The Bronze Age and Early Iron Age saw many developments in metalworking, social structure, food production, nutrition, and diet. At the same time, networks in Europe intensified and human impact on the environment changed in character. What influence did these transformations have on daily life? Which proxies can researchers use to study these topics?

This volume presents scientific contributions from different fields of expertise within modern archaeology in order to investigate past living ...

The terracotta figurines from Akragas (Agrigento) with their chubby faces, splendid furniture, and rich adornments, depict a prosperous life in the late sixth and early fifth century BCE. The extensive jewellery on the figurines contains strikingly large fibulae appliques fastening pectoral chains with several sorts of pendants. They are modelled after existing items. The form of the jewellery items changed fast, influenced by different peoples and changing fashions, which can be compared wit...

In which chronological, spatial, and social contexts is gender a relevant social category that is noticeable in the archaeological material? How can transformations in social gender relations and identity be recognized archaeologically? Is the identity of prehistoric people defined by gender? If so, what is the accompanying cultural context? What about gender equality among the scientists working in archaeology? In what degree are research teams, as well as their scientific approaches, biased...

The early-modern Venezuelan Caribbean did not lure seafarers with the saccharine delights of cane sugar but with the preserving qualities of solar sea salt. In this book, the historical archaeological study of this salty commodity offers a unique entryway into the hitherto unknown maritime mobilities and daily lives of the seafarers who camped at the saltpans of Venezuelan islands from the seventeenth to the late nineteenth centuries, cultivating and harvesting the white crystal of the sea.

F...

Cet ouvrage explore la transformation du paysage culturel de la région de Fort-Liberté sur le long terme. Il se base sur les traces de différents groupes sociaux façonnant le paysage culturel du lieu sur une longue période chronologique. Cette région renferme un patrimoine archéologique exceptionnel, sous la forme de vestiges amérindiens, de traces des premières villes coloniales espagnoles et d’habitations coloniales françaises. Habitée depuis environ l’an 3000 av. J.-C., cett...

Este trabajo documenta e interpreta el patrimonio cultural saa (zapoteco) de los Bene Ya’a/En’ne I’ya, los habitantes zapotecos de la Sierra Norte de Oaxaca. Dicho patrimonio es estudiado a partir de los símbolos transmitidos por las personas encargadas de los rituales, weneya’a— las personas « que hablan con los cerros ».

Los individuos weneya’a transmiten valores culturales fundamentales de sus comunidades y son indispensables para la identidad y la cultura de los Bene Ya’a...

This book deals with the question how communities across Europe during the later 3rd millennium BC adopt and transform the Bell Beaker phenomenon differently. By looking at these processes of change from the perspective of settlements and settlement material culture, an interpretation is given to the development of this phenomenon that is alternative to the currently prevailing migration models.Instead, the author uses social theories on the spread of innovations, the development and function...

Early Settlers of the Insular Caribbean: Dearchaizing the Archaic offers a comprehensive coverage of the most recent advances in interdisciplinary research on the early human settling of the Caribbean islands. It covers the time span of the so-called Archaic Age and focuses on the Middle to Late Holocene period which - depending on specific case studies discussed in this volume - could range between 6000 BC and AD 1000. A similar approach to the early settlers of the Caribbean islands has nev...

At the end of the 5th millennium BCE, some of the vastest settlements of the time emerged on the forest steppe north of the Black Sea. The largest of these sites were found between the Southern Bug and Dnieper river. There they occur only tens of kilometres apart and are assumed to be partly coeval. The Trypillia 'mega-sites' reached sizes of up to 320 hectares with up to 3000 buildings in one place. During their peak times as many as 11.000 people could have lived in one of those settlements.

But how did people come together in these Trypillia 'mega-sites' with several thousand dwellings? How long were such sites inhabited, and how many people lived there? Were these settlements the first towns, preceding the Mesopotamian development? To address these questions, this book presents the results of the investigations at the Maidanets'ke 'mega-site'...

The problem of the social dimension of technology and transformation seen in the perspective of the habitus has been repeatedly undertaken in various works. However, the complexity of these phenomena causes subsequent attempts to be presented and explained again in new contexts, bringing interesting observations.

The edited volume aims to contribute to our better understanding of a system of embodied dispositions hidden under the term 'habitus'. This will be achieved by presenting the latest ...