This study considers the phenomenon of the sudden and brief appearance of clay figurines in west-central Kyushu towards the end of the Jomon Period (13,000-2,300 14C years BP). The baked clay figurines representing humans were made throughout the Jomon Period, but mostly in central and northern Honshu. Following a review of previous interpretations of the Jomon clay figurines in general, the study focuses on the case of the numerous figurines recovered at the Kaminabe (ca. 2,800 14C years BP) site in Kyushu. Data on lithic assemblages and plant remains at Kaminabe and the sites in the surrounding area during the period under consideration indicate that small-scale cultivation was being practiced in the region. It is suggested here that the Kaminabe figurines represent the females who played important role in production of plant resources.

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This study concerns Paleo-Indian behaviour and culture history in the central Great Lakes region. More than 15 sites and numerous loci associated with Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene societies in southwestern Ontario are reported. These are organized into archaeological complexes and their interpretation is synthesized into a broader understanding of early occupations in the Northeast. / Complexes are defined by projectile point typology and substantiated by other technological traits and patterns of lithic raw material utilization. Early (fluted point associated) Paleo-Indian complexes are, in suggested chronological order, Gainey, Parkhill, and Crowfield. Late Paleo-Indian complexes are Holcombe and Madina. All date between 11 000 and 10 000 B.P. according to geological considerations, pollen dating, and comparisons to dated materials elsewhere. / Seasonal rounds of resource exploitation within broad territorial ranges are suggested for Gainey and Parkhill populations. Commodity exchange involving particular implement categories provides evidence of band interaction. Mortuary practices and religious beliefs are suggested by possible cremation burials at the Crowfield site. Other significant behavioural patterns are revealed through inter- and intra-site analyses.

This thesis presents a taphonomic analysis of a zooarchaeological assemblage excavated from JfEl-10, a Thule site located near modern Quaqtaq in Nunavik. Little is known of the Thule occupation of Nunavik, and even less concerning Thule subsistence activities here. As a result, this is one of the first detailed zooarchaeological analyses performed on Thule archaeofaunas from the Ungava region. Because of the poor preservation that characterized the assemblage, a taphonomic study was undertaken in order to determine the "representativeness" of the faunal remains. Food utility indices are compared to bone density indices, in order to establish the effects of density-mediated attrition upon the faunal remains. / A moderate correlation was found between bone density and the identified animal bones. This indicated that, while density-mediated attrition had altered the zooarchaeological assemblage, bone density alone did not provide a sufficient explanation for the observed element distributions. Other taphonomic agents, such as those related to the degree of butchering and the potential effects of cryoturbation upon remains, also need to be taken into consideration.

The main purpose of this study was to investigate and examined the politics in the production of archaeological knowledge especially in rock art, at academic, heritage institutions and national and global level. It aims to trace and examine the development and movement of particular hypotheses or interpretations and their appropriateness in the study and management of rock art heritage in southern Africa.

A metalsmith�s ability to turn stone into metal and mould metal into useable objects, is one of the most valuable production industries of any society. The conception of this metallurgical knowledge has been the major catalyst in the development of increasing socio-political complexity since the beginning of the Bronze Age (Childe, 1930). However, when considering the prehistory of Southeast Asia, especially Thailand, it is noted that the introduction of metallurgical activity, namely copper and bronze technology, did not engender the increase in social complexity witnessed in other regions. It is suggested that the region is anomalous in that terms and concepts developed to describe and define Bronze Ages by scholars working in other regions, lack strict analogues within Southeast Asia. Muhly (1988) has famously noted the non-compliance of Southeast Asia to previous models, "In all other corners of the Bronze Age world-China, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, the Aegean and central Europe-we find the introduction of bronze technology associated with a complex of social, political and economic developments that mark the rise of the state. Only in Southeast Asia, especially in Thailand and Vietnam, do these developments seem to be missing" (Muhly, 1988:16). This "rise of the state" is associated with the development of hierarchy, inequality, and status differentiation, evidence for which, it is argued, is most explicitly articulated in mortuary contexts (Bacus, 2006). Evidence would include an intra-site restriction in access to resources, including prestige goods, and ranking, a vertical differentiation, often related to interment wealth. Thus the introduction of metallurgical technology saw copper and other prestige goods, used to entrench authority and advertise status (Coles and Harding; 1979). Such evidence has so far been absent in Bronze Age, Southeast Asian contexts. Accordingly, the usefulness of the term "Bronze Age" for describing and defining Southeast Asian assemblages has been questioned (White, 2002). However, the Ban Non Wat discovery of wealthy Bronze Age interments, with bronze grave goods restricted to the wealthiest, has furrowed the brow of many working in the region, providing evidence to at least reconsider this stance. Despite its obvious importance in shaping Bronze Age societies around the globe, and now, significance in Northeast Thailand, very little is known of the acceptance, development, and spread of tin-bronze metallurgical techniques during the prehistory of Southeast Asia. Only a handful of investigations of archaeological sites in the region have investigated the use of metals beyond macroscopic cataloguing. Utilising an agential framework, the Ban Non Wat bronze metallurgical evidence has been investigated as an entire assemblage, from the perspective of the individual metalsmith, in order to greater understand the industry and its impact upon the society incorporating the new technology. Furthermore, mortuary data is investigated by means of wealth assessment, as an insight into social form throughout the corresponding period of adoption, development and spread of metallurgy. The bivalent study of society and technology has shed light on the development of socio-political, and economic complexity during Bronze Age Southeast Asia, and in doing so, outlined the direct impact the metalsmiths themselves had on the supply, spread and functioning of their important industry. Variabilities in grave �wealth,� have been identified at Ban Non Wat. A further situation not previously encountered in Bronze Age Southeast Asia, is the restriction of bronze goods, in death, to differentiated, wealthy individuals. The existence of such individuals suggests that society during this period was rather more complex than regional precedents would suggest. I contend that it is the introduction of metallurgy, and in particular, the nature in which it was conducted that engendered these developments. Therefore, when considering the traditional course of developing social-political complexity during the Bronze Age, it now seems that Thailand at least, is potentially, not that anomalous.

Aboriginal Australian heritage forms a significant and celebrated part of Australian heritage. Set within the institutional frameworks of a predominantly ??white?? European Australian heritage practice, Aboriginal heritage has been promoted as the heritage of a people who belonged to the distant, pre-colonial past and who were an integral and sustainable part of the natural environment. These controlled and carefully packaged meanings of Aboriginal heritage have underwritten aspects of urban Aboriginal presence and history that prevail in the (previously) colonial city. In the midst of the city which seeks to cling to selected images of its colonial past urban Aboriginal heritage emerges as a significant challenge to a largely ??white??, (post)colonial Australian heritage practice. The distinctively Aboriginal sense of anti-colonialism that underlines claims to urban sites of Aboriginal significance unsettles the colonial stereotypes that are associated with Aboriginal heritage and disrupts the ??purity?? of the city by penetrating the stronghold of colonial heritage. However, despite the challenge to the colonising imperatives of heritage practice, the fact that urban Aboriginal heritage continues to be a deeply contested reality indicates that heritage practice has failed to move beyond its predominantly colonial legacy. It knowingly or unwittingly maintains the stronghold of colonial heritage in the city by selectively and often with reluctance, recognising a few sites of contested Aboriginal heritage such as the Old Swan Brewery and Bennett House in Perth. Furthermore, the listing of these sites according to very narrow and largely Eurocentric perceptions of Aboriginal heritage makes it quite difficult for other sites which fall outside these considerations to be included as part of the urban built environment. Importantly this thesis demonstrates that it is most often in the case of Aboriginal sites of political resistance such as The Block in Redfern, the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra and Australian Hall in Sydney, that heritage practice tends to maintain its hegemony as these sites are a reminder of the continuing disenfranchised condition of Aboriginal peoples, in a nation which considers itself to be postcolonial.

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