Yes / The paper attempts to explain the chronological gap between middle Neolithic and Early Bronze Age ceramics and examines the processes by which the latter could have developed from the former despite an 800 year hiatus.

Yes / This chapter looks at the variability of burial practices inthe Neolithic and Bronze Age and questions accepted orthodoxies. / This extract is taken from the author's original manuscript and has not been edited. The definitive, published, version of record is available here: https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-the-neolithic-of-mainland-scotland.html

This thesis focuses on the Bronze Age in selected areas of Korea; Seoul, Incheon, and Gyeonggi province. Two forms of evidence - settlements and monuments - are taken into account to identify their relationship with landscape and the social changes occurring between ca. 1500 to 400 cal BC. Life and death in the Bronze Age in Korea has not been synthetically investigated before, due to the lack of evidence from settlements. However, since academic and rescue excavations have increased, it is now possible to examine the relationship between settlements and monuments on a broad scale and over a long-term sequence, although there are still limitations in the archaeological evidence. The results of GIS (Geographical Information Systems) analysis and Bayesian modelling of the radiocarbon dates from this region can be interpreted as suggesting that Bronze Age people in the mid-Korean peninsula had certain preferences for their habitation and mortuary places. The locations of two archaeological sites were identified and statistical significance was generated for their positioning on soil that was associated with agriculture. It was found that settlements tended to be located at a higher elevation with fine views and that monuments tended to be situated in the border zones between mountains and plains and also within the boundary of a 5km site catchment adjusted for energy expenditure, centring on each settlement. This configuration is reminiscent of the concept of the auspicious location, as set out in the traditional geomantic theory of Pungsu. It can be argued that Bronze Age people chose the place for the living and the dead with a holistic perspective and a metaphysical approach that placed human interaction with the natural world at the centre of their decision-making processes. These concepts were formed out of the process of a practical adaptation to the Bronze Age landscape and environment in order to practice agriculture as a subsistence economy, but they also exerted a profound influence upon later Korean peoples and their identities.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 480-535).

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Sealstones are one of the most important types of artifacts discovered in the Aegean Bronze Age. Their practical use for recording and administrating purposes, their association with identity, prestige and social status, their possible religious or ritual connotations speak clearly for their importance and value. The fact that they are deposited, among other artifacts in tombs, accompanying their owners, demonstrate this value not only in life but also in death. Especially in the pre-palatial period in Crete a large number of seals have come to light, coming mostly from mixed contexts in the Mesara and Asterousia, in south Crete. The Minoan pre-palatial sealstones from Archanes-Phourni comprise an important corpus of artifacts for many reasons. They come from a site in the North of the island, in contrast to the majority of pre-palatial seals. The excavation and recording techniques used offer the opportunity to study the seals in their context, which is dated with relative certainty. The study of these seals, in comparison with the published ones from the south of the island, may offer significant information about important aspects of life in this period. The examination of materials, shapes, motifs, style groups and consumption patterns of seals may present us with useful insights about craft specialization and technology, internal and external exchange, economic organization and administration, religion and ritual, social differentiation and organization in the pre-palatial period. The study of this multiple and complex role of sealstones can offer us valuable information about the period before the first palaces.

The Early-Middle Bronze Age in Cyprus (c. 2300-1650 BCE) is still poorly understood, in spite of Cyprus's strategic importance in the Mediterranean and the revolutionary cultural transformations that occurred at the end of this period. The west coast in particular, has remained a relatively blank spot on the map of the Eastern Mediterranean, where excavations have been entirely lacking until very recently. In the absence of excavated sites, a great deal of information regarding western Cypriot society from this period must be derived from pottery. This thesis aims to understand the nature of the ceramic material culture in the west through an analysis of the ceramics from the cemetery of Kissonerga-Ammoudhia, at present the largest corpus of western Cypriot funerary pottery from this period. The entire excavated assemblage is presented and a multidisciplinary approach to the ceramics is applied. A traditional typological study was conducted on the entire assemblage, and a microscopic petrographic analysis applied to a sample in order to identify the manufacturing techniques used by the potters. This corpus of information can be used to test the nature and validity of evidence for regional identity. Although there appears to be a broadly similar culture with the rest of the island, the ceramics from Ammoudhia nevertheless show significant differences to those from contemporary sites. This site contains a very large amount of Drab Polished ware; little known elsewhere, this poorly understood, but potentially vital type of pottery appears to be a western local tradition. Although originally dated to the late Middle Bronze Age, this thesis provides evidence for a considerably earlier date in western Cyprus. It also argues for this being a very long lived ware with particularly sophisticated manufacturing techniques, and is one of the technological precursors to Base Ring ware, the ubiquitous pottery vessels of the Late Bronze Age. This thesis places western Cyprus into an island-wide context, allowing for meaningful comparisons with contemporaneous sites and lays the foundations for a clearer understanding of the chronological and technological sequence, fitting into our understanding of the precursors to secondary state formation, in particular: funerary and ritual practices, trade and exchange and technological advances. This corpus from the Kissonerga Ammoudhia cemetery represents the first ever study of a large body of information from the Early-Middle Bronze Age of Western Cyprus. As such it can provide both the framework for further analyses, as well as the first glimpses of the unique culture of this area, and an understanding of how this region fits into the wider Bronze Age Mediterranean world.