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 ...

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...

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 ...

In which chronological, spatial, and social contexts is gender a relevant social category that is noticeable in the archaeological material? How can transformations in social gender relations and identity be recognized archaeologically? Is the identity of prehistoric people defined by gender? If so, what is the accompanying cultural context? What about gender equality among the scientists working in archaeology? In what degree are research teams, as well as their scientific approaches, biased...

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De Wateringse Binnentuinen zijn nu een ruim opgezette nieuwbouwwijk van Den Haag, met veel groen en water. Bijna vijfduizend jaar geleden was het daar nog veel ruimer, groener en waterrijker. Hier lag toen een duinenrij, vlakbij de toenmalige kustlijn, midden tussen moerassen. Daar verscheen rond 2900 voor Christus een groepje mensen, ongetwijfeld er boomstamkano. Ze verbleven er een paar dagen in een schuilhut en aten er een bruinvis op. Niet lang ...

Growing mountains of waste, decreasing resources and global environmental pollution confront us today with challenges of unprecedented dimensions. Against this background, interest in sustainable and resource-saving concepts is increasing; it is not uncommon to fall back on (supposedly) traditional approaches from times past. But what do we really know about the roots of the circular economy? What turns everyday objects into worthless rubbish, what turns others into highly sought-after object...

In Britain, Ireland and Southern Scandinavia, the Early Neolithic is characterised by monumental constructions (e.g. causewayed enclosures, dolmens) and by specific traditions of depositional practice. Some aspects of these practices are similar in both regions, for example the shapes and use of monuments, their overall developmental sequences, and the traditions of deposition (kinds of objects and their treatment, locations chosen and so on). In spite of these similarities, however, there ha...