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This exciting new study draws on objects excavated or discovered in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century at three Mediterranean sites. Through the three case studies,Materia Magicaidentifies specific forms of magic that may be otherwise unknown. It isolates the practitioners of magic and examines whether magic could be used as a form of countercultural resistance. Andrew T. Wilburn discovers magic in the objects of ancient daily life, suggesting that individuals frequently turned to magic, particularly in crises. Local forms of magic may have differed, and Wilburn proposes that the only way we can find small-town sorcerers is through careful examination of the archaeological evidence. Studying the remains of spells enacted by practitioners, Wilburn's work unites the analysis of the words written on artifacts and the physical form of these objects. He situates these items within their contexts, to study how and why they were used.Materia Magicaapproaches magic as a material endeavor, in which spoken spells, ritual actions, and physical objects all played vital roles in the performance of a rite. Materia Magicadevelops a new method for identifying and interpreting the material remains of magical practice by assessing artifacts within their archaeological contexts. Wilburn suggests that excavations undertaken in recent centuries can yield important lessons about the past, and he articulates the ways in which we can approach problematic data.

 The Neandertal site of the Sima de las Palomas del Cabezo Gordo, located in Murcia in southeastern Spain, is unique in several respects. One of its most important contribution to the field of Anthropology, however, may be that it has yielded of the remains of at least 17 Neandertals, adding appreciable breadth to the available data for a greater understanding of Neandertals. Further, its location in the southern Iberian Peninsula provides the potential for studying a population that may have been somewhat isolated from contemporaneous groups of early humans.   This comprehensive analysis represents the first detailed description and analysis of the human fossil assemblage found at the Sima de las Palomas site. While scientific discussion continues regarding the precise impact of Neandertals upon modern human physiology and biology, The People of Palomas adds significantly to our knowledge of the human fossil record of the Late Pleistocene.  

Though known as a site since 1903, El Mirón Cave in the Cantabrian Mountains of northern Spain remained unexcavated until a team from the universities of New Mexico and Cantabria began ongoing excavations in 1996. This large, deeply stratified cave allowed the team to apply cutting-edge techniques of excavation, recording, and multidisciplinary analysis in the meticulous study of a site that has become a new reference sequence for the classic Cantabrian region. The excavations uncovered the long history of human occupation of the cave, extending from the end of the Middle Paleolithic, through the Upper Paleolithic, up to the modern era. This volume comprehensively describes the background information on the setting, the site, the chronology, and the sedimentology. It then focuses on the biological and archaeological records of the Holocene levels pertaining to Mesolithic, Neolithic, Chalcolithic, and Bronze Age. Archaeologists, anthropologists, and historians will be drawn to this study and its extensive findings, dated by some seventy-five radiocarbon assays.

The transition process of the Roman city between the Early Roman period and Late Antiquity is difficult to understand due to the absence of urban models and the decline in epigraphy. The transformations that accompany this period are detectable in the western provinces of the Empire from a very early time. Their interpretation –crisis, mutation, etc.– varies with each study case. Ancient Cartagena (Hispania Citerior) is a paradigm of these changes. Starting under Marcus Aurelius, the city began to show symptoms of exhaustion, at the same time as literary and epigraphic evidence began to decline, until it disappeared altogether. In these pages we aim to contribute –and at the same time vindicate– an approach to discovering more about the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD based on the archaeological record and taking into account the stratigraphic sequences and especially the pottery material culture. The compiled documentation begins with a triple vocation: to serve as an instrument for dating; to provide quantified data about Carthago Nova’s patterns of consumption, way of life and trading links; and to understand the evolution of the city in a period from which the urban model of the Late Period emerged. Spanish text with English summary.

Archaeological excavations of the baptistery of the Late Antique site of Son Peretó (Manacor), located on the island of Mallorca in the Balearic Islands (Spain), provide interesting new findings related to the material culture of the 5th to 8th centuries AD and, above all, in relation to the tombs, pools and baptismal buildings on the site.

The origin and early development of social stratification is essentially an archaeological problem. The impressive advance of archaeological research has revealed that, first and foremost, the pre-eminence of stratified or class society in today's world is the result of a long social struggle. This volume advances the archaeological study of social organisation in Prehistory, and more specifically the rise of social complexity in European Prehistory. Within the wider context of world Prehistory, in the last 30 years the subject of early social stratification and state formation has been a key subject on interest in Iberian Prehistory. This book illustrates the differing forms of resistances, the interplay between change and continuity, the multiple paths to and from social complexity, and the 'failures' of states to form in Prehistory. It also engages with broader questions, such as: when did social stratification appear in western European Prehistory? What factors contributed to its emergence and consolidation? What are the relationships between the notions of social complexity, social inequality, social stratification and statehood? And what are the archaeological indicators for the empirical analysis of these issues? Focusing on Iberia, but with a permanent connection to the wider geographical framework, this book presents, for the first time, a chronologically comprehensive, up-to-date approach to the issue of state formation in prehistoric Europe.

This book aims to provide a summary of the current archaeological framework for investigations of the Modern Age in the Basque Country, and to make proposals for developing these practices in the future.

Curchin explores how, why and to what extent the peoples of Central Spain were integrated into the Roman Empire during the period from the second century BC to the second century AD.He approaches the question from a variety of angles, including the social, economic, religious and material experiences of the inhabitants as they adjusted to change, the mechanisms by which they adopted new structures and values, and the power relations between Rome and the provincials. The book also considers the peculiar cultural features of Central Spain, which made its Romanization so distinctive.

The main objective of this book has been to open a line of research into the religious population of the city of Jerez de la Frontera, in southern Spain, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries - the 'Modern Age' - which until now has not been thoroughly investigated.