++ Please forward to all appropriate forums ++

Internet Archaeology is pleased to announce the full publication of edition
17 of the journal. 

http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue17/index.html

Contents:-

•     S Willis – An e-Monograph: Samian Pottery, a Resource for the Study
of Roman Britain and Beyond: the results of the English Heritage funded
Samian Project

This substantial work is the culmination of a 3 year study into patterns of
consumption of Roman samian in Britain. The article comes with a large
dataset that is archived by the ADS and has been converted into a web
enabled and searchable database that is set to become a valuable tool for
specialists and non-specialists alike. 

•     P Allison et al. - Extracting the social relevance of artefact
distribution in Roman military forts
	
'Engendering Roman Spaces' is a research project concerned with using
artefact assemblage analyses to better understand spatial and gender
relationships in the early Roman Empire and to produce more engendered
perspectives of Roman society. 

This paper discusses the methodology and analyses being used in this project
to investigate social behaviour within Roman military forts and fortresses
of the 1st and 2nd centuries CE through analyses of the spatial distribution
of artefacts at these sites. The processes involved include digitising
previously published maps and artefact catalogues from Roman military sites
to create searchable databases and GIS maps. They also include the
classification of the artefacts according to a number of functional and
gender-associated categories (e.g. combat equipment, male and female dress,
toilet etc.) so that the spatial distributions of the relevant activities
can be plotted. This data is then used to interpret the spatial
relationships of these activities and the people involved in them.

The double legionary fortress of Vetera I, on the Lower Rhine, has been used
to exemplify these processes. This fortress was excavated in the early 20th
century and the artefacts were comprehensively published in 1995 (N. Hanel,
Vetera I: Die Funde aus den römischen Lagern auf dem Fürstenberg bei Xanten.
Rheinische Ausgrabungen 35, Rheinland-Verlag, Cologne and Dr Rudolf Halbert,
Bonn, 1995). The paper includes descriptions of the methods and software
employed in the digitisation of relevant material from these volumes, the
formation of relational databases, and the importation of this data and of
site maps into a GIS programme. To illustrate these processes and to present
some of the results, the paper also includes a number of examples of the
analyses carried out, together with interactive GIS maps of these analyses.


•     P Dolukhanov et al - The Holocene Environment and Transition to
Agriculture in Boreal Russia (Serteya Valley Case Study)
	
This article outlines the results of one of the aspects of a
multidisciplinary project currently conducted in the upper part of the basin
of the Western Dvina River in North-Western Russia. The project was targeted
at prehistoric lake dwelling sites in the valley of Serteya River, a small
tributary of the Western Dvina, and aimed at the precise dating of the
initial transition from hunting-gathering to agriculture in that area. The
methods used included pollen, diatom and geochemical analyses under strict
time control provided by radiocarbon dating. The initial settlement emerged
at c. 6200 cal. BC, when the valley was filled by a fresh water lake with a
relatively high lake-level. The initial indices of agriculture became
perceptible in the deposits of Usvyatian Culture (4600-3400 cal. BC),
featuring large-scale constructions of pile-dwellings. Indices of swidden
type agriculture became apparent in the deposits of Zhizhitsian Culture,
2300-2200 cal. BC.

•     P Popkin - Caprine butchery and bone modification templates: A step
towards standardisation

This article concerns the creation of digital templates for bone recording
and forms a good linkage with the Harland paper in edition 13. The
downloadable standard for recording butchery marks will be of general
utility in designing and populating a variety of zooarchaeological database
systems. 

•     G Falkingham - A Whiter Shade of Grey: a new approach to
archaeological grey literature using the XML version of the TEI Guidelines.

This article considers how archaeology might take advantage of the
possibilities offered by XML document mark-up for the electronic
dissemination and presentation of archaeological grey literature, and how
this might also assist in digital document preservation and the repurposing
of document content for input into a variety of heritage datasets.

Subscriptions
=============
If you belong to one of the many institutions who already subscribe to
Internet Archaeology, then you will be able to access the full text of this
article immediately by following this link.
        http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue17/index.html

As an individual subscriber to the journal, you can subscribe to any article
now for £12.50. If you have never subscribed to a volume or article of the
journal before, then you can do so by using our secure order form. See
http://intarch.ac.uk/subscriptions.html for more details.

regards,
Jon
---
Dr Jon Kenny
Acting Editor, Internet Archaeology
http://intarch.ac.uk