Among the various practices in antiquity designed for administrative control of storage facilities and archives is the stamped clay sealing applied to the wooden lock of a closed door. This specialized type of door-lock sealing is still quite rare in the archaeological record. The discovery during the 1992 excavation season of an exceptionally preserved clay door-lock sealing in the late Middle Bronze Age (MB III; 1590-1530 BCE) sacred precinct at Tel Haror, Israel, is the first to be identified in this region and the first to be recorded in a temple context and is the subject of this study. This unique find qualifies for a detailed description, and for a reconstruction of its lock, key and sealing, as well as a discussion of the locking mechanism system, following the pioneering research on the outstanding corpus of such sealings from Arslantepe, Malatya. In addition, the archaeological context of the sealing and its possible association with the temple will be discussed.

THIS ISSUE CONTAINS INVESTIGATING DOMESTIC ECONOMY AT THE BEGINNING OF THE LATE CHALCOLITHIC IN EASTERN ANATOLIA: THE CASE OF ARSLANTEPE PERIOD VIII Cristiano Vignola, Francesca Balossi Restelli, Alessia Masi, Laura Sadori, Giovanni Siracusano KURA ARAXES CULTURE AREAS AND THE LATE 4TH AND EARLY 3RD MILLENNIA BC POTTERY FROM VELI SEVIN’S SURVEYS IN MALATYA AND ELAZIg, TURKEY Mitchell S. Rothman CULTURAL ENTANGLEMENT AT THE DAWN OF THE EGYPTIAN HISTORY: A VIEW FROM THE NILE FIRST CATARACT REGION Maria Carmela Gatto PASTORAL STATES: TOWARD A COMPARATIVE ARCHAEOLOGY OF EARLY KUSH Geoff Emberling A CLAY DOOR-LOCK SEALING FROM THE MIDDLE BRONZE AGE III TEMPLE AT TEL HAROR, ISRAEL Baruch Brandl, Eliezer D. Oren, Pirhiya Nahshoni CASE BASTIONE: A PREHISTORIC SETTLEMENT IN THE EREI UPLANDS (CENTRAL SICILY) Enrico Giannitrapani, Filippo Iannì, Salvatore Chilardi, Lorna Anguilano OLD OR NEW WAVES IN CAPO GRAZIANO DECORATIVE STYLES? Sara T. Levi, Maria Clara Martinelli, Paola Vertuani, John Ll.Williams

Case Bastione is a large settlement occupied from the Late Neolithic to the Bronze Age and lying within the western Erei uplands in the valley of the Morello river (central Sicily). The first excavation seasons (2007, 2009, 2013) investigated the Late Copper Age and Early Bronze Age layers (mid 3rd to mid 2nd mill. cal. BC). The campaigns have yielded extensive evidence of domestic structures, and also of a number of craft activities, such as textiles, pottery making, lithic production and possibly metallurgy. Data about the absolute and relative chronologies, based on radiometric dating and the typological analysis of the rich pottery complex, are discussed. Abundant zoological remains also highlight the role of animal husbandry in the subsistence strategies of the village community. The paper ends with a preliminary discussion of geomagnetic and archaeometric analyses carried out during the 2013 campaign.

In Colonial Encounters in Southwest Canaan during the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age Koch offers a detailed analysis of local responses to colonial rule, and to its collapse.

The Kura Araxes, a cultural tradition of the late 4thand 3rd millennia BC, has recently become a focus of international archaeological research. It was first discovered in the mountains of the Taurus and the South Caucasus. From near the beginning of the tradition evidence suggests that populations bearing some of its hallmarks, black-burnished, handmade pottery and a ritual of the hearth, spread out over a wide region of the Taurus, Zagros, and Caucasus Mountains, and as far south as the area of the Sea of Galilee in the southern Levant. Recent research has questioned whether the simple narrative of a discreet homeland and unassimilated migrants fairly describes the ancient reality. One of the key dependent variables used to trace the prehistory of the Kura Araxes cultural tradition is pottery. This article discusses the cultural meaning and interpretive use of pottery, but also the limits of pottery style alone to reconstruct prehistory. It adds previously unpublished material from Veli Sevin’s surveys in Malatya and Elazığ provinces to the larger database for study of the Kura Araxes.

The present article analyses the charred seeds and faunal remains from the Late Chalcolithic 2 (ca. 4200-3900 BCE) occupation at Arslantepe, in the Anatolian Malatya plain. Charred seeds are all found in situ, in a single room clearly interpretable as a kitchen on the basis of its installations and materials. Faunal remains are from all sealed and well stratified contexts dated to this period. The identification of species is here presented and evaluated within the broader framework of a reconstruction of primary economy at the site. Comparisons with later Late Chalcolithic agricultural and herding practices at the same site are made with the aim of investigating the changes undergone by the primary economy in the phases of increasing social complexity, along the path that brought to the origin of the first state systems in Upper Mesopotamia.

Six main decorative styles have been tentatively distinguished in the Early-Middle Bronze age Capo Graziano incised pottery of the Aeolian Islands. This experimental study focuses on the analysis of 68 bowls from the islands of Lipari, Filicudi, Salina and Stromboli and from Milazzo in Sicily. The classification is based on motifs and styles, and integrates typology, technology, composition and decoration in their identification. The styles are linked to production centres showing different spatial and temporal variations and appear to reflect different dynamics: the expert “individual” craftsman, the design in fashion, the symbolic code or the fulfilment of specific functions. The evaluation of skill in application and variability in the concept are measured in order to assess the social implications in the production of the pottery. This interim investigation will continue to refine the chronology and to establish the decorative styles in other Aeolian Islands. It is possible that schematic elements in the decorative styles, such as undulating lines and metopes, reflect the maritime and insular environment of the Aeolian Islands.