Bøger udgivet af McDonald Institute Monographs

Detailing the results of excavations undertaken by the Cambridge Archaeological Unit at the Cambridge Biomedical Campus between 2007 and 2016, this volume builds upon the work of previous large-scale projects within an area that now represents one of the most intensively investigated archaeological landscapes in Britain

This volume presents detailed results on the manufacturing technology and elemental composition of some 136 objects in the collections of six European museums, with discussion of the findings in historical and cultural contexts. The starting point was the remarkable jewelry buried with a woman and a child who lived about 1650-1550 BC at Qurna, the West Bank of ancient Thebes in Upper Egypt. The questions generated from this find led to investigation of assemblages and individual artifacts from earlier periods in varied social contexts, from the rural environment of Qau and Badari, to sites connected with urban or royal centers, such as Riqqa, Haraga and Lahun.

This volume provides the results of the application of non-destructive archaeological methods (geophysical prospection and systematic surface collections) to the study of the urban site. It includes a review of what was known of the town and a discussion of the development, potential and limitations of the kind of high-resolution, extensive ground-penetrating radar survey which was carried out. Special emphasis is placed on the earliest colonial phase as well as later transformations, and explores how the inhabitants of Interamna Lirenas responded to the challenges and opportunities presented by a growing Roman world.

The ERC-funded FRAGSUS Project (Fragility and sustainability in small island environments: adaptation, culture change and collapse in prehistory, 2013-18) led by Caroline Malone has focused on the unique Temple Culture of Neolithic Malta and its antecedents. This third volume builds on the achievements of Mortuary customs in prehistoric Malta, published by the McDonald Institute in 2009. It seeks to answer many questions posed, but left unanswered, of the more than 200,000 fragments of mainly commingled human remains from the Xag¿ra Brochtorff Circle on Gozo. The focus is on the interpretation of a substantial, representative subsample of the assemblage, exploring dentition, disease, diet and lifestyle, together with detailed understanding of chronology and the affinity of the ancient population associated with the 'Temple Culture' of prehistoric Malta. The first studies of genetic profiling of this population, as well as the results of intra-site GIS and visualization, taphonomy, health and mobility, offer important insights into this complex mortuary site and its ritual. These data and the original assemblage are conserved in the National Museum of Archaeology in Valletta as a resource for future study.