The shores of the Goloviţaand Razelm lagoons constitute astrategic area, around
which Istros and Orgame established their respective territories duringthe Archaic
period. These Greek cities flourished in contact with local populations, whose gener
al survival (despitethe exception of the Babadag culture) has recentlybeen docu
mented by excavations carriedout on the siteofCălugăra.

The article raises the issue of the nature, intensity and environmental conditions of the settlement processes occurring on the borderline of the loessic Sandomierz Upland and the sandyclay areas of the Iłża Foothills, between the end of the 6th and the beginning of the 4th millennia BC. The results of previously conducted research confirm the high settlement activity in these areas, throughout the period of development of the Danubian cultural groups. The obtained data document the phenomenon of the formation and functioning of the early-agricultural settlement centres in upland areas, located outside the range of compact loess cover, i.e. within ecological and landscape zones that diverge from the basic preferences of the Danubian communities, inhabiting the upland areas of the upper Vistula basin.

Coastal and estuarine ecosystems are particularly sensitive to climate change, placing them at the forefront of challenges to mediate impacts of a warming atmosphere, rising sea-levels, and increasingly frequent extreme weather events. To model potential loss, predict and prepare for future regime shifts, or to build effective conservation policies, it is important to understand the long-term socioecological processes that structure modern ecosystems. We highlight how modern ecological baselines along the Georgia coast of eastern North America are shaped by 5000 years of Indigenous and Euro-American land use. We demonstrate the extent and intensity of manifestations of past land use on modern landscapes, especially by way of quantifying the scale of shell deposition by Indigenous communities and the landscape infrastructure of Euro-American plantations. Through both intentional and unintentional impacts, modern estuarine ecosystems globally are products of these engagements, alterations, and creative transformations that we refer to as deep-time legacy drivers.

Résumé Les données archéologiques et historiques montrent que le site d'Aquilée fut l'un des plus importants ports fluviaux de l'Empire romain. Les recherches multidisciplinaires récentes insistent sur l'importance des voies fluviales dans la plaine deltaïque d'Aquilée au cours de l'Antiquité. Les résultats apportés par les paléoenvironnementalistes attestent la présence de paléochenaux fluviatiles de haute énergie, au moins au nord et à l'est du site. Initialement (ix'-vw s. av. J.-C), le tracé des paléochenaux a suivi une direction de composante principalement N-S, avant d'adopter une direction NE-SW. Les facteurs à l'origine de cette évolution hydrographique sont d'ordre naturel et/ou anthropique. L'interaction entre la paléohydrographie du site, la paléohydrologie des cours d'eau et l'aménagement de la ville romaine est clairement démontrée. Les stratégies de développement urbain évoluent en fonction de la dynamique fluvial...

The Casa della Regina Carolina (CRC) Project at Pompeii documents a large house, Pompeii VIII 3.14 (‘Casa della Regina Carolina’), and excavates its garden in order to explore the ways that Roman domestic gardens shaped the everyday experiences of the people who lived and worked within them. Following an earlier publication in FOLD&R of our first two field seasons (2018–2019), this article presents the results of our 2022–2023 field seasons. Our multidisciplinary research at this site is enabling us to reconstruct human-plant interactions in ancient Pompeii; to redraw the boundaries of the ‘Casa della Regina Carolina’, which we have found was connected in antiquity to the adjacent building VIII 3.15; and to reconsider the range of activities, potentially commercial as well as residential, that took place in the combined dwelling space of VIII 3.14-15. Our findings shed light on Roman gardens not only as spaces of elite socializing, but also labor and non-elite experience. Finally, we argue that gardens provide an opportunity to enrich discussions of material agency by enabling us to explore not only human-thing interactions, but also the activities and agency of domestic plants and animals.

The establishment, location, and physical growth of human settlements are heavily influenced by both natural and anthropogenic factors. Essentially, these settlements represent the initial spatial configurations of human interaction with the natural world, reflecting the impact of the geographical environment on societal structures. This study seeks to explore and assess the Sasanian settlements located in the Namdan Plain, situated in the mountainous region of northern Fars Province, specifically within the vicinity of Eqlid city. Employing a descriptive-analytical approach, this research incorporates statistical analysis to identify ten natural factors that determine the degree of dependence of Sasanian sites on their surrounding environment and landscape. These factors include the proximity of ancient sites to communication routes and rivers, land area, elevation, soil type, land use, slope orientation and gradient, vegetation, and climatic conditions, all of which play a crucial role in the establishment of human settlements. The sites from the Sasanian period were systematically evaluated and ranked based on the influence of geographical and environmental factors, employing Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and statistical techniques, including the TOPSIS hierarchical analysis method in Excel. The findings indicated that, among the environmental variables, the proximity of the sites to rivers and roads, as well as elevation, exhibited the most favorable conditions. Other significant factors, such as slope degree, also played a crucial role in influencing the Sasanian period sites. Conversely, climate, land use, soil, and vegetation were found to have the least impact. The hierarchical analysis revealed that the NS330 site ranked highest among the assessed natural indicators, followed by NS317A in second place and NS326 in third. In contrast, the NS210 site was identified as the lowest in ranking, with NS222 and NS211 following as the next weakest sites. The remaining sites were categorized as relatively prosperous.

Th is volume contains re-editions of articles from diff erent periods of my 40-yearlong research activity in Peru, from the fi rst expedition to the Huaura River Valley, up to the most recent research on the Central Coast. When I fi rst came to Peru in 1972 as an engineering geologist commissioned to document coal reserves, I had already had quite a good knowledge of the archaeology of this region, since I had been interested in it for a few years. I spent the fi rst few months in a mountain town of Oyón in the Lima Region, where I worked in a team developing a geological map of the upper basin of the River Huaura. Th is region turned out to be extremely rich in pre-Columbian historical sites: ruins of fortifi ed settlements and cemeteries. It would be futile to search for any mention of them in the literature of that time. I owe it to the inspiration and kindness of Dr Josefi na Ramos de Cox, director of Seminario de Arqueologia del Instituto Riva-Agüero in Lima, that I started researching and documenting these sites. She allowed me to do fi eldwork under her patronage, to present the materials at meetings in Seminario, and later on also to deposit them there. On similar terms, an archaeological research in the following year, this time in the north of Peru, in the upper part of the Chicama Valley (La Libertad Department), was carried out. It yielded so much material, that I used them to prepare and defend my doctoral thesis in archaeology at Warsaw University, entitled: "Pre-Columbian settlement patterns in the basin of the River Alto Chicama, northern Peru. " Another stay in Peru in 1977 was connected with my participation in a Polish expedition studying agriculture in various Andean countries, which also served to prepare for the arrival of the fi rst Polish research team. Th is was the Polish Scientifi c Expedition to the Andes, which from 1978 on implemented a long-term and multidisciplinary project called Huaura-Checras. I returned to the region I had fi rst visited six years before and devoted myself to studying it for

This paper aims to provide the isotopic characterization of the diet consumed by people buried in a graveyard of the Imperial Rome Suburbium (1st-3rd centuries CE), where numerous children were buried. A sample of 50 human remains from Quarto Cappello del Prete was selected for carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analysis. Published data related to coeval faunal remains set the baseline of the diet. The results for humans were integrated with previously analyzed data from Quarto Cappello del Prete. The resulting sample of 71 people has been dissected for stratification according to demographics, focusing on the ability to ascertain the weaning process in children. Isotopic data are steady with an overall diet mainly based on terrestrial resources, where C 3 plants played a pivotal role in the diet, though the δ 13 C range suggests that the foodstuff should have been heterogeneous. The remarkable amount of children allows us to evaluate the weaning process. Infants seem to be adequately weaned after 3 years, when they were considered as adults to what concerns the dietary habits. These data represent a valuable enhancement for understanding the weaning practices in ancient Rome, contributing to supporting the hypothesis about lifestyle and health in the Roman Imperial period.

Big History is an interdisciplinary approach that examines history from the Big Bang to themodern age, integrating insights from science, history, and the humanities. One of the key components of Big History is Cliodynamics, the study of societal dynamics and historical processes through the lens of complex systems, mathematics, and statistical modeling. This analysis explores the structural elements of Cliodynamics within Big History and seeks to identify potential pathways for developing a framework for human ecodynamics.

The ancient Maya site of Sayi1 is located in the Puuc region of northern Yucatan approximately halfway between the sites of Kabah and Labna (Figure 1). It is a very large site both in terms of extensive public architecture and areal extent, although it is not nearly as well known as Uxma1 nor are many of its structures visited by tourists. Our current knowledge of the site's overall layout is based on the 1934 map prepared by Edwin Shook under the direction of Harry Pollock during the latter's survey of Puuc architecture for the ...

Evaluating archaeobotanical data from over 3.9 million seeds and 124,300 charcoal fragments across 330 archaeological site phases in Southwest Asia, we reconstruct the history of olive and grape cultivation spanning a period of 6,000 years. Combining charcoal and seed data enables investigation into both the production and consumption of olive and grape. The earliest indication for olive and grape cultivation appears in the southern Levant around ca. 5000 BC and 4 th millennium BC respectively, although cultivation may have been practiced prior to these dates. Olive and grape cultivation in Southwest Asia was regionally concentrated within the Levant until 600 BC, although there were periodic pushes to the East. Several indications for climate influencing the history of olive and grape cultivation were found, as well as a correlation between periods of high population density and high proportions of olive and grape remains in archaeological sites. While temporal uncertainty prevents a detailed understanding of the causal mechanisms behind these correlations, we suggest that long distance trade in olives, grapes and their associated products was integral to the economic, social, and demographic trajectories of the region.

The problem in this research is whether the application of role playing techniques through group guidance is effective in increasing the self-esteem of class IX A students at SMPK St. Yoseph Noelbaki for the 2023/2024 academic year? The aim of this research is to determine the effectiveness of applying role playing techniques through group guidance to increase the self-esteem of class IX A students at SMPK St. Yoseph Noelbaki Kupang 2023/2024 academic year The method used in this research is quantitative descriptive using preexperimental design (one-group pretest-posttest design). The instruments used in this research were a self-esteem questionnaire and guidelines for implementing role playing techniques. The data analysis technique uses the t test formula. The results of data analysis show that the t_count value is 33.4268, while the t_table value at the 5% significance level is 2.132. Thus, the t_count>t_table value, this shows that the role playing technique through group guidance is effective in increasing the self-esteem of class IX A students at SMPK St. Yoseph Noelbaki Kupang 2023/2024 academic year. Based on the results of this research, the researcher provides suggestions to: 1) The Principal is expected to further increase collaboration with Guidance and Counseling teachers in the implementation of role playing techniques through group guidance in order to help increase students' self-esteem. 2) Guidance and Counseling Teachers are expected to continuously carry out activities applying role playing techniques through group guidance to increase students' self-esteem. 3) Students are expected to actively participate in participating in activities applying role playing techniques through group guidance to increased self-esteem.

The goal of this talk is to discuss the terms for agricultural crops in the East Baltic and Finnic languages and attempt to calibrate them with the available archaeological and archaeobotanical evidence. The traditional view, which dated the appearance of agriculture in the Eastern Baltic to the Early Neolithic (Rimantienė 1992: 131) can no longer be considered viable, as almost all evidence for agriculture before the Late Bronze Age, or 1st millennium BCE, has proven unreliable when subjected to modern methods (Piličiauskas et al. 2016; Girininkas 2019). This distinguishes the East Baltic markedly from Central Europe, where agriculture had spread with the Neolithic populations deriving from Anatolia in the 6th–5th millennia BCE. At the same time, the modern Baltic languages preserve agricultural terminology directly inherited from Indo-European, including words associated with processing grains and ploughing (Kroonen et al. 2022), suggesting a continuity in agricultural practices, and showing that the ancestors of the speakers of the attested Baltic languages cannot have been present in their current location prior to the Late Bronze Age. It is possible (or even probable) that the Balts were themselves responsible for bringing diversified agriculture to the region.

time, while evidence of wild fruits would suggest that the local environment was also regularly exploited. The recovery of wheat crop processing waste also shows that wheat was regularly processed at the sites, possibly piecemeal and the waste discarded in the settlement. These results highlight the importance of collecting archaeobotanical samples to explore diet and agriculture in the past.

Multicomponent environmental models have increasingly found their way into archaeological research. Mostly, these models aim to understand human patterns as a result of past climatic and environmental conditions over long-term periods. However, major limitations are the low spatial and temporal resolution of the environmental data, and hence the rather static model output. Particular challenges are thus the number of chosen variables, the comprehensiveness of the explanatory parameters, and the integration of socio-cultural decision-making into the model. Here, we present a novel approach to generate annually resolved landcover variability using a broad variety of climatic, geological, hydrological, topographical, and dendrochronological data composites (Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI)). We analyze land-use and settlement capacity and vulnerability to estimate the socio-cultural transformation processes at Basel (Switzerland) during the Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages....

The Carpathian Basin represents the cradle of human agricultural development during the Neolithic period, when large parts were transformed into ‘cultural landscapes’ by first farmers from the Balkans. It is assumed that an Early Neolithic subsistence economy established along the hydrologic systems and on Chernozem soil patches, which developed from loess deposits. However, recent results from soil chemistry and geoarchaeological analyses raised the hypothesis that extensive Chernozem coverage developed from increased land-use activity and that Early Neolithic ‘cultural’ groups were not restricted to loess-covered surfaces but rather preferred hydromorphic soils that formed in the floodplains. This article performs multivariable statistics from large datasets of Neolithic sites in Hungary and allows tracing Early to Late Neolithic site preferences from digital environmental data. Quantitative analyses reveal a strong preference for hydromorphic soils, a significant avoidance of loe...

Modeling of environmental factors in archaeological research leads to a better understanding of human interaction with landscapes. The strict selection of suitable settlement spots is controlled by various influencing parameters like landscape permeability, soil quality, flood risk and erosion, thus creating a collection of different location factors. Unfortunately, large-scale excavations of Early Medieval settlements in southern Germany are extremely rare. This article presents spatially analyzed and remotely sensed environmental data from the Merovingian settlement and graveyard complex at Lauchheim, Germany. Predictive modeling of potential landuse areas in heterogeneous regional settings allows the estimation of the range of human-environmental interaction, enabling the identification of possible settlement spots. Mapping of potential vulnerability can further encourage future research.

The following report describes Phase III archaeological work at site 38BU2033, Palmetto Bluff, Town of Bluffton, Beaufort County, South Carolina. The site was described by Brockington and Associates, Inc. (Brockington) in 2004 as a precontact site in the western section of Palmetto Bluff. The site was adjacent to wetlands and measured approximately 30 by 15 meters. Brockington recommended the site as ineligible for the National Register of Historic Places because of the few artifacts that were recovered and what archaeologists identified as a low potential for intact features (Baluha et al. 2004:290-1). Although the South Carolina State Historic Preservation Office agreed with the assessment, they requested that the site undergo further testing.

Additional excavations by Integrated Archaeological Services, Inc. and Palmetto Bluff, LLC in 2006 and 2007 confirmed the earlier assessment.

Rezension zu: Siegmar von Schnurbein (Hrsg.), Atlas der Vorgeschichte. Europa von den ersten Menschen bis Christi Geburt. Mit Beitragen von Bernhard Hansel, Carola Metzner-Nebelsick, Johannes Muller, Rosemarie Muller, Susanne Sievers und Thomas Terberger. Verlag Konrad Theiss, Stuttgart, zweite, korrigierte Auflage 2010 (erste Auflage 2009). 240 Seiten mit 120 Karten und 150 Farbabbildungen einschlieslich 3 Chronologietabellen

Many cities, all over the world, have disappeared over the centuries, abandoned - but perhaps never forgotten -, destroyed by natural disasters or buried under new urban layers (Teotihuacán, Chichén Itzá, Copàn, Tulum, Angkor, Petra, Rome, Pompeii, Herculaneum, Brescia), re-emerging for different reasons. Fascinating historians, explorers, archaeologists, architects and artists, the ‘lost cities’ - both literally and metaphorically - have continued to exist in literary sources, descriptions, chronicles and sometimes in iconographic representations.
Pompeii and Herculaneum are two of the most famous cities that disappeared due to natural disasters. Although according to historiographical and narrative tradition their ‘discovery’ occurred in conjunction with the start of the Bourbon excavations in the 18th century, the VeLoCi project, however, has demonstrated how even before the start of systematic excavations, material traces of the existence of ancient cities had emerged and, on the other hand, there was no lack of literary, antiquarian and scientific sources dedicated to the history of these disappeared cities. Similarly to the Vesuvian cities, other cities, which disappeared following catastrophes or simple stratification, were not unearthed, despite their historical past being well known.
What was then the perception, the relationship of coexistence and/or study and knowledge with the buried/lost cities in the different cultures of the world in the early modern era? What phenomena or episodes have reactivated their systematic research? What are the operational, scientific and epistemological approaches to the discovery of the past? What are the reasons that suggest seeking and valorising the past?

This article evaluates the current state of paleoethnobotany since Hastorf's 1999 review published in this journal. We discuss advances in methods, ancient subsistence reconstructions, the origins and intensification of agriculture, and how plants inform on issues of political economy and identity. Significant methodological developments in the extraction, identification, and analysis of starch grains and phytoliths have led to advancements in our knowledge of early plant domestication and the transition to food production. Paleoethnobotanists increasingly are using more complex quantitative techniques to characterize their data, which have resulted in more nuanced interpretations of plants that fall within the purview of social archaeology and allow us to address issues related to gender, identity, and ritual practice.

Discoveries of Triticum dicoccum (emmer wheat) on two middle Saxon settlements in the Thames Valley point to the re-introduction of this crop to Britain after the end of the Roman period. Radiocarbon determinations on charred glumes confirm the dating of the remains.

This paper examines the impact on woodlands associated with burnt mound use from floodplain sediments and peats, using a combination of pollen, non-pollen palynomorphs, micro-and micro-charcoal and worked wood for the first time. We present this data from a multi-period burnt mound complex, dating from the Late Neolithic to the Medieval period, at Ballygawley, Co. Tyrone, Northern Ireland, to reconstruct vegetation changes from the Neolithic onwards to establish the significance of these changes, in particular on woodlands, whilst the burnt mounds were in use. The findings from the macroscopic charcoal suggests the most abundant trees were commonly, but not exclusively, exploited. Local woodland was seemingly unaffected by use of burnt mounds during the Neolithic and early Bronze Age based on pollen evidence. A sustained increase in microscopic charcoal coincides with a permanent decrease in alder-carr woodland during a period of near continuous burnt mound use between 1725 and 530 BC and a second phase of high microscopic charcoal values, c. AD 880, corresponds to the end of the penultimate phase of burnt mound use. Evidence from the worked wood indicates that some form of woodland management may have used for hazel from the Neolithic onwards. Keywords: prehistory, medieval, burnt mounds, pollen, non-pollen palynomorphs, charcoal, woodland management, Northern Ireland. archaeological enigma. Until, recently, few palaeoenvironmental studies have focussed specifically on understanding the function and wider environmental context of burnt mounds (e.g. Innes 1998; Gonzalez et al. 2000). Brown et al. (2016) summarises some of the recent palaeoenvironmental work done in Ireland and suggests that the most likely function of burnt mounds studied was textile production or activities related to hide cleaning and tanning. Wheeler et al. (2016) also used a palaeoecological approach to place a number of Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age burnt mounds into an environmental context at two locations in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. Palynological results from their study showed that activity horizons at each site shared similar characteristics: high microscopic charcoal values, repetitive fluctuations in tree and shrub taxa, increased Sphagnum, and the presence of non-pollen palynomorphs (NPPs), all of which could be diagnostic indicators of burnt mounds in palynological records. While the data did not allow Wheeler et al. (2016) to ascribe a specific function for the burnt mounds, the 'seesaw' pattern of tree and shrub pollen, combined with the macroscopic charcoal data, indicate possible species selection and management of the local woodland species for fuelwood. This study focusses upon a burnt mound complex at Ballygawley, where activity dates from the Late Neolithic to the medieval period. We present microfossil data from a new sampling site within the burnt mound complex, together with new charcoal (spanning the mid Bronze Age to the medieval period) and wood technology data (from burnt mound troughs). The aims of the paper are to: (i) reconstruct the vegetation history of a burnt mound complex using pollen, NPPs,

Fil: Grana, Lorena Giselle. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas. Centro de Investigaciones y Transferencia de Catamarca. Universidad Nacional de Catamarca. Centro de Investigaciones y Transferencia de Catamarca; Argentina

Beginning in 2019, a program of geoarchaeology and soil micromorphology sampling was carried out in order to investigate seismically triggered soft sediment deformation structures (SSDS) in direct association with architectural remains of Hellenistic Helike at the Romanos site, the western Helike area. The geoarchaeological subfield of soil micromorphology extends mac-ro- and meso-scales of analysis of archaeological soils and sediments for interpreting post-depositional processes, paleoenvironmental and anthropogenic soil formations and disturbances, and past human-environment relationships. Geological phenomena, such as earthquakes, liquefaction, landslides, slumps, and flooding, have an impact on soil formation, and techniques of soil micromorphology have the potential to detect their geological residues in direct correlation with observed material destruction.

This paper presents the results of soil micromorphological analysis of Hellenistic Helike, which attest to not only earthquakes but also other geological hazards, including flooding and coastal change. The discovery of SSDS in the stratigraphy in layers below, through, and above building destruction provides evidence of geological deformation in direct association with Hellenistic architecture and occupation. Investigations of SSDS in Hellenistic Helike demonstrate the efficacy of applying soil micromorphological techniques for distinguishing the effects of earthquakes and other geological hazards on the human-built environment and past occupation. This innovative application of soil micromorphology offers avenues for further applications in other occupational contexts of the Helike plain, and in Mediterranean archaeology more broadly, to investigate and interpret geological aspects of the human past.

This chapter considers the transition from village to urban-quality prehistoric settlements during the early Holocene in Anatolia. Here, the development of sedentism, increasingly complex social practices, and ecological strategies reliant on agriculture and animal husbandry, resulted in the emergence of densely populated settlements. Th e so-called ’mega-site’ of Çatalhöyük (7,100-5,950 cal. BC) displays a continuous 10 metre deep occupation sequence, reminiscent of urban contexts in later periods. This large site represents the climax of a process of increasing settlement size that originated with smaller settled communities in the Konya Plain. Recent work at the early agricultural settlement of Boncuklu (8,300-7,800 cal. BC), located 9.5 km from Çatalhöyük and predating this larger site, is beginning to shed light into the complexities and transformations of the earliest urban expressions.

Micromorphological approaches to these two sites have contributed to issues key to our understanding of what constitutes urban space and how it developed, including intensity of occupation, construction techniques and concepts of space. Comparative results point towards continuity in the treatment of space inside structures, manifested in clearly demarcated areas, and in the rebuilding of houses on the same locations. Dissimilarities in the use and organisation of communal open areas at these two sites suggest divergent concepts of discard, accessibility and management in open spaces, likely a refl ection of diff erences in community building and socialisation practices related to intensity of population agglomeration.

Cosa c'entra l'archeologia con il senso d'identità, con l'integrazione e l'esclusione nella nostra società, la criminalità ambientale, la lotta all'illegalità, la politica, il senso dell'impermanenza? Può sembrare un reportage di denuncia, ma questo articolo nasce per caso, da alcune foto scattate per testimoniare la violenza di un evento poco prima che ne venissero cancellate le tracce.

 A new method is proposed to apply spatial analysis to uneven archaeological record.  Mesoscale settlement studies need to integrate temporal uncertainty in order to understand spatial dynamics  Late Prehistory in Besòs valley presents an unequal quality of archaeological data

past communities. Archaeobotanical investigations, especially when combined with stable isotopic analyses on archaeological plant materials, can provide us with information about anthropogenic landscapes and human-ecological interactions, including land management and human responses to climatic and ecological variations, and environmental stresses. The Bronze Age communities of Anatolia witnessed the formation of larger and more densely organized settlements with more centralized governance structures; and by the later Middle Bronze Age (MBA) and Late Bronze Age (LBA) of the second millennium bc, they were either woven into or certainly well aware of the first Anatolian empires, notably that of the Hittites (Bryce 2005, 2011; Glatz 2009; Bachhuber 2012; Roosevelt and Luke 2017). To the west, the Aegean world also saw the rise of the regionally powerful Minoans and Mycenaeans (Mountjoy 1998). From large settlement centres, leadership exerted control and influence Communicated by S. M. Valamoti.

This paper explores the nature and dynamics of adaptation and resilience in the face of a diverse and varied environmental and ecological context using the case study of South Asia's Indus Civilization (ca. 3000-1300 BC). Most early complex societies developed in regions where the climatic parameters faced by ancient subsistence farmers were varied but rain falls primarily in one season. In contrast, the Indus Civilization developed in a specific environmental context that spanned a very distinct environmental threshold, where winter and summer rainfall systems overlap. There is now evidence to show that this region was directly subject to climate change during the period when the Indus Civilization was at its height (ca. 2500-1900 BC). The Indus Civilization, therefore, provides a unique opportunity to understand how an ancient society coped with diverse and varied ecologies and change in the fundamental environmental parameters. This paper integrates research carried out as part of the Land, Water and Settlement project in northwest India between 2007 and 2014. Although coming from only one of the regions occupied by Indus populations, these data necessitate the reconsideration of several prevailing views about the Indus Civilization as a whole and invigorate discussion about human-environment interactions and their relationship to processes of cultural transformation. Given the considerable importance of climate, climate change, and human/environment relationships in the present, it is per-haps no surprise that there is ongoing interest in the way that humans caused and/or responded to environmental and ecological change in the past . Unquestionably, there is much to learn from the past about the success or failure of adap-

This dataset contains raw counts of archaeobotanical (macro-)remains from archaeological sites located in mainland Italy, dating from the 1 st century BCE to the 11 th century CE. The 195 carpological assemblages have been collected from a variety of published sources and reports and have been stored in a database with the relevant contextual and geographical metadata. The collection focuses on 40 plant taxa that were most commonly represented across the reviewed archaeobotanical reports, prioritising species with clear associations with agricultural activities and subsistence practices. This data may be used for statistical assessment of spatial and temporal differences in dietary patterns, agrarian strategies and crop distribution in the Italian peninsula between the Roman imperial period and the early medieval age.

L'étude de trois analyses polliniques effectuées sur les sites archéologiques de Chindrieux (Châtillon) et de Tresserve (Le Saut de la Pucelle), sur la rive est du lac du Bourget (Savoie, France) permet de reconstituer l'histoire de la végétation et des impacts anthropiques au ...

Twenty-three artefacts previously identified as being manufactured from adinole, a fine-grained metasomatic rock, from late Middle to Upper Palaeolithic cave sites in southwest Wales have been reexamined in terms of their petrology and geochemistry. Standard petrography has been combined with automated SEM-EDS analysis for a single artefact to determine the mineralogy and textures of that artefact, while portable XRF and μXRF have been combined to establish the geochemical characteristics of all twenty-three artefacts analysed. These investigations have shown that the artefacts were manufactured from rhyolite rather than adinole, a misidentification that has been in the literature for over 100 years. Some artefacts appear to cluster on geochemical plots, such as a group of eight artefacts from Hoyle's Mouth Cave which share petrological characteristics and appear to have come from a common source. In other cases, however, certain artefacts with similar chemistries have dissimilar petrological characteristics and are not from a common source. This highlights the need to consider both petrological and geochemical characteristics when classifying rhyolitic artefacts. The artefacts studied show that this spotted variety of rhyolite was a preferred source of raw material throughout the late Middle and Upper Palaeolithic, despite having no obvious physical or practical advantages. Identifying rhyolite rather than adinole as the raw material used in the manufacture of the studied artefacts negates the need to consider long distance transport of either raw materials or finished artefacts. It strongly suggests that people in southwest Wales, where raw materials were scarce, were using materials that were local to them. Further, there is evidence that people were effectively planning for future use or reuse of artefacts, involving curation of tools. The next phase of work will use the lithological characteristics identified here to explore potential sources for the raw material used in the manufacture of these artefacts.

The archaeological investigation of the Versilian side of the Apuan Alps in northwestern Tuscany, coordinated by the MAPPA
Lab at the University of Pisa, started in 2020. The study aims at an archeo-anthropological exploration of the "middle
mountain," considering it a socially constructed space with a dynamic ecological-relational dimension shaped by human and
non-human interactions.The first phase, completed in October 2022, focused on surface surveys within the municipalities of
Camaiore, Seravezza, and Stazzema. The methodology involves siteless surveying, documenting archaeological and
environmental traces, and collecting oral histories. The ongoing second phase concentrates on the environmental
archaeological framing of collected data to understand mountain landscape transformations over the past two centuries.
Results reveal 467 topographic units emphasizing the modern and contemporary periods. The discussion explores the
interconnectedness of these elements, highlighting the multifaceted landscape of the middle mountain, particularly in the
contemporary era. Notable features include high pasture practices, agricultural terraces, charcoal-related activities, and the
impact of the Gothic Line during World War II. The archaeological record vividly illustrates human abandonment, subsequent
vegetation resurgence, and the rapid transformation of structures over time.

Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis from archaeological human and animal bone collagen is a powerful tool to enlighten past socio-agricultural systems and their close links to environmental conditions. To assess whether isotopic patterns are a function of cultural behavior or rather determined by environmental diversity, we test the spatio-temporal effects of conditional and multivariate exploratory and environmental models on stable isotope variability in the Neolithic and Chalcolithic Carpathian Basin (6000-2800 BCE). Our results stress that variation in environmental settings influence both the isotope baselines and the subsistence strategies of early agricultural societies. Major shifts in isotopic patterns are, however, culturally-driven, which is particularly visible with the development and intensification of adapted agropastoral practices from 5500-5350 BCE and among the diet between different cultural groups. We conclude that socio-cultural diversity was the main driver of dietary habits and isotopic variability in early agropastoral societies of Neolithic Hungary.

The broad outlines of Shetland's trading contacts in the late Middle Ages and Early Modern period are well understood. During the fifteenth, and particularly the sixteenth centuries, trade with Norway was supplemented by growing contact with German merchants. That reorientation was part of a wider trend in the North Atlantic world by which Bergen's role as the staple port for the region ceased to be effectively enforced and then lapsed entirely, and its trade was, at least in part, superseded by the direct contact between merchants from northern Europe and the tributary territories of Norway. German merchants no longer had to wait for dried fish to be brought to Bergen from Iceland, the Faroes and Shetland, but instead could trade directly, first tacitly, and later increasingly openly, with the North Atlantic islands (Gardiner and Mehler, 2019, pp.13-17). For Orkney and Shetland, the legal requirement to channel trade goods through Bergen may, in any case, have been barely enforceable after the transfer of those islands to the kingdom of Scotland in 1468 and 1469 respectively . Brian Smith (2010, p.6) has pointed out that this did not prevent the Danish king, Hans, from behaving as if Shetland was still part of his realm. For example, he granted Dutch merchants the right to trade in Shetland in 1490, and as well as Bergen and Iceland, on the same terms as the merchants of the German Hanse (Diplomatarium Norvegicum 6, no. 609). The net result was that by the sixteenth century, 'the vast majority of Shetland's trading ties ... were with Germany' (Smith, 2010, p.8). The present paper seeks to examine the changing character of Shetland's trade in the period before and immediately after the transfer of control of the islands to Scotland. It is a subject which Brian Smith himself has addressed with regards to the Norwegian aspects of trade. He has summarised the problem with the pithy statement, 'Finally, trade. Here we are almost completely in the dark about the relationship between the two countries' (Smith, 1990, p.28). Such a remark by Shetland's leading historian makes clear that any consideration of the subject is always going to be difficult. Faced with a paucity of documents from the period before the mid-sixteenth century, we have necessarily to be inventive in how we approach the problem. First, we have to review the very

Key points • Chronological and Spatial pattern of the late Quaternary Megafaunal extinctions at global scale. • Correlation between extinctions and primary dispersal of modern human. • Arguments in favor of human driven megafaunal extinctions. • Relevance of the indirect human effects on biodiversity.

editoriale Con il presente fascicolo, la rivista "Studi romani", pubblicata senza interruzioni dal 1953 al 2014, inizia una nuova serie. l'esigenza di creare una nuova serie della rivista è stata principalmente dettata dalla volontà di cercare di uniformarsi ai criteri vigenti per le riviste scientifiche del terzo millennio. Si tratta, come è evidente da questo primo fascicolo, di un percorso ancora parzialmente in fieri, passibile di modifiche e miglioramenti. dapprima bimestrale, poi trimestrale, sino a giungere ad essere una rivista con cadenza annuale, la nuova serie di Studi romani sarà ora pubblicata con periodicità semestrale e, in linea con la decennale tradizione, risponderà alla tipologia alla quale i lettori abituali e gli studiosi erano affezionati. da un lato, dunque, nella prima sezione del fascicolo continueranno ad essere ospitati contributi su roma e la sua cultura dalle origini ai nostri giorni, saggi composti da studiosi italiani e internazionali di chiara fama e da giovani, non solo italiani, di sicura preparazione; dall'altro, come in passato, esisteranno nella seconda sezione del fascicolo rubriche, rassegne, recensioni e sintetici quadri sulla vita dell'istituto Nazionale di Studi romani. il tutto, in linea con le attuali tendenze ampiamente accolte dalla comunità scientifica, sarà vagliato da un ricco e qualificato comitato scientifico integrato di volta in volta da un folto comitato di revisori anonimi, che garantiranno la validità di quanto pubblicato. la veste grafica stessa della rivista è rinnovata: le illustrazioni, talora a colori, affiancheranno i testi e non saranno più a chiusura del fascicolo, nell'auspicio di una più agile e funzionale lettura e comprensione dei contributi. l'intenzione della nuova serie della rivista è quella, come è stato per lunghi decenni, di continuare a rappresentare un osservatorio privilegiato di studi per la nostra città, un luogo di dibattiti e di riflessioni su tematiche ampie, che spesso hanno difficoltà ad essere imbrigliate rigidamente in settori disciplinari univoci. n.s. i, 1