This thesis explores the potential of Roman coin data, particularly that recorded by the PAS, as a tool for understanding the development of the Roman province of Britannia. Using a range of Applied Numismatic techniques, it surveys patterns of coin loss to evaluate when, where, by whom and for what purpose Roman coins were employed. In doing so, it provides an insight not only into the economy of Roman Britain, but also a range of themes such as regionality and Romanisation. Five case-studies involve analysis of the coin data at a national or regional level. The first, outlined in Chapter 4, explores mean values for coin loss and presents a new method for investigating denominational variation. This provides fundamental context for all research undertaken in this thesis. It is followed by four chapters that offer a snapshot of patterns of coin loss at key moments during the history of Roman Britain. These include analyses of Republican and Claudian issues, Carausian and Allectan coinage, and mid fourth to early fifth century coinage. Two further case studies focus on patterns of coin loss at a regional and site-specific level. Chapter 9 integrates site find and hoard evidence from the Isle of Wight, in order to investigate its development within a provincial context. The usefulness of coin assemblages for identifying settlement foci and tracing their chronologies is also assessed. Chapter 10 explores the character and date of a votive deposit from Piercebridge, County Durham. It compares and contrasts the coin profile for the site with other votive assemblages from Roman Britain, in order to test the theory that particular types of site exhibit particular types of coin loss. The treatment of coins is also assessed as are non-numismatic finds’ data. Chapter 11 summarises the conclusions reached in individual chapters and explores how they lead to an enhanced understanding of Roman Britain. Recommendations for further work are also made.

It is widely accepted that socio-cultural considerations play a significant role in the design of residences; yet the role played by the occupants' demographic characteristics can only be guessed at through fragmentary or anecdotal evidence. This research brings together a large body of secondary ethnographic data with the aim of exploring, in a systematic fashion, whether differences in the composition of co-residential groups find expression in the size and internal layouts of residences. It also seeks to determine whether the composition of groups can be inferred on the basis of architectural plans. If so, this approach could be of service in the social interpretation of archaeologically excavated residences. Part I of the thesis reviews the cultural, demographic, economic and political factors which influence the composition of co-residential groups. Part II explores the ethnographic corpus. This consists of architectural descriptions of 368 residences from 14 settlements situated in different parts of the world, together with demographic descriptions of their respective co-residential groups. Selective case studies are used to demonstrate that spatial factors can constrain and influence group membership. The entire corpus of residences is then analysed, and a number of spatial and architectural features identified which can point to the demographic characteristics of the groups in occupation. Finally, Part III considers the extent to which those findings can serve in the reconstruction of ancient co-residential groups. A number of ancient domestic contexts are investigated, ranging from an exceptionally well preserved historical setting (Roman Pompeii and Herculaneum) and a proto-historic setting (Iron Age Israel), to a comparatively modest prehistoric setting (Bronze Age Cyprus). The transformational processes that residences and their contents undergo during and after abandonment, and the obstacles they present to the detection of key architectural features, are dealt with in detail in the case of the Cypriot sites.

Tower-nave churches are essentially free-standing towers which incorporated chapels, and are characteristically Anglo-Saxon in date and construction. Due to their elaborate form and limited capacity they have been suggested as having a dual ecclesiastical and secular high-status function. This study has identified thirty-five examples, dating mainly to the 10th and 11th centuries, both standing and known from documentary sources and excavation. A thorough study of each site has been undertaken: a review of previous work on the site, extant fabric drawn and described, documentary sources investigated, and each site placed in its settlement and landscape contexts. All but two tower-naves were constructed at the behest of powerful secular or ecclesiastical lords, either at their residences or at major early medieval monasteries. The monastic tower-naves are more heterogeneous in size and form than the lordly examples, which are almost uniformly small and square. Both monastic and lordly tower-naves can be related to the highest ranks of early medieval society. Monastic tower-naves functioned as funerary structures, gateways, high-status private chapels or burial-chapels. Lordly tower-naves were private chapels and architectural embodiments of aristocratic status, many of which would have made useful watchtowers and articulated with landscapes of social power. The construction of tower-naves largely ceased after c. 1100. Monastic tower-naves endured as free-standing monastic belltowers, which shared their gateway and mortuary functions, whilst lordly tower-naves are argued to have influenced the development of the early Norman tower-keep.

This research examines whether depictions of males have been presented differently from those of females in Bronze Age Aegean art of the 2nd millennium BC, and if so, whether conclusions may be drawn from this about the social roles and relations between these genders in practice. Detailed observations are made of the way physical gestures are portrayed, and how human bodies are positioned in space and in relation to others, to try and gain insights on two levels. By drawing on ethological models bodily behaviour that is arguably innate, or at least nearly universal, has been identified, whereas a structuraliconographic methodology has revealed postures and gestures which seem more specific to these individual societies. The primary material examined includes a comprehensive sample of frescoes on which the human figure is portrayed; seal-stones, finger-rings, and impressions made from these, which show more than one human figure; and an appropriate selection of the most familiar and best preserved three-dimensional artefacts on which the human form is depicted. A secondary sample comprises a number of images that include some figurines and a few glyptics showing single figures seated, where kinds of seating are central to the analysis. The conclusion reached is that in many respects distinct differences suggest male/female dichotomies. These include active versus passive body language; males engaged in a wide range of activities contrasted with females involved in only a few; and male bodies as expansive versus females’ as constrained. It is postulated that these suggest an overall pattern of male dominance. There are, however, exceptions to these trends. These can be identified, for example, in processions. A number of images also suggest that some females may have been placed at least temporarily in limited roles imbued with prestige. Patterns of varying status can also be seen between individuals in single-gender groupings.

Modern human-induced climate change will have a particularly adverse impact on coastal non-industrial societies. Understanding how such changes have occurred in the past can provide better tools to address social vulnerability in these contexts. The main goal of this thesis is to consider how past non-industrial societies responded to environmental change and which conditions affected their sustainability. Here I investigate Mid-Holocene climate change and its relationship to the earliest human occupations in the Caribbean Archipelago (pre-Arawak period), using the site of Angostura (Puerto Rico) as a case study. On-site geoarchaeological tests – including microartefact and bulk-sediment analyses – were selected to study site-formation processes. Off-site sediment cores were collected and studied to address sea-level and landscape change. Archaeomalacological analysis assessed subsistence behaviour and landscape ecology. An assemblage of 18 radiocarbon dates was used to provide chronological context. To consider the dynamic and complex relationship between people and the environment, I apply the Theory of Adaptive Change (TAC) as a model to articulate scale-shifting and facilitate intra-scale comparison of biotic, abiotic and cultural elements. The various analyses show that significant environmental changes occurred during the pre-Arawak, but this had no negative effect on cultural systems. Long-distance webs of interaction, diet diversification, and landscape domestication enabled flexibility to adapt and respond successfully to change. Increasingly inflexible ‘home range’ boundaries and enhanced meso-scale rigidity lowered overall resilience of the cultural system, increasing its sensitivity to long-term landscape change. This vulnerability, however, was social; not an innate effect of changes in the environment. This observation helped identify four aspects that condition social vulnerability to change: territorial boundaries, ecosystem biodiversity, dependence on spatial configuration of landscapes, and knowledge. Understanding the interconnection between systems and their multiple nested interrelations can help develop a better understanding of the complexity of change and the meaning of sustainability within socio-natural systems.

This research analyses the modes and outcomes of economic and social interaction, adopting a theoretical framework that merges elements of Marxism and social network thinking. The focus is on the Bronze Age societies constituting the interface between the Eastern Mediterranean and Europe, the area around the Southern Adriatic Sea in the period from the establishment of the first regular contacts with the Aegean world, up to the end of the 2nd millennium BC. The primary medium through which the examination is carried out is pottery from a number of key sites in the region, which is analysed through a variety of methodologies, including contextual and stylistic comparison as well as formal network analyses. The study is organized as a diachronic enquiry in which evidence from a large number of contexts (examined in relation to both consumption and production) is deployed to discuss the development of three nested scales through which interaction took place. The first of these scales is the individual community, with the main case study provided by the long lived site of Roca in Apulia, which has yielded the largest amount of Aegean type material retrieved to date west of Greece. This material is largely unpublished and is comprehensively analysed for the first time. The second scale considers the region of Apulia on the western side of the Adriatic, which was the focus of intense interaction with the Aegean world during the second half of the 2nd millennium BC. The final scale encompasses much of the Mediterranean and assesses the long term and large scale implications of the phenomena observed at the site and region levels. The results of this study highlight the critical role played by southern Adriatic societies in establishing and maintaining interaction with other areas of the Mediterranean, and stresses at the same time the important social implications of such linkages.

Evidence of individual decision-making and how the subsequently implemented actions may contribute to long-term material change are largely absent from the archaeological record. Indeed, due to a paucity of clearly associated artefacts, few archaeological studies attempt to explore the role, or even the reality, of how individual decisions and actions may impact macro-scale change. This dissertation addresses this deficiency and examines specific artefacts created within the context of a historical conflict to investigate both the practical implications and theoretical considerations of micro-scale action. Framed within the historical context of the First World War, this research offers both practical implications and theoretical considerations. Although the archaeological study of conflict has traditionally focused on varied aspects of martial artefacts - to include architecture, battlefield surveys, and weapon and armour typology - the chaotic nature of warfare nonetheless provides a unique resource to consider both the role of the individual and the transmission of new cultural knowledge and skill-sets. The data-set is composed of exigent matériel fabricated by soldiers of the British Empire who sought to supplement non-existent or otherwise unsuitable martial resources that were already a part of their inventory. By examining these selected artefacts and their associated background information in detail, this research provides clear evidence on how individuals adapt and transform material to affect their immediate environment through innovative, self-directed, and purposeful action. This practical micro-scale insight of Agency theory integrates with an assessment of how different mechanisms of transmission combine with real world factors to influence the macro-scale propagation of new knowledge and designs in a pragmatic analysis of Cultural Transmission theory. In conclusion, this research promotes a unique approach to conflict archaeology while raising awareness of the wider call for Agency and Cultural Transmission theory to provide micro-scale to macro-scale interaction in real world situations and contexts.

Alongside the thousands of terracotta warriors discovered in the tomb complex of the first emperor of China, were tens of thousands of bronze weapons, including arrowheads and crossbow triggers, lances, spears, halberds (and the ferrules associated with them), swords and a few other special types. This quantity and quality of bronze weaponry provides an extremely rare opportunity to investigate patterns of standardisation and labour organisation within a single, very large and intentional assemblage as well as to consider the role of bronze production during the Qin period (325-206 BC) which marks perhaps the most crucial early stage in Chinese political unification. This thesis draws upon extensive measurements, typological analysis and related statistical treatment, as well as a study of the spatial distribution of those bronze weapons found in the most extensively excavated part of the tomb complex (the five easternmost trenches in Pit 1). Metric data and statistical assessment of inter- and intra-group variation (e.g. coefficients of variation) suggest interesting patterns with regard to relative degrees of standardisation. A combination of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and point pattern analysis are used to assess formally any spatial patterning in the weapons and their analytical attributes, which then also provides further information about the labour organisation behind the production, transportation and placement of weapons as they were moved from the workshop and/or arsenal to the funeral pits. Combining these insights with those obtained from inscriptions found on some of the weapons and from ancient documents, this project investigates what technologies and crafting behaviour affected weapons production and labour organisation in a centralised imperial system. This research project fills a gap in the study of mass production, the behaviour of craftspeople and related logistical organisation in ancient China and to provide empirical data by analysing systematically on the types, dimensions and spatial patterns of Qin bronze weapons in the Emperor Qin Shihuang’s tomb complex.

In this thesis, I seek a framework for understanding urbanization during the early Middle Bronze Age in the southern Levant by identifying and investigating patterns in the archaeological record during the transition from non-urban society and culture to a system of urbanism. The broad focus of my research is how urbanization occurred during this period, by specifically addressing three questions: (1) how were urban settlements built, in terms of materials and building practices? (2) what was the energetic cost of building cities, and how was this construction organized, in terms of resources and labour? and (3) how does this process of construction relate to the overall organizational processes of urbanization? I investigate patterns in the process of construction during this period by detailing architectural innovations throughout the region within their chronological and stratigraphic contexts. My methods include compiling databases of the dimensions of different aspects of architecture at a number of sites, as well as a detailed sampling and geoarchaeological analysis of mud-bricks at three case-study sites (Dan, Megiddo and Pella). By analysing bricks and reconstructing the process of their manufacture and use, I address the energetic cost of building cities, and how construction was organized, in terms of resources and labour. By highlighting the chaîne opértoire of urban construction, I indicate the key socio-economic mechanisms in practice during urbanization and identify degrees of social organization through labour and material resources. Patterns of labour management and modes of production provide a window into social processes otherwise difficult to perceive, including possible power structures and discrete social entities. Taken together with other aspects of technological innovation during this period, architecture allows for a discussion of urbanization as a process of developing social complexity that is based on patterns of standardization measureable through the archaeological record.

This is a methodological study that uses representations of arms and armour on coins of Alexander I and Perdikkas II as case studies in order to assess the value of visual analysis in numismatics. Each coinage is examined in three parts: a review of production dates for coins precedes a typological analysis of depicted arms and armour, which is then used in a critical investigation of potential meanings within current theoretical discourses. Context is a key variable in the creation of meaning and the understanding of relevant coin types bears heavily upon the circumstances of their production and use. Hence, secure production dates are first established in order to construct robust links between iconographic content and context. The next step focuses on a systematic classification of arms and armour within coin series and an evaluation of their representational value, which take account of links between military equipment in use and its pictorial counterparts on coins. Degrees of iconographic accuracy are identified and compositional elements of the depicted weaponry are analysed. The latter process embraces current controversies about the structure or use of certain pieces of weaponry. During the final step interpretations of representations are proposed after an investigation of potential meanings, which military themes or individual arms and armour may have had if specific connotations or general values were attached to them. This is achieved by comparing military, social and political conditions with coin data and inferring causal explanations of their choice, meaning and function. Through this process, an agenda of key issues about coin and weaponry types is set, which involves the testing of former approaches and formulation of new ones with observed data in view.