This volume is themed around the interdependent relationship between humans and the environment, an important topic in the work of Corrie Bakels. How do environmental constraints and opportunities influence human behaviour and what is the human impact on the ecology and appearance of the landscape? And what can archaeological knowledge contribute to the current discussions about the use, arrangement and depletion of our (local) environment?

Social inequality is a subject of contemporary concerns. Life capabilities and the access to resources vary significantly in rich and poor countries, between elites and others. Furthermore, inequalities based on bio-anthropological and non-bio-anthropological causes are almost universal. Accordingly, inequality was also inherent in past societies and archaeologists have continually examined and interpreted social inequalities in sources such as burial grounds.

This book continues such analyse...

A defining fixture of our contemporary world, video games offer a rich spectrum of engagements with the past. Beyond a source of entertainment, video games are cultural expressions that support and influence social interactions. Games educate, bring enjoyment, and encourage reflection. They are intricate achievements of coding and creative works of art. Histories, ranging from the personal to the global, are reinterpreted and retold for broad audiences in playful, digital experiences. The med...

This volume offers the first comprehensive overview of the urbanisation processes that took place south and north of the Alps during the early first millennium BC, highlighting the interactions between the different geographical areas.

The 26 chapters included in this book provide a combination of theoretical and methodological insights into urbanisation processes, regional overviews, and up-to-date evidence from key archaeological sites. The latter comprise both well-established names such a...

Technology refers to any set of standardised procedures for transforming raw materials into finished products. Innovation consists of any change in technology which has tangible and lasting effect on human practices, whether or not it provides utilitarian advantages. Prehistoric societies were never static, but the tempo of innovation occasionally increased to the point that we can refer to transformation taking place. Prehistorians must therefore identify factors promoting or hindering innov...

The Kiel Graduate School 'Human Development in Landscapes' has conducted research on socio-environmental issues of past societies during the last years. From the North Atlantic to the Persian Gulf and from Peru to the Near East, different attempts on the interfluve of environments and societies in landscapes describe certain historical moments and processes in which the interplay of ecological and societal factors is entangled. Events, processes and structures are described on local, regional...

In order to understand our past, we need to understand ourselves as archaeologists and our discipline. This volume presents recent research into collecting practices of European Antiquities by national museums, institutes and individuals during the 19th and early 20th-century, and the ‘Ancient Europe’ collections that resulted and remain in many museums.

This was the period during which the archaeological discipline developed as a scientific field, and the study of the archaeological par...

Throughout northern Europe, thousands of burial mounds were erected in the third millennium BCE. Starting in the Corded Ware culture, individual people were being buried underneath these mounds, often equipped with an almost rigid set of grave goods. This practice continued in the second half of the third millennium BCE with the start of the Bell Beaker phenomenon. In large parts of Europe, a ‘typical’ set of objects was placed in graves, known as the ‘Bell Beaker package’.

This book ...

This third volume of the BEFIM series addresses the life history of vessels from the Early Celtic hillfort settlements of Heuneburg and Vix-Mont Lassois, from a detailed examination of the manufacturing process to the use and modifications of the final products. Pivotal was an extensive experimental program of dozens of experiments directed at a better understanding of the way this pottery was made and used.

The participation of an experienced potter allowed us to reproduce exact replicas of ...

The importance of skin processing technologies in the history and expansion of humankind cannot be overstated, yet these technologies can be difficult to identify in the archaeological record. This research outlines the development of a systematic, non-destructive method for identifying the tanning technologies used to produce prehistoric skin artefacts. The approach combines extensive archaeological research and over 25 years of the author's personal tanning experience.

The method employs obs...