The book contains the Proceedings of the 37th International Symposium on Archaeometry, 12th May 2008, Siena, Italy. The aim of the Symposium is to promote the development and use of scientific techniques in order to extract archaeological and historical information from cultural heritage and the paleoenvironment. It involves all Natural Sciences and all types of objects and materials related with human activity. Papers deal with the development and/or application of scientific techniques for extracting information related to human activities of the past, including the biological nature of man himself and the environment in which he lived. Topics include: Field Archaeology and Intergrated Site Studies; Archaeo-chronometry including recent developments in Radiocarbon Dating; Human - Environment Interactions including Geoarchaeology, Palaeoclimate studies, Landscape Archaeology, Environmental reconstructions, etc.; Bioarchaeology; Food preparation and consumption in Antiquity; the Technology and Provenance of Stone, Plaster, Pigments;Ceramics, Glazes, Glass and Vitreous Materials, Metals and Metallurgical Ceramics; and Micro/nano diagnostic techniques.

The 23 papers presented here are the product of the interdisciplinary exchange of ideas and approaches to the study of kitchen pottery between archaeologists, material scientists, historians and ethnoarchaeologists. They aim to set a vital but long-neglected category of evidence in its wider social, political and economic contexts. Structured around main themes concerning technical aspects of pottery production; cooking as socioeconomic practice; and changing tastes, culinary identities and cross-cultural encounters, a range of social economic and technological models are discussed on the basis of insights gained from the study of kitchen pottery production, use and evolution. Much discussion and work in the last decade has focussed on technical and social aspects of coarse ware and in particular kitchen ware. The chapters in this volume contribute to this debate, moving kitchen pottery beyond the Binfordian ‘technomic’ category and embracing a wider view, linking processualism, ceramic-ecology, behavioral schools, and ethnoarchaeology to research on historical developments and cultural transformations covering a broad geographical area of the Mediterranean region and spanning a long chronological sequence.

The first scientific volume to compile the modern analytical techniques for glass analysis, Modern Methods for Analysing Archaeological and Historical Glass presents an up-to-date description of the physico-chemical methods suitable for determining the composition of glass and for speciation of specific components. This unique resource presents members of Association Internationale pour l'Histoire du Verre, as well as university scholars, with a number of case studies where the effective use of one or more of these methods for elucidating a particular culturo-historical or historo-technical aspect of glass manufacturing technology is documented.

This book explores the changing nature of power and identity from the Iron Age to the Roman period in Britain. It provides fresh insights into the origins and nature of one of the lesser-known, but perhaps most significant, Late Iron Age 'oppida' in Britain: Bagendon in Gloucestershire.