The Cambridge Prehistory of the Bronze - The Cambridge Prehistory of the Bronze and Iron Age Mediterranean

The Cambridge Prehistory of the Bronze and Iron Age Mediterranean offers new insights into the material and social practices of many different Mediterranean peoples during the Bronze and Iron Ages, presenting in particular those features that both connect and distinguish them. Contributors discuss in depth a range of topics that motivate and structure Mediterranean archaeology today, including insularity and connectivity; mobility, migration and colonisation; hybridisation and cultural encounters; materiality, memory and identity; community and household; life and death; and ritual and ideology. The volumes broad coverage of different approaches and contemporary archaeological practices will enable even general readers to understand better the people, ideas and materials that make up the world of Mediterranean archaeology today, beyond the borders that separate Europe, Africa and the Middle East. It will also help the practitioners of Mediterranean archaeology to move the subject forward in new and dynamic ways.

A. BERNARD KNAPP is Emeritus Professor of Mediterranean Archaeology at the University of Glasgow and Honorary Research Fellow at the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute in Nicosia. He has held research appointments at the University of Sydney, the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute, Cambridge University and Macquarie University (Sydney). His research interests include archaeological theory (e.g. insularity and island archaeology, social identity, gender, and hybridisation practices), archaeological landscapes and regional archaeologies and Bronze Age Mediterranean prehistory generally. He is co-editor of the Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology and editor of the series Monographs in Mediterranean Archaeology . His most recent book is The Archaeology of Cyprus: From Earliest Prehistory through the Bronze Age (Cambridge University Press, 2013).

PETER VAN DOMMELEN is Joukowsky Family Professor of Archaeology and Professor of Anthropology at the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World of Brown University. Between 1997 and 2012, he taught Mediterranean Archaeology in the Department of Archaeology of the University of Glasgow (Scotland, UK). He was visiting professor in the Department of History of the University of the Balearics (Palma de Mallorca, Spain) in 2012, in the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Cagliari (Italy) in 2011, and in the Department of Prehistory and Archaeology at the University of Valencia (Spain) in 20052006. His research interests include colonialism, rural households and landscapes in the (west) Mediterranean, in both ancient and more recent times. In practical terms, he has long been engaged in field survey and ceramic studies in Sardinia, Italy. Founding co-editor of the journal Archaeological Dialogues until 2006, he currently co-edits the Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology and sits on the editorial board of World Archaeology . He is co-author of Rural Landscapes of the Punic World (2008).

Front Cover : Bronze boat model from north central Sardinia (Italy) with a stags head at the prow and quadrupeds and birds on the gunwales. It is one of two such bronzes reportedly found accidentally in the Is Argiolas or Bonotta area of Bultei, probably as part of an otherwise destroyed or looted hoard. The bronze model is stylistically dated to the Iron Age (ca. ninth to eighth century BC). While there is little evidence to support the suggestion that these boat models served as oil lamps, they are mostly found in ritual or communal contexts in both Sardinia and, to a lesser extent, the Italian mainland (A. Depalmas 2005: Le navicelle di bronzo della Sardegna nuragica, 31, 106. Cagliari: Ettore Gasperini).

Found in 1949, this boat model is held in the National Archaeological Museum in Cagliari (Sardinia, Italy), where it is also on display. The photo was kindly taken and made available by museum staff and is reproduced by permission of the Italian Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici per le province di Cagliari e Oristano and, by extension, the Direzione Regionale per i Beni Culturali e Paesaggistici della Sardegna and the Italian Ministero per i Beni e le Attivit Culturali. We thank the soprintendente , Dr. Marco Minoja, and his collaborators for their generous support.