Three Guides to Three Ancient Cities

Recently released are three very differing approaches to writing a guidebook, but each offers a great chance to discover more about one of the greatest cities of the Ancient Mediterranean.

New Bargains

Your regular chance to get a first look at our most recent bargain books.

Of all the new books that have passed over the desks of the Oxbow staff this month, these, for whatever reason, are the ones that grabbed their attention.

New Releases

Time and Change: Archaeological and Anthropological Perspectives on the Long Term in Hunter-Gatherer Societies
edited by Dimitra Papagianni, Robert Layton and Herbert Maschner
Paperback. GB £30.00, GB £7.95

This volume explores long-term behavioural patterns and processes of change in hunter-gatherer societies from the Lower Palaeolithic to the present. In doing so, this volume questions the disciplinary distinctions between fine and coarse-grain understandings of hunter-gatherer societies in anthropology and archaeology and challenges the perception that these distinctions are inherent to the two disciplines. The volume brings together studies that specifically address long-term behavioural patterns in hunter-gatherer societies past and present. Some of the contributors also combine historical/archival data and archaeological evidence with anthropological work on contemporary hunter-gatherers. All the papers are based on case-studies that, taken together, cover a wide geographical and chronological range. They represent current research dynamics in anthropology and archaeology across the globe (North and South America, Europe and Australia), and a variety of theoretical perspectives. The papers range chronologically from the Lower Palaeolithic to the present, and encompass groups at various levels of complexity of social organisation and degrees of sedentism, interaction with farmers and 'pristine-ness'.

Escaping the Labyrinth: The Cretan Neolithic in Context
edited by V Isaakidou and P Tomkins
Paperback. GB £24.00, GB £10.00

Beneath the Bronze Age 'Palace of Minos', Neolithic Knossos is one of the earliest known farming settlements in Europe and perhaps the longest-lived. For 3000 years, Neolithic Knossos was also perhaps one of very few settlements on Crete and, for much of this time, maintained a distinctive material culture. This volume radically enhances understanding of the important, but hitherto little known, Neolithic settlement and culture of Crete. Thirteen papers, from the tenth Sheffield Aegean Round Table in January 2006, explore two aspects of the Cretan Neolithic: the results of recent re-analysis of a range of bodies of material from J.D. Evans' excavations at EN-FN Knossos; and new insights into the Cretan Late and Final Neolithic and the contentious belated colonisation of the rest of island, drawing on both new and old fieldwork. Papers in the first group examine the idiosyncratic Knossian ceramic chronology (P. Tomkins), human figurines from a gender perspective (M. Mina), funerary practices (S. Triantaphyllou), chipped stone technology (J. Conolly), land and-use and its social implications (V. Isaakidou). Those in the second group, present a re-study of LN Katsambas (N. Galanidou and K. Mandeli), evidence for later Neolithic exploration of eastern Crete (T. Strasser), Ceremony and consumption at late Final Neolithic Phaistos (S. Todaro and S. Di Tonto), Final Neolithic settlement patterns (K. Nowicki), the transition to the Early Bronze Age at Kephala Petra (Y. Papadatos), and a critical appraisal of Final Neolithic 'marginal colonisation' (P. Halstead). In conclusion, C. Broodbank places the Cretan Neolithic within its wider Mediterranean context and J.D. Evans provides an autobiographical account of a lifetime of insular Neolithic exploration.

Conferences we will be attending

British Society for Middle Eastern Studies Conference
Leeds, UK (Friday 04 July, 2008 - Sunday 06 July, 2008)
The 2008 BRISMES Annual conference will be hosted by the Department of Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies at Leeds University, England from Friday 4 to Sunday 6 July 2008. The theme of this year's conference will be 'Mapping Middle Eastern and North African Diasporas', and therefore would invite contributions which seek critical understandings of notions like 'Diaspora' , ' Exile', 'Globalisation', ' Effects of war on terror', 'Postcoloniality', 'Xenophobia', 'Islamophobia', 'Transculturation' and 'Occidentalism' as they relate to the Middle Eastern and North African ( MENA) Diasporas.
http://www.dur.ac.uk/brismes/events_2008.htm

Leeds International Medieval Congress
Leeds, UK (Monday 07 July, 2008 - Thursday 10 July, 2008)
The fifteenth International Medieval Congress will take place in Leeds, from 7-10 July 2008. This year's theme is The Natural World: While unicorns and dragons may have wandered through imaginary landscapes, the inhabitants of medieval Europe were busily taming the wildernesses surrounding them to permit their exploitation by human settlements and agriculture. Bush and forest were cleared to make way for crops and plants grown for food and trade. Animals were subject to breeding projects, some species were hunted to near extinction, while others were introduced or imported for entertainment and pleasure. But the interaction between humankind and the environment was reciprocal: short-term effects of weather and longer-term climatic change, for example, could have profound consequences for medieval economies, societies, and cultures.
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/ims/imc/imc2008_call.html