The archaeology of Buddhism in South Asia is reliant on the art historical study of monumental remains, the identification of which is tied to the textual historical sources that dominate Buddhist scholarship. The development and spread of early Buddhism from the third century BCE has been intrinsically linked with the Mauryan Emperor Asoka, and is consequently reliant on the identification of ‘Mauryan’ remains in the archaeological record. The aim of this thesis is to test the scholarly and physical evidence for the ‘Mauryan horizon’ that has shaped archaeological methodology in South Asia, by demonstrating challenges in the interpretation of the relationship between the Mauryan Empire and the spread of early Buddhism. The typical ‘markers’ of early Buddhism and Mauryan occupation are defined based on a historical study of South Asian archaeology, and the presence of these markers is tested at Lumbini, Nepal, using the 2011-2013 Durham University/UNESCO excavation data, and compared to published case studies representing a sample of site types across South Asia. The results indicate a pattern of cultural, religious, and structural continuity through the so-called ‘Mauryan Horizon’, and analysis of Mauryan and Buddhist ‘markers’ proves that the use of these materials as indicators of either date or site type is flawed and unreliable. The continuations of practice and culture across the Mauryan horizon demonstrate flaws in the accepted account of Buddhism’s state-sponsored propagation in South Asia by the Emperor Asoka in the third century BCE, and that archaeological investigations of early Buddhist sites below the ‘brick horizon’ are necessary. The collated evidence demonstrates the viability of Monica Smith’s network model of Mauryan imperial infrastructure, but shows that alternative agents of Buddhist propagation should be considered. The conclusions highlight the methodological problems of unquestioning reliance on textual sources in archaeological and historical research in South Asia.

This thesis is a landscape analysis of Neolithic and Bronze Age burials in relation to both the landscape and other relevant archaeological sites, including other funerary monuments. This study aims to establish spatial trends in the positioning of the burial sites within the landscape, in order to establish if important natural resources influenced their location. It also examines the spatial relationship of the burial traditions in relation to each other and existing domestic and ritual sites in order to identify affinities, and to assess whether discrete funerary landscapes existed within the study area. GIS analysis was applied to the burial sites in order to obtain data on topographical aspects of the funerary landscape, which were analysed further for significant relationships. Cross-K analysis was also used to establish spatial relationships between datasets. Taphonomic issues and the representativeness of the archaeological data are examined to determine how valid the results are. The results from this analysis indicate that in some instances sites were influenced by the presence of certain resources, especially land quality. Concentrations of burial activity were also identified. Cross-K analysis demonstrated that contemporary burial and domestic activity throughout both periods were generally integrated. Other spatial relationships were identified that illustrate both continuity and discord within the ritual landscape of Northern Ireland, suggesting that the presence of earlier ritual sites may have influenced the location of later monuments.

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The Thai-Malay Peninsula lies at the heart of Southeast Asia. Geographically, the narrowest point is forty kilometres and forms a barrier against straightforward navigation from the Indian Ocean to the South China Sea and vice versa. This would have either led vessels to cabotage the southernmost part of the peninsula or portage across the peninsula to avoid circumnavigating. The peninsula made easy crossing points strategic locations commercially and politically. Early movements of people along exchange routes would have required areas for rest, ports, repair of boats and replenishment of goods. These feeder stations may have grown to become entrepôts and urban centres. This study investigates the archaeobotany of two sites in the Thai-Malay Peninsula, Khao Sam Kaeo (KSK) and Phu Khao Thong (PKT). KSK is located on the east whereas PKT lies on the west of the peninsula and both date to the Late Prehistoric period (ca. 400-100 BC). KSK has been identified as the earliest urban site from the Late Prehistoric period in Southeast Asia engaged in trans-Asiatic exchange networks. There is evidence of craft specialisation and material culture that links the site to India, China and the rest of Southeast Asia. PKT has similar material culture as KSK. The purpose of examining the archaeobotanical results from KSK is to add to the understanding of how an early urban site with an active exchange network and specialised craft production would have supported itself. The results provide insights into exchanged foodstuffs and the agricultural base that sustained the different communities at KSK: the local population, temporary settlers and transient voyagers. The archaeobotany of Khao Sam Kaeo is compared to the contemporaneous site PKT. PKT lies closer to the Indian Ocean and has more Indian domesticates in the assemblage.

Effective protection and management of cultural heritage resources in a specific region requires planning strategies and policies, which rely on the sum of existing information about archaeology and cultural heritage. The role of archaeological inventories in the process of heritage management is, therefore, central and critical, as they are supposed to convey our present state of knowledge and be the basis on which management priorities are decided. This dissertation examines existing Israeli and Palestinian archaeological and architectural inventories covering the occupied West Bank, as well as assessing the role of Geographic Information Systems for heritage management in this region. Its main objectives are twofold: first, it explores the nature of archaeological records and the way they reflect particular research interests and heritage management priorities; and second, it examines variability in data quality, coverage, accuracy and reliability. By examining recording emphasis in West Bank inventories, this research interrogates the ways in which social, political, ideological or cultural values may affect different aspects of data collection and management. The assessment of different inventories through comparison, analysis and fieldwork, sheds light on current Israeli and Palestinian approaches to documentation and data management, as well as broader issues associated with the collection and use of information about the past in contexts of cultural conflict. Framed within the political context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this research has theoretical considerations and practical implications. On the theoretical side, it raises awareness of personal, academic and national interests, the ways they are manifested in archaeological inventories, and the means by which they dictate the process of cultural knowledge production. On the practical side, it provides a set of recommendations for ways to improve current data management and dissemination strategies, and thereby encourage more efficient decision-making processes and better protection and preservation of heritage sites in the West Bank.

This research explores the recent use of archaeology and heritage in the Central Asian region, with its diversity of cultures, manifold landscapes, and large sparsely populated territory. The present-day countries - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan - share some similarities in culture and language, as well as tangled histories which can be traced back long before the Soviet era. However, the current Central Asian states were delineated under the USSR and its collapse presented a major challenge. New state borders brought new political, economic and social realities. The need to replace Soviet ideologies with new national ideologies, based on interpretations of national histories, was paramount, and the interpretation and presentation of archaeology played a central role in this process. Archaeology thus became a highly political subject. Through analysing political texts, mass media materials and other reflections of the state’s vision of the heritage and nation’s past, the research demonstrates the use of heritage by the newly independent states under Independence in the last 20 years. It looks at the structure of heritage management agencies, the activities of heritage research institutions, and at the main national museums in order to analyse the relationship between claims about the greatness of national heritage and the actual practice of heritage management. It also briefly discusses the role that interpretations of heritage play in the relations between neighbouring states. This research relies heavily on primary data gathered in the region; the discussions with local specialists as well as the reviews of publications from the region reveal interesting details of the contradictions in heritage management in the Central Asian states. The findings reveal constant changeability in the state approaches and suggest looking at the processes as ‘nation-branding’ instead of ‘nation-building’.

This thesis examines the relationships emerging between culture, heritage and development in Sierra Leone. The concept of ‘culture for development’ is increasingly influential as a framework for intervention in both development and heritage work. However, it has so far received limited critical attention. Using a multi-­‐sited ethnographic approach, this research traces the complexities and contradictions that transpire as Sierra Leone’s cultural sector attempts to establish its position within the country’s future. ‘Culture for development’ emerges from a recognition that intervention has historically failed to respond to local contexts. This thesis proposes that in Sierra Leone, such an agenda is obscured by wider political, professional and personal concerns over the role of the past within a context of aspirational change and transformation.

This thesis focuses on The Bacchae of Euripides: A Communion Rite, a reception of the ancient Greek tragedy Euripides’ Bacchae by the Nobel Prize winning Nigerian playwright, poet and social critic Wole Soyinka. It will argue that Soyinka’s Bacchae sits at the intersection of Western and African intellectual traditions; the text brings Soyinka’s Nigerian and black African identity into a dialogue with the European intellectual tradition of engagement with ancient Greek tragedy. The tragic texts of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides have been, and remain, central to the literary canon of Graeco-Roman antiquity. These tragedies have been put to very different uses throughout their rich reception history: in the colonial context they functioned as part of a European narrative of cultural hegemony, while postcolonial authors have used them as weapons of resistance to destabilize those very same narratives and to form new identities beyond the shadow of colonialism. Both the circumstances of its genesis and the intellectual influences that Soyinka incorporates into the play make his Bacchae a paradigmatic example of how these historical processes can overlap. Firstly, Soyinka was commissioned to write his tragic reception by the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain, a European theatre company. Secondly, he explicitly cites the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, whose arguments about Dionysus would inform many European responses to Euripides’ text and tragedy more generally. This thesis argues that postcolonial receptions of ancient Greek tragedy should not just be studied as an uncomplicated expression of non-European perspectives. Cultural multiplicity marks every stage of Soyinka’s Bacchae, and the text draws on and creatively transforms intellectual and artistic debates that span global geographical, cultural and ethnic traditions. By exploring this text and its cultural and intellectual contexts, this thesis will illuminate the intricate cross-cultural dialogues that become apparent when tragedy is read in postcolonial modernity.

This study combines new and pre-existing osteological evidence with archaeological evidence in order to reconstruct the demographic composition, broad dietary patterns and health status of the population of Roman York. This research examines the composition of the military and civilian sectors of the population, dietary patterns inferred from the study of dental remains, and differences in health according to social and occupational status categories within the population. Results indicate that the population had significant male bias, underrepresentation of infants and sub-adults, and approximately equal male and female life expectancy. Diets are likely to have been rich in fat and protein, and low in both cariogenic foods and foods that provide vitamins. Compared to contemporary urban sites, York had significantly elevated prevalence of antemortem trauma and porotic hyperostosis. Comparatively high rates of dislocation, peri-mortem trauma, brucellosis, osteopenia, os acromiale and osteochondroma were also observed. These findings suggest that the demographic composition of the population is heavily influenced by the presence of the military. A combination of osteological, isotopic, archaeobotanical, zooarchaeological and literary evidence indicates that dietary staples in the town appear to have been spelt based products such as bread, and beef. Other dietary components are likely to have included dairy products such as sheep's milk and cheese, olive oil, dried figs and fish. It is also likely that the populace were consuming lesser quantities of sugary products (e.g. containing honey and syrup), and fresh fruit and vegetables than populations from contemporary towns. Some of the observed pathological conditions with elevated values at Eboracum may be the result of poor comparative data, osteological rarity of a condition, or a combination of complex causal factors. Elevated prevalence of traumatic injury in some skeletal elements of the cranium and several post-cranial skeletal elements was significantly associated with an unusual group of burials from sites located on Driffield Terrace.

The Order of St Gilbert of Sempringham was founded around 1130 and was notable both for its double houses, containing canons and nuns, and the claim of later historians that it was the only truly ‘English Order’. Rose Graham and Brian Golding have studied the history of the Gilbertines, however the archaeology of the order has never been comprehensively researched. Of the original 27 monastic houses, 13 have been destroyed or have had their original monastic plans obscured by later buildings. For the remaining 14 houses, there is good archaeological evidence surviving. Using this data, and especially the elements that enable the spatial reconstruction of each site, this thesis focuses on establishing the layout of the monastic buildings and precincts. The thesis takes a holistic approach to the study of the subject utilising a range of sources including data from excavation, geophysical survey, topographic survey and aerial photography. The thesis recreates the layouts of double and single houses in order to understand the relationship between the men and women of the Gilbertine order. It also identifies and addresses the transition from the Gilbertine double house to the prevalence of the single house following the death of St Gilbert c.1190 and the order’s subsequent decline. The study argues that the Gilbertine order formulated a number of distinctly Gilbertine forms of monastic layout, usually related to their distinctive role of accommodating both men and women, which are mostly visible on the sites of double houses in the first instance. This distinctive style was continued to a less extent in the foundation of later single houses through the recurrent placement of cloisters to the north of the priory church.