Bogucki (Princeton U.) and Crabtree (anthropology, New York U.) head an impressive group of archaeologists and anthropologists--at universities and museums in the UK, the US, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Hungary, Denmark, Poland, Sweden, and Germany--who have written the entries for this two-volume reference. It is appropriate for undergraduate, advanced high school, and general reader audiences. It spans the end of the Ice Ages until the rise of governments and record-keeping brought prehistory to an end, and the editors have deliberately extended the geographical area considered beyond western Europe to include Slavic lands. The volumes begin with introductory chapters describing the field of archaeology and essential elements of prehistoric cultures, including such topics as settlement patterns, gender, ritual and ideology, and warfare and conquest. Subsequent entries pertain to postglacial foragers, the transition to agriculture, the consequences of agriculture, the age of metal, the Iron Age in Europe, and the early middle ages and migration period. B&w illustrations, maps, diagrams, and drawings support the text. Annotation ♭2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

This study challenges current modelling of Bronze Age tell communities in the Carpathian Basin in terms of the evolution of functionally-differentiated, hierarchical or 'proto-urban' society under the influence of Mediterranean palatial centres.

This book addresses the problems of identifying human actions behind finds of bones in settlement archaeology, exemplified with the identification of ritual deposits. In order to formulate a methodological framework for approaching the identification of ritual deposits, different methods are tested on four Early Medieval case studysites: Dongjum and Leeuwarden, two artificial dwelling mounds situated in the then undiked salt marches of the Northern Netherlands, Midlaren, an inland settlement in Drenthe, also in the Northern Netherlands, and finally Uppåkra, a central place in the South of Sweden. The bone fragments from the four materials are studied in a five step process of definition, description, identification, interpretation and explanation. The deposits are discussed with the help of various archaeological, ethnographic and historical sources. The results of the analysis lead to a methodological framework for understanding individual deposits based on a holistic perspective where all information is regarded as potentially valuable, various methods are taken into consideration, and simplification is avoided.

Originally published as Volume 4 (2005) of Brill's bi-annual Ancient West & East.