London-Bahrain Archaeological Expedition excavations at Saar: 1993 season

During 1993, the London-Bahrain Archaeological Expedition conducted a fourth season of excavations at the early second millennium settlement of Saar, Bahrain. A lower level of the temple was cleared, and a range of buildings to its north-west discovered. A new street was found opposite the temple entrance, and several of the buildings along the main street were further investigated. Further environmental research included a new programme of micromorphology and the start of research into the fish remains.     

London-Bahrain Archaeological Expedition: 1991–2 excavations at Saar

Preliminary results are presented of the third season of excavations at Saar, Bahrain, by the London-Bahrain Archaeological Expedition. Research at this second millennium BC site continued in the temple, as well as in parts of the upper town. Bedrock was reached at a depth of approximately 5.45 metres in the sondage below the temple. Several new buildings were found and work was completed in houses discovered in previous seasons. The article goes on to discuss the numerous seals and seal impressions found this season.     

London-Bahrain Archaeological Expedition: 1994 and 1995 excavations at Saar, Bahrain

The long-term aim of the project is to excavate the entire central area of the Dilmun settlement. During the 1994 and 1995 seasons a further twelve buildings were excavated, most of them located along the main arteries of the settlement. A resistivity survey, followed by selective excavation, determined the size and extent of the site. A well excavated on the eastern flank provided valuable information about the level of Bahrain's aquifers in the Early Dilmun period.     

Archaeological excavations at Bosutswe,Botswana: cultural chronology,paleo-ecology and economy

Excavations at the site of Bosutswe on the eastern edge of the Kalahari Desert in Botswana have uncovered over 4 m of deposit ranging in age from CE 700 to 1700. Our research has produced quantitative and qualitative measures of the material and ecological dimensions that structured the everyday actions and behaviors through which social identities were constituted, maintained, and transformed during the period when the polities of Toutswe, Mapungubwe, Great Zimbabwe and Khami rose to power. By examining the material dimensions that underlay shifting relations of production, exchange, and social stratification we are able to contextualize the social judgments that ascribed value to material goods and food ways, while specifying the ways these were used to create and naturalize social relationships and power differentials. Stable isotope analyses, combined with evidence of vitrified dung, further enable us to suggest changes in herd management strategies used by the inhabitants of the site to compensate for ecological changes brought about by long-term occupation, while at the same time enabling them to economically tie subordinates to them as social divisions became more rigidly defined after CE 1300. The cultural and economic changes that took place at Bosutswe thus directly impact our understanding of the social transformations that immediately preceded contemporary configurations of ethnicity in Botswana.     

Archaeobotanical evidence for early Dilmun diet at Saar, Bahrain

A flotation machine was used to process large quantities of earth at the Saar excavation in the 1990 and 1991 seasons. Carbonised seeds and charcoal were recovered from a wide range of contexts dating to about 1900 BC. While overall quantities were low, enough contexts were productive to allow quantification. Date stones were the most frequent crop remains, with smaller amounts of free-threshing wheat and hulled six-row barley. This confirms evidence from other sources (textual, dental) for the importance of dates as a staple food in the Early Dilmun period. A survey of ethnographic and archaeological evidence for date husbandry in Bahrain suggests that the date-palms and cereals were grown in irrigated date gardens similar to those found today.     

Charcoal from an Early Dilmun settlement at Saar, Bahrain

The identification of charcoal fragments dating to circa 1900 BC indicates that fuel wood was predominantly date ( Phoenix dactylifera ) supplemented by small native shrubs and a member of the Rhizophoreae (mangroves unlikely to have been growing in the region and possibly representing an imported timber). A narrower range of species was used compared to other sites excavated in adjacent regions in the Arabian Gulf. Other woody species (including Zygophyllum qatarense and sidr ( Ziziphus )) that are common nowadays in Bahrain do not appear to have been used.     

New excavations at the Barbar Temple, Bahrain

In 2004 excavations at the Barbar Temple dating to c. 2000 BC established that the function of the southeastern subterranean channel connected to the temple pool was to supply the pool with water and not to divert water away from the pool. North and west of the temple the oval terrace wall of its third phase was located. In the centre of the Northeast Temple the remains of a shaft-stairway leading down to a well-chamber was uncovered and shown to be furnished with two subterranean channels leading water into the chamber. South of the Northeast Temple a house with late pottery was excavated. Two stamp seals and two seal-impressed tokens were found.     

Archaeological Tree-Ring Dating at the Millennium

Tree-ring analysis provides chronological, environmental, and behavioral data to a wide variety of disciplines related to archaeology including architectural analysis, climatology, ecology, history, hydrology, resource economics, volcanology, and others. The pace of worldwide archaeological tree-ring research has accelerated in the last two decades, and significant contributions have recently been made in archaeological chronology and chronometry, paleoenvironmental reconstruction, and the study of human behavior in both the Old and New Worlds. This paper reviews a sample of recent contributions to tree-ring method, theory, and data, and makes some suggestions for future lines of research.     

湖田窑考古新收获

本文着重介绍了景德镇湖田窑元代遗址最新考古发掘的材料,并通过对这些新材料的研究,认定湖田窑址所代表的窑场可能是元代浮梁磁局所属的官府瓷器作坊之一.除日用瓷外,建筑用瓷也是其主要产品。在釉色品种上,有青白釉器.卵白釉器、白釉器、黑釉器、青花、釉里红和低温彩瓷等。     

A still worm from excavations at Carrick Castle,Argyll

Abstract

During 1993 excavations at Carrick Castle, Argyll, a rare item of distilling equipment was unearthed. Possibly dating to the 17th century, the copper alloy condenser or ‘worm’ is unique in design. Pollen analysis of an associated soil sample supports a use in the production of grain spirits. The technology of manufacture and historical context of the worm are examined in depth.     

The Changing Vernacular: archaeological excavations at Temple End,High Wycombe,Buckinghamshire

Abstract

Excavations beneath and around the late Georgian Glinester House at Temple End, in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, revealed the presence of at least three major phases of building. Dating from the 16th century these structures appear to be a succession of farmhouses lying at the centre of wider farm complexes. While these buildings are located within the former lands of Temple Manor, from which the area and farm name derives, no evidence of a medieval manor complex was located within the excavation area. Rather the pattern of development is more indicative of wider transformations in vernacular housing and domestic life between the 16th and 19th centuries.     

Molluscan evidence for diet and environment at Saar in the early second millennium BC

Molluscan shells were abundant throughout the archaeological deposit at Saar. Analysis of species composition and abundance provided evidence for marine food in the diet and for local marine environments. The most important edible species were bivalves such as pearl oyster and clams with smaller numbers of gastropods, for example conch and muricid snails. The range of archaeological species indicated that there were no major changes in the intertidal marine habitats. They have not provided further evidence for the location of the prehistoric coastline which might have differed from the present day. Flotation samples contained small freshwater gastropods which have not been recorded previously from sites in the Arabian Gulf. These gave evidence for the use of water in the site and for nearby freshwater springs.     

Proceedings at the Meetings of the Archaeological Institute

The excavator has two advantages over his architect colleague in the study of ancient buildings: he can take his studies back long before the date of the earliest surviving vernacular buildings; and, by beginning his researches at ground level and going down, he can study parts that other researchers cannot reach. This paper, arising out of excavations undertaken in medieval York over the past eight years, seeks to compare what is now known about the underpinnings of York's medieval buildings with the development established, in the main by Denys Spittle's colleagues in the York office of the RCHM, from the above-ground evidence, the surviving buildings. It is offered to Mr Spittle, a scholar whose studies usually stop at ground level, from one whose studies as often as not begin there, on the one hand in recognition of the patient tolerance he has shown of the enthusiasms of the excavator during his incumbancy of the Institute's secretaryship; and on the other in the hopes that future vernacular building studies will increasingly show a marrying of the evidence from excavations with that from the standing buildings.