Details of excavations with special reference to stone technology; comparisons with ethnographic evidence of technology and subsistence patterns of the Nyatunyatara in the area; Contributions of other authors separately annotated.

This is the first book-length study of the archaeology of Australia's deserts, one of the world's major habitats and the largest block of drylands in the southern hemisphere. Over the last few decades, a wealth of new environmental and archaeological data about this fascinating region has become available. Drawing on a wide range of sources, The Archaeology of Australia's Deserts explores the late Pleistocene settlement of Australia's deserts, the formation of distinctive desert societies, and the origins and development of the hunter-gatherer societies documented in the classic nineteenth-century ethnographies of Spencer and Gillen. Written by one of Australia's leading desert archaeologists, the book interweaves a lively history of research with archaeological data in a masterly survey of the field and a profoundly interdisciplinary study that forces archaeology into conversations with history and anthropology, economy and ecology, and geography and Earth sciences.

Peter Hiscock presents an introduction to the archaeology of Australia from prehistoric times to the 18th century AD.

During HaA-HaB, many settlements were established in Silesia and in the central part of Poland, and their stability seems to be confirmed by the existence of regional groups and subgroups, by long-lasting colonies, and by long-used burial grounds, located at large settlements. At the end of HaB, many pre-Scythian elements occurred in this area, only partly influenced by the Cimmerians . During that period the peoples living north of the Carpathian and Sudeten Mountains remained very dependent on the productive and cultural circle south of the Carpathians, with which they maintained strong connections . The Lusatian settlement zone , apart from its increasing internal stability, also tended to extend its range . A partition of the Lusatian Culture, which had appeared earlier , became more pronounced under the strong influence of the East Hallstatt cultural and productive center in the eastern Alpine region , and the so-called amber route . The eastern zone of the Lusatian Culture remained under the influence of the Carpathian center, while the western zone was strongly influenced by the pre-Celtic (Bylanska or Horakowska) and northern Illyrian (Calon denberian) cultures. In HaD2' ca. 520-500 B.C., this latter area was the site of an armed incursion of Scythian groups coming from the east through the Karpacka Valley. The most characteristic features of the western zone include its own varieties of more general Hallstatt traits , such as fortified settlements (which date from HaA in the Lusatian Culture) , production of iron (done domestically since HaD), and decorated pottery.

Modern humans and their hominid ancestors relied on chipped-stone technology for well over two million years and colonized more than 99 percent of the Earth's habitable landmass in doing so. Yet there currently exist only a handful of informal models derived from ethnographic observation, experiments, engineering, and "common sense" to explain variability in archaeological lithic assemblages. Because the fundamental processes of making, using, and discarding stone tools are, at root, exercises in problem solving, Todd Surovell asks what conditions favor certain technological solutions. Whether asking if a biface should be made thick or thin or if a flake should be saved or discarded, Surovell seeks answers that extend beyond a case-by-case analysis. One avenue for addressing these questions theoretically is formal mathematical modeling. Here Surovell constructs a series of models designed to link environmental variability to human decision making as it pertains to lithic technology. To test the models, Surovell uses data from the analysis of more than 40,000 artifacts from five Rocky Mountain and Northern Plains Folsom and Goshen complex archaeological sites dating to the Younger Dryas stadial (ca. 12,600-11,500 years BP). The primary result is the production of powerful new analytical tools useful to the interpretation of archaeological assemblages. Surovell's goal is to promote modeling and explore the general issues governing technological decisions. In this light, his models can be applied to any context in which stone tools are made and used.

Why we can't resist listening in on our neighbours Eavesdropping has a bad name. It is a form of human communication in which the information gained is stolen, and where such words as cheating and spying come into play. But eavesdropping may also be an attempt to understand what goes on in the lives of others so as to know better how to live one's own. John Locke's entertaining and disturbing account explores everything from sixteenth-century voyeurism to Hitchcock's 'Rear Window'; from chimpanzee behaviour to Parisian café society; from private eyes to Facebook and Twitter. He uncovers the biological drive behind the behaviour, and its consequences across history and cultures. In the age of CCTV, phone tapping, and computer hacking, this is uncomfortably important reading.

Covers recent work on the cultural aspects of past societies, focusing especially on studies of colonisation and migration, and the impact of population growth.