One of the largest collections of Egyptian and Sudanese antiquities worldwide was accrued by the Egyptologist Friedrich Wilhelm Freiherr von Bissing (1873–1956). As a scholar, university professor, and politically engaged Prussian nobleman he was an important link in the international network of Egyptology and in the distribution of archaeological objects to museums. He was also active in other disciplines regarding the ancient world, such as Etruscology. Already during his life, the collec...

Dorestad was the largest town of the Low Countries in the Carolingian era. As an inland port on the edge of the Frankish Empire, it functioned as an international hub, connecting the North Sea World with the Continent and the Low Countries with Italy. In 2024, the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden hosted its quinquennial international congress based around Dorestad, located at present-day Wijk bij Duurstede. This fourth edition, ‘Dorestad and Everything After’, coincided with the l...

This volume comprises 100 archaeological air photographs, principally of sites dating to the Iron Age and Roman periods in Northern Britain, resulting from aerial survey between 1970 and 1995, before the advent of drones when archaeological air photography was still dependent upon the use of light aircraft. The principal target areas were the Anglo-Scottish Borders, central Scotland (crannogs) and the Northern and Western Isles (brochs and duns). Practically, in order to maximise intended ...

For the first time seasonality is placed at the centre of the study of rural settlement. Using a Europe-wide approach, it provides a primer of examples, of techniques and of ideas for the identification and understanding of seasonal settlement. As such, it marks an important new step in the interpretation of the use of the countryside by historic communities linked to the annual passage of the year. The particular studies are introduced by an opening essay which draws wider conclusions about ...

Broomcorn/common/proso millet (Panicum miliaceum) is a cereal crop that originated in East Asia and was transferred westward to Europe, where it was introduced in the mid-2nd millennium BCE, at the height of the Bronze Age. Archaeobotanists from the Collaborative Research Centre 1266, supported by many colleagues, conducted a large-scale programme of radiocarbon dating of millet grains from prehistoric Europe. They discovered that the spread of this crop on the continent happened quickly, ext...

This book sketches the first archaeological history of the lower Sirwan/upper Diyala river valley of north-east Iraq and adjacent landscapes over a period of c. 12,000 years, from the earliest signs of human presence until the mid-first millennium BCE, based on data gathered between 2013 and 2023 by the Sirwan Regional Project (SRP).

The central research objective of the SRP is to move beyond traditional historical topoi and their predominantly external and state-centric perspectives that hav...

This book sketches the first archaeological history of the lower Sirwan/upper Diyala river valley of north-east Iraq and adjacent landscapes over a period of c. 12,000 years, from the earliest signs of human presence until the mid-first millennium BCE, based on data gathered between 2013 and 2023 by the Sirwan Regional Project (SRP).

The central research objective of the SRP is to move beyond traditional historical topoi and their predominantly external and state-centric perspectives that hav...

In the spring of 1497, the Hispaniolan cacica (chieftess) Anacaona presented Columbus’ brother, Adelantado (Governor) Bartolomé Colón, with a lavish assortment of Indigenous wealth, including both woven textiles and balls of spun cotton, “so large that a man could hardly lift them.”

These had been stored among the cacical reserves, held in readiness for distribution in ways deemed useful to the chiefs and their communities – from spun cotton for artisanal commissions, to finished ob...

Bodies are immanent element of socio-cultural negotiation. Since the 19th century, Egyptology has produced vast knowledge on the ancient Egyptian bodies (human, divine, animal), however, mainly by focusing on funerary aspects of ancient Egyptian culture. Different paradigm shifts and turns of the last few decades (hermeneutics, semiotics, social-constructivism, ontology etc.), echo through Egyptology, but are still not part of the dominant discourse. This is also the case for the so-called �...

Fifteen new contributors bring fresh perspectives to the fifth edition of The Human Past, the most authoritative introduction to world prehistory, revealing our shared human story with the latest scholarship. Thoroughly updated by its team of authors, including 15 leading specialists new to this edition, this fifth edition introduces students to a more equitable and representative view of world prehistory. A total of 30 contributing authors – a truly international team of experts – introd...