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This monograph represents the first attempt in Polynesian archaeology to systematically examine rock art in the Marquesas Islands in relation to settlement patterns and excavation data. Sidsel N. Millerstrom's groundbreaking archaeological research is based on more than 15 years of field work in the islands. Surveying the dramatic landscapes of the deep valleys and thick forests of the Marquesas, Millerstrom and her team found a significant quantity of rock art. They learned that every image was not randomly placed but rather purposefully positioned according to prehistoric Marquesan cultural norms. The images were found on public and private prehistoric architecture, on outcrops, rock shelters, walls of underground pits, narrow ridges and springs. Based on our present understanding of science, Millerstrom also explains what the prehistoric petroglyphs, pictographs and anthropomorphic sculptures probably signified to the past inhabitants.

This dissertation investigates pastoral adaptations, multi-resource economic strategies and monument construction and use diachronically in the Darkhad Depression of northern Mongolia. This program of research has utilized GIS analysis, predictive modeling, pedestrian survey, targeted excavation, experimental archaeology and ethnoarchaeology. The results of this research contribute to a more detailed understanding of how this region contributed to broader social, political and economic change in the Bronze and Iron Ages through the Xiongnu period (ca. 2500 BCE - 200 CE). Numerous models have been proposed to explain the transition from an agricultural economy to an agro-pastoral or fully nomadic economy. However, there are far fewer explanatory models for the incorporation or adoption of pastoralism into existing hunting, gathering and/or fishing economies. Furthermore, a hyper-focus on connections between China and Inner Asia has dominated discussions of inter-regional, inter-economic relationships. Such trends have overshadowed potentially earlier important relationships with groups to the north, including the hunter-gatherers of Lake Baikal, and early pastoralists of the Minusinsk Basin and Tuva (Russian Federation). This dissertation research, in contrast, has employed a holistic landscape approach that examined both ritual and domestic activity areas in order to model the introduction and integration of herding practices with existing hunting-gathering-fishing economies. Recent archaeological research in the Darkhad Depression of north-central Mongolia has investigated the ritual landscape and has concluded that the monuments in this region, while not particularly large, are the oldest of their kind known in Mongolia and neighboring regions of Kazakhstan and Russia. If these monuments are connected with new forms of a pastoral economy and hierarchical social organization, as some have suggested, this underscores the importance of this region for modeling early

A room with many well-preserved artifacts was excavated at Tell Halif in a level associated with Ancient Judah. By using analogy the use of these artifacts can be compared with that of other similar objects. Analogy is at the heart of archaeological interpretation and allows a more explicit determination of the possible uses of artifacts and their patterning. The artifacts serve as evidence for reconstructing life in and around an archaeologically excavated space. By discerning the patterns of artifact distribution we can interpret how the space might have been used. The room excavated at Tell Halif has strong evidence for food processing, closely integrated with storage. Textile production was also carried out in the room. Other artifacts point to food consumption, play, personal ornamentation and the use of symbolic images. The patterning of the artifacts indicates a busy multi-use space.

Significance and integrity are key concepts for archaeology, and how they are judged is determined by an archaeologist's perceptions of disturbance. This thesis explicitly considers these concepts and how they relate to evolutionary theory and National Register eligibility. A site with known disturbance was chosen to determine whether it could be judged significant assuming that there was no disturbance. Controlled surface collection, magnetometer survey, excavation and landowner interview data were used to determine whether what made the site significant had been lost due to disturbance. The results indicate that the co-mingling of occupations in the plow zone normally would have prevented the site from being determined eligible. However, because of the clusters of Gulf Formational-period diagnostics and intact Early Archaic midden, the site was determined significant. If future work were to be performed, occupation-based work focusing on the artifact clusters and the Archaic midden is recommended.

2003 Excavations of the Taraco Archaeological Project

The first of 2 volumes reporting on excavations at a middle neolithic to early bronze age site in northeast Greece. Vol. 1 presents the full sequence of culture exposed by excavation of this settlement mound, 10.5 m deep. Further studies define the environment during the 3 millennia of occupation and clarify the changing pattern of human subsistence over time. The chronological relationships for the Aegean, the Balkans, and Anatolia are examined in detail.

"This report discusses the results of testing of three prehistoric sites (34Ps-300, Area 1 of 34Ps-302, and 34Ps-303) situated in the upstream end of proposed Impoundment #25. This project is one of 46 proposed for the Brushy-Peaceable Creek Watershed in Pittsburg County."--Page i.

"This report describes the results of a cultural resource survey conducted in May 1981 and archeological testing conducted between November 1984 and January 1985 in proposed Impoundment 16, Lower Clear Boggy Creek Watershed, Johnston County, Oklahoma, for the U.S.D.A. Soil Conservation Service."--Page iii.