This edited volume explores how (what is today) Scotland can be compared with, contrasted to, or was connected with other parts of Early Medieval Europe. Far from a 'dark age', Early Medieval Scotland (AD 300-900) was a crucible of different languages and cultures, the world of the Picts, Scots, Britons and Anglo-Saxons. Though long regarded as somehow peripheral to continental Europe, people in Early Medieval Scotland had mastered complex technologies and were part of sophisticated intellect...

Maritime archaeologist Honor Frost (1917-2010) was a pioneer in her field. She left a rich legacy through her innovative research conducted in the eastern Mediterranean on the remains of ports and harbours, sea-level change, shipwrecks and ship construction, and ancient anchors.

This volume provides an appreciation of Frost's work and gives a point-in-time assessment of current projects in the region that are in effect a continuity of Frost's work. As such, it provides an insight into the deve...

In 2015 at Dalfsen (the Netherlands) archaeologists made an amazing discovery. They found a burial ground dating from the TRB-period (3000-2750 BC) comprising 141 burial pits. The TRB is dated in the last phase of the Middle Neolithic period and is well known for its megalithic monuments which are widespread through large parts of northern Europe.

Until recently few non-megalithic burial grounds were known and the find of the Dalfsen burials created new opportunities to study the mortuary rit...

People and spaces have always been connected by routes: paths, trails, roads – on land, on water and sometimes even through the air, over hill and dale as well as over wooden planks, pavement and asphalt. Humans and animals followed them. The routes directed the circulation of raw materials and goods. They determined the paths on which humans fled from misery and danger, and they constituted the physical and imagined veins of networks between communities. All these cultural and biological c...

During funerals of nobles in the Kuba kingdom (Democratic Republic of Congo), visitors used to theatrically offer so-called bongotols to the deceased and the mourning family. These highly appreciated valuables were either positioned under the corpse to support it or displayed on top of it.

In addition to their religious meaning they displayed the status and wealth of both givers and takers. Visitors would receive similar items in return. Afterwards the bongotols were stashed until, on occasio...

The biographies of flint objects reveal their various and changing roles in prehistoric life. Using raw material sourcing, technological analysis, experimental archaeology, microwear and residue studies the author tells the story of flint from the Early Neolithic to its virtual demise in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age, incorporating data from settlements, burials and hoards from the region of the present-day Netherlands. This richly illustrated book shows the way flint functioned in daily...

Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) have proliferated at an unprecedented pace since the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Although the WTO legally recognizes countries' entitlement to form RTAs, neither the WTO nor parties to RTAs have an unequivocal understanding of the relationship between the WTO and RTAs. In other words, the legal controversies, the result of uncertainty regarding the application of the WTO/GATT laws, risk undermining the objectives of the multilateral trade s...

Central Javanese temples were not built anywhere and anyhow. On the contrary: their positions within the landscape and their architectural designs were determined by socio-cultural, religious and economic factors. This book explores the correlations between temple distribution, natural surroundings and architectural design to understand how Central Javanese people structured the space around them, and how the religious landscape thus created developed.Besides questions related to territory an...

The hills overlooking the north flank of the Rhine valley in the Netherlands are dotted with hundreds of prehistoric burial mounds. Only a few of them were ever investigated by archaeologists, and even nowadays the many barrows preserved in the extensive forests of the Utrechtse Heuvelrug are the oldest visible witnesses of a remote, but largely unknown prehistoric past.

In 2006, a team of archaeologists of the Ancestral Mounds project of Leiden University set out to investigate these age-old...

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) is generally seen as one of the most important figures whose ideas had a great influence on the French Revolution (1789). Many immediately associate him with the concept of "the noble savage." However, just as with his political and philosophical writings, his love for botany and scenery would change the landscape of continental Europe, if not the world.

This book presents a unique view of the young Rousseau's awakening love for plants, and his sometimes euph...