This study examines mid- to late Holocene Later Stone Age archaeological residues – specifically flaked stone artefacts, ostrich eggshell beads and pottery – from Namaqualand, north-western South Africa. Through its implication in all models so far proposed, Namaqualand is crucial to understanding the introduction of herding to the southern African subcontinent. Despite numerous publications on early herding, many key debates remain unresolved. The study focuses on the northern and central Namaqualand coastline, but sites from other parts of Namaqualand are also described. The stone assemblages are grouped according to variation in materials and retouch and then, along with data from ostrich eggshell beads and pottery, analysed graphically for temporal and other patterning. A cultural sequence is then presented. Using this sequence, key debates on early herding are explored and a hypothesis on its origins is constructed. Indigenous hunter-gatherers occupied the region throughout the Holocene and made Group 1 lithic assemblages from quartz and cryptocrystalline silica with frequent retouched tools primarily in cryptocrystalline silica. A new population – likely Proto-Khoekhoe-speaking hunter-gatherers with limited numbers of livestock – entered the landscape approximately 2000 years ago. They made Group 3 assemblages from clear quartz focusing on backed bladelets. Diffusion of stock and pottery among the local population occurred during this period. Later, c. AD 500, a new wave of migrants appeared. These last were the ancestors of the historically observed Khoekhoe pastoralists; they made Group 2 lithic assemblages on milky quartz without retouched tools. Bead diameter generally increases with time and contributes nothing to the debate. The pottery sequence is still too patchy for meaningful interpretation but differs from that elsewhere. Overall, the differing cultural signatures in western South Africa suggest that, although many questions will likely remain unanswered, a better understanding of southern African early herding will only be possible with a study addressing all regions simultaneously.

Our understanding of the Later Stone Age (LSA) on the Greater Mapungubwe Landscape has until now been fairly limited. However, it is a landscape upon which foragers witnessed and partook in agriculturalist state formation between AD 900 and 1300, altering their cultural behaviour to suit their changing social and political topography. Nowhere else in southern Africa were foragers part of such developments. For this project a landscape approach was used to study the various changes in the regional LSA record as well as the way in which foragers interacted with farmers. In order to address these issues, data were obtained from an archaeological survey followed by an excavation of seven sites in north-eastern Botswana, part of the Greater Mapungubwe Landscape. These finds indicate that the local forager record varies chronologically and spatially, which had not previously been recorded. Foragers also used a variety of site types and in each a different forager expression was deposited, providing indications of their changing settlement pattern. Notably, this included a gradual movement into agriculturalist homesteads beginning by at least AD 1000 and concluding by AD 1300, when the Mapungubwe capital was abandoned. Thus, interactions, at least in some cases, led to assimilation. There is also clear evidence of exchange with agriculturalists at many of the excavated sites, but this does not always seem to be related to their proximity with one another. Performing a landscape study has also made it possible to make two general conclusions with regard to LSA research. First, these data challenge ethnography, displaying its limitations particularly with linking modern Bushman practices, such as aggregation and dispersal patterns or hxaro gift exchange, to LSA foragers. Second, a full landscape understanding combines the archaeology of multiple cultural landscapes and in this case also crosses national borders, two themes often neglected in southern African archaeological studies.

This thesis presents a new systematic arrangement of the coinage of the Gallic Empire as the basis for a revised edition of Roman Imperial Coinage. The coinage of all denominations, gold, silver and bronze, are unified into a single structure of issues. In 260, Postumus revolted against the Roman emperor Gallienus and took control of the Gauls. The chronology of his reign and of his successors is reviewed. The short reign of Domitianus II is interpreted as a revolt against the elevation of Tetricus. A rearrangement of Tetricus’s coinage supported by the epigraphic evidence proves that the elevation of Tetricus II to the Caesarship must be redated from 273 to 272. The location of the mints is discussed. Conclusive hoard evidence proves that the main mint was located at Trier, and not at Cologne. The study of iconography implies that choices were not necessarily made by the imperial authorities, but that more freedom was given to engravers than is usually assumed. The use of earlier coins as an iconographic repertoire strongly suggests that earlier coins were brought to the mint to be melted down. Metrological analyses of gold coins of the Gallic emperors show for the first time that silver was deliberately added to the alloy, following a practice introduced by Valerian and continued by Gallienus. The debasement of the ‘silver’ coinage is studied in parallel with its contemporary evolution within the Central Empire. Coin circulation is used in order to determine the frontiers of the Gallic Empire. It is demonstrated that the Gallic Empire reached its apogee between 262 and 265, ruling over Britain, the Gauls, Hispania and Raetia. The nature of the Gallic Empire is discussed. It is argued that this ‘Empire’ should not be viewed as a form of separatism, as often claimed, but as the unintended result of a status quo following Postumus’s acclamation and the long postponement of a final confrontation against the emperor of Rome.

This thesis constructs an ethnography for the nineteenth century ǀXam Bushmen of the Northern Cape Province of South Africa, known primarily through a nineteenth century manuscript collection of oral narrative (the Bleek-Lloyd archive), which has, over the past twenty-five years, increasingly become the focus of scholarly attention, mined for insights about the cultural world of southern Bushman societies. It draws on the Bleek-Lloyd archive to produce a detailed ethnographic case study, focusing on the ideological and ontological concepts that underpinned the differentiation of ǀXam society. Firstly, the thesis situates the archive and ǀXam society within their particular environmental and historical contexts, providing valuable supplementary information that informs readings of the narratives. By producing a fully searchable transcription of the entirety of the archive, paying close attention to emic terminology, and examining the recurrence of thematic associations of this phraseology throughout the narratives, the analysis explores the constitution of ǀXam ‘personhood’ and examines the extent to which the ‘hunter-gatherer’ category forms a useful heuristic for understanding ǀXam society, with a particular focus on models of the ‘animic ontology’. The ǀXam deployed a series of positively and negatively evaluated traits in the creation of dimensions of authority, obligation, and social responsibility, embedded in particular social identities; central to these constructions and to the differentiation of these identities were the techniques and resources of ǀXam subsistence practices, salient in the production of admirable (socially-responsible hunters), reprehensible (antagonistic ‘beasts of prey’), and more ambiguous (ǃgi:tǝn ritual specialists) identities. Recognising this internal differentiation, the thesis outlines ǀXam ‘subsistence strategies’ and suggests they should be defined broadly to include their contacts and interactions with non-ǀXam groups, with domesticated animals, and with the novel material culture of the colonial period; these interactions were a consequence of their ‘hunter-gatherer’ strategies rather than a negation of them. Such strategies generated experiences that reinforced and reconstituted ǀXam ideological frameworks, incorporating the dynamics of the nineteenth century ‘frontier’ scenario and provided avenues for social change that ultimately led to the collapse of independent hunter-gatherer lifeways, and to the adoption of strategies that incorporated ǀXam individuals within rural and urban ‘Coloured’ populations of the Northern Cape; placing the ǀXam in a comparative colonial context, the thesis stresses the wider relevance of this particular ethnography for understanding hunter-gatherer engagements with food-producing, state-level societies.

This thesis examines funerary iconography for evidence of Roman attitudes towards children, childhood and the family. Based on 690 portrait monuments drawn from select areas of the Western Empire, its central hypothesis is that the commemorations are best read as highly artificial constructs which reveal more about the social preoccupations of the commissioners than the lives of the children whom they represent. The first of the seven chapters defines the parameters of the accompanying catalogue and discusses the benefits of studying a diverse range of monuments (rather than isolated "show-pieces"). The methodological section which follows assesses the cultural limitations and identification problems inherent to funerary material and considers how the terms "child" and "portrait" are best defined in this medium. The four subsequent chapters analyse the following key areas: the ages, genders and attributes of children; the presentation and composition of the family; the iconography of surrogate and extended relationships; and the archaeological context of funerary display. In each case any emotional interpretations which surround the material are discussed and then countered with alternative, and better supported, social readings. It is argued that previous research has been based on samples which are too limited in terms of size, genre and geographical scope and influenced too heavily by a desire to prove parental benevolence and the existence of "love" and "affection" within the Roman household. By exposing demographic biases and iconographic problems, it is shown that commissioners were actually using the image of the child for overtly social purposes, with some of the results being subject to substantial, and hitherto unacknowledged, regional variation. The conclusion then reassesses a well-known example to show that while Roman parents did attach importance to their children, funerary evidence can only prove it to be of a social, rather than an emotional, nature.

The aim of this thesis is to approach Ptolemaic and Imperial royal sculpture in Egypt dating between 300 BC and AD 220 (the reigns of Ptolemy I and Caracalla) from a contextual point of view. To collect together the statuary items (recognised as statues, statue heads and fragments, and inscribed bases and plinths) that are identifiably royal and have a secure archaeological context, that is a secure find spot or a recoverable provenance, within Egypt. I then used this material, alongside other types of evidence such as textual sources and numismatic material, to consider the distribution, style, placement, and functions of the royal statues, and to answer the primary questions of where were these statues located? what was the relationship between statue, especially statue style, and placement? And what changes can be identified between Ptolemaic and Imperial royal sculpture? From analysis of the sculptural evidence, this thesis was able to create a catalogue of 103 entries composed of 157 statuary items, and use this to identify the different styles of royal statues that existed in Ptolemaic and Imperial Egypt and the primary spaces for the placement of such imagery, namely religious and urban space. The results of this thesis, based on the available evidence, was the identification of a division between sculptural style and context regarding the royal statues, with Egyptian-style material being placed in Egyptian contexts, Greek-style material in Greek, and Imperial-style statues associated with classical contexts. The functions of the statues appear to have also typically been closely related to statue style and placement. Many of the statues were often directly associated with their location, meaning they were an intrinsic part of the function and appearance of the context they occupied, as well as acting as representations of the monarchs. Primarily, the royal statues acted as a way to establish and maintain communication between different groups in Egypt.

The habit of honouring outstanding individuals with statues was common throughout the Roman Empire. Yet after the end of the Severan reign at the beginning of the third century AD, a decrease in honorific statues is generally assumed to have taken place. This thesis aims to evaluate this hypothesis, focusing specifically on the years AD 222-285. The thesis is assessing the contemporaneous imperial remains for the Roman Empire as a whole and the evidence from four exemplary cities that are particularly conspicuous in their statuary production and display, both before and after the time frame under investigation (Leptis Magna, Athens, Ephesus, Aphrodisias). The purpose is to explore the standards, conventions, and limitations of statuary practice in Roman society in a synthetic and comparative analysis and thereby to evaluate its political and social role during a state of internal and external instability, labelled 'the third century crisis'. By providing concrete figures, the practice of the third century can be juxtaposed with both the antecedent and subsequent centuries and this will facilitate a more coherent insight into the overall development and changes in Roman honorific statuary practice. The results suggest that the assumed decline in the number of statuary installations might have to be re-evaluated. It has become apparent that in order to obtain comparable numbers, the inclusion of imperial family members in any statistical evaluation is indispensable, a factor which has previously been disregarded. A gradual decrease cannot be supported and neither can a decrease in the appreciation of honours.

This study explores the Greeks' experience of the Dioskouroi before the arrival of the Romans, stimulated by Cicero's assertion (Cic. Nat.D. 3.15(39)) that by his time they were worshipped widely in Greece, possibly more than the Olympians: from the archaeological evidence, a surprising claim. The task is complicated by the brothers' different incarnations in different places and at different times, and the variability and patchiness of the evidence for the period, from Homeric times to c. 146 BC. To address this (explained in Chapter 1), the study is designed around examining the evidence in selected locations over time, with an underlying theme of comparing the archaeological with the literary evidence, much of which is Roman. An overview of the evidence from literature, images and buildings sets the stage (Chapter 2). The association of Kastor and Polydeukes with 'Lakedaimon' in the literature, from Homer onwards, led the study to focus primarily on Sparta and the Peloponnese (Chapter 3), looking closely also at Sparta's near neighbours, Messene and Argos. It then looks at evidence from Thera, Kyrene and Naukratis (Chapter 4), in order to include some of the earliest material evidence we have of cult of the Dioskouroi in Greek settlements, which also have associations with Sparta and Lakonia; evidence from Thasos is included too. The final chapter considers the findings and assesses the usefulness of the methodology. The paucity of architectural evidence for major monuments and buildings specifically dedicated to the Dioskouroi, except in centres where Greeks gathered from different places for trade or religious reasons, may be explained if the primary location of their cult was the individual household, buildings only being needed for dedications to the brothers by Greeks away from home. It could also explain the seeming mismatch between Cicero's statement and the archaeological record.

This thesis explores the development of naturalistic rendering of emotion in the art of Greece through facial expression and body posture from 525 to 400. Why does emotional naturalism arise in the art of Greece, and in which particular regions? Why at this period? In which contexts and media? What restrictions on situation and type of figure can be interpolated or reconstructed? The upper chronological limit is based on simple observation. It is about this time, in many media, that naturalistic emotional expression is employed, although there are exceptions that blur this line slightly. The lower limit marks a major historical turning point, a culmination in Beazley's chronology of Attic vase painting and a common dating threshold for small finds. Emotional expression accelerates from the fourth century, and requires a different set of questions. 400 is for this reason held as a strict end-point. Many categories of physical object were considered; gems and coins did not offer substantial results, but are used for comparison. The rest have formed the armature of the thesis. Only original objects are included, as emotionality undergoes marked changes in Hellenistic and Roman copies. The first section treats publically-commissioned sculpture – sculpture integrated into architecture. The second section treats privately-commissioned sculpture, stone and terracotta; the third pottery: black-figure, red-figure and whiteground. Within these sections, material is arranged broadly chronologically. Human figures are the focus, and semi-humans such as Centaurs and satyrs are included; figures with essentially non-human faces such as the Gorgon are not. Human anatomy is constant, so the method of analysis is physiological. Rather than putting facial expressions in folk terms – a frown, a smile – they are described anatomically for precision: by muscular contractions and extensions and their correspondent manifestations on the surface of the body. Moving beyond description to explanation, neurochemistry and psychology are the preferred tools, although neither discipline has a consensus on the nature of emotion or its expression. History, religion, location, maker, commissioner, viewer, medium and technique are brought to bear in order put expressivity in context. An important methodological tool has been the separation of emotional 'input' and ‘output’. Output is the evocation or intended evocation of an emotional state in the viewer, and the thesis is constantly aware of the disconnect between the 'intended audience' and a modern one. It focuses instead on input – the methods used to render the inner state of the figures shown. This has twofold benefit: it avoids insurmountable subjectivity – one might laugh at the expression of fear on a maenad being raped by a satyr, while another might not – and allows for comparison across genre and medium.

This thesis investigates the morphology and the purpose of palaces in major and minor kingdoms of the Hellenistic World. Elements of architecture, spatial organisation and decoration are analysed in the attempt to clarify issues of chronology and in order to identify function. The analysis places the material into its social and ideological context by taking into consideration the role of kingship ideologies in the formation of space used by royal courts. Comparison with residences of the elite demonstrates the reception of palaces not only as architectural models, but also as mechanisms of power manifestation. Macedonia is the starting point of the discussion as the homeland of the first Hellenistic kings. In the light of evidence recovered in the last twenty years and not comparatively studied before, the chapter brings together various chronological phases of the buildings. Questions of definition and on sources of inspiration are clarified further in the following chapters. The third chapter uses textual evidence and finds from the royal district of Alexandria to understand the meaning of palace architecture for the Ptolemies, while the seat of a local official in Transjordania reveals mechanisms of emulation. In chapter four the case of Pergamene palaces and their relationship with residences in the city demonstrates that formation of these royal seats corresponded to ideals of Attalid kingship. Seats of officials in the Seleukid Empire and palaces in Bactria and Kommagene, the subject of the fifth chapter, provide an insight into the position of palace architecture in processes of hybridisation in material culture. The last chapter is a synthesis of patterns of form and function and unifies the conclusions for each separate region. It emerges that shifts in power relations and the structure of the royal court, especially towards the end of the third century BC, were a crucial factor in shaping palace forms. The concluding chapter also provides a view from the West: examples from the late Roman Republic indicate that the role of Hellenistic palaces as models for power display went beyond the limits of royal courts.