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A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Johannesburg, 2014. / The site of Canteen Kopje in Barkly West, South Africa, has provided the archaeological record with an invaluable collection of Earlier Stone Age artefacts. An alluvial deposit approximately 1km from the modern Vaal River, the site contains an abundance of artefacts. A 2007 – 2009 excavation in Pit 6 has provided an assemblage of over 15,000 artefacts that has been dated by cosmogenic nuclide burial method. Three distinct assemblages show technological changes through time of the earlier Acheulean industrial complex. The youngest industry, the Prepared Core Technology Assemblage, is dated to 1.2 ± .07 Ma and contains Victoria West prepared core technology. Beneath it is the Organised Core Assemblage which is void of Victoria West prepared core technology but contains cores that demonstrate more organised knapping techniques in the form of asymmetrical control. This assemblage is dated to 1.51 ±0.8 Ma. Finally, the underlying Basal Early Acheulean Assembage lacks both prepared cores and organised cores and is >1.51 Ma in age. The abundance of large angular clasts of andesite in the area made multiple knapping strategies effective for the manufacture of large flakes. A technological sequence in the knapping strategies has emerged in this excavation, from simple cores to organised cores and finally prepared cores. The older technologies clearly display the roots of prepared core technology in the asymmetrical control of the organised knapping methods. The overall success of the knapping strategies prior to the appearance of the Victoria West industry in the Canteen Kopje archaeological record creates questions as to why more complex strategies might have been implemented over time. Analysis of the assemblages from the Pit 6 excavation fails to provide a clear technological explanation within the empirical data as to why this change occurs. This research therefore argues that the Victoria West prepared core knapping strategy is a localized stone age culturally motivated knapping tradition.

Late Iron Age and Early Roman Britain has often been homogenised by models that focus on the resistance/assimilation dichotomy during the period of transition. The main objective of this thesis is to examine the rural settlements of this period through the lens of Cultural Theory in order to tease out the more nuanced and diverse human landscape that the material suggests. This approach begins to develop new ways of thinking about the variability observed in rural settlement from the end of the Middle Iron Age (MIA) to the beginning of the 2nd century AD. The selected study area is the Upper and Middle Thames Valley. The thesis uses the grid/group designations of Mary Douglas' Cultural Theory as a tool to produce a more multifaceted picture of the period, exploring the assemblages of these rural settlements to understand the nature of the socio-political structures of the region, beyond the anonymity of tribal affiliation and the faceless economical dichotomy of high and low status. The structure of the thesis is as follows: Chapter 2 summarises the state of play in the study of Late Iron Age and Early Roman Britain within the study area. The strengths and weakness of Cultural Theory, how it has been used in the past, and what role it has played in this research will be introduced in Chapter 3. Chapter 4 presents the dataset and the patterns observed, as well as why and how the types of artefacts examined are integral to the formation of the worldview of people. Chapter 5 offers interpretation of the data through the lens of the Cultural Theory model whilst Chapters 6, 7, and 8 place six case studies from the Upper and Middle Thames Valley under inspection and show in greater detail the potential of Cultural Theory as a tool for thinking about rural settlement variation. This study re-characterises the rural Upper and Middle Thames Valley as a place where there was a wide variety of worldviews during the period of great cultural and socio-political transition of the centuries straddling the turn of the first millennium. It suggests that the varying success and longevities of these rural settlements may have depended upon the ability of their inhabitants to either change their worldviews or to find similarities in the new organisation of their world.

The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), a British fur-trading enterprise, created a large garden at Fort Vancouver, now in southwest Washington, in the early- to mid-19th century. This fort was the administrative headquarters for the HBC's activities in western North America. Archaeological investigations were conducted at this site in 2005 and 2006 in order to better understand the role of this large space, which seems incongruous in terms of resources required, to the profit motive of the HBC. Questions about the landscape characteristics, and comments by 19th century visitors to the site provided the impetus for theoretical research of gardens as representations of societal power, and, on a mid-range level, the efficacy of certain archaeological methods in researching this type of space. Documentary research related to the history of the HBC Garden was also conducted, including previous archaeology completed at the site. The results of these lines of inquiry are presented, providing insight as to the diverse roles this Garden fulfilled in the survival of the HBC in the region - as a commercial enterprise, as a microcosm of western societal practice, and in the health of its employees.

Fifteen bone tool assemblages from shell midden sites were compared. Three of these are unpublished sites from Prince Rupert Harbor. They were grouped using cluster analysis. Inter and intragroup variation in bone tool assemblage structure was analyzed. One of the objectives of this study was to generate hypotheses about the function of the unpublished sites by comparing their bone tool assemblages with those from sites which are better understood by looking for underlying patterns in the bone tool assemblages. Other objectives were to test the utility of using bone tool assemblages as a diagnostic tool in analyzing sites and to test the utility of the cluster analysis procedure with this data set. Hypotheses were developed identifying possible site usage at the three Prince Rupert Harbor sites, Boardwalk (GbTo-31), Garden Island (GbTo-23), and Grassy Bay (GbTn-1). Bone tool assemblages were shown to be a useful aid in site analysis and cluster analysis was quite useful in identifying existing patterns in these data.

Bibliography: leaves 176-186 / The relationship between political, religious ideology and the interpretation of archaeological excavation in the Holy Land has faced criticism and has been debated by scholars since the beginning of biblical archaeology in the 19th century and up to the present day. These debates are not just academic but have manifested itself in the public narrative and are alleged to have consequences regarding the history of Israel and the physical space inhabited by both the Israelis and the Palestinians. Some of the current excavations in Jerusalem are viewed with suspicion. Archaeology is singled out to be biased in its interpretation and that it is being used for political ends. An investigation of the point of intersection between archaeology, politics and religion is important for the discourse and question whether archaeology in Israel has become complicit in the establishment and continued maintenance of nationhood and the Zionist project, as alleged by the minimalist scholars and opponents of Israel. Biblical archaeology has been drawn into this debate and its interpretation. The negative externalities of this discipline are the perceived use of the biblical text as a reference document and the subsequent findings of Late Bronze and Iron Age archaeology, which raise questions about the veracity of the biblical text and its impact on biblical scholarship and religion. Archaeologists and their interpretation of these spaces find themselves amid this paradigmatic revolution. The integrity of these scholars, their methodologies and their motivations are interrogated to the point of an ideological debate. The position of Palestinian archaeology hangs in the balance and there is no clear indication as to its future or whether any collaboration with Israeli archaeology is possible due to the politicisation in the region and the distrust that exists between Israel and the West Bank in general. This research reveals the extent in which these externalities of biblical archaeology and its interpretation have had an effect on ideology and its prevalence, and whether the questions and criticisms raised are justified. The views of archaeologists who have been actively involved in the excavation of the region provide these answers. / Biblical and Ancient Studies / D. Phil. (Biblical archaeology)