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The paper presents an alternative view of the social forces behind the construction of the Maltese temples, in the light of new evidence from recent excavations. Access analysis and the social anthropological theory of networks in island communities are introduced as aids in the analysis of the parallel programme of funerary and temple architecture in the Maltese islands that had its origin in the late fifth millennium cal. BC and came to an abrupt end in the mid-third millennium cal. BC. It is suggested that intra-community rivalry could have provided the mobilization of resources for the phases of construction of the temples and that centralized social forces need not have been as important as has been suggested in previous work. In this light, the end to temple construction need not be seen as a major social collapse, but as the end of one means of fighting with material culture.

Many studies of early agriculture and soils in Europe and in Italy, in particular, concentrated on the prime soils; relatively little attention has been given to more marginal zones. Broad comparisons have often been made between modern soils and the distributions of sites and little attention has been paid to indicators of pedological change, such as snails and pollen. Recent archaeological and environmental research in the valley of Gubbio (Umbria, Italy), at the Neolithic site of San Marco, has provided a new and important range of environmental and economic data which allows alternative interpretations than those based directly on modern pedological data.

Modern studies of Iron Age landscapes in Scotland have concentrated on the outer islands (e.g. Parker Pearson & Sharpies 1999; Harding 2000), and most recently on areas such as Caithness [...]

In 1997 a new collaborative research project was initiated by the British School at Rome. This project draws on a variety of sources of archaeological information to explore the regional impact of the City of Rome throughout the period from 1000 sc to AD 1300. The project provides a common collaborative research framework which brings together a range of archaeologists and historians working in various institutions. In this paper those involved in different aspects of this new project outline their work and its overall objectives., Introduction An understanding of the development of settlement in the Tiber valley is central to any understanding of Rome, its place in the ancient world and the development of European [...]