Every year thousands of archaeological objects and artefact scatters are discovered by the public, most of them by metal-detector users, but also by people whilst out walking, gardening, or going about their daily work. Once recorded, these finds hold enormous potential in helping us understand the past. In England and Wales these finds are reported to the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS), and since 2003 over one million finds have been recorded.This book explores the significance of PAS dat...

“L’Étrurie est à la mode”, French archaeologist Salomon Reinach bluntly stated in 1927. Since the beginning of the nineteenth century, Etruria had not only been attracting the attention of archaeologists and specialists of all sorts, but it had also been a fascinating and, in some cases, captivating destination for poets, novelists, painters and sculptors from all over Europe. This volume deals with the impact of the constantly expanding knowledge on the Etruscans and their mysterious...

This volume represents a bold attempt by the editors to bring scholars from distinct research orientations together, to discuss the interplay between the geographic and social dimensions of different kinds of interaction networks.

Within the humanities, networks afford an umbrella of approaches to the study of social relations and their patterning, both through qualitative and quantitative applications, with two main perspectives standing out: those centered on space and those concerned with ...

There has been an increasing archaeological interest in human-animal-nature relations, where archaeology has shifted from a focus on deciphering meaning, or understanding symbols and the social construction of the landscape to an acknowledgement of how things, places and the environment contribute with their own agencies to the shaping of relations.

This means that the environment cannot be regarded as a blank space that landscape meaning is projected onto. Parallel to this, the field of env...

For the first time seasonality is placed at the centre of the study of rural settlement. Using a Europe-wide approach, it provides a primer of examples, of techniques and of ideas for the identification and understanding of seasonal settlement. As such, it marks an important new step in the interpretation of the use of the countryside by historic communities linked to the annual passage of the year. The particular studies are introduced by an opening essay which draws wider conclusions about ...

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 developmen...

Around 3000 BCE, a turning point occurred in Europe: Long-existing regional societies entered into a process of transformation. The result is a world in which new global communication networks brought different regions closer together. From 3200/3100 BCE, the Globular Amphora phenomenon (GA) was the trailblazer in Eastern and Central Europe. Due to a focus on pastoral subsistence, in comparison to more agrarian economic systems, new ritual practices formed in light of a more flexible form of ...

This study aims to understand the materiality of Saba’s ideological landscape during its pre-emancipation colonial period. This is accomplished by understanding the dialectics, or inseparable relationships, between Saba’s geography, locally-situated ideologies of class, race, and gender in Saba’s social environment, and the processes behind these ideological relations that contributed to the material things that are found across Saba’s social landscape.

This provides insights into ar...

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 dendrochron...