The discovery of the Dover Bronze Age boat sixteen years ago continues to inspire and stimulate debate about the nature of seafaring and cultural connections in prehistoric Europe; the twelve papers presented here reflect an increasing recognition of cross-channel similarities and a coming together of maritime ('wet') and terrestrial ('dry') archaeology. Contents: Building new connections (Peter Clark); Encompassing the sea: 'maritories' and Bronze Age maritime interactions (Stuart Needham); From Picardy to Flanders: transmanche connections in the Bronze Age (Jean Bourgeois and Marc Talon); British immigrants killed abroad in the seventies: the rise and fall of a Dutch culture (Liesbeth Theunissen); The Canche Estuary (Pas-de-Calais, France) from the early Bronze Age to the emporium of Quentovic: a traditional trading place between south east England and the continent (Michel Philippe); Looking forward: maritime contacts in the first millennium BC (Barry Cunliffe); Copper Mining and production at the beginning of the British Bronze Age new evidence for Beaker/EBA prospecting and some ideas on scale, exchange, and early smelting technologies (Simon Timberlake); The demise of the flint tool industry (Chris Butler); Land at the other end of the sea? Metalwork circulation, geographical knowledge and the significance of British/Irish imports in the Bronze Age of the Low Countries (David Fontijn); The master(y) of hard materials: thoughts on technology, materiality and ideology occasioned by the Dover boat (Mary W Helms); Exploring the ritual of travel in prehistoric Europe: the Bronze Age sewn-plank boats in context (Robert van de Noort); In his hands and in his head: the Amesbury Archer as magician (Andrew Fitzpatrick).

New and exciting discoveries on either side of the English Channel in recent years have begun to show that people living in the coastal zones of Belgium, southern Britain, northern France and the Netherlands shared a common material culture during the Bronze Age, between three and four thousand years ago. They used similar styles of pottery and metalwork, lived in the same kind of houses and buried their dead in the same kind of tombs, often quite different to those used by their neighbours further inland. The sea did not appear to be a barrier to these people but rather a highway, connecting communities in a unique cultural identity; the 'People of La Manche'. Symbolic of these maritime Bronze Age Connections is the iconic Dover Bronze Age boat, one of Europe's greatest prehistoric discoveries and testament to the skill and technical sophistication of our Bronze Age ancestors. This monograph presents papers from a conference held in Dover in 2006 organised by the Dover Bronze Age Boat Trust, which brought together scholars from many different countries to explore and celebrate these ancient seaborne contacts. Twelve wide-ranging chapters explore themes of travel, exchange, production, magic and ritual that throw new light on our understanding of the seafaring peoples of the second millennium BC.

This innovative book uses social network analysis to trace the origins of pre-Roman Italian peoples from their earliest exchange networks.

This innovative volume draws on a range of materials and places to explore the disparate facets of Bronze Age society across the Nordic region through the key themes of time and trajectory, rituals and everyday life, and encounters and identities. The Bronze Age in Northern Europe was a place of diversity and contrast, an era that saw movements and changes not just of peoples, but of cultures, beliefs, and socio-political systems, and that led to the forging of ontological ideas materialized in landscapes, bodies, and technologies. Drawing on a range of materials and places, the innovative contributions gathered here in this volume explore the disparate facets of Bronze Age society across the Nordic region through the key themes of time and trajectory, rituals and everyday life, and encounters and identities. The contributions explore how and why society evolved over time, from the changing nature of sea travel to new technologies in house building, and from advances in lithic production to evolving burial practices and beliefs in the afterlife. This edited collection honours the ground-breaking research of Professor Christopher Prescott, an outstanding figure in the study of the Bronze Age north, and it takes as its inspiration the diversity, interdisciplinarity, and vitality of his own research in order to make a major new contribution to the field, and to shed new light on a Bronze Age full of contrasts and connections.

The Cambridge Prehistory of the Bronze and Iron Age Mediterranean offers new insights into the material and social practices of many different Mediterranean peoples during the Bronze and Iron Ages, presenting in particular those features that both connect and distinguish them. Contributors discuss in depth a range of topics that motivate and structure Mediterranean archaeology today, including insularity and connectivity; mobility, migration, and colonization; hybridization and cultural encounters; materiality, memory, and identity; community and household; life and death; and ritual and ideology. The volume's broad coverage of different approaches and contemporary archaeological practices will help practitioners of Mediterranean archaeology to move the subject forward in new and dynamic ways. Together, the essays in this volume shed new light on the people, ideas, and materials that make up the world of Mediterranean archaeology today, beyond the borders that separate Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.

The diverse forms of regional connectivity in the ancient world have recently become an important focus for those interested in the deep history of globalisation. This volume represents a significant contribution to this new trend as it engages thematically with a wide range of connectivities in the later prehistory of the Mediterranean, from the later Neolithic of northern Greece to the Levantine Iron Age, and with diverse forms of materiality, from pottery and metal to stone and glass. With theoretical overviews from leading thinkers in prehistoric mobilities, and commentaries from top specialists in neighbouring domains, the volume integrates detailed case studies within a comparative framework. The result is a thorough treatment of many of the key issues of regional interaction and technological diversity facing archaeologists working across diverse places and periods. As this book presents key case studies for human and technological mobility across the eastern Mediterranean in later prehistory, it will be of interest primarily to Mediterranean archaeologists, though also to historians and anthropologists.

Appendices to the main volume 'Barrows at the core of Bronze Age Communities'