A selection of papers from the 13th Viking Congress focusing on the northern, central, and eastern regions of Anglo-Saxon England colonised by invading Danish armies in the late 9th century, known as the Danelaw. This volume contributes to many of the unresolved scholarly debates surrounding the concept, and extent of the Danelaw.

This volume brings together papers that discuss social change. The main focus is on the Early Helladic III to Late Helladic I period in southern Greece, but also touches upon the surrounding islands. This specific timeframe enables us to consider how mainland societies recovered from a ‘crisis’ and how they eventually developed into the differentiated, culturally receptive and competitive social formations of the early Mycenaean period. Material changes are highlighted in the various papers, ranging from pottery and burials to domestic architecture and settlement structures, followed by discussions of how these changes relate to social change. A variety of factors is thereby considered including demographic changes, reciprocal relations and sumptuary behaviour, household organization and kin structure, age and gender divisions, internal tensions, connectivity and mobility. As such, this volume is of interest to both Aegean prehistorians as to scholars interested in social and material change.The volume consists of eight papers, preceded by an introduction and concluded by a response. The introduction gives an overview of the development of the debate on the explanation of social change in Aegean prehistory. The response places the volume in a broader context of the EH III-LH I period and the broader discussion on social change.

In the first millennium BC, communities in Italy underwent crucial transformations which scholars have often subsumed under the heading of ‘state formation’, namely increased social stratification, the centralisation of political power and, in some cases, urbanisation. Most research has tended to approach the phenomenon of state formation and social change in relation to specific territorial dynamics of growth and expansion, changing modes of exploitation of food and other resources over time, and the adoption of selected socio-ritual practices by the ruling élites in order to construct and negotiate authority. In contrast, comparatively little attention has been paid to the question of how these key developments resonated across the broader social transect, and how social groups other than ruling élites both promoted these changes and experienced their effects. The chief aim of this collection of 14 papers is to harness innovative approaches to the exceptionally rich mortuary evidence of first millennium BC Italy, in order to investigate the roles and identities of social actors who either struggled for power and social recognition, or were manipulated and exploited by superior authorities in a phase of tumultuous socio-political change throughout the entire Mediterranean basin. Contributors provide a diverse range of approaches in order to examijne how power operated in society, how it was exercised and resisted, and how this can be studied through mortuary evidence. Section 1 addresses the construction of identity by focusing mainly on the manipulation of age, ethnic and gender categories in society in regions and sites that reached notable power and splendour in first millennium BC Italy. These include Etruria, Latium, Campania and the rich settlement of Verucchio, in Emilia Romagna. Section 2 offers a counterpoint to Section 1 by focusing on the concepts of ‘periphery’, marginality and the frailty of élite (or sub-élite) power in phases of dramatic socio-political change. Moreover, this Section approaches the idea of identity construction in ‘fringe’ geographical areas that are sometimes overlooked in Anglophone scholarship, such as the Veneto, Samnium, western Emilia and Trentino–South Tyrol. With its overall emphasis on scholarly multivocality, this volume is one of the first ever to strongly advocate for a study of social exclusion and extreme social marginality in late prehistoric and proto-historic Italy.

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.

In the ancient Greek-speaking world, writing about the past meant balancing the reporting of facts with shaping and guiding the political interests and behaviours of the present. Ancient Historiography on War and Empire shows the ways in which the literary genre of writing history developed to guide empires through their wars. Taking key events from the Achaemenid Persian, Athenian, Macedonian and Roman ‘empires’, the 17 essays collected here analyse the way events and the accounts of those events interact. Subjects include: how Greek historians assign nearly divine honours to the Persian King; the role of the tomb cult of Cyrus the Founder in historical narratives of conquest and empire from Herodotus to the Alexander historians; warfare and financial innovation in the age of Philip II and his son, Alexander the Great; the murders of Philip II, his last and seventh wife Kleopatra, and her guardian, Attalos; Alexander the Great’s combat use of eagle symbolism and divination; Plutarch’s juxtaposition of character in the Alexander-Caesar pairing as a commentary on political legitimacy and military prowess, and Roman Imperial historians using historical examples of good and bad rule to make meaningful challenges to current Roman authority. In some cases, the balance shifts more towards the ‘literary’ and in others more towards the ‘historical’, but what all of the essays have in common is both a critical attention to the genre and context of history-writing in the ancient world and its focus on war and empire.

Quality Management in Archaeology deals with the effects of the profound changes that have had an impact on the discipline of archaeology all over the world. In North America, in Europe and increasingly in other parts of the world, new legislation and international treaties have changed its position in society. What was once a university based research activity by a limited number of academics has become a socially relevant field with many practitioners that are mostly employed in some branch of archaeological resource management. Archaeology has been successful in persuading governments and the general public that more should be done to preserve archaeological heritage and to investigate it where it will be irretrievably lost. The scale and frequency of archaeological work has increased vastly, at considerable cost to society. Consequently, there is pressure to do the work efficiently and economically. At the same time, academic standards have to be maintained to assure that the end result will be the relevant knowledge about the past that society pays for. Different countries have found different approaches and solutions to deal with this dilemma. Sometimes commercial archaeology is allowed, sometimes it is not, but in every national context quality has to be managed in some way. This book presents a survey by specialists from the US, Canada, and several European countries on how this is done, what the principles are, and also the priorities. It will be useful for anyone interested in archaeological resource management.

The technological capabilities of the ancient world have long fascinated scholars and the general public alike, though scholarly debate has often seen material culture not as the development of technology, but as a tool for defining chronology and delineating the level of interactions of neighbouring societies. These fourteen papers, arising from a conference held in Oxford in September 2000, take the approach that technology plays a vital role in past socio-economic systems. They cover the Near East and associated areas, including Greece, Crete, Cyprus, Anatolia, the Levant, Mesopotamia and Egypt from the end of the Middle Bronze Age to the Late Bronze Age (1650-1150 BC), a period when many technological innovations appear for the first time.

Pamphylia, in modern Turkey, was a Greek country from the early Iron Age until the Middle Ages. In that land there were nine cities which can be described more or less as Greek, and this book is an investigation of their history. This was a land at the margins of other great empires - Hellenistic, Roman, Arab and Byzantine - and is still off the beaten track, though Aspendos, Perge and Phaselis are all visited for their archaeology. Only one ancient source, Strabo, discusses the area at any length, and John Grainger therefore has to bring together a wide variety of exiguous and fragmentary sources to tell the cities' story. His focus is not only regional - he is interested in the impact of outside forces on a particular civic culture. He considers the processes of city foundation, settlement, urbanisation and evolution, and the cities' mutual relations. Coastal piracy drew Pamphylia into the Roman empire, and finally, in the seventh century AD, the Arabs destroyed the cities in their wars with the Byzantine empire.

Socialising Complexity introduces the concept of complexity as a tool, rather than a category, for understanding social formations. This new take on complexity moves beyond the traditional concern with what constitutes a complex society and focuses on the complexity inherent in various social forms through the structuring principles created within each society. The aims and themes of the book can thus be summarised as follows: to introduce the idea of complexity as a tool, which is pertinent to the understanding of all types of society, rather than an exclusionary type of society in its own right; to examine concepts that can enhance our interpretation of societal complexity, such as heterarchy, materialisation and contextualisation. These concepts are applied at different scales and in different ways, illustrating their utility in a variety of different cases; to re-establish social structure as a topic of study within archaeology, which can be profitably studied by proponents of both processual and post-processual methodologies.

Studies on finds in Roman Britain and the Western Provinces have come to greater prominence in the literature of recent years. The quality of such work has also improved, and is now theoretically informed, and based on rich data-sets. Work on finds over the last decade or two has changed our understanding of the Roman era in profound ways, and yet despite such encouraging advances and such clear worth, there has to date been little in the way of a dedicated forum for the presentation and evaluation of current approaches to the study of material culture. The conference at which these papers were initially presented has gone some way to redressing this, and these papers bring the very latest studies on Roman finds to a wider audience. Twenty papers are here presented covering various themes.

Human migration tends to involve more than the odd suitcase or two - we often carry other organisms on our travels, some are deliberately transported, others move by accident. This volume of 12 papers offers a zooarchaeological approach to questions surrounding the nature and extent of human colonisation and migration, and the adaptation of humans to new and sometimes extreme or challenging environments. The volume is divided into two parts: Part 1 takes up the theme of Human and Animal Migration and Colonisation. Contributors consider the relationship between human movements and the movements of animals and animal products; case studies look at Neolithic population movements in Oceania, the Norse colonisation of Greenland, and the European settlement of Virginia. Part 2 focuses on the topic of Behavioural Variability in the So-Called Marginal Areas. Contributors offer various interpretations of the concept of 'marginality', from climatic extremes of the Arctic cold, and the heat and aridity of western North America, to the geographical remoteness of Patagonia, and the cultural circumstances surrounding the beginnings of transhumant pastoralism in prehistoric southeastern Europe.

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.

The study of monasteries has come a long way since late the late 19th century. The emphasis has shifted away from reconstructing the layouts of monastic buildings to a better understanding of the wider monastic environment. The papers in this volume, partly based on a conference held in Oxford in 1994, are written by some of today's foremost scholars and reflect the diversity of research now being carried out.

The volume is the first in nearly a decade to focus a wide range of scholarship on one of the most compelling periods in the antiquity of the Mediterranean and Near East. It presents new interpretive approaches to the problems of the Bronze Age to Iron Age transformation, as well as re-assessments of a wide range of high profile sites and evidence ranging from the Ugaritic archives, Hazor, the Medinet Habu reliefs, Tiryns and Troy. Implications for a changing climate are also explored in the volume. The end of the Bronze Age in the Mediterranean and Near East is a huge challenge requiring a diverse, global, flexible and open minded strategy for its interpretation - it is too vast and complex for any one scholar or interpretive approach. The scope of this volume is great, but not overwhelming, as the papers are organized coherently into themes considering climate, exchange and interregional dynamics, iconography and perception, the built environment - cemeteries, citadels, and landscapes, and social implications for the production and consumption of pottery. Thus, Forces of Transformation is broad enough to address many of the major concerns of the end of the Bronze Age, and also to encapsulate the current position of scholarship as it relates to this problem.

These papers come from a conference on Neolithic Causewayed Enclosures in Europe held in London in 1999. They present a series of snapshots of some of the sites and regions at the forefront of current research on causewayed enclosures in Europe, and as such are a complement to the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England (RCHME) project which has systematically recorded all known Neolithic enclosures in England by both analytical topographic survey techniques and aerial transcription. The detailed regional data collected by the RCHME project has allowed a radical reinterpretation of these sites and the recognition that there are regional groups of enclosures. This series of papers serves to broaden the discussion about the structure and form of causewayed monuments beyond lowland England, looking at a wide geographical range of sites across central Europe, as well as considering some sites which do not conform to the traditional type but which have been proved by excavation to have a Neolithic context. This collection of papers provides a long-awaited and important addition to the debate on these enigmatic prehistoric sites. Contents: Neolithic Enclosures of Scandinavia (Niels H Anderson) ; The Causewayed Enclosures of West-Central France from the beginning of the Fourth to the End of the Third Millennium (Claude Burnez and Catherine Louboutin) ; Le Mourral, Trèbes (Aude) and the Final Neolithic Circular Enclosures of the Languedoc (Jean Vaquer) ; The Late Neolithic Settlement of La Hersonnais, Pléchatel in its Regional Context (Jean-Yves Tinevez) ; The Neolithic Ditched Enclosures of the Tavoliere, South-East Italy (Robin Skeates) ; An Interrupted Ditch Alignment at Rivoli, Italy, in the Context of Neolithic Interrupted Ditch/Pit Systems (Lawrence Barfield) ; Aerial Survey and Neolithic Enclosures in Central Europe (Otto Braasch) ; From Lilliput to Brobdingnag: The Traditions of Enclosure in the Irish Neolithic (Gabriel Cooney) ; Billown Neolithic Enclosures, Isle of Man (Timothy Darvill) ; Lithic Artefacts from Neolithic Causewayed Enclosures: Character and Meaning (Alan Saville) ; A Causewayed Enclosure at Husbands Bosworth, Leicestershire (Adrian Butler, Patrick Clay and John Thomas) ; The Howe Robin Story: An Unusual Enclosure on Crosby Ravensworth Fell (Moraig Brown) ; The Seventieth Causewayed Enclosure in the British Isles? (Peter D Horne, David MacLeod and Alastair Oswald) ; Rethinking the Carrock Fell Enclosure (Trevor Pearson and Peter Topping) .

This volume is a collection of essays, which exemplify the range and diversity of work currently being undertaken on the regional landscapes of the British Bronze Age and the progress which has been made in both theoretical and interpretive debate. Together these papers reflect the vibrancy of current research and promote a closer marriage of landscape, site and material culture studies. CONTENTS: Settlement in Scotland during the Second Millennium BC (P Ashmore) ; Place and Space in the Cambridgeshire Bronze Age (T Malim) ; Exploring Bronze Age Norfolk: Longham and Bittering (T Ashwin) ; Ritual Activity at the Foot of the Gog Magog Hills, Cambridge (M Hinman) ; The Bronze Age of Manchester Airport: Runway 2 (D Garner) ; Place and Memory in Bronze Age Wessex (D Field) ; Bronze Age Agricultural Intensification in the Thames Valley and Estuary (D Yates) ; The 'Community of Builders': The Barleycroft Post Alignments (C Evans and M Knight) ; 'Breaking New Ground': Land Tenure and Fieldstone Clearance during the Bronze Age (R Johnston) ; Tenure and Territoriality in the British Bronze Age: A Question of Varying Social and Geographical Scales (W Kitchen) ; A Later Bronze Age Landscape on the Avon Levels: Settlement: Settlement, Shelters and Saltmarsh at Cabot Park (M Locock) ; Reading Business Park: The Results of Phases 1 and 2 (A Brossler) ; Leaving Home in the Cornish Bronze Age: Insights into Planned Abandonment Processes (J A Nowakowski) ; Body Metaphors and Technologies of Transformation in the English Middle and Late Bronze Age (J Bruck) ; A Time and a Place for Bronze (M Barber) ; Firstly, Let's get Rid of Ritual (C Pendleton) ; Mining and Prospection for Metals in Early Bronze Age Britain - Making Claims within the Archaeological Landscape (S Timberlake) ; The Times, They are a Changin': Experiencing Continuity and Development in the Early Bronze Age Funerary Rituals of Southwestern Britain (M A Owoc) ; Round Barrows in a Circular World: Monumentalising Landscapes in Early Bronze Age Wessex (A Watson) ; Enduring Images? Image Production and Memory in Earlier Bronze Age Scotland (A Jones) ; Afterward: Back to the Bronze Age