen Kleinseen des Schweizerischen Mittellandes ein. Auch an deren Ufern finden sich prähistorische Siedlungsspuren mit Feuchtbodenerhaltung.Der Burgäschisee, gelegen auf der Kantonsgrenze zwischen Bern und Solothurn, ist ein solcher Kleinsee. Die Umgebung weist bereits Siedlungsspuren aus dem Paläolithikum und dem Mesolithikum auf, bedeutend sind aber vor allem die gut erhaltenen Ufersiedlungen des Neolithikums. Seit 170 Jahren wird am Burgäschisee archäologisch geforscht. Seine Erforschung machte nicht nur die Entwicklung zur modernen Archäologie durch, sondern prägte den heute üblichen interdisziplinären Ansatz in der Prähistorischen Archäologie mit.Zwischen 2015 und 2017 wurde der Burgäschisee im Rahmen des vom Schweizerischen Nationalfonds geförderten Forschungsprojektes «Beyond Lake Villages» erneut erforscht. Unter Leitung der Universität Bern wurden Grabungen und Sondierungen an verschiedenen Orten rund um den See vorgenommen. Es war wichtig, die bereits bekannten Fundstellen mit modernen Datierungsmethoden präziser chronologisch einordnen zu können. Darüber hinaus wurden auch neue Fundstellen entdeckt. Die Analyse der Befunde aus den alten und neuen Grabungen ergab neue Einblicke in das Siedlungsverhalten an diesem Kleinsee im Neolithikum. Eingehende und unter Einbezug naturwissenschaftlicher Methoden durchgeführte Untersuchungen der verschiedenen Artefaktkategorien lieferten neue Erkenntnisse zu Subsistenz, Mobilität, Vernetzung und Landnutzung der neolithischen Siedler. Der vorliegende Band schliesst ein lange währendes Desiderat und kombiniert neue Forschungsergebnisse mit älteren Daten zu einer umfassenden Synthese.English abstractLake Burgäschi is a small lake on the Swiss Plateau, which has been inhabited since the Mesolithic, but is best known for its Neolithic lakeside settlements. Archaeological research has been conducted at Lake Burgäschi for the last 170 years, undergoing all the developments to modern archaeology. Recently, Lake Burgäschi has been re-explored as part of an interdisciplinary research project under the direction of the Institute of Archaeological Sciences at the University of Bern. Excavations were carried out at various sites around Lake Burgäschi, allowing for a new precise chronological classification of already known sites, but also revealing previously unknown settlement sites on the lakeshore. Furthermore, by means of interdisciplinary investigations on the pottery, animal and human bones as well as flint artefacts, previous knowledge on subsistence, mobility and land-use has been substantially extended. The present volume closes a long lasting research gap and combines new results with ancient data to a comprehensive synthesis.

Pile dwellings have been explored over a vast region for a number of decades now. This has led to the development of different ways, methods, and even schools of under-water and peat-bog excavation practices and data analysis techniques under the influence of different research traditions in individual countries. On the one hand, these and other factors can limit our understanding of the past, whilst on the other hand they can also open up further avenues of interpretation. By collecting the papers presented at the 2016 session of the EAA in Vilnius, this book aims to take this diversity as an opportunity. The geographical scope extends from the Baltic to Russia, Belarus, Albania, North Macedonia, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Croatia, Greece, Germany, Austria and Switzerland to France. The volume thus provides a current insight into international research into life in and around a vast array of prehistoric waterscapes. Extensive multidisciplinary research carried out in recent years has provided new data with regard to the anthropogenic influence on the landscapes around Neolithic and Bronze Age pile dwellings, which allows us to characterise in more detail the lifestyles of the settlements’ inhabitants, the peculiarities of the ecological niche and the interaction between humans and their environment. The volume also contains various case studies that demonstrate the importance of scientific analyses for the study of settlements between land and water.Overall, the volume presents an important new body of data and international perspectives on the settlement of European waterscapes.

One day, sometime around 1700 BC, a bronzesmith made the first sword. This marked a technological turning point, giving rise to an arms race that has never since ceased. Soon, over a vast area between the Baltic Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, thousands of weapons were manufactured. They were used in combat, then laid to rest, whole or broken, often during complex rituals that are still hard for us to understand. Through the sword, the Bronze Age brought war into being. The warrior became an important figure. Societies were transformed, and came to revolve politically and economically around warfare. Western Europe developed new social structures, a new kind of civilisation involving neither towns, nor writing. By tackling the subject ‘a call to arms’, Anne Lehoërff investigates war’s long-term development. She focusses on oral societies which have for a long while remained poorly understood, passed over by a historical tradition that saw the world of Classical Antiquity in a different light to that of ‘primitive’ peoples. But our European ancestors have their own history, and this book tells it. The French edition of A CALL TO ARMS was awarded the Verdun World Peace Center History Prize in 2018.

The study of the human societies of the Final Pleistocene of North Africa requires an in-depth analysis of the techno-typological characteristics of the microlithic industries that were widespread in the whole Mediterranean area during the period between 24000 and 10000 years ago. Most of the research projects in Maghreb and Libya were carried out decades ago. At the time sediments were rarely sieved and the small lithic tools, so characteristic of this period, were often lost. Also, little attention was paid to the raw material sourcing, which is an exceptional tool for understanding technology, human behavior and land management. It is thus of great importance to focus on new research, that has the potential to delineate a more detailed picture of the North-African Later Stone Age. Based on more recent research in the Jebel Gharbi (Libya), this book offers a high-resolution description and documentation of the LSA lithic complexes of North-Western Libya, applying an approach that integrates up-to-date techno-typological studies with geochemistry and functional analysis. This research aims to define the characteristics of the human occupation of the Jebel Gharbi during the Late Pleistocene, with specific reference to the period from the Last Glacial Maximum to the Holocene transition, delineating a picture of the human occupation of the area through about ten millennia. This volume represents an exhaustive overview on the Prehistory of Northern Libya in areas that aren’t, nowadays, accessible to researchers.

This popular-science book tells the story of one of the most important, but least known major archaeological sites in Europe: Doggerland. Few people know that the beaches along the North Sea lie on the edge of a vast lost world. A prehistoric landscape that documents almost a million years of human habitation and lay dry for most of that time. Doggerland is where early hominids left the first footprints in northern Europe, more than 900,000 years ago. Later, for hundreds of thousands of years, it was the scene of ice ages. A world of woolly mammoths and rhinoceroses, horses and reindeer and the successful Neanderthals who hunted them, including Krijn: the first Neanderthal from Doggerland. At the end of the last Ice Age, the first modern humans also left their traces here, including the famous Leman-and-Ower-Banks spearhead – the first documented Doggerland find – and some of the oldest art in the region. With the onset of the Holocene, our current era, Doggerland’s inhabitants were increasingly confronted with climate change and rising sea levels, just as we are today. The Mesolithic hunter-gatherers lived in a rich, but constantly changing world – to which they successfully adapted. Ongoing submergence and a huge tsunami around 6150 BC marked the beginning of the end. A few centuries later, the last islands disappeared under the waves and with them the story of Doggerland was lost in time. This book brings this vanished world back to the surface.

This book discusses the lithic technology of the neighboring sites of Ruien and Kerkhove (Belgium). The Final-Palaeolithic occupation of Ruien took place during the harsh climatic conditions of the Younger Dryas. The Early and Middle Mesolithic hunter-gatherers from Kerkhove on the other hand lived in the temperate and forested environments of the subsequent Early Holocene period. The aim of this work is more precisely to gain a better understanding of how the practice of flintknapping evolved throughout this time period. Should we describe it as a period of long-term stability or as a period of technological rupture and innovation? Can we pinpoint precise moments of change and how are these changes expressed? In the raw material procurement strategies? In the knapping methods or knapping techniques? Or even in the spatial organization of technological behavior at the sites? To provide an answer to some of these questions, the lithic artefacts of Ruien and Kerkhove have been subjected to a detailed analysis, among others by means of lithic refitting. For Ruien, the refitting demonstrates an early adoption of some of the knapping procedures considered typical for lithic industries occurring at the end of the Younger Dryas and the beginning of the Holocene. For the Early Mesolithic of Kerkhove, based on the presence of more elaborate chaînes opératoires, the refitting results advocate a greater affinity with Final-Palaeolithic traditions than often acknowledged. Finally, the analysis also yielded important new results for the Middle Mesolithic, that remained poorly known at a technological level until now. During the latter, the Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt (RMS) area sees the introduction of new knapping methods, knapping techniques and knapping objectives marking a clear rupture with the preceding periods.