The reconstruction of patterns of physical activities, behaviour, and lifestyle in past populations is one of the goals most often pursued by bioarchaeologists. This study considers the presence of a group of markers of occupational stress (MOS) that are accepted by many in bioarchaeology as representing the impact of physical activity. To examine their presence, two past populations from northern Chile who practised two contrasting subsistence economies such as marine hunting and gathering with agricultural farmers were compared. The skeletal markers analysed were enthesophytes, osteoarthritis, spondylolysis, os acromiale, osteochondritis dissecans as well as changes in size, shape and robusticity of long bones. The aim of this study was to compare the pattern of these MOS in archaic coastal fishers (3rd-2nd millennium BC) with inland agriculturalists (1st millennium AD). One hundred and seventy-five skeletons of adult males and females curated at the Museo Arqueológico San Miguel de Azapa in Arica, Chile were analysed. It was found that early coastal populations were in general significantly more affected by these MOS when compared with later inland agriculturalists thus suggesting that the archaic way of life based on marine hunting and gathering was more physically demanding than that practised by later agricultural and farming populations. The intra-group analysis between sexes revealed that coastal males showed higher prevalence rates of these markers compared with coastal females but comparisons between agricultural males and females failed to demonstrate any significant difference in the prevalence rates for these markers. Thus suggesting a more marked sexual division of labour among the former group compared to the latter. Inter-group sex comparisons revealed that males from both groups were generally similarly affected by the MOS whereas females displayed a more varied pattern. Assuming that these markers result from physical activity and occupation, regardless of the subsistence economy practised, men from both populations performed the most physically demanding activities. Women on the other hand, would have changed their roles in society with the arrival of agriculture, thus getting progressively more involved and participating more in the demanding tasks required by the agricultural way of life. In conclusion, this study showed that the arrival of agriculture in northern Chile resulted in differences in the patterns and prevalence of activity-related pathological conditions.

Health changes experienced by populations living in regions of conflict have come to the forefront of research in light of recent increases in socio-political instability in modern populations. Political and ethnic unrest in modern populations have been shown to instigate a decline in the health of people living within the region of unrest. Population displacement and sabotage of resources associated with violent conflict has lead to increased prevalence rates of malnutrition and infectious diseases in addition to increased mortality. The aim of this study was to bridge the gap in literature between modern medical anthropology population studies of the health consequences of living in a conflict-zone and bioarchaeological population studies of demographic and palaeopathological indicators of stress. To achieve the aim, a bioarchaeological survey of four medieval (ca. 900 – 1600 AD) British cemetery populations along the Anglo-Scottish border, described as a conflict-zone in contemporary historical documents, was conducted to calculate rates of mortality and morbidity in a socio-politically ‘stressed’ population. This conflict-zone population was hypothesised to have demonstrated higher rates of mortality, stunting, wasting, non-specific indicators of stress, and metabolic bone diseases when compared to four ‘unstressed’ contemporary skeletal populations from neighbouring cemeteries. Direct comparison of the two regions did not indicate a difference in overall mortality or morbidity between the two populations. However, the conflict-zone population demonstrated higher prevalence rates of cribra orbitalia, periosteal bone lesions, and vitamin C deficiencies in the few available non-adults along with higher rates of enamel hypoplasia in the young adults. These contradictory results call into question both the documentary evidence regarding the longevity and severity of medieval border warfare and the sensitivity of osteological data to health changes associated with a conflict-zone lifestyle. The focus of future bioarchaeological research on conflict-zones in past populations must focus on refining the relationship between causal factors and skeletal indicators of stress.

Roads and routeways, whether engineered or created ad hoc, create a dynamic element to the lives of those who use them and facilitate many features of day to day life. As such they have been a fundamental and powerfully ideological part of human existence. This thesis shows the causes and effects of road and transport network development in County Durham in the period from 1530 to 1730, and challenges the commonly made assertion that routes changed little from the Medieval period until the Industrial Revolution. Drove routes, lead mining routes and the infrastructure of re-used Roman roads are viewed holistically and considered as individual and integrated networks over a broad time period. These networks are analysed and compared using quantitive spatial analysis and GIS (Geographic Information System) techniques to examine which factors were pivotal in the creation of each road or routeway system. In addition, factors such as consumption patterns, shifts in population and funding mechanisms are drawn upon to examine roads as artefacts and cultural markers. Thus the roads and the roadscapes are used to study the identities of those who used them. A trial of dating techniques with which to date roads, with the use of optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) infra-red stimulated luminescence (IRSL) and radiocarbon dating, was also completed. It will be shown that different factors influenced the placement of the different routes. Distance and slope being of prime importance for the Roman network; land use type, distance and visibility for the drove routes and land use type and slope for the lead routes. These routes formed part of an holistic network which, through using different network types for different tasks and purposes, gave strength to the overall transport system of County Durham. Thus the network helped to drive new aspirations and patterns of consumption, facilitated the exchange of information and fashions and helped to provide new sources of wealth. The connectivity that the roads and routeways brought created a county with greater geographical, cultural and social knowledge that stimulated an increase in class consciousness, in so doing they also provided the means by which these new ideals and ideas could be expressed.

The study of the nature and function of extramural settlement on the northern frontier of Roman Britain is often regarded as being binary; soldiers inside their forts and civilians confined to the adjacent “vicus” (Birley, Salway and Sommer), which is conceptualised here through the broader term ‘extramural settlement’. The research of Driel-Murray, Allason-Jones and Allison provided evidence for women inside Roman forts, making this interpretation of frontier occupation no longer tenable. The aim of this thesis is to examine and challenge the view that extramural settlements were largely ‘civil’ and to place the work of Driel-Murray et al. into context. The thesis studies the nature and significance of the extramural settlement at Vindolanda and selected sites through the deposition of three domains of material culture selected to indicate the presence, location and activities of soldiers (combatants), non-combatants as exemplified by adult women, and shared activities that were common bonds across the whole community. According to Cool and Baxter ‘finds have the greatest ability to illuminate the past when they are regarded as an integral part of the archaeological record’, an idea which underpins this thesis (Cool & Baxter 2002:365). This approach differs from previous investigations of extramural settlements. Scholars such as Eric Birley, Peter Salway and Sebastian Sommer have studied the role of extramural occupation through site morphology and the very fragmentary epigraphic record without close scrutiny of the associated material culture. Spatial analysis of artefacts in this thesis will be used to show that the walls of a fort were no ‘great divide’ and were no absolute demarcation line between combatants and non-combatants. The thesis demonstrates that the nature and significance of extramural occupation is that the overall dynamics of military sites like Vindolanda were more complex, integrated and subtle than is commonly thought.

This thesis focuses on the use of personal adornment in south-east Roman Britain and examines if and how appearance was manipulated to express different identities. Individual categories of items associated with appearance have received much attention in Roman-British studies in recent years. However, to understand the complex systems of communication being played out through the display of adornment, these different artefact categories need be studied in conjunction with one another. Using Baldock, a site in North Hertfordshire, as the primary case-study, and drawing on other sites in the region - Braughing, Dunstable, Verulamium and Colchester-for comparative purposes, this study has analysed the effect of context on identity display, using the entire range of personal adornment data available from each site. Focusing specifically on the variable use of adornment in burial and settlement contexts and between different site types, this study has provided an insight into how daily interaction between different aspects of society were overlain with a complex, non-verbal communication system, and how in death, the population was unified through the same means that were used to separate during life.

Hunters and gatherers can be viewed as part of ecosystems. Through their actions, hunter-gatherers can modify, alter and shape ecosystem structures and components. The Central Canadian Rockies ecosystem was selected to explore the impact and role of humans in this ecosystem as a case study. This study examines the archaeology of the Central Canadian Rockies from the perspective of hunter-gatherer research, theory and concepts. Even in this marginal environment, archaeological investigations have shown that people lived and travelled here. This study examines and evaluates several classes of data including site types, stone tool utilisation, tool technology, subsistence and seasonality, complemented with examination of potentially available ecological resources. Several alternate models of hunter-gatherer utilisation are formulated for the Central Canadian Rockies between AD 800 and AD 1800. The result is a reconstructed ethnology of the area’s occupants that models how these people may have organised themselves through a yearly cycle to best utilise limited resources. Associational and sacred landscape features are examined to further evaluate the models. Changing social dynamics identified in historic and ethnographic records are reviewed and synthesised with the reconstructed Late Precontact ethnology to better understand Native peoples’ utilisation of the Central Canadian Rockies in this period. Conclusions are drawn about the application of hunter-gatherer research, theory and models in reconstructing an ethnology of hunter-gatherers based on limited archaeological and palaeo-ecological data, and in assessing the impacts of hunter-gatherers to this mountain ecosystem.

Volume 2 (appendices) not available electronically due to copyright restrictions. Please consult the print copy held in the David Wilson Library, University of Leicester.

The symposion is consistently employed as the framework around which studies of classical Greek drinking are built, regardless of a body of archaeological and literary evidence to suggest that this type of drinking was enjoyed primarily by a small minority of the elite male, and perhaps predominantly Athenian, population. As a result, and in the absence of any alternative theoretical models, archaeologists faced with a large assemblage of drinking pottery invariably seek to fit their interpretation within the existing body of sympotic scholarship. This has led to all types of wine consumption being repeatedly described as ‘sympotic’ regardless of whether the excavated drinking material came from a stoa, sanctuary, military or domestic site. In addition, a blanket sympotic interpretation does not make room for the possibility that not all shapes of drinking cup would have been used in all drinking contexts. The kylix might have been the cup of choice in the symposion, but would it have found a place in a more practical ‘casual’ or commercial tavern setting, or even in religious, military or everyday domestic drinking (rural and urban)? After a review of the literary evidence for kapeleia or taverns (Chapter 1), this thesis next considers the anthropology of drinking, in order to construct a theoretical framework around which to build the succeeding chapters and arguments (Chapter 2). These embody a study of the shape and capacity of the most frequently encountered drinking shapes (Chapter 3), and a reassessment of buildings labelled ‘houses’ but for which an alternative use is strongly suggested by the excavated drinking, cooking and eating pottery (Chapter 4). These findings are tested in a series of case studies encompassing the sites of Olynthus, Halieis, Athens, Corinth, Vari, Nemea and Phylla Vrachos (Chapter 5), and the thesis concludes with a synthesis of ‘casual’ and commercial drinking in classical Greece and of its material culture (Chapter 6).

This thesis focuses on the use of radiocarbon dating and Bayesian modelling to develop more precise settlement chronologies for later prehistoric settlements over an area extending from the Tees valley in the south to the Firth of Forth in Scotland and bounded by the Pennines to the west. The project has produced a corpus of 168 new radiocarbon dates from nine sites and used these, together with dates that were already available for another 10 sites to develop new chronological models for 18 settlements representative of different parts of the study area. The results of the modelling underline the dynamic character of later prehistoric social organization and processes of change in east-central Britain over a period of several centuries. A widespread shift from nucleated settlements to dispersed farmsteads apparently occurred over a period of no more than a generation on either side of 200 cal BC, with a subsequent move back to open sites in the period following Caesar’s invasions in 55/54 BC. It is not yet clear why the settlement pattern became more focused on enclosed settlements around 200 cal BC, but whatever the cause, this seems to form a single archaeological horizon all the way from the Forth to the Tees. The shift to open settlement around 50 cal BC seems, however, to be tied to new economic forces developing in the region as southern England becomes more focused on economic and diplomatic relations with Rome in the century leading up to the Roman occupation of northern England shortly after AD 70. Questions of duration are also explored, related more specifically to the lifespan of settlements and even of individual structures or enclosure ditches. These questions lead to ones of tempo, whereby the cycle of rebuilding a roundhouse or redigging a ditch is examined.

This thesis explores the example of the archaeology of Fort Vancouver not as an end in itself, but as a pointer to a more general call for greater sensitivity in searching for and interpreting evidence. In archaeological interpretation men are most visible. The history of excavation at Fort Vancouver could be adduced as a perfect example. Chapters on feminist history and Fort Vancouver history are presented as essential preliminary background, in two parts. Part 1 describes the general background relating to historical archaeological practice, the growing visibility of women in historical investigation, the history of the fort, its occupants, and its excavations. Part 2 moves to the new story my research allows to be told. This new story is: 1) Mapping evidence establishes a layout of buildings, but with no clear material evidence of the presence of women. 2) Documentary evidence establishes a substantial presence of women with great clarity. 3) Excavations have tended to confirm the first pattern of evidence but to neglect the second pattern of evidence. 4) Finally, one building in particular provides an example of a structure used both by married with family and single occupants, and should have been excavated with that history in mind. It becomes an important test case – either as evidence of what can be proved, or as a cautionary tale of what should have been better explored, or as both. The story told is one of mixed success. Some of the evidence (extant maps and documentary evidence of families) demonstrates that women can be made more visible. However, some of the evidence (especially that of the physical remains and artifacts) is now largely lost or was neglected or overlooked, making it more difficult to present a clear picture.