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146 results in Archaeological Theory and Methods

Page 1 of 8

Zooarchaeology
  • 3rd edition
  • Elizabeth J. Reitz, Barnet Pavão-Zuckerman, Elizabeth S. Wing
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    November 2025
    Print publication:
    30 November 2025
  • This leading textbook introduces students and practitioners to the identification and analysis of animal remains at archaeology sites. The authors use global examples from the Pleistocene era into the present to explain how zooarchaeology allows us to form insights about relationships among people and their natural and social environments, especially site-formation processes, economic strategies, domestication, and paleoenvironments. This new edition reflects the significant technological developments in zooarchaeology that have occurred in the past two decades, notably ancient DNA, proteomics, and isotope geochemistry. Substantially revised to reflect these trends, the volume also highlights novel applications, current issues in the field, the growth of international zooarchaeology, and the increased role of interdisciplinary collaborations. In view of the growing importance of legacy collections, voucher specimens, and access to research materials, it also includes a substantially revised chapter that addresses management of zooarchaeological collections and curation of data.

The Archaeology of Han China
  • Alice Yao, Wengcheong Lam
  • Published online:
    12 December 2024
    Print publication:
    12 December 2024
  • The Han Dynasty, which ruled from 202 BCE to 212 CE, is often taken as a reference point and model for Chinese identity and tradition. Covering a geographical expanse comparable to that of the People's Republic of China, it is foundational to understanding Chinese culture and politics, past and present. This volume offers an up-to-date overview of the archaeology of the Han Empire. Alice Yao and Wengcheong Lam study the period via an interdisciplinary approach that combines textual and archaeological evidence. Exploring the dynamics of empire building in East Asia, Yao and Lam draw on recent archaeological discoveries to recast Western Han imperialism as a series of contingent material projects, including the organization of spatial orders, foodways, and the expansion of communication and ritual activities. They also demonstrate how the archaeology of everyday life offers insights into the impact of social change, and how people negotiated their identities and cultural affiliations as individuals and imperial subordinates.

The Archaeology of Southern Africa
  • 2nd edition
  • Peter Mitchell
  • Published online:
    15 May 2024
    Print publication:
    06 June 2024
  • Some of humanity's earliest ancestors lived in southern Africa and evidence from sites there has inspired key debates on human origins and the emergence of complex cognition. Building on its rich rock art heritage, archaeologists have developed theoretical work that continues to influence rock art studies worldwide, with the relationship between archaeological and anthropological data central to understanding past hunter-gatherer, pastoralist, and farmer communities alike. New work on pre-colonial states contests models that previously explained their emergence via external trade, while the transformations wrought by European colonialism are being rewritten to emphasise Indigenous agency, feeding into efforts to decolonise the discipline itself. Inhabited by humans longer than almost anywhere else and with an unusually varied, complex past, southern Africa thus has much to contribute to archaeology worldwide. In this revised and updated edition, Peter Mitchell provides a comprehensive and extensively illustrated synthesis of its archaeology over more than three million years.

The Medieval Persian Gulf
  • Brian Ulrich
  • Published by:
    Amsterdam University Press
    Published online:
    20 February 2024
    Print publication:
    30 November 2023
  • The Persian Gulf today is home to multiple cosmopolitan urban hubs of globalization. This did not start with the discovery of oil. This book tells of the Gulf from the rise of Islam until the coming of the Portuguese, when port cities such as Siraf, Sohar, and Hormuz were entrepots for trading pearls, horses, spices, and other products across much of Asia and eastern Africa. Indeed, products traded there became a key part of the material culture of medieval Islamic civilization, and the Gulf region itself was a crucial membrane between the Middle East and the world of the broader Indian Ocean. The book also highlights the long-term presence of communities of South Asian and African ancestry, as well as patterns of religious change among Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, and Muslims that belie the image of a region long polarized between Arabs and Persians and Sunnis and Shi'ites.

Reading Memory Sites through Signs
  • Hiding into Landscape
  • Edited by Cristina Demaria, Patrizia Violi
  • Published by:
    Amsterdam University Press
    Published online:
    17 February 2024
    Print publication:
    18 September 2023
  • What can space tell us about our past? Which stories do memory sites narrate? Which memories do they transmit? And, more importantly, how can we read their meanings? Semiotics can provide us with a homogeneous, shareable and theoretically sound methodology to analyse space within a comparable and common frame of reference for scholars of memory studies and traumatic heritage, as well as for historians, architects and museum curators. The book describes in clear and understandable language the main semiotic concepts that can be used to analyse space, illustrating them with carefully chosen case studies of memory spaces - monuments, museums, post-war urban restoration, filmed and virtual space - in order to show the applicability and efficacy of a semiotic methodology.

The Archaeology of the Pampas and Patagonia
  • Gustavo G. Politis, Luis A. Borrero
  • Published online:
    14 February 2024
    Print publication:
    29 February 2024
  • In this book, Gustavo G. Politis and Luis A. Borrero explore the archaeology and ethnography of the indigenous people who inhabited Argentina's Pampas and the Patagonia region from the end of the Pleistocene until the 20th century. Offering a history of the nomadic foragers living in the harsh habitats of the South America's Southern Cone, they provide detailed account of human adaptations to a range of environmental and social conditions. The authors show how the region's earliest inhabitants interacted with now-extinct animals as they explored and settled the vast open prairies and steppes of the region until they occupied most of its available habitats. They also trace technological advances, including the development of pottery, the use of bows and arrows, and horticulture. Making new research and data available for the first time, Politis and Borrero's volume demonstrates how geographical variation in the Southern Cone generated diverse adaptation strategies.

The Archaeology of Pharaonic Egypt
  • Society and Culture, 2700–1700 BC
  • Richard Bussmann
  • Published online:
    06 February 2024
    Print publication:
    30 November 2023
  • In this book, Richard Bussmann presents a fresh overview of ancient Egyptian society and culture in the age of the pyramids. He addresses key themes in the comparative research of early complex societies, including urbanism, funerary culture, temple ritual, kingship, and the state, and explores how ideas and practices were exchanged between ruling elites and local communities in provincial Egypt. Unlike other studies of ancient Egypt, this book adopts an anthropological approach that places people at the centre of the analysis. Bussmann covers a range of important themes in cross-cultural debates, such as materiality, gender, non-elite culture, and the body. He also offers new perspectives on social diversity and cultural cohesion, based on recent discoveries. His study vividly illustrates how our understanding of ancient Egyptian society benefits from the application of theoretical concepts in archaeology and anthropology to the interpretation of the evidence.

Perspectivism in Archaeology
  • Insights into Indigenous Theories of Reality
  • Andrés Laguens
  • Published online:
    01 February 2024
    Print publication:
    08 February 2024
  • Perspectivism in Archaeology explores recurring features in Amerindian mythology and cosmology in the past, as well as distinctions and similarities between humans, non-humans and material culture. It offers a range of possibilities for the reconstruction of ancient ontological approaches, as well as new ways of thinking in archaeology, notably how ancient ontological approaches can be reconciled with current archaeological theories. In this volume, Andrés Laguens contributes a new set of approaches that incorporate Indigenous theories of reality into an understanding of the South American archaeological record. He analyses perspectivism as a step-by-step theory with clear explanations and examples and shows how it can be implemented in archaeological research and merged with ontological approaches. Exploring the foundations of Amerindian perspectivism and its theoretical and methodological possibilities, he also demonstrates applications of its precepts through case studies of ancient societies of the Andes and Patagonia.

The Royal Workshops of the Alhambra

Network Science in Archaeology
  • Tom Brughmans, Matthew A. Peeples
  • Published online:
    06 April 2023
    Print publication:
    13 April 2023
  • The Cambridge Manual to Archaeological Network Science provides the first comprehensive guide to a field of research that has firmly established itself within archaeological practice in recent years. Network science methods are commonly used to explore big archaeological datasets and are essential for the formal study of past relational phenomena: social networks, transport systems, communication, and exchange. The volume offers a step-by-step description of network science methods and explores its theoretical foundations and applications in archaeological research, which are elaborately illustrated with archaeological examples. It also covers a vast range of network science techniques that can enhance archaeological research, including network data collection and management, exploratory network analysis, sampling issues and sensitivity analysis, spatial networks, and network visualisation. An essential reference handbook for both beginning and experienced archaeological network researchers, the volume includes boxes with definitions, boxed examples, exercises, and online supplementary learning and teaching materials.

Allen Brown's English Castles
  • R. Allen Brown
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    31 March 2023
    Print publication:
    14 October 2004
  • A reissue of the classic guide to the origins, purpose and identity of the great castles of England and Wales, built after the arrival of the Normans.

Crossing Paths or Sharing Tracks?
  • Future directions in the Archaeological Study of Post-1550 Britain and Ireland
  • Edited by Audrey Horning, Marilyn Palmer
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    07 March 2023
    Print publication:
    19 March 2009
  • Brings together over thirty of the leading scholars in Post Medieval archaeology and examines how this relatively new discipline has developed and where it is going.

The Birth of a Borough
  • An Archaeological Study of Anglo-Saxon Stafford
  • Martin Carver
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    17 February 2023
    Print publication:
    16 December 2010
  • Reports of archaeological investigations into Stafford dramatically reveal the pattern of development of our county towns.

Animal-Human Relationships in Medieval Iceland

The Marlborough Mound
  • Prehistoric Mound, Medieval Castle, Georgian Garden
  • Edited by Richard Barber
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    11 January 2023
    Print publication:
    23 August 2022
  • The Marlborough Mound has recently been recognised as one of the most important monuments in the group around Stonehenge. It was also a medieval castle and a feature in a major seventeenth century garden. This is the first comprehensive history of this extraordinary site.

European Mail Armour
  • Ringed Battle Shirts from the Iron Age, Roman Period and Early Middle Ages
  • Martijn A. Wijnhoven
  • Published by:
    Amsterdam University Press
    Published online:
    24 November 2022
    Print publication:
    08 December 2021
  • Mail armour (commonly mislabelled 'chainmail') was used for more than two millennia on the battlefield. After its invention in the Iron Age, mail rapidly spread all over Europe and beyond. The Roman army, keen on new military technology, soon adopted mail armour and used it successfully for centuries. Its history did not stop there and mail played a vital role in warfare during the Middle Ages up to the Early Modern Period.

    Given its long history, one would think mail is a well-documented material, but that is not the case. For the first time, this books lays a solid foundation for the understanding of mail armour and its context through time. It applies a long-term multi-dimensional approach to extract a wealth of as yet untapped information from archaeological, iconographic and written sources. This is complemented with technical insights on the mail maker's chaîne opératoire.

The Crusades Uncovered
  • Adrian J. Boas
  • Published by:
    Amsterdam University Press
    Published online:
    24 November 2022
    Print publication:
    31 August 2022
  • Adrian J. Boas, an archaeologist with four decades' experience in the field, takes a fresh approach to investigating the experiences of crusaders, pilgrims, and settlers in the crusader states during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The book opens up the experience of medieval travel and crusading by drawing on personal reflection and comparison with contemporary events. Topics covered include wonderment at the strangeness of the East, adjusting to life in the Levant, the horrors of warfare, the drama of fortress and battlefield, and the theatrical beauty of religious architecture, together with new perceptions of a selection of characters known and less-known. The book encourages the reader to think more deeply as to the meaning of the topics involved.

A Handbook of Animals in Old English Texts
  • Todd Preston
  • Published by:
    Amsterdam University Press
    Published online:
    07 October 2022
    Print publication:
    31 May 2022
  • A Handbook of Animals in Old English Texts is the definitive handbook for students, scholars, and observers of the non-human in early medieval England. In this interdisciplinary compendium to the animal inhabitants of medieval Britain, Preston documents each creature mentioned in the Old English literary textual canon and correlates its standard literary interpretation with relevant historical, archaeological, and ecological studies. Beyond its usefulness as a reference work, Preston's text challenges the reader to move beyond a literary analysis of the figural beast to one that leaves space for the actual animal.

Namib
  • The Archaeology of an African Desert
  • John Kinahan
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    07 October 2022
    Print publication:
    21 January 2022
  • The first full-length examination of the archaeology and history of the Namib Desert.

Archaeological Approaches to and Heritage Perspectives on Modern Conflict
  • Beyond the Battlefields
  • Max van der Schriek
  • Published by:
    Amsterdam University Press
    Published online:
    27 April 2022
    Print publication:
    27 January 2022
  • From a wider disciplinary perspective, modern conflict archaeology is now a thoroughly established and mature sub-discipline. However, a significant problem that conflict archaeologists in the Netherlands face is that modern eras, including both World Wars, have so far not received serious attention. Although both World Wars appeal strongly to the popular imagination, until recently Dutch researchers had not approached modern conflict from an academic archaeological perspective to any great extent. This is partly the result of problematic legislation on archaeological activity in the Netherlands. When applied and interpreted appropriately, archaeology can play an important role in the preservation, contemporary experience and historical reconstruction of recent conflicts. However, as this book argues, research methods other than excavations will be needed in order to conduct conflict archaeology in the Netherlands effectively. This study aims to develop a Dutch approach to conflict archaeology, integrating archaeology, heritage research and history at a landscape scale.

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