Representing both a barrier and a corridor between the Eurasian and Asian continents, the Caucasus has constituted the setting for various socio-economic transformations throughout prehistory. The transition from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age in the Northern Caucasus is a period characterised by a shift from pastoral lifeways in the steppe to sedentary lifestyles in the high mountains, and the change from hierarchical to egalitarian societies. In this context, this book provides basic sci...

Barkcloth or tapa, a cloth made from the inner bark of trees, was widely used in place of woven cloth in the Pacific islands until the 19th century. A ubiquitous material, it was integral to the lives of islanders and used for clothing, furnishings and ritual artefacts. Material Approaches to Polynesian Barkcloth takes a new approach to the study of the history of this region through its barkcloth heritage, focusing on the plants themselves and surviving objects in historic collections. This ...

From ca. 1600 – 1000 BC, builders across southern Greece crafted thousands of rock-cut chamber tombs similar to earlier and contemporary ‘beehive’ tholos tombs. Both tomb styles were designed with multiple uses in mind, filling with the remains of funerals forgotten over generations of reuse. In rare cases, the tombs were used once or seemingly not at all, cleaned thoroughly or sealed and abandoned entirely. Rather than focus on the missing or muddled record of funeral and post-funeral ...

Why are so many nautical words in Danish the same as in Dutch? Who taught the shipwrights in the Royal Danish Shipyard in Copenhagen to build carvel planked ships? How did the first Danish ships find their way to the riches of the East Indies? These questions and many more are meet in this Ph.D. dissertation, which circles around the maritime relationships between especially the seaward provinces of the Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries. In the early renaissance Dutch maritime techno...

Why are so many nautical words in Danish the same as in Dutch? Who taught the shipwrights in the Royal Danish Shipyard in Copenhagen to build carvel planked ships? How did the first Danish ships find their way to the riches of the East Indies? These questions and many more are meet in this Ph.D. dissertation, which circles around the maritime relationships between especially the seaward provinces of the Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries. In the early renaissance Dutch maritime techno...

Au cours des quatre derniers siècles av. n.è. les sociétés d’Europe continentale de la culture dite de La Tène développent leur propre artisanat du verre. Cette période de mutations économiques et sociales saisissantes, où les centres urbains et les réseaux d’habitats hiérarchisés se déploient, connaît également une intensification et une diversification des productions artisanales et agricoles. De l’agriculture à la métallurgie, l’étude des spécialisations artisana...

After World War II huge land consolidation projects measuring thousands of hectares were carried out in West-Frisia. Large scale excavations of Bronze Age settlement sites were carried out resulting in a convincing model for the Bronze Age habitation of West-Frisia. This model envisaged settlement sites situated on creek ridges in an open almost treeless landscape. After a sudden change in climate c. 800 cal BC parts of the landscape were inundated, peat bogs developed and West-Frisia was aba...

Exploring human nature takes the reader deep into the human experience of being in nature. Our current ecological predicament highlights the need to change people's nature awareness and behaviour. This pioneering mixed methods study investigates a method to do this through facilitated Solo time in the wilderness. Solo time is an ancient, ritualised and pan-cultural practice of spending time alone in nature, that has been reintroduced into our current time and culture.The study focuses on the ...

Para las poblaciones indígenas la llegada de Colon al Caribe en 1492 significó una transformación y reestructuración de su mundo, incluyendo cambios a niveles culturales, sociales, económicos y políticos. En este trabajo se proponen modelos interpretativos sobre la transformación del paisaje indígena al colonial, a través de la aplicación de una investigación arqueológica regional que integró los conceptos de taskscape y paisajes en conflicto con análisis estadísticos y de Sist...

St. Eustatius, a small island in the northeastern Lesser Antilles, was one of the busiest ports in the eighteenth-century Atlantic World. Contested between the Dutch, French, and English, the island attracted thousands of ships a year and became one of the most cosmopolitan places in the New World. Moreover, the island played an important role in the American War of Independence (1775-1783), during which large quantities of arms, ammunition, and gunpowder were shipped to the fledgling United ...