Thesis--Frankfurt am Main. / A part of the author's larger work with title Äxte und Beile in Österreich, which will be published in its entirety as Abt. IX, 9 of Prähistorische Bronzefunde. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Davis, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 234-256).

Based on the author's Thesis (Ph. D.--University of Oxford, 1979). / Includes bibliographical references and index.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1972. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2006. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 277-291). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Theses (M.A.)--Marshall University, 2007. / Title from document title page. Includes abstract. Includes vitae. Document formatted into pages: contains v, 55, [62],12,[82] pages including illustrations. Bibliography: p. 52-54.

The transition from a hunter-gatherer way of life to sedentary food-producing societies was a pivotal shift in human prehistory, affecting social, political, economic and ideological structures. The Epipalaeolithic in the Levant precedes the "origins of agriculture" and is the key to understanding the beginnings of social and economic phenomena seen in the later periods. Excavations at the site `Uyun al-Hammâm, located in northern Jordan, has uncovered a large amount of lithic material, faunal remains, and several human burials suggesting this site was a place of importance on the Epipalaeolithic landscape. This thesis explores the lithic debitage from `Uyun al-Hammâm to determine the stages of reduction that are represented in the assemblage. Debitage analysis, in conjunction with other site data, contributes to a robust understanding of the site's unique function during the Epipalaeolithic.

What cognitive and cultural mechanisms facilitated the agricultural transition? In this thesis, I evaluated the hypothesis that ritual action involving large groups of people meeting regularly created a significant sense of collective purpose to bring about the social cohesion necessary for agriculture. I test this hypothesis against the archaeological record in two distinct regions: south west Asia and north-western Europe. Following Whitehouse's (2000) Modes of Religiosity theory, I show that the agricultural transition in both regions is connected with a shift from an imagistic to an increasingly doctrinal mode of religious behaviour. This result is important because it brings together insights from the prehistoric archaeology and cognitive anthropology to generate new knowledge about the agricultural transition.

It has become an axiom of British archaeology that the results of developer-funded fieldwork are under-utilised in research and several projects carried out at British universities have attempted to redress this perceived imbalance. These projects, including those on British and Continental prehistory carried out by Richard Bradley, the Roman Rural settlement project, the Fields of Britannia project, John Blair's work on early medieval England and the EngLaId project, of which this thesis forms a component, have all demonstrated beyond doubt the transformative effect of the data produced by developer-funded work on our understanding. However, to date no project has sought to utilise artefact and ecofact data produced by developer-funded work on a similar scale. This thesis is partly an attempt to fill this gap, by using ceramic, animal bone and charred plant data from digital archives generated by developer-funded archaeology, to address a series of questions about food production/consumption over the later prehistoric and early historic periods in Southern England. These three datasets have very varied characteristics and their integration in a single database was, therefore, one of the major challenges of the thesis. However, this also provided the opportunity to ask new questions and to address old questions with new data. The thesis argues that regional ecosystems had a long-term influence on processes of food production/consumption, which displayed considerable continuities across the boundaries of traditional archaeological periods. Landscape, settlement, ceramic, animal bone and charred plant data from three regional case studies, encompassing the Upper Thames Valley, the Middle and Lower Thames Valley and the route of HS1 in Kent were investigated using a Filemaker database and QGIS mapping. It is argued that, while there were long-term continuities in the use of plants and animals, the expression of social relationships expressed in fields, settlements and ceramics followed a cyclical pattern.

En comparaison avec les armatures de projectiles micro lithiques et géométriques très caractéristiques, l'outillage mésolithique reste en marge dans les études lithiques. Cette situation s'explique par son apparence peu typée qui limite la pertinence des approches morpho-typologiques. Cette thèse se propose de redéfinir l'outillage sous l'angle techno-fonctionnel par l'application de méthodes tracéologiques, dans l'objectif de replacer ces objets dans un cycle d'activités plus complet. Les quatre gisements principaux considérés sont attribuables au Premier Mésolithique (Xème- VIIe millénaire av. notre ère) et sont tous situés dans le Nord de la France et en Belgique. L'analyse des collections lithiques a permis de mettre en évidence un outillage brut très important qui constitue la majorité des objets utilisés par les préhistoriques. Ce résultat amène à ré interroger les acquis des études qui ne raisonnaient que sur les pièces retouchées volontairement. Les 501 zones utilisées reconnues montrent logiquement que les Mésolithiques ont transformé des matières animales, en particulier la peau. L'artisanat végétal apparait lui aussi très bien représenté, ce qui constitue un vrai changement par rapport au Paléolithique. Le raclage des plantes et du bois était probablement une activité majeure pendant toute la période mésolithique. Des contrastes peuvent être observés entre les gisements, probablement en raison de fonctions de site différentes. Il est certain que cette variabilité est aussi liée à des facteurs chrono-culturels qui pourront à l'avenir être mieux compris grâce à une approche intégrée comme celle qui a été développée dans cette thèse. / In contrast to the geometric arrow heads, the technological and typological study of Mesolithic lithic tools has often been hampered by their un-standardized nature. This doctoral research presents the results of a functional approach to four Early Mesolithic sites from Northern France and Belgium, with the aim to replace these objects in a more global economical system. Use-wear analysis has made it possible to identify a very significant use of the un-retouched pieces which dominate the toolkits. Mesolithic groups has worked animal materials, especially skins but also different vegetal materials. Plant material and wood-working was probably a major activity in the western Europe Mesolithic. Furthermore, a more detailed analysis of different functional modes suggests that technical attitudes varied between different sites. Site function, together with chronological and geographic differences, were also factors likely to have played a role in the contrasts observed between sites. Functional studies, which are still too sporadic, undoubtedly have a part to play in untangling these factors.