The relationship between the Homeric epics and archaeology has long suffered mixed fortunes, swinging between 'fundamentalist' attempts to use archaeology in order to demonstrate the essential historicity of the epics and their background, and outright rejection of the idea that archaeology is capable of contributing anything at all to our understanding and appreciation of the epics. Archaeology and the Homeric Epic concentrates less on historicity in favour of exploring a variety of other, perhaps sometimes more oblique, ways in which we can use a multi-disciplinary approach – archaeology, philology, anthropology and social history – to help offer insights into the epics, the contexts of their possibly prolonged creation, aspects of their 'prehistory', and what they may have stood for at various times in their long oral and written history. The effects of the Homeric epics on the history and popular reception of archaeology, especially in the particular context of modern Germany, is also a theme that is explored here. Contributors explore a variety of issues including the relationships between visual and verbal imagery, the social contexts of epic (or sub-epic) creation or re-creation, the roles of bards and their relationships to different types of patrons and audiences, the construction and uses of 'history' as traceable through both epic and archaeology and the relationship between 'prehistoric' (oral) and 'historical' (recorded in writing) periods. Throughout, the emphasis is on context and its relevance to the creation, transmission, re-creation and manipulation of epic in the present (or near-present) as well as in the ancient Greek past.

Pottery has become one of the major categories of artefact that is used in reconstructing the lives and habits of prehistoric people. In these 14 papers, members of the Prehistoric Ceramics Research Group discuss the many ways in which pottery is used to study chronology, behavioural changes, inter-relationships between people and between people and their environment, technology and production, exchange, settlement organisation, cultural expression, style and symbolism.

Der Demographische Faktor war zu allen Zeiten der Menschheitsgeschichte von Bedeutung für die soziale Organisation und für archäologische Theoriebildung. Nun werden erstmals Daten zu den Bevölkerungsverhältnisse der europäischen Bronze- und Eisenzeiten zusammenfassend vorgelegt und deren sozialarchäologische Relevanz untersucht. Dem Aufgabenbereich der Archäologie entsprechend zielt die Archäologische Demographie auf die Bedeutung der lokalen und regionalen Bevölkerungsverhältnisse ab: Gruppengrößen, Bevölkerungsdichten, Bevölkerungsschwankungen. Grundlage dieser Analysen sind Gräber, Siedlungen und darüber hinaus zahlreiche andere archäologische Quellen sowie ergänzend naturwissenschaftliche Daten. Die Grenzen zwischen dem Aufgabenbereich der Archäologischen Demographie, der Siedlungsarchäologie, der Umwelt- und Landschaftsarchäologie sowie der Sozialarchäologie bleiben fließend. Archäologische Bevölkerungsdaten sind quellen- und methodenbedingt als Eckwerte zu verstehen, die der historischen Realität mehr oder weniger nahe kommen. Oft beschreiben die Daten nur Minimalwerte. Zwei Theorien bilden traditionell den Rahmen, in dem sich die Archäologische Demographie auch heute noch bewegt: Soziale Krisenreaktionen wie Kriege und Migrationen nach Thomas Robert Malthus (1798) und subsistenzwirtschaftliche Problemlösungen nach Ester Boserup (1965). Demographische Berechnungen zur Bronze- und Eisenzeit zeigen überwiegend kleine lokale Populationen, selbst wenn große Gräberfelder Bevölkerungskonzentrationen vorspiegeln. Auch Siedlungsbefunde sprechen meist nur für kleine Wohn- und Wirtschaftseinheiten. Wo von diesem Bild abgewichen wird und außergewöhnliche lokale Bevölkerungskonzentrationen fassbar werden, sind diese als historische Sonderfälle erklärungsbedürftig. Hinweise auf soziale Differenzierungen in Form von Prestigegütern, Abstufungen im Bestattungswesen, Prunkgräbern, abgesonderten Gehöften in Siedlungen etc. sind keineswegs generell an außergewöhnlich große Bevölkerungsgruppen gekoppelt. Zu klären bleibt, in welchem Maße klein- und großräumige Migrationsprozesse die Bevölkerungsverhältnisse der Bronze- und Eisenzeiten geprägt haben. English summary: Demographic factors have always been of great importance for human social organization and archaeological theory building. This book for the first time presents and analyses a wide range of data on population structure and development in the European Bronze and Iron Ages from the perspective of social archaeology. Bearing in mind the goals of any archaeological discipline, archaeological demography aims to reconstruct the importance of local and regional population patterns: group size, population density, fluctuations in population on the basis of graves, settlements and other archaeological sources, as well as data from the natural sciences. Therefore, there are no strict boundaries between the aims of archaeological demography on the one hand and settlement archaeology, environmental and landscape archaeology, and social archaeology on the other hand. The character of archaeological source material and the limited preservation of graves, house sites and so on, mean that population densities derived on this basis can only ever be minimum estimates. The theories of social and economic reactions to population pressure by Thomas Robert Malthus (1798) and Ester Boserup (1965) have had a strong influence on European archaeological demography, at least implicitly. Calculations mostly result in small Bronze and Iron Age communities, even when large burial sites suggest a local population concentration. Most settlements also represent small economic entities or households. Whenever larger local populations are identified, this individual historical situation has to be explained. Indications of social differentiation in the shape of prestige goods, ranked funerary rites, exceptionally rich graves, separated farmsteads within settlements and so on are by no means generally linked to particularly large population groups. It still has to be clarified how migrations affected Bronze and Iron Age population size.

The Celtic languages and groups called Keltoi (i.e. ‘Celts’) emerge into our written records at the pre-Roman Iron Ag

Modern borders of all kinds, political, geographical and social, effect the kinds of prehistoric narratives archaeologists can write. Borders that dominate today did not exist in prehistory. This volume works across such borders and focuses specifically on the region between the Rivers Forth and Tyne, an area divided by the modern political border between Scotland and England. The introduction and opening chapters consider the impact of the Anglo-Scots and similar borders on our understanding of prehistoric patterns of activity. The introduction also asks whether, when, and to what extent this could be considered a coherent region in the prehistoric past. Further chapters explore the history of research in the region, including field survey and aerial photography. Another nine chapters discuss the results of recent research, including new and older excavations, or conduct regional analyses of artefacts and mortuary practices, starting with the Late Upper Palaeolithic and continuing with studies from the Early Neolithic through to the Late Iron Age. Taken as a whole, the publication suggests that while there was no coherent Tyne-Forth region in prehistory, except for perhaps in the Late Iron Age, research at this regional scale provides a strong basis for appreciating past cultural interaction at a variety of scales.

This thesis focusses on the arrowheads found in graves of Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age date (2500-1700 BC) in the Armorican massif, the southern British Isles and Denmark. These artefacts are examined from the angle of typology, raw materials, technology, experimentation and use-wear. The aim of these different approaches is to characterize the modes of production and the functions of stone arrowheads during a period which successively sees the introduction of copper then bronze metallurgy. Several interpretations are proposed, from warriors renewing their quivers to craftsmen manufacturing prestige goods for the elite. In Brittany, the arrows are set in their cultural and social context, marked by an individualization of funerary practices and then by the emergence of chiefs at the head of strongly hierarchical communities with geographically coherent territories. Power seems founded on reorganization of land-use and exploitation of agricultural resources, rather than on control of incipient metallurgy. Lastly, arrows are placed in the broader perspective of major trends affecting Atlantic Europe. The origin of the squared-off barbed and tanged arrowheads of the Bell Beaker culture seems anchored in the Final Neolithic of west-central France, while in the Early Bronze Age the arrowheads with oblique barbs seem to indicate an attachment to the Atlantic cultural complex.

Ce catalogue accompagne la publication de l’ouvrage « Flèches de pouvoir à l’aube de la métallurgie de la Bretagne au Danemark (2500-1700 av. n. è. ) ». Il rassemble pour la première fois un corpus d’armatures de flèches déposées dans les tombes de la fin du Néolithique et du Bronze ancien dans le Massif armoricain, dans le sud des îles Britanniques et au Danemark. Il contient la description (architecture, anthropologie, mobilier funéraire) de 231 sépultures, ayant livré un total de 1375 pointes de flèches. La plupart de ces armatures sont illustrées par 718 dessins (dont 200 originaux) et 454 photographies (dont 415 originales). À cela s’ajoutent la figuration des plans des tombes et du mobilier associé aux armatures. Ce corpus est enrichi d’un inventaire complémentaire pour le Danemark de 274 pointes de flèches issues de 92 sépultures de datation plus incertaine. Enfin, l’ensemble des armatures étudiées sont décrites selon leurs dimensions, leurs matières premières et leurs lieux de conservation.This volume contains the catalogue belonging to the book « Flèches de pouvoir à l’aube de la métallurgie de la Bretagne au Danemark (2500-1700 av.

Of Odysseys and Oddities is about scales and modes of interaction in prehistory, specifically between societies on both sides of the Aegean and with their nearest neighbours overland to the north and east. The 17 contributions reflect on tensions at the core of how we consider interaction in archaeology, particularly the motivations and mechanisms leading to social and material encounters or displacements. Linked to this are the ways we conceptualise spatial and social entities in past societies (scales) and how we learn about who was actively engaged in interaction and how and why they were (modes). The papers provide a broad chronological, spatial and material range but, taken together, they critically address many of the ways that scales and modes of interaction are considered in archaeological discourse. Ultimately, the intention is to foreground material culture analysis in the development of the arguments presented within this volume, informed, but not driven, by theoretical positions.

A Bronze Age barrow, one of several in the Rhee valley, was encircled by two concentric rings of posts in the early to middle Iron Age, and a single crouched inhumation was buried nearby. A small group of roundhouses and granaries was built on the clays c.100m from the river, and nearly 200 possible grain storage pits were dug on chalk deposits next to the river. Some of the pits contained human burials and animal bone groups of the pit burial tradition common in central southern and south-eastern England Significant assemblages of Chinnor-Wandlebury pottery and animal bone, including examples of rarely-found wild species, were also found. The site was unoccupied in the late Iron Age and Roman periods but still farmed, as evidenced by animal pens, field ditches and sparse domestic debris probably spread by manuring. During the later 6th century AD, a small open farming settlement of six sunken-featured buildings was established, akin to many similar settlements investigated in South Cambridgeshire. A substantial ditch enclosed the settlement in the 8th or 9th century, and occupation had shifted to Harston village by the 10th century.

The investigations have produced evidence for 6,000 years of landscape and settlement evolution. Perhaps the most striking result is the evidence for continuity, rather than discontinuity, in the development of the landscape. The act of defining chronological periods, while essential in describing past human society, does tend to accentuate discontinuity. This applies both to individual monuments — some on the Biddenham Loop played a major part in people’s lives for many generations — and to the wider landscape itself. The Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments were incorporated into the middle Bronze Age field systems and some were still used for the burial of the dead. Continued use of these fields into the middle Iron Age and even the Romano-British period is clearly evidenced by the way in which later farmsteads were set up on their periphery. The positioning of the main early Iron Age pit alignment across the Biddenham Loop has elements of both discontinuity and continuity. It does ‘cut’ a number of ditched boundaries but does so at the corners of fields, so that over the majority of its course it crosses unenclosed land between two separate middle Bronze Age field systems. For the Roman–Saxon transition it is significant that the majority of the evidence for early Saxon settlement occurs in the vicinity of Romano-British settlements.

This book, aimed at a general audience, presents the results of all archeological research performed in the Dutch city of Helmond during several decades. Starting in the early prehistory the authors present the earliest evidence of people living in the current region of Helmond, the rise of the city up until recent times.

This book is part of an annual series containing papers on Bronze Age and Iron Age archaeology in the Netherlands. The series mostly contains Dutch-language articles but on occasion also English language articles are included.

The Corded Ware Culture (c. 2900–2300 BC) is found in a large area, from Russia to the Netherlands and from Scandinavia to Switzerland. Supra-regional elements include beakers decorated with cord and/or spatula imprints, battle-axes, and a funerary customs involving crouched inhumations under barrows with gender-specific placement of the body gender-specific funerary gifts. Analysis of ceramics from well-preserved settlements from the Dutch coastal zone have provided very valuable new information on the Corded Ware chronology, social organisation, ideology, subsistence, and use of material culture. A critical review of the commonly applied chronological models shows that many of the underlying premises cannot be supported due to problems with (broad calibration and sample reliability of) 14C dates. This study shows that in the Neolithic Dutch coastal zone, the thin-walled ceramics reflect supra-regional (Corded Ware ) affiliations, whereas the medium-thick-walled and thick-walled ceramics reflect persistent regional (Vlaardingen) traditions. The beakers decorated with cord and spatula impressions were used primarily for cooking; indications for the often proposed use of alcohol (and associated rise of individualisation and elites) were not found.It is argued in this study that the Corded Ware Culture represents an economic alliance, a dynamic totality as well as a network linking regional groups – each with a distinct economic base, material culture and ideology. These communities all participated in a vast supra-regional network that was a platform for inter-community exchanges of goods, skills, ideas and possibly people. Affiliation to this supra-regional network was a vital aspect for all regional groups involved, and membership to it was expressed by using a set of common traits. Decorated thin-walled beakers act as symbols of these supra-regional networks and thus embody both functional and ideological roles.

Salt is an invisible object for research in archaeology. However, ancient writings, ethnographic studies and the evidence of archaeological exploitation highlight it as an essential reference for humanity. Both an edible product and a crucial element for food preservation, it has been used by the first human settlements as soon as food storage appeared (Neolithic). As far as the history of food habits (both nutrition and preservation) is concerned, the identification and the use of that resource certainly proves a revolution as meaningful as the domestication of plants and wild animals. On a global scale, the development of new economic forms based on the management of food surplus went along an increased use of saline resources through a specific technical knowledge, aimed at the extraction of salt from its natural supports.Considering the variety of former practices observed until now, a pluralist approach based on human as well as environmental sciences is required. It allows a better knowledge of the historical interactions between our societies and this “white gold”, which are well-known from the Middle-Ages, but more hypothetical for earlier times.This publication intends to present the most recent progresses in the field of salt archaeology in Europe and beyond; it also exposes various approaches allowing a thorough understanding of this complex and many-faceted subject. The complementary themes dealt with in this book, the broad chronological and geographical focus, as well as the relevance of the results presented, make this contribution a key synthesis of the most recent research on this universal topic.

Paradigm Found brings together papers by renowned researchers from across Europe, Asia and America to discuss a selection of pressing issues in current archaeological theory and method. The book also reviews the effects and potential of various theoretical stances in the context of prehistoric archaeology. The 23 papers provide a discussion of the issues currently re-appearing in the focal point of theoretical debates in archaeology such as the role of the discipline in the present-day society, problems of interpretation in archaeology, approaches to the study of social evolution, as well as current insights into issues in classification and construction of typologies. Taking a fresh, and often provocative, look at the challenges contemporary archaeology is facing, the contributors evaluate the effects of past developments and discuss the impact they are likely to have on future directions in archaeology as an internationally connected discipline. In its final part the volume reflects on current thinking on prehistory, using case-studies from a number of European regions and the Mediterranean, from the Neolithic to the Roman Period.The volume represents a tribute to the lifetime achievements of Professor Evžen Neustupný, a distinguished Czech archaeologist who contributed to the advancement of prehistoric studies in Europe and to archaeological theory and method in particular.

The Archaeological sites of Orkney give us an unparalleled glimpse into prehistory. Inscribed as the 'Heart of Neolithic Orkney' World Heritage Site in 1999, four great monuments - the village of Skara Brae, the Ring of Brodgar, the Stones of Stenness and the burial mound of Maeshowe - are also at the centre of the archipelago's story. This book looks at what makes these monuments so special. Caroline Wickham-Jones explores the Neolithic world in which they were built, how they caome to be a focus through the ages, and what they mean today. Picts, saints, Vikings, antiquarians and tourists populate Orkney's past: a history which is channelled through these 'dances of stones'.