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This thesis explores the application of Semantic Web technologies to the discipline of Archaeology. Part One (Chapters 1-3) offers a discussion of historical developments in this field. It begins with a general comparison of the supposed benefits of semantic technologies and notes that they partially align with the needs of archaeologists. This is followed by a literature review which identifies two different perspectives on the Semantic Web: Mixed-Source Knowledge Representation (MSKR), which focuses on data interoperability between closed systems, and Linked Open Data (LOD), which connects decentralized, open resources. Part One concludes with a survey of 40 Cultural Heritage projects that have used semantic technologies and finds that they are indeed divided between these two visions. Part Two (Chapters 4-7) uses a case study, Roman Port Networks, to explore ways of facilitating MSKR. Chapter 4 describes a simple ontology and vocabulary framework, by means of which independently produced digital datasets pertaining to amphora finds at Roman harbour sites can be combined. The following chapters describe two entirely different approaches to converting legacy data to an ontology-compliant semantic format. The first, TRANSLATION, uses a 'Wizard'-style toolkit. The second, 'Introducing Semantics', is a wiki-based cookbook. Both methods are evaluated and found to be technically capable but socially impractical. The final chapter argues that the reason for this impracticality is the small-to-medium scale typical of MSKR projects. This does not allow for sufficient analytical return on the high level of investment required of project partners to convert and work with data in a new and unfamiliar format. It further argues that the scale at which such investment pays off is only likely to arise in an open and decentralized data landscape. Thus, for Archaeology to benefit from semantic technologies would require a severe sociological shift from current practice towards openness and decentralization. Whether such a shift is either desirable or feasible is raised as a topic for future work.

The investigation was formulated to clarify and supplement the limited palaeoenvironmenta1 evidence available from the chalklands of central southern England. Pollen analysis was the principal technique utilised. Only two deposits within the chalk outcrop contained sufficient fossil pollen for analysis: a riverine peat north of Winchester and a mire in clays overlying chalk at Snelsmore in Berkshire. Consequently, five sites peripheral to the chalk were also examined: Amberley in Sussex, Rimsmoor, Okers and Kingswood in Dorset and Woodhay in Berkshire, The sequence from Winchester provides evidence for the Boreal and Atlantic woodland of the chalk and exhibits an early Ulmus decline clearance. Open conditions appear to have prevailed in at least this area of the Hampshire Downs since the Early Neolithic. The Snelsmore data show that from the end of the UImus decline clearance, woodland was a more common feature of the local landscape. The peripheral sites in general exhibit phases of woodland clearance and regeneration similar to sites elsewhere in Britain. At several of these peripheral sites there is a good correlation between the chronology of episodes in the pollen diagrams and archaeological events on the chalklands, although the representation of pollen from vegetation on the chalk outcrop may have been low. The rapidly accumulating peat at Rimsmoor shows clearance episodes in considerable detail and at Kingswood a phase of Mesolithic disturbance may be recorded. It is proposed that certain areas of the chalk, such as that around Winchester, have been characterised by an essentially open landscape since the Early Neolithic. In other areas, however, as perhaps typified by the Snelsmore analysis, woodland was more common. Edaphlc and socio-economic reasons are advanced for these differences.

The centrepiece of this thesis is a comparative study of the stone rows of Dartmoor and northern Scotland, a rare, putatively Bronze Age megalithic typology. It is argued that these should be defined as cairn-and-rows monuments that ‘symbolise’ long mounds, and avenues in the case of Dartmoor — a circumstance that ‘explains’ the interregional similarities; other aspects of their semantic structures are also analysed using rigorous semiotic theory. An evolutionary approach is taken, drawing on biological theory to explain the active role of these monuments in social evolution, and to understand the processes at work in producing long term change in monument traditions. New theory is developed for analysing such archaeological sequences, and for understanding and explaining material culture in general. The concepts of adaptation and environment in archaeological theory to date are criticised, and environmental construction theory, and aspects of the Extended Phenotype theory, are forwarded as alternatives. The local sequences are contextualised by examining European megalithic origins, tracing the long mound ‘concept’ back to the Bandkeramik longhouses. The question of diffusion or convergence is tackled by examining the mechanisms at work during the transitions from longhouse to long mound and then to the cairn-and-rows; the explanations forwarded for the social function of the monuments is integrated with mechanisms for explaining their spread (or ‘diffusion’). It is argued that all of these related forms — longhouses, long mounds, and the cairn-and-rows — are implicated in a process of competitively asserting ancestral affinities, which explains the constraint on cultural variation, and thus the formation of remarkably stable monument traditions, and the convergence between Dartmoor and northern Scotland in the Early Bronze Age.

The archaeological excavation of the early medieval site at Towyn-Y-Capel on the island of Anglesey (Ynys Môn) in North Wales, UK, provided the opportunity to study a large population (122 skeletons) at a site that was in use over a period of up to 550 years (650 -1200 AD). Samples of skeletal materials for this study were taken directly from the site itself .The osteological condition of skeletal material was variable across the site. In general, the upper burials in particular were in the poorest condition, and were mainly fragmented and dispersed due to the ongoing site erosion and diagenetic processes. Conversely, lower “cist” burials were in far better condition. The assessment of skeletal sample condition was used to select materials chosen for genetic analysis, and 44% (54) of the skeletal population were selected for analysis of appropriate samples of tooth and bone. The gross morphology of samples was assessed and 87% of bones and teeth were considered to be in good or fair condition, according to the gross preservation index (GPI) used, while only 2% of bones and no teeth were considered to be in excellent condition. In addition to GPI, a novel technique called Qualitative Light Fluoresence (QLF), based on autofluoresence, was used to ascertain the surface condition of the teeth. Compared to the fluorescence of modern enamel, there was a net loss of 21.8% fluorescence, although the degree of fluorescence from one sample to another varied (with a standard deviation from the mean of 24.973). Histological sections taken from non-human bone finds from the site generally varied less than that indicated by the gross morphology, showing good to excellent histological preservation. Further to gross and histological morphology, ten skeletal samples were selected for detailed investigations, and were analysed for amino acid racemisation and amino acid composition. All samples tested had D/L enatomer Aspartic acid ratio less than 0.1, although 50% of the samples had D/L enatiomer Aspartic acid ratio over 0.08, which indicated that the recovery of aDNA from these skeletal samples was feasible, although the biological condition of the teeth was fairly degraded. The inorganic element profile of the same ten samples showed no discernable anomalies, either due to diet or diagenesis. To consolidate genographic research, strontium isotope analysis was performed and, from the small population subset, three anomalous ratios were found. Two of these were high (Skeletons 33 and 60), indicating that these individuals had spent their childhoods in areas with high strontium ratios, representative of precambrian rock types, possibly older than those of the Holyhead Rock group, such as in Northern Scotland or Norway. The skeletal samples yielding the lowest strontium ratio (Skeleton 52) are of compelling interest, since the ratio is indicative of upbringing in only one place in the North Atlantic, namely Iceland. In this study, DNA recovery was performed on teeth and bones from the site, after extensive decalcification of samples, and also extraction and optimisation trials. Amplification of DNA extracted from teeth samples was generally more successful than for bone samples. A random amplification based polymorphic (RAPD) DNA technique was utilised to “fingerprint” human and animal samples with limited success. Contamination and template variation are likely causes for the lack of success. Amplification using several primers specific for human HV1 & 2 mtDNA targets was also met with limited success. The results show that 14.8% of the skeletal teeth samples were amplified, and these were not commonly reproducible. DNA spiking trials demonstrated that some of the samples were affected by inhibition. Independent confirmation of 9 of 10 successful samples was attained by sequencing, and although sequences were highly degraded, an attempt was made at determining the haplogroups from the sequenced HV1 haplotypes based on likelihood. Generally, the site showed a high predominance of Haplotype K (5) followed by H (2) and U (2) haplogroup profiles.

This thesis studies the origin and role of wealth in the Viking Age (late 8th to 11th century) and Late Norse (11th to 15th century) earldoms of Orkney and Caithness, northern Scotland. It has four aims. Firstly, it attempts to elucidate the key sources of wealth in the earldoms and, more specifically, the possible economic role of fish trade. Secondly, it investigates how control of these sources of wealth may have been distributed within Viking Age and Late Norse society. Thirdly, it attempts to isolate chronological trends in the utilisation of different sources of wealth and the social relations surrounding them. Finally, it was hypothesised that a consideration of these issues might illuminate the character and causes of the transition of Orkney, Caithness and Shetland from a semi-independent and non-Christian Viking Age polity to a periphery of medieval Christian Europe. Part 1 is a geographical and protohistorical survey of Viking Age and Late Norse Orkney, Caithness and Shetland. It discusses available evidence and establishes the considerable wealth of the earldoms. Part 2 investigates the possible sources of this wealth. It concludes by highlighting circumstantial evidence for an export trade in cured fish. Zooarchaeological and archaeobotanical data receive particular attention. New methodological tools for interpreting the weight of zooarchaeological assemblages are also discussed. In Part 3, the possibility that medieval fish middens (at sites such as Robert's Haven, Caithness) represent waste from the production of cured fish for export is considered in detail.

This research was born out of a need for me to know, as a London-born Greek Cypriot, why the archaeology and history of my place of origin have no shades of grey. The history I learned at school – British school – was fluid, it was about how different actors felt, why they did things; we learnt role play and empathy. At home, and in Greek school, history was black and white, them vs us, Turks vs Greeks and this was the way it had been throughout history. I wanted to known and understand history, not have it ask me questions. I went to university to study archaeology, hoping that by studying the distant past I would find my answers, but I just found more questions. The central research questions of this thesis are: what effect do political events have on state representations of the archaeological and historical record? How can these be analysed? What effect does politics have on archaeology as practiced in Cyprus? This research has addressed these questions by focusing on state uses of the past in Cyprus from 1878 until the present through the analysis of education, the mass media and tourism. The central premise is that states are involved in the creation and maintenance of national and group identities and that by studying these, one is able to understand the uses to which academic areas of study have been put. My research provides an assessment of how the pasts of Cyprus have been used by the British colonial administration and the government of the Republic of Cyprus in attempts to create particular identities relating to colonialism and nationalism. In my analysis I have focused on the three moments that are repeatedly represented as being central to Greek Cypriot literature about the history of Cyprus: the late Bronze Age Mycenaean ‘colonisation’; the classical period; and the folk image. These have been assessed with reference to three media used by all states in the creation and maintenance of national identities: education, the mass media; and tourism.

Archaeology, the study of people in the past through their material culture, recognises the potential of space and the built environment to create and transmit social statements. Country houses were dynamic and active elements in the history of Scotland. Landowners did not act in a social vacuum. As society changed, houses, as the clearest physical expression of identity and status, were used to negotiate relations with others, and with the natural world. Houses were used to appeal to traditional power bases, while at the same time allowing a response to, and involvement in, the changing political and social world. This thesis uses a multidisciplinary approach in an attempt to understand architecture not just as art, but as a reflection of, and element in, the social lives and relationships of the people who lived in, worked around, viewed and visited the country house.

Roman military equipment has traditionally been studied from a typological perspective based on a linear concept of change. Whilst Roman alloys have been analysed scientifically and general studies on them have been published, analysis of military equipment has been scarce and mostly secluded as part of excavation reports of individual sites. Scientific analysis though, can provide independent ways of studying military equipment. It can answer questions about production and distribution of the raw materials and finished objects and is capable of informing on reasons for technological choices (the intention of obtaining determinate colours, for example), and identification of military units. A total of 216 copper-alloy military objects from the British sites of South Cadbury Castle, Ham Hill, Usk, Carlisle, Chester and Kingsholm, and the German site of Kalkriese were selected for obtaining metallurgical characterisation: chemical analysis at major, minor and trace element level and microstructural analysis to obtain fabrication history and identifying any plating. The analytical techniques employed were atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS), scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive x-ray spectrometry (SEM-EDS), optical microscopy and multivariate statistics methods such as principal component analysis (PCA), discriminant analysis (DA) and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). The aim of the project was to characterise the chemical and physical make-up of Roman military copper-alloy metalwork from the 1st century AD, with especial interest in the immediate post-conquest period. The results of the analysis show a difference between the Roman military equipment from British sites and the equipment from Kalkriese, based on trace element patterns. This difference can be explained by a large input of material into Britain that had been made in the years before AD43 in preparation for the conquest. Contrary to recent scholarship, and based on compositional and microstructural evidence, some lorica segmentata brass fittings seem to have been centrally produced. Primary brass and specific gunmetal compositions seem to be associated with the military and probably chosen primarily for their appearance and resemblance to gold, rather than for their mechanical properties. The possibility of mechanised production of brass is explored based on the brass ingot from Sheepen.

Electromagnetic (EM) techniques are used to locate and map archaeological features through differences in soil EM properties (linked to geotechnical properties and climatic conditions), but these have poorly understood seasonality to their response, and poor performance on certain (especially fine grained) soils. Customised Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR) monitoring stations were used to collect hourly apparent relative dielectric permittivity (ARDP), bulk electrical conductivity (BEC) and temperature data from archaeological features and the surrounding soil matrix (SSM) for four sites over a 16-23 month period. Soil samples were taken to study links between geotechnical and EM properties in the laboratory. Differences in BEC-VWC (volumetric water content) and ARDP-VWC relationships between fine and coarse grained soils were found, but differences between archaeological and SSM soils were small, confirming field measured contrasts predominantly result from VWC differences. ARDP-VWC relationships were affected by the EM loss tangent rather than just bound water as previously suggested, making BEC and magnetic properties of the soil significant. Both archaeological and SSM soils showed similar trends in recorded values and infiltration responses after rainfall events, and differences were predominantly due to water holding capacities of the soils and variations in drying patterns which were tied to the properties of the soil, especially porosity, clay content and mineralogy. Whilst coarse grained soils showed good EM contrasts throughout, smaller contrasts were found on fine grained soils, with optimum times for detection found during dry conditions when VWC differences were at a maximum and during warm periods where BEC differences were accentuated.