The object of this thesis is the African amphora assemblage from Portus, the maritime port of Imperial Rome. By means of amphorae, this thesis looks at the important relationship between producers and consumers, between what was produced on the land in North Africa in terms of ceramics and agricultural produce, and what was traded at the port of Rome. Amphorae were large-sized vessels used for moving foodstuffs, and one of the main archaeological evidence for topics related to trade studies in the Classical world. This study in particular aims to identify production workshops in commercial partnership with Portus, located in Africa Proconsularis, corresponding to modern Tunisia and western Libya. Building upon an understanding of previous academic work related to principles of fabrics, petrological and typological analysis of amphorae, the products of a number of important production workshops were characterized in the assemblage, including those from Sullecthum, Lepcis Magna, Tripoli, and Nabeul. Sullecthum, Lecpis and Tripoli and their hinterland zones were important commercial partners in the 3rd century AD, while Nabeul, characterized by vessels in a red fabric, in the 4th and 5th centuries AD. This work also proposes a new approach for the study of amphorae: that is, to associate the amphorae with their social context of production, and the people who manufactured them, a dimension often forgotten. This is investigated through consideration of a proposed framework that takes into account forming techniques and their socioeconomic significance, and skill investment in production. This thesis brings a greater breadth regarding our understanding of the development of the port at Portus, its relationship to nearby important commercial locations, and its decline. Being initially in the shadow of the nearby fluvial harbour of Ostia, it is with the early 3rd century AD that the commercial character of the harbour is defined, while a decline is evident in the second half of the 5th century AD. In considering these topics, this study aims to contribute to the wider Portus Project undertaken by the University of Southampton in collaboration with the British School in Rome, the University of Cambridge and the Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici di Roma (Ostia Antica). This is the first time that this very important archaeological site is studied in detail and its ceramic materials analyzed.

This thesis aims to explore the human-dog relationship in early medieval England and Ireland (c. AD 400-1250) and so develop an improved understanding of how people perceived and utilised their dogs. In 1974, Ralph Harcourt published a seminal paper reviewing the metrical data for archaeological dog remains excavated from British antiquity. Nearly forty years on, many more dog bones have been excavated and recorded. His results from the Anglo-Saxon period illustrated that the degree of skeletal variability had reduced after the end of the Roman occupation, with an increase in the average size. He also observed two distinct groups in the estimated shoulder height measurements. The key areas that have been considered include: dog functionality, morphology, and treatment. Influences that may have led to changes in people’s perception of dogs during this time period have been examined. Differences between England and Ireland are assessed, but variation in recording methods has meant the data obtained on the Irish dogs were limited. An interdisciplinary approach has been taken, combining archaeological, historical and anthrozoological information. New evidence has shown that humans’ relationships with dogs were more complex and varied than previous research would suggest, especially in the treatment of dogs at their death. This was particularly evident in England, where a change in the burial location of dogs was observed from the end of the seventh century, and could be linked to the development of Christianity and its negative teachings towards the dog. More metrical data from English sites have shown that the two distinct groups observed in Harcourt’s Anglo- Saxon results were no longer apparent.

With its long tradition of trade contacts with the eastern Mediterranean, coupled with the productivity of Campania, Pozzuoli rapidly became a centre for technical and commercial expertise. It soon became the principal port of the Capital in the late 3rd and 2nd Centuries BC and maintained its function as a port of Rome at least till the 3rd Century AD. Pozzuoli was also a ‘packet port’ for travellers to the east and the principal place of arrivals and departures for officials, embassies and ordinary travellers making the port very cosmopolitan in nature. Its richness in archaeological remains coupled with its unique geological setting has resulted in plenty of scholarly research, particularly on the individual public monuments of the port. There has however been little attempt to understand the urban development of the port and when compared to other Campanian towns such as Pompeii and Herculaneum, thematic research in the area is still in its infancy. The context within which the study will take place is the idea of knowledge representation and the use of visualisation as a tool for understanding complex datasets. Pozzuoli has been represented in many ways through various periods in time and a digital visualisation, together with the process with which the vast documentation is selected gathered, transformed and ultimately aims to provide a legitimate synthesis of all the complex information that has accumulated over time. The methodology adopted will be that which adheres to the principles of the London Charter with a particular a focus on the documentation of process known as ‘Paradata’ and attempts to provide a new critical example of its implementation.

This thesis addresses the significance accorded, past and present, to those axe-heads of flint and stone that were imported to Britain from the Continent. It starts from the premise that this poorly understood body of material has been overlooked and has been made effectively ‘peripheral’ in Neolithic studies, particularly over the past five decades or so. This is due to the insularity of British Neolithic scholarship as a reaction against the invasion hypothesis and diffusionist models. The aim of the study is to redress this imbalance, pulling material back into focus, establishing a secure evidential base and exploring the likely conditions in which these often distinctive items made their way across the water. The work presented here rests upon the argument that these ‘imported’ axe-heads of flint and stone made their way into what is today called Britain as objects of considerable significance. Specifically, they were items of high symbolic value that played a crucial role in fostering the particular ways of thinking about, and addressing, social identity that are associated with the Neolithic. These issues are effectively the intellectual or academic context or background for the project, whose main objectives are the close and detailed cataloguing of relevant material, and a documentation of the ‘detective work’ needed to establish the credentials of each artefact.

This dissertation contributes to the understanding of Mesolithic settlement and subsistence change through a regional case study of archaeological data from the Trentino in northern Italy. It is argued in this thesis that in order to understand this period of hunter-gatherer prehistory, it is necessary to examine both animal bones and lithic material. These represent the main forms of archaeological evidence recorded from a series of valley bottom rock shelter and open air high altitude sites in the Trentino. An interpretative framework using risk based models is broadly applied to these data. Risk management is considered from the perspective of maintaining necessary dietary levels, through maximising the nutritional value of animal resources (animal bone data) and by tool technology (lithic materials). Butchery data are considered as evidence for hunters obtaining important sources of nutrition, including carbohydrates and vitamins, through marrow and bone grease extraction (e.g. Speth 1991). Mesolithic stone tools are examined in terms of the risks of failing to kill or capture hunted animals - through the application of 'maintainable' and 'reliable' aspects of microlithic technology and its residue (e.g. Torrence 1989). The extraction and provisioning of raw materials required to manufacture and repair hunting technology also provides a regional perspective to stone tool using strategies. Broadly, the rock shelters contain long term data-sets of animal bones and lithics. These provide a diachronic perspective to subsistence change. The open air sites offer a contrasting spatial perspective of Mesolithic settlement sites. Lithic material and site location, in relation to the surrounding topography, provides a framework for interpreting subsistence activities. The Grotta d'Ernesto cave provides further subsistence data related directly to ibex and red deer hunting. The combined study of animal bones and lithics, together with longterm and spatial perspectives provides a framework for then extending the scale of analysis from site based to regional in scale. Changes in settlement patterns are related to environmental processes that included increases in forest density, a reduction in mountain pasture areas and increased resource diversity in the valley bottom areas. Early Mesolithic subsistence is thus characterised as having a high altitude summer hunting component in which significant numbers of animals were killed and processed, while the later Mesolithic populations focused settlement and subsistence strategies in the lower altitude areas throughout the year.

This thesis examines aspects of human personhood as expressed through lithic artefacts in north west Europe during the Lateglacial. The research sites are Hengistbury Head in Britain, Rekem in Belgium and a cluster of sites in the Neuwied Basin, in Central Rhineland. The case studies cover the period of the Lateglacial Interstadial complex, about 15,500 -13,000 cal years BP. The work aims at exploring the social practice of creating hunter-gatherer personhood in given social, temporal, spatial and material contexts. The discussion centres on the social and embodied nature of lithic technology as a means of negotiating the human person. In doing so, this study situates the discourse of the reciprocal and mutually constructing relationship between humans and objects at the core level of the individual. Placed within social archaeological theory, the research adopts an outlook of social practice as an active manner of involvement. Relational entanglements between humans and things can accumulate or enchain the physical and metaphorical resources of the world, consequently leading to stasis or transformation. Therefore this thesis demonstrates that continuity and change in the archaeological record are associated with expressions of self ontologies. Further, the work suggests that, in order to comprehend this material variability, it would be helpful to consider the Lateglacial as a dynamic process of hybrid engagements instead of a fixed chronological and cultural unit.

In dominant archaeological discourse, looting has been primarily discussed in connection with its assumed profit-related motives and the destruction it causes to the archaeological context of antiquities. Such ways of thinking, however valid they may be in some instances, result in an inadequate representation and understanding of looting, which conflates diverse forms of non-professional digging and search for antiquities, ignores the socio-cultural contexts they are embedded within, and undermines or disregards the objectives or perspectives of those perceived as ‘looters’. This thesis addresses these problems and attempts to deconstruct the blanket conceptualisation of looting that assimilates and denounces a range of acts, from a failure to register an antiquity, the unauthorised possession of an artefact, to an object’s sale for subsistence purposes. In light of this, I present and interpret cases of non-professional digging and collection (but not sale) of relics gathered from ethnographic research amongst local communities in Kozani in north-western Greece. The results of the ethnographic research, interwoven with the critically analysed impact of official archaeology’s epistemology and practice (applied in Greece and elsewhere), offers a multi-layered understanding of looting, which goes beyond professionalised notions and ethics. I contend that rather than being inspired by economic objectives, looting phenomena often involve an array of diverse, complex and ambiguous social activities, embedded in daily practices. This study of looting is essentially a study of non-professionals, who physically engage with the material past, in order to control the past’s materiality and symbolic meaning and eventually construct social power for themselves. On one level, it attempts to scrutinize the complex forms of reaction and resistance of ordinary people towards official archaeology. On a deeper level, it hopes to reveal the hybrid character of seemingly opposing practices. The control over antiquities and the desire for the symbolic and social power it generates, transcend professional and non-professional behaviours towards the material past.

This thesis significantly contributes towards a fuller and more complex appreciation of the formation of human identity in Iron Age Southern England. It constitutes the first doctoral study of infancy, infant death and infant deposition for this region and period, and is the first piece of research to specifically consider infancy as an informer upon the formation of identity at this time. This thesis is structured around four main themes: (1) Was there a concept of infancy in Iron Age southern England? (2) How does infancy inform upon the construction of identity at this time? (3) If present, how did the concept of infancy fit into any perceived understanding of a wider Iron Age life course? (4) Were infants treated in similar ways to older individuals in death? These themes led to the formation of a set of hypothesised research questions. The investigative results offer an important and fresh insight into the nature and construction of identity at this time. Results suggest that infant (and older) bodies and bones were conceptualised and treated in multiple, and often co-existing, ways; many of which appear to have had nothing to do with the formal burial of the ‘person’ per se. Rather, while some bodies were formally buried, many others were perceived and treated in objectified ways. In these instances, human bodies and bones were conceptualised as forms of materiality, perceived and treated in a similar way to animal bodies and bones, objects and environmental materials. Importantly, this thesis provides evidence which suggests that although multiple and complex, in many instances, the conceptual nature of the infant (and older) body, and its subsequent treatment and deposition during this time, may have been underpinned by a uniform and geographically widespread concept of infancy.

Movement is integral to all aspects of human life. It allows us to carry out tasks ranging from the basic act of obtaining food to travelling long distances to trade goods and engage in social dynamics. Studying the complexity of human movement is instrumental in understanding the development of crucial social aspects such as identity, technology, territoriality, political complexity, and even social inequality. Movement is therefore of central concern to archaeology and anthropology. Archaeological approaches to movement have traditionally focused on the distribution of traded goods or raw materials as evidence of long-distance contacts. As such, “static” evidence has been at the heart of these studies, which often focus on objects’ points of departure or destination. Fewer attempts have been made to investigate what happened in between these points, including the processes of travelling, the mechanics of movement, or the archaeological evidence on a landscape scale related to long-distance journeys. Interestingly, no previous research has specifically looked at the detailed process of how prehistoric people navigated through the landscape while traveling within and beyond the usual limits of their local economy and social demands. Looking to tackle these issues, this thesis develops a robust theoretical framework for the study of human movement on a landscape scale investigating, through an interdisciplinary approach, the possible physical, environmental and social variables that influenced or affected this activity during prehistory. Using this framework, novel methods of spatial analysis are developed using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and High Performance Computing (HPC) to explore and identify particular spatial patterns related to this phenomenon. Using a combination of spatial analyses, a series of methodological tools are created (1) to identify potential prehistoric pathways and (2) to investigate the influence of natural corridors in the establishment of symbolic and funerary sites, the most significant variables behind the creation of prehistoric path layouts, the use of monuments and symbolic places in orientation while travelling, and, finally, their potential role of said monuments in territorial definition. Taking as specific example the late prehistoric groups of south western Iberia, the thesis investigates the particular materialization of human movement in the context of Copper Age (c. 3100-2100 BCE) and Bronze Age (c. 2100-850 BCE) societies. In the case of the Iberian Peninsula, there has been a severe lack of discussion in the discipline regarding the possible practice of mobility and sedentism as joint strategies during prehistoric times. This is the first study in Iberia exploring the degree of residential mobility that prehistoric societies exhibit. In addition, using physiological and psychological research, it also constitutes the first attempt in archaeology to build a theory on how humans navigated through their landscape before the existence of maps, testing it through robust spatial methods. Drawing on a range of available archaeological evidence from traditional pathways and the location of symbolic sites and habitats to the material culture products of trade and exchange, the research sheds light on the social meaning of long-distance movement and the importance of this activity in the development of collective identities and territories during Late Prehistory.

The heritage industry within the last few years has been undergoing a number of alterations. A number of factors have forced professionals to reassess and adapt the ways they work. As such museums have been assessing their practices in order to survive on increasingly reduced budgets, staff numbers and in some cases time. With all these changes what has been happening? Outreach programmes have been the focus of change within museums over the last few years. This practice has been singled out as an area that can be altered or lost due to its lack of direct return. However, is this lack of return due to the practice or its shortage of appropriate evaluation? This research focuses on the county of Hampshire; its museums and their outreach programmes. It explores the impact of funding, funding organisations and evaluation on outreach within this area. At its heart it looks to introduce a move away from monetary based evaluations towards well-being or social impact. The four case studies illustrate how facets of impact are not evaluated and subsequently lost through the current techniques. Ultimately, the major impacts of this practice are not the ones evaluated presently but those skirted over. Therefore, more appropriate evaluation should be created that captures all the impacts of outreach practices, in order to effectively determine if these programmes are viable within museums.