The east of the Netherlands shows many different types of landscape. This dissertation is the result of interdisciplinary research into the long-term development of landscape and habitation of the province of Overijssel and the region De Achterhoek. Archaeological data are the primary source of information but physical geography, historical geography, palaeobotany and toponomy are incorporated. Van Beek tries to construct an overview of all-important developments between the early prehistory and the medieval period.

The year is 1428, and the war between England and France has been raging for nearly one hundred years. The English control territory to the north of the Loire, but have no control of regions beyond the river. During the summer, the Duke of Bedford decides to eliminate his enemy and besieges Orléans. From October 1428 to May 1429, fierce fighting continues around the town. The situation seems to be lost for the besieged, until the arrival of a young peasant girl named Joan. The exploits of the Maid of Orléans, considered France’s national heroine, lead to the making of her legend. She gained prominence when she overcame the dismissive attitude of veteran commanders and lifted the siege in only nine days, although she was later bunt at the stake for heresy at only nineteen years old.Inspired by her, the French rekindle their taste for victory and go from one success to another, until the decisive battle at Patay. This is an detailed, animated and richly illustrated book which enables the reader to relive these moments of great endeavour.

This biography explores the life of W. J. de Wilde, one of the more mysterious characters in the history of Dutch prehistoric archaeology. He wrote several articles and gave lectures on the "hunebedden", the Dutch megalithic tombs in the first two decades of the 20th century.

This eagerly awaited volume documents the evidence for human activity in the Colne valley at Three Ways Wharf, Uxbridge in the Lateglacial and Early Mesolithic periods. A series of five in situ lithic and faunal scatters, centred on hearth settings on local high points within the valley floor, belong to two main phases of hunter-gatherer activity. The earlier phase, characterised by Lateglacial bruised-edge 'long blades' of the north German Ahrensburgian technocomplex, associated with reindeer and horse, is dated to c 10,000 BP. The succeeding Early Mesolithic phase is typified by broad, obliquely backed flint points, associated with a fauna dominated by red and roe deer, and dated some 800 radiocarbon years later at c 9200 BP. Detailed analyses of the important faunal and lithic assemblages, bolstered by an extensive refitting programme, have been fully integrated to provide new and striking behavioural explanations. These hunter-gatherer groups can now be seen as groups of people intent on pursuing their own independent and socially defined goals, and no longer solely in terms of their adaptive responses to environmental pressures. Three Ways Wharf will come to take its place alongside other iconic sites of the period such as Star Carr, Broxbourne and Thatcham.

The Palaeolithic is the only period in archaeology that can be studied globally. In the last half century one prehistorian, Sir Paul Mellars, has changed the shape and direction of such studies, adding immeasurably to what we know about humanity's earliest origins and the timing of crucial transitions in the journey. The Upper Palaeolithic Revolution in global perspective is a collection of essays in his honour. Contributions cover both his own area of primary interest (Franco-Cantabria) as well as many other regions of the world, all of which he has considered while writing about the Human Revolution in its wider geographical context. Papers in this volume examine the archaeological record of the Upper Pleistocene from Australia, through eastern and western Asia and Africa to northern Spain and the classical Périgord region of France, a cornerstone region which Mellars has been researching and publishing on since 1965. To papers on chronology, typology, subsistence and social complexity are added historical and theoretical contributions, along with a biography. These illustrate not only Paul Mellars's impact on the current shape and direction of Palaeolithic studies but also how the subject has changed and continues to change.

This volume, the third in the series of reports on the excavations carried out at the Canhasan I mound in south-central Anatolia in the years 1961-1968, follows the publication of the stratification and structures (Canhasan Sites 1) and of the pottery (Canhasan Sites 2). Here, the primary aim is to present a descriptive account and catalogue of the registered small-finds. The small-finds have been grouped, described and then illustrated according to material, e. g., clay, stone, bone. The separation into discrete groups and the description of individual objects have both been deliberately simplified, the intention being to provide (where possible chronologically) an orderly arrangement from which those interested are able to scan and note the range of materials and, if they wish, to take up relevant aspects or indeed to inspect the objects for further study and research. The location of the site at Canhasan is set unequivocally between East and West, close to, if not on, a major land route from the Near East to the Aegean and to Europe. Inevitably, in this geographical context, some materials, such as obsidian and copper, will catch the eye. These have a utilitarian purpose and introduce the factor of distance between source and Canhasan. One object, however, - an ivory bracelet - not only emphasises, by its presence at Canhasan, the distant source of the material but points directly to the nature and dynamics of trade/transfer/exchange in the 6th millennium. The bracelet documents the role of personal display and human vanity as an incentive for material acquisition.

Following the success of the two works on Hastings — both now out of print — is finally a book entirely dedicated to this century. Not only does it present garments from Normandy, based off of the Bayeux Tapestry, as well as those of Eastern France and Belgium, but also clothing from other regions of the Empire. Additionally, it presents the various buckles, jewelry, and trimmings popular during the period. This edition will also examine the objects of daily life, providing the most current study of such a great century in history. Leading specialists have provided expert commentary based off of 12th century illuminations, archeological finds, and historical reconstructions.

How did ancient Europeans materialise memory? Material Mnemonics: Everyday Practices in Prehistoric Europe provides a fresh approach to the archaeological study of memory. Drawing on case studies from the British Isles, Scandinavia, central Europe, Greece, Italy and the Iberian Peninsula that date from the Neolithic through the Iron Age, the book's authors explore the implications of our understanding of the past when memory and mnemonic practices are placed in the center of cultural analyses. They discuss monument building, personal adornment, relic-making, mortuary rituals, the burning of bodies and houses and the maintenance of domestic spaces and structures over long periods of time. Material Mnemonics engages with contemporary debates on the intersection of memory, identity, embodiment, and power and challenges archaeologists to consider how materiality both provokes and constrains the mnemonic processes in everyday life.

Flint was the primary raw material used for tools until c. 4000 years ago. Its properties allow the production of very sharp edges, which made it essential in many activities related to craft and subsistence. The fact that flint tools have been used for a long period of time almost everywhere in the world makes them an important source of information in the study of prehistory. Several general questions about this material are of interest to archaeologists: where was the raw material obtained? How can we distinguish between man-made artefacts and natural pieces of flint? What techniques can be used to work flint, and how can we recognise them? How were the different tools used in an effective way? This book tries to answer all of these questions by describing the subsequent stages: acquisition of raw material, flint knapping techniques, recognition of pseudo-artefacts and geofacts, typology of common tool types found in northwestern Europe and discussion of the most effective way to use these tools. The book is richly illustrated with full colour figures. Text in Dutch.

This volume, the tenth published collection of seminar papers from the Neolithic Studies Group, is based upon a conference that took place at the British Museum in November 2008. The meeting aimed to consider the chronology and development of Neolithic round mounds; their changing form and use; their relationships to contemporary cultural, ancestral and natural landscapes; the extent to which they provide scope for identifying local and regional social organization; and, not least, why they were round. Following the conference, further papers were offered for this edited volume, widening and broadening the initial discussion. The papers are arranged in rough geographic order starting in the north and working southwards before heading across the Irish Sea and then the Atlantic. Following a wide-ranging discussion of round mounds across the world, two papers discuss aspects of Scottish round mounds, before moving down to the Isle of Man, the Neolithic round mounds of the Yorkshire Wolds, Liffs Low in the Derbyshire Peak District, and round mounds on the Cotswolds. The volume then moves to Wessex, starting with a discussion of Silbury Hill, and followed by a re-evaluation of the Great Barrow at Knowlton, Conquer Barrow at Mount Pleasant, and the Hatfield Barrow at Marden. How archaeologists and heritage managers choose to interpret round mounds is the subject of the next paper, using Silbury Hill as the primary case study. This is followed by a broad discussion of circular traditions, particularly formative henges, in Wales and adjacent counties, round burial mounds in the Boyne Valley, Ireland, such as Knowth, Dowth and Newgrange, and Irish round mounds containing portal tombs. By way of comparison with the evidence from the British Isles, the volume then crosses over to North America for a broad discussion of mound-building traditions there. Rounding off the volume is another wide-ranging essay on the nature of round mounds, which challenges our very understanding and interpretation of them.

Having become king of England at the battle of Hastings in 1066, William of Normandy would go on to found a genuine empire. His reign lasted 21 years. Amongst his children were two kings, a Duke, an Abbess, and two Countesses. Upon his death, his descendants tore each other apart, and his empire was fragmented until the accession of the Plantagenets, who extended the Anglo-Norman territory as far as the foothills of the Pyrenees. This book recounts the life of his principal descendants from Robert Courteheuse to the Empress Matilda. This is a French Language book.

The name of Richard the Lionheart is familiar to us all. Curiously, this legendary figure is more often associated with Aquitaine and the Holy Land than with Normandy. A worthy descendant of William the Conqueror, Richard I maintained Normandy within the Plantagenet Empire, by countering the ambitious plans of the King of France, Philip Augustus. His violent and untimely death was to lead to Normandy's annexation to France. The Anglo-Normand territory that "straddled the sea", and could well have offered an alternative to the national monarchic construction, was never to recover.

This volume derives from a workshop held at the University of Kalmar (now Linnaeus University), Sweden between the 20-24 of October 2008. The aim of this gathering was to provide a forum for rock art researchers from different parts of northern Europe to discuss traditional as well as current interpretative trends within rock art research. Changing Pictures aims to return to traditional interpretative notions regarding the meaning and significance of rock art to investigate if and why any information had been left behind to recover and rethink. During the last decades, there has been an immense global interest among archaeologists and anthropologists in studying rock art. Research in northern Europe, as elsewhere, has intensely explored a manifold of methodological and theoretical perspectives. Most of these studies however, have been published in languages that seldom reach beyond the native speakers of Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish, Russian or Finnish. Therefore an important motivation for this volume is to try to apprise some of the current movements within this field of research and present it for an international audience. These papers explore the relevance of older ideas, such as notions about prehistoric religion, ritual performance, sympathetic magic, animism and totemism, the mindscapes of landscapes etc., as well as the present "state of the art" in order to develop a broader understanding of the phenomenon we call rock art. This aspiration can be seen as a common thread linking the different chapters in this book. Saying that, some, if not all, of the articles presented in this volume challenge the notion "rock art" itself, arguing that sometimes the rock, the "canvas" and rather intangible but equally important sensual encounters, such as sound, echoes, touch and temporal phenomenological changes and the perception of decorated rock art panels, should be regarded, at least, as important as the "art" itself. By reassessing traditional approaches to Scandinavian rock art and creatively reworking these ideas, whilst also addressing significant new concepts such as the agency of rock and the performativity of rock art, this anthology of papers offers not only a snapshot of current debates, but also reflects pivotal changes in the study of rock art.

The environmental crisis is one of the most pressing concerns to face the population of the world today. The debate centres on the way in which our current problems are of recent making and how we might fix them. But in reality the issue is far more fundamental and stretches back further in time than many of us might think. This book traces the origins of our present situation to the changes that came about with the introduction of farming to Britain 6000 years ago and the inexorable course of human development since then. This is a course which has set us on the path to catastrophe. However, there is hope. The book also looks at the much older traits from a way of life long gone in Britain, from the hunter-gatherers who lived here over the millennia before the introduction of farming. These traits, almost forgotten, but never quite lost, are now re-surfacing and may hold many of the keys to our continued existence.

The Upper Pleistocene era encompassed a period of dramatic cultural developments in the south-eastern Mediterranean basin. This book highlights and synthesizes the latest research and current scientific debate on the archaeology of this time period in North Africa and the Near East. Recent archaeological research in North Africa has meant this region now plays a decisive role in scientific debate. After decades of neglect, the archaeological record from North Africa has now been seen to parallel in significance that of the Near East. This book offers an opportunity to observe the Afro-Asian side of the Mediterranean basin as an uninterrupted land, as it was for its Upper Pleistocene inhabitants. Areas of focus include the Out-of-Africa movement of anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) into the Levant and the transition from the Middle Palaeolithic/Middle Stone Age to the Upper Palaeolithic/Later Stone Age, during which a change of lifestyle took place, based on plant cultivation and animal husbandry. These topics are of crucial interest to anyone studying human evolution, prehistoric archaeology, anthropology, and palaeo-environmental studies. This volume brings together data as well as perspectives from various scholars, often separated by their areas of interest and location. This volume is complementary to The Mediterranean from 50,000 to 25,000 BP: Turning Points and New Directions edited by M. Camps and C. Szmidt (Oxbow Books, 2009).

Over the last few years, the ways in which we perceive and document rock art have shifted irreversibly. Prehistoric rock art played little part in the development of British and Irish archaeology and was not recognised until the 19th century, when its equivalents in Scandinavia and the Iberian Peninsula were already well known. Previously considered a fringe activity and the work of amateur archaeologists, over the last 30 years the situation has improved considerably, and the appearance of books such as this signify the change. This volume makes a powerful case for an archaeology that integrates rock art into a wider vision of the past. It brings together the experiences and informed opinions of the key organisations and stakeholders responsible for the conservation, management and accessibility of British rock art. An on-going and exciting period of change is documented here and the main issues that underpin the survival of our prehistoric carved heritage are addressed. Grouped into three sections, the chapters cover the recording, management and presentation of British rock art. The contributions illustrate the wide range of perceptions and approaches to the study, and the diversity of individuals and institutions who have become drawn into this fascinating subject, with independent researchers, heritage managers, artists and academics each bringing a unique perspective. This book aims to both inform new directions in rock art management strategies and provoke further initiatives through which these strategies can be implemented.