The aim of this study was to examine aspects of the manufacture of early Anglo- Saxon cloisonn6 garnetjewellery and, wherever possible, to test current theories relating to the different techniques involved. The tests were based on information taken from the following sources: early technical literature dating from the flirst to the twelfth centuries A. D.; more recent literature presenting analyses of materials and methods of construction; a visual, non-destructive examination of surviving examples of Anglo-Saxon jewellery, in particular the Kentish disc brooches from the late sixth and early seventh centuries. The thesisi s presentedin two parts.T he first chaptero f part one lists and discusses the early technical literature in which both materials and methods of production are described. The second chapter examines archaeological evidence of tools relating to the period. Part two of the thesis takes each process in turn and discusses the most relevant literature, ancient and modem, including published analyses of materials and current theories as to production techniques. Each chapter contains descriptions of the tests undertaken and the conclusions reached. As a result of the tests, a clearer understanding of the whole process of making a piece of jewellery is possible, for example the way in which one technique relates to another and the way the techniques appear to have influenced the design of the jewellery. The processesfo r which examination and testing producedt he most conclusive evidence were casting, niello, beaded wire and soldering. The making and shaping of gamet plates was less conclusive, but still produced significant evidence, particularly with regard to the type of garnet from which they might have been made. The question of the possible number and location of workshops was also considered and it is suggested here that while it is possible to group some work on the basis of stylistic features and technique, it is not possible to determine how many workshops were involved. The techniques could have been practised anywhere, and since no site in England could have provided all the necessary materials, it is not possible to speculate as to the location of workshops using techniques or materials as indicators.

The origins of agriculture was one of the most significant turning points in human history, yet, no consensus has been reached on its causes. The most commonly cited precursors to agriculture include population pressure, intensive foraging, and sedentism. These critical factors play central roles in models of agricultural origins, yet have not been rigorously tested. In the Levant, the Natufian period (ca. 13,000-10,500 B.P.) immediately preceded agricultural origins. This research applies ecological models to the Natufian archaeological record to formally test whether population pressure, sedentism, and intensified resource use were major catalysts for economic change at the transition to agriculture. It reconstructs predator-prey relationships by recording the potential effects of human hunting on prey populations and examining how these effects change with varying degrees of hunting pressure. The effects of human hunting on prey populations is governed by the ecological characteristics of prey species. Prey species vary in their cost of capture and their resistance to hunting pressure. The presence of some species and not others at archaeological sites may thus reflect changes in human population density. In archaeofaunal assemblages these changes are expressed in the relative abundance and age structures of prey species. The prey composition and prey age profiles from four Natufian sites---Hayonim Cave, Hayonim Terrace, Hilazon Tachtit, and el-Wad Cave---support three major conclusions. First, site occupation intensity reached unprecedented levels in the Early Natufian in comparison to earlier Paleolithic periods in the region. Second, a substantial decrease in site occupation intensity back to virtually pre-Natufian conditions occurred during the Late Natufian in association with the Younger Dryas climatic event. Finally, the Natufians exerted constant, intensive pressure on their resources throughout the duration of the period. These trends have implications for human demography at the regional scale. During the Early Natufian period, human population densities in the Mediterranean zone peaked for the Paleolithic period. With the decline in site occupation intensity in the Late Natufian, human populations became more mobile and partial depopulation of the region occurred. The origins of agriculture thus emerged from a atmosphere of long-term resource stress, not as an immediate response to environmental deterioration in the Late Natufian phase.

The goal of this dissertation is to identify and reconstruct activity areas in Middle and Late Bronze Age (ca. 2000-1200 BCE) temples and sanctuaries in the southern Levant by analyzing the ground stone artifacts found in them. Chapter 1 reviews the history of research of Middle and Late Bronze Age temples in Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan, and briefly describes the physical remains of the Canaanite cult and other activities associated with temples and sanctuaries. The history of ground stone tools from prehistory through the Iron Age is the focus of Chapter 2, which emphasizes the ritual character of certain stone tool types from the fifth-fourth millennium BCE in this region. Stone tools from temple complexes excavated at Hazor, Tel Nami, Megiddo, Tel Mevorakh, Tell Kittan, Bet Shean, Tell el-Hayyat, Deir 'Alla and Lachish are included in the typology and catalogue presented in Chapter 3. Chapter 4 provides an analysis of each temple complex and the reconstruction of some of the activities associated with the ground stone artifacts found in them. Evidence for the presentation of offerings, ritual disposal of cultic equipment, use of liquids, food and pigment processing and other activities is summarized in the conclusion in Chapter 5.

This dissertation investigates the organization of ancient Maya settlements with respect to the use and management of critical agricultural resources. I find that inhabitants of my study area divided the landscape into discrete zones, each with a distinct use pattern. Residences were located in upland areas, where open spaces among the houses were used for gardens. Farming was practiced on terraced slopes in a second zone, where clusters of agricultural installations were designed to sustain cultivation. Finally, a nearby seasonal wetland served as a reservoir of important raw materials. The pattern of land use I document suggests a variation of the infield-outfield model of agriculture. According to this model, farming households invest decreasing amounts of labor in cultivation as the distance from house to agricultural field increases. Some scholars suggest, however, that during the Classic Period (A.D. 600-900) population in the Maya lowlands was so dense as to create continuous rural settlements, with little space separating the sustaining area of one center from that of its neighbors. In consequence, reliance on various forms of intensive cultivation increased, the infields of one polity overlapping those of the neighboring polity. No vacant terrain remained for extensively cultivated outfields, and long-fallow cultivation dropped out of the subsistence repertoire. My research supports this conclusion, with the important exception that certain lands, such as seasonal wetlands, were not conducive to the demands of intensive agriculture, and thus continued to be used as reservoirs of other essential resources. I not only documented the partition of the landscape into discrete zones of use, but also investigated the relationship between access to resources and the social and spatial organization of three ancient Maya communities. My study suggests that the founders of communities gain access to the greatest number of production options. My research links aspects of residential variability, most notably length of occupation, size and complexity of house compounds, and extent of architectural elaboration, to access to productive resources by demonstrating that the residences of community founders---those with evidence for the longest occupation---are also the largest, most complex, and most elaborate in each community.

Situations in which human groups have lacked both direct knowledge of the distribution of natural resources of a region and access to previously acquired knowledge about that distribution have occurred many times in the past. The term "landscape learning process" is proposed to refer to both the means by which and the time period during which natural resource knowledge is gathered anew. This dissertation considers the anthropological and archaeological implications of the landscape learning process and tests for evidence of it in the case example of the hunter-gatherer recolonization of Great Britain at the end of the last Ice Age. The collected and developed evidence suggests that landscape learning is a useful explanation for the patterns of lithic resource use in late glacial Britain. The archaeological record of Britain indicates that the British Isles were abandoned for up to 8,000 years during the last Ice Age, which peaked at approximately 18,000 B.P. Hunter-gatherers returned to Britain by approximately 13,000 B.P., most likely from the direction of northern France. Flint is an important lithic raw material in late glacial hunter-gatherer groups of northwestern Europe, and therefore identification and use of new sources of flint during recolonization would have been crucial components of environmental familiarization. Flint occurs in deposits across southern, eastern, and northeastern England, but trace element analysis of flint sources and artifacts suggest that hunter-gatherers do not seem to have extensively used the first flint resources that they came across. Rather, southwestern England, particularly the northern Salisbury Plain region, appears to have been a key lithic source area for the Creswellian occupation of late glacial Britain. The Salisbury Plain flint source region is topographically both the most learnable of the studied regions of Britain and the most similar to the probable colonization source area of the Paris Basin. Radiocarbon dates suggest that southwestern England remained a primary source area for several hundred years, suggesting the continuing development of social knowledge of lithic resources. Therefore, it can be suggested that landscape learning can be seen in and shown to have affected the archaeology of the late glacial recolonization of Britain.

The sexual division of labor permeated many aspects of social life in the Greater Southwest, including household activities, communal events, and ceremonial rituals. It is proposed that sexual divisions in labor were particularly meaningful during the Pueblo IV period (A.D. 1275-1600). This project tests the proposition that archaeologically and ethnographically documented sex-based differences in habitual labor are reflected on the human skeleton. Human skeletal remains from Grasshopper Pueblo, a large Ancestral Puebloan village in east-central Arizona occupied during the Pueblo IV period, are examined for evidence of sexual differences in the expression of musculo-skeletal stress markers (MSMs). These stress markers occur at musculoskeletal origin and insertion points as a result of bone remodeling in response to repetitive motion, which results in a distinctive skeletal feature. Analysis is concentrated on those areas of the bones of the upper limb (clavicles, humeri, radii, ulnae, and metacarpals) where muscles, ligaments, and tendons originate from or insert onto the periosteum. Patterning of adult skeletal MSMs is considered one indicator of labor organization within populations. The degree to which the nature and intensity of labor is structured along sexual lines reflects the operation of social power. Aspects of the relationship between labor differentiation and social power are manifested archaeologically in the material remains of activities such as hunting, weaving, food processing and production, and ceramic manufacture. Testing the degree to which such labor differentially impacted the skeletal bodies of men and women in this Ancestral Puebloan community can substantiate conclusions regarding sex roles derived from other categories of evidence. In this study, skeletal evidence forms the basis of a model of the operation of social power in the construction of sex, gender, and status in the North American Southwest.

Study of ritual in the Greater Southwest is dominated by research at the suprahousehold and community levels. However, this approach ignores the most basic segment of society, the household. This research addresses household ritual by determining the production, use, and discard of anthropomorphic ceramic figurines that were used at the sites of Snaketown and Grewe during the Pioneer (300 B.C.-A.D. 700) and Colonial (A.D. 700-900) periods. Agency and practice theory provide a background for this examination of human representations that may be tied with the creation of personhood and identity. Some 1440 figurines and figurine fragments are analyzed in order to determine their function and the sex of those individuals producing them. Function is determined by recording the patterns of construction, form, use-wear, damage, and disposal for each artifact. These results are compared to cross-cultural patterns of figurine use including ancestor ritual, healing and curing ritual, and the play of children (toys.) All aspects of figurine manufacture, use, and discard indicate that these items were employed in ancestor ritual within Hohokam households. In addition to the analysis of figurine attributes, I also determine who the producers of these figures were by examining fingerprint impressions left in the clay surface of the representations. Dermatoglyphic analyses provide the link between the manufacture of figurines and gender roles within the household. Ridge counting is used to distinguish between children and adults and males and females. A ridge count is a quantitative measure of the size and density of the fingerprint pattern, which is strongly inherited. The ridge count indices for the archaeological sample are compared with ridge count values from an ethnographic collection of Native American prints. These distributions of ridge count values show that women are the primary producers of the figurines, however a small percentage of men are manufacturing them in certain households. As part of ancestor ritual, figurines function as representations of deceased relatives who perpetuate access to property and resource rights. Women often maintain this ritual, which commemorates the dead while reinforcing social memory among the Hohokam.

This report documents excavations at the Elsinore site (CA-RIV-2798/H) which is located at the mouth of the outlet channel on the northeast side of Lake Elsinore, Riverside County, California. Lake Elsinore is one of the only natural lakes in southern California, and is located at the eastern base of the Peninsular Range at the terminus of the San Jacinto River. Following the methodological approach of behavioral archaeology, this report explains how changes in lake level affected the lives of the people that lived on its shores. Identifying changes in site structure in relationship to the natural environment provides one of the keys to the interpretation of the lacustrine adaptations that took place over the past 8,000 years. One of the most important aspects of the site is that it holds cultural remains representing the entire prehistory of the region in a stratified context. A total of 138.45 m3 of fill was excavated from 27 units in deposits nearly three meters deep. Excavations revealed a large flaked stone assemblage including bifaces, unifaces, projectile points, flake tools, and 19 crescents; a variety of ground stone artifacts are present as well. Distributional covariation of artifact and ecofact classes serves as the basis for intrasite comparisons and the overall interpretation of the site. The interpretation addresses issues such as site function, activity areas, and the effect of differing lake levels on the inhabitants. The presence of a stable lake during a time of climatic instability was probably the main factor that drew people to its shores. Initially these people were organized as small bands that moved throughout the area as resources became available in different environmental zones. However, during the early to middle Holocene transition we see a change in settlement structure associated with a social organizational shift to a family based society. Although investigations revealed a late Holocene occupation at the site, the structure of the site at this time is fundamentally different from the earlier periods and failed to produce data necessary to allow for comparable discussion of social change during the late Holocene.

Using compositional data, this study investigates the organization of ceramic production and distribution in the Marana and Los Robles communities, two prehistoric Hohokam site clusters dating to the early Classic period (ca. A.D. 1100-1300). Like many other site clusters in the Southwest, each community is characterized by a settlement hierarchy composed of a primary village surrounded by numerous, smaller satellite villages in a variety of ecological settings. In the Marana and Los Robles communities, the primary villages contain public architecture in the form of platform mounds. Research in the Marana community indicates that, there, the platform mound site and other sites near the top of the settlement hierarchy contain higher proportions of nonlocal and luxury goods than other settlements in the community. One such class of differentially-distributed artifacts is the ceramic ware known as Tanque Verde Red-on-brown. It is this ceramic ware that forms the basis of this dissertation. The presence of settlement hierarchies and diverse ecological settings have raised questions about the socioeconomic relationship of a community's inhabitants. Using compositional data obtained from the chemical and mineralogical analysis of Tanque Verde Red-on-brown ceramics, the present study focuses on three research issues: (1) the degree of integration or interaction between residents of a single community; (2) the relationship of community inhabitants with people living outside the community; and (3) the significance of site hierarchies and differentially-distributed artifacts. Particular emphasis is placed on the latter research issue. It is concluded that the higher proportions of Tanque Verde Red-on-brown ceramics found at some sites reflects neither centralized production nor elite-controlled distribution, as has been suggested by some researchers. Nor, however, do the data support those models suggesting that each household was economically self-sufficient. Instead, production and distribution mechanisms were found to be more variable than can be accommodated by previous models. It is argued that the economic organization reflects a combination of strategies used by the community leaders to maintain and solidify their social statuses. To examine why these strategies were adopted, the local cultural sequence and the history of population shifts are considered.

With its unique geomorphic setting and extended settlement history, Taiwan has yielded unequivocal rich archaeological record. In addition, numerous historical documents, demographic census records, ethnographic data, and geological information provide supporting evidence for archaeological interpretation. This study has systematically surveyed the west part of the Gaoping region. Results are used to compare with the existing archaeological sites from other parts of the region. After having both natural and cultural formation processes examined and their impacts on archaeological records assessed, and based on site spatial distributions and their temporal placements, this study then generates three hypothetical models, namely the demographic, the ethnographic, and the geographic, to interpret and explain site distribution pattern across space through time. The potential of archaeological research in Taiwan is emphasized and further research inquiries are addressed.