Archaeological science, methodology and techniques

Archaeological remains are ‘fragmented by definition’: apart from exceptional cases, the study of the human past takes into account mainly traces, ruins, discards, and debris of past civilizations.

Phytoliths - rigid microscopic bodies that occur in most plant species - have gone a long way since that day when Darwin became curious about a fine powder deposited on the instruments of the HMS Beagle.

Volume detailing the effects of the molecular revolution on anthropological genetics and how it redefined the field.

Written for researchers, university lecturers and advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students in all fields of archaeological and anthropological study, this collection features new research from different excavation sites around Indonesia together with pioneering expert analysis.

This volume examines prehistoric copper mining in Europe, from the first use of the metal eight thousand years ago in the Balkans to its widespread adoption during the Bronze Age.

Waste represents a category of ‘things’, which is familiar and ubiquitous but rarely reflected in archaeological and cultural studies.

This book asks new and interesting questions about how our prehistoric ancestors survived and how they settled the world.

The Great Houses of the prehistoric and early medieval periods were enormous structures whose forms were modelled on those of domestic dwellings.

Scientific soil prospecting methods can give dramatic pictures of buried archaeological sites, and sometimes information on what occurred within them, before any earth has ben removed.

The fiery transformation of the dead is replete in our popular culture and Western modernity's death ways, and yet it is increasingly evident how little this disposal method is understood by archaeologists and students of cognate disciplines in the humanities and social sciences.

For more than a century, the study of hunting and gathering societies has been central to the development of both archaeology and anthropology as academic disciplines, and has also generated widespread public interest and debate.

How much was archaeology founded on prejudice?

Archaeologists have focused a great deal of attention on explaining the evolution of village societies and the transition to a 'Neolithic' way of life.

Social Transformations in Archaeology explores the relevance of archaeology to the study of long-term change and to the understanding of our contemporary world.

Using the right media, archeologists can and must educate and excite the people who need their information.

The book examines the movement of people, artefacts and technologies across the Mediterranean - a key arena for studying ancient mobilities.

This second volume on Early Cycladic (and Cycladicising) sculptures found in the Aegean, examines finds from mainland Greece, along with the rarer items from the north and east Aegean, with the exception of those discovered in the Cyclades (covered in the preceding volume), and of those found in Crete.

The first scientific volume to compile the modern analytical techniques for glass analysis, Modern Methods for Analysing Archaeological and Historical Glass presents an up-to-date description of the physico-chemical methods suitable for determining the composition of glass and for speciation of specific components.

Our Blue Planet provides a comprehensive introduction to the field of maritime and underwater archaeology.

65,000 years ago, modern humans arrived in Australia, having navigated more than 100 km of sea crossing from southeast Asia.

Complete guide to genetics, evolution, and variation in human tooth crown and root morphology in modern and fossil Homo sapiens.

Sticks, Stones, and Broken Bones: Neolithic Violence in a European Perspective presents an up-to-date overview of the evidence for violent injuries on human skeletons of the Neolithic period in Europe, ranging from 6700 to 2000 BC.

Reconstructing a Maritime Past argues that rather than applying geo-ethnic labels to shipwrecks to describe "e;Greek"e; or "e;Roman"e; seafaring, a more intriguing alternative emphasizes a maritime culture's valorization of the Mediterranean Sea.

The Routledge Handbook of Archaeothanatology spans the gap between archaeology and biological anthropology, the field and laboratory, and between francophone and anglophone funerary archaeological approaches to the remains of the dead and the understanding of societies, past and present.

Based on modern clinical knowledge Palaeopathology is designed to help bone specialists with diagnosis of diseases in skeletal assemblages.

Archaeology is in crisis.

This is the first book-length study to explore the relationship between archaeology and modern thought, showing how philosophical ideas that developed in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries still dominate our approach to the material remains of ancient societies.

An examination of dental studies in archaeology and related disciplines, first published in 2005.

Since its first publication, Field Archaeology: An Introduction has proved to be a key handbook for all those undertaking introductory courses in archaeology or volunteering on their first excavation.

This guide is designed as an introduction to the basic methods for identifying mammal bones and teeth.

It is little secret that most archaeologists are uneasy with statistics.

The Henry VII and Elizabeth of York marriage bed, rediscovered in 2010, is an exceptional piece of late medieval English royal furniture: no other equivalent example of secular domestic furniture is known to have survived, and, indeed, precious little woodwork from this period remains outside of ecclesiastical settings.

In Doors: History, Repair and Conservation, readers are guided through the function, history, development, care, repair and conservation of doors by chapter authors who are experts in their field.

This monograph comprises the final publication of a study supported by the British Institute of Persian Studies and undertaken by Seth Priestman and Derek Kennet at the University of Durham.

Artefact evidence has the unique power to illuminate many aspects of life that are rarely explored in written sources, yet this potential has been underexploited in research on Roman and Late Antique Egypt.

This volume provides a synthetic review of the background and archaeology that has emerged through archaeological interventions associated with the quarrying of sand, gravel, and rock for aggregates.

Geographic information systems GIS applications are viewed with increasing interest by the archaeology community and this book, with its diversity of topics and authorship, should be a useful resource.

The College of St George at Windsor Castle was founded by Edward III in 1348 to support the newly created Order of the Garter, and to this day fulfills the same primary purpose.

This book looks inward to reveal and analyse problems in archaeology itself.

This book traces the development of 'community archaeology', identifying both its advantages and disadvantages by describing how and why tensions have arisen between archaeological and community understandings of the past.

Debating Archaeological Empiricism examines the current intellectual turn in archaeology, primarily in its prehistoric and classical branches, characterized by a return to the archaeological evidence.

Industrial Archaeology (1972) presents an in-depth investigation of the nature, methods and materials of the archaeology of industry in the UK, from pre-Roman times to the late twentieth century.

A detailed interdisciplinary exploration of ancient glass, examining why and how glass was invented and various contexts of its subsequent development and use.

An evidence based account of how to recognise and diagnose pathological lesions in human remains.

This volume brings together a range of contributors with different and hybrid academic backgrounds to explore, through bioarchaeology, the past human experience in the territories that span Mesoamerica.

This book explores the development of territorial identity in the late prehistoric, Roman, and early medieval periods.

Petroglyphic rock art in Mongolia''s Altai Mountains is used to study the intersection of prehistoric culture and paleoenvironment.