Using over 400 colour figures of a diverse range of artefact types and archaeological periods from 50 countries worldwide, this book outlines the mineralogical, chemical and microstructural composition of ancient ceramics and provides comprehensive guidelines for their scientific study within archaeology.

Thin section ceramic petrography is a versatile interdisciplinary analytical tool for the characterization and interpretation of archaeological pottery. Using over 200 photomicrographs of thin sections from a diverse range of artefacts, time periods and geographic regions, this provides comprehensive guidelines for their study within archaeology.

This manual introduces the basic concepts of chemistry behind scientific analytical techniques and reviews their application to archaeology. It is an essential tool for students of archaeology that explains key terminology and outlines the procedures to be followed in order to produce good data.

Lynn Rainville's revised thesis uses micro-debris analyis' to investigate aspects of domestic life in three Early Bronze Age sites, two urban and one rural, in southeastern Turkey.

This book provides a very basic introduction to electron microscopy and energy dispersive spectrometry (EDS). It has the largest compiled collection of EDS spectra ever published and covers most common rock forming minerals. In addition, it provides a key to help the novice wade through the large number of spectra.

Daniel Albero Santacreu presents a wide overview of certain aspects of the pottery analysis and summarizes most of the methodological and theoretical information currently applied in archaeology in order to develop wide and deep analysis of ceramic pastes. The book provides an adequate framework for understanding the way pottery production is organised and clarifies the meaning and role of the pottery in archaeological and traditional societies. The goal of this book is to encourage reflection, especially by those researchers who face the analysis of ceramics for the first time, by providing a background for the generation of their own research and to formulate their own questions depending on their concerns and interests. The three-part structure of the book allows readers to move easily from the analysis of the reality and ceramic material culture to the world of the ideas and theories and to develop a dialogue between data and their interpretation. Daniel Albero Santacreu is a Lecturer Assistant in the University of the Balearic Islands, member of the Research Group Arqueo UIB and the Ceramic Petrology Group. He has carried out the analysis of ceramics from several prehistoric societies placed in the Western Mediterranean, as well as the study of handmade pottery from contemporary ethnic groups in Northeast Ghana.

D.R. Brothwell and A.M. Pollard have got together to create the first large scale review of the many sciences which contribute to modern archaeology for over 30 years. The Handbook of Archaeological Sciences is intended to bring together a substantial overview of the sciences in archaeology in one complete volume. The book is organised under eight broad headings: dating, quaternary palaeoenvironments, human palaeobiology, developments in biomolecular archaeology, resource exploitation, archaeological prospection, conservation science in the archaeological context and statistical and computer applications. The contributors, who are all well-known in their own areas of expertise, bring together in each chapter the basic science and the relevance of this science to the overall goal of archaeology - understanding humans in the past. This book is an invaluable source of reference for those interested in archaeology, anthropology, quaternary studies, geography, palaeoecology, computing, biology, chemistry and physics, those involved in commercial and local authority field archaeology units, museums and archaeological organisations.