Thesis (M.A.)--University of South Africa, 2001.

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The Anthropological Papers of the University of Arizona is a peer-reviewed monograph series sponsored by the School of Anthropology. Established in 1959, the series publishes archaeological and ethnographic papers that use contemporary method and theory to investigate problems of anthropological importance in the southwestern United States, Mexico, and related areas.

This thesis is concerned with related aspects of physical and settlement changes in the coastal portion of the largest lowland in peninsular Italy, the Tavoliere of Poggia (Apulia). It is an empirical study, summarising the state of archaeological and geographical information, offering new archaeological and sedimentary evidence, and reassessing many interpretations concerning settlement, economic activity and the environment from the mid-Holocene and Early Neolithic times to the present. Formerly there were a number of lagoons in the coastlands, wide open to the Adriatic or almost wholly closed by the barrier island. Today much of this is cultivated land. Before the implications of such a physical change on past settlement and economy can be assessed, the ancient settlement patterns have to be discovered; the buried topography revealed; and the nature and phasing of the sedimentation that has all but obliterated the lagoons outlined. These are the main objectives in the present study. A perhaps wider range of source material than is orthodox in historical geography is investigated to these ends. The study of written and cartographic sources, from the Roman period onward, is intimately combined with the study of field evidence both archaeological and sedimentary. In this way, much of the evidence falls in to place as a better understanding of the former physical environment is achieved. For instance, cognizance of the openness of one lagoon leads to a more accurate interpretation of the route directions of the Roman itineraria and a better coincidence of archaeological and written evidences for lost settlements. But, bearing in mind that the thesis is essentially an interim statement on an active and longterm research programme, no conclusions are attempted although the study has implications reaching beyond the local area. Instead, the three important factors of change - climatic change, changes in sea level, and the anthropogenic factor - are introduced as the basis of the next stage in the research programme.

Although there are a few general surveys of early Islamic metalwork, and numerous detailed studies of particular objects or object groups, no comprehensive study of the metalworking industry in Iran in early Islamic times has yet been written. This thesis aims to provide that study first by assembling as much as possible of the basic information on metalworking in Iran from the Islamic conquests to the mid 13th century and then by using it to draw some general conclusions about the range and history of Iran's metalworking industries at this time. The primary sources used are the references to metals and metalworking in early Islamic literature and the surviving objects. For technical information and for select vocabularies of the relevant Arabic and Persian terminologies the technical treatises of al-Hamdānī, al-Birūnī, Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī, and Abū'l-Qāsim al-Kāshānī have been particularly exploited. For the names and functions of particular objects or object groups a range of Arabic non-technical works has been searched. For the gazetteers and general discussions of metal sources Arabic and Persian geographical works have been utilised. The objects catalogued and discussed here include all the published pieces known to the author, together with unpublished objects in the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Ashmolean Museum (including Sirāf excavation material), the Musée du Louvre in Paris (including Susa excavation material), the Museum für Islamische Kunst Berlin-Dahlem, the StaatlicheMuseum in East Berlin, the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg, the Philadelphia University Museum (including the Rayy excavation material), the Walters Art Gallery, the Freer Gallery of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (including the Nīshāpūr excavation material), and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. All objects have been arranged in groups on the basis of metal, function, and form, and catalogued accordingly, and an overall dating and provenancing for each group has been established through reference to their decoration, including inscriptions where relevant, and archaeological data. Additional use has been made of analyses undertaken by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the British Museum, the Musee du Louvre, and the Ashmolean Museum, plus a limited number of other published analyses: all these are included in a single Table.

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