While the archaeological legacies of Greece and Cyprus are often considered to represent some of the highest values of Western civilization—democracy, progress, aesthetic harmony, and rationalism—this much adored and heavily touristed heritage can quickly become the stage for clashes over identity and memory. In Contested Antiquity, Esther Solomon curates explorations of how those who safeguard cultural heritage are confronted with the best ways to represent this heritage responsibly. How should visitors be introduced to an ancient Byzantine fortification that still holds the grim reminders of the cruel prison it was used as until the 1980s? How can foreign archaeological institutes engage with another nation's heritage in a meaningful way? What role do locals have in determining what is sacred, and can this sense of the sacred extend beyond buildings to the surrounding land? Together, the essays featured in Contested Antiquity offer fresh insights into the ways ancient heritage is negotiated for modern times.

This volume examines the distinctive and highly problematic ethical questions surrounding conflict archaeology. By bringing together sophisticated analyses and pertinent case studies from around the world it aims to address the problems facing archaeologists working in areas of violent conflict, past and present. Of all the contentious issues within archaeology and heritage, the study of conflict and work within conflict zones are undoubtedly the most highly charged and hotly debated, both within and outside the discipline. Ranging across the conflict zones of the world past and present, this book attempts to raise the level of these often fractious debates by locating them within ethical frameworks. The issues and debates in this book range across a range of ethical models, including deontological, teleological and virtue ethics. The chapters address real-world ethical conundrums that confront archaeologists in a diversity of countries, including Israel/Palestine, Iran, Uruguay, Argentina, Rwanda, Germany and Spain. They all have in common recent, traumatic experiences of war and dictatorship. The chapters provide carefully argued, thought-provoking analyses and examples that will be of real practical use to archaeologists in formulating and addressing ethical dilemmas in a confident and constructive manner.

A comprehensive overview, by period and region, of the archaeology of ritual and religion. The coverage is global, and extends from the earliest prehistory to modern times. Written by over sixty renowned specialists, the Handbook presents the very best in current scholarship, and will also stimulate further research.

Archaeologists, ethnohistorians, osteologists, and cultural anthropologists have only recently begun to address seriously the issue of Native American war and peace in the eastern United States. New methods for identifying prehistoric cooperation and conflict in the archaeological record are now helping to advance our knowledge of their existence and importance. Focusing on four major issues in prehistoric warfare studies--settlement patterns, skeletal trauma, weaponry, and iconography--David H. Dye presents a new interpretation of ancient war and peace east of the Mississippi. He considers evidence for raiding and more organized forms of warfare, accounts of native warfare witnessed by sixteenth-century Europeans, and the various causes of warfare, such as revenge, competition for resources, and ideology. War Paths, Peace Paths offers an innovative analysis of cooperation and conflict in the prehistoric eastern United States.

Grounded in decades of research, this book covers contemporary matters such as the entanglement of race and nationalism with archaeology.

The first text to address the contentious issues raised by the pursuit of anthropology and archaeology in the world today. Calls into question the traditional, sometimes difficult relationship between western scholars and the contemporary cultures and peoples they study and can easily disturb.

This collection of texts is a first step towards providing a theoretical and methodological platform for the study of social encounters. The social encounter is a particular sort of concept, focusing on confusion, tension, trauma, and possibly social change that may emerge in situations of contact when people and things interact. A social encounter is, however, not only about negotiation or contemplating existence, but is rather about what happens when people interact actively, when they involve themselves with people and materialities, when they move around, fetch things, use things, leave things etc. The repeated social encounter is often a confrontation with something, such as an opinion, a performance, or with materialities and the effects are often unpredictable. Encounters may reproduce a social pattern, but also contain potential for transformation and change. Such varied responses to encounters will certainly have effects on the archaeological record. The primary focus of the volume is the effects and processes involved in intra- and inter-societal encounters. The collection hence fills a theoretical and methodological gap in the study of the encounter in archaeology. There is a need for elaborating aspects of postcolonial theory in order to develop new ways of approaching the archaeological record. The articles of this volume include examples from various regions and time periods. They range from Scandinavian Stone Age, through Buddhist social practices of the first millennium AD, Maya warfare and ideology, to Aboriginal-European encounters in 20th century Australia.Per Cornell (PhD, Ass. Prof.) is currently lecturer at the Department of archaeology, University of Gothenburg. Cornell has been involved in extensive field-work in Latin America and current research topics include settlement archaeology, formation processes and social theory. Among his recent books are Local, Regional, Global, co-edited with Per Stenborg (Gotarc, 2004).

Archaeology reveals the hidden history of battlefields

In the past two decades, conflict archaeology has become firmly established as a promising field of research, as reflected in publications, symposia, conference sessions and fieldwork projects. It has its origins in the study of battlefields and other conflict-related phenomena in the modern Era, but numerous studies show that this theme, and at least some of its methods, techniques and theories, are also relevant for older historical and even prehistoric periods. This book presents a series of case-studies on conflict archaeology in ancient Europe, based on the results of both recent fieldwork and a reassessment of older excavations. The chronological framework spans from the Neolithic to Late Antiquity, and the geographical scope from Iberia to Scandinavia. Along key battlefields such as the Tollense Valley, Baecula, Alesia, Kalkriese and Harzhorn, the volume also incorporates many other sources of evidence that can be directly related to past conflict scenarios, including defensive works, military camps, battle-related ritual deposits, and symbolic representations of violence in iconography and grave goods. The aim is to explore the material evidence for the study of warfare, and to provide new theoretical and methodological insights into the archaeology of mass violence in ancient Europe and beyond.

Ethics in the field of archaeological research has become increasingly more complicated, particularly in response to the recent growth of contract archaeology. The past is not in fact "dead and buried," and ethical questions about this living record demand an ongoing discussion within the social and cultural groups who interpret this record. Authored largely by members of the Society for American Archaeology Ethics Committee, this up-to-date edited volume of original articles tackles issues such as the origins of and theory behind archaeological ethics, as well as archaeologists' responsibilities to the archaeological record, to diverse publics, to each other, and to their students. The book promises to fuel a critical debate among professionals and will be an important tool for training the next generation of archaeologists. Published in cooperation with the Society for American Archaeology. Published in cooperation with the Society for American Archaeology.