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This thesis draws together a collection of peer-review papers and nonspecialist articles published over the course of the authors enrolment on the PhD in 'Museum, Gallery and Heritage Practice' at the University of Leicester School of Museum Studies. Collectively these papers propose a platform or peer-to-peer approach to archaeological work - a collaborative method of working with citizens, businesses, organisations, and government that creates research 'with' people, not 'for' them. Variously described as crowdsourcing, citizen science, collective intelligence, and the collaborative or share economy, the thesis will describe how a range of digital tools can be used to harness the crowd's passion for archaeology, helping to fund, identify, dig, record, and research sites. Addressing the challenges and opportunities presented by technologyenabled participation - financial, political, ethical and methodological - this research is the first investigation of its type to assess the implications of a networked peer-to-peer approach for archaeology. The term Social Impact Archaeology has been coined to describe this digitally-enabled model of public participation. This definition is mobilised through severalempirical studies drawing on quantitative and qualitative analysis of peer participants, arguing that a crowd-based model can create mutually beneficial outcomes - for both archaeological research and instrumental outcomes for participants and communities. The Digging the Crowd project has built incrementally over the course of a six-year enrolment, leading to the completion of six peer review papers drawing on empirical evidence from six substantial field projects, nine conference presentations, three non-specialist professional publications, a practice report and the production of a feature length documentary. The thesis draws all these previously published outputs together, alongside additional chapters situating the research context and overall knowledge contribution of the project. It concludes by assessing the wider applicability of this, and whether a crowdfunded and sourced model of archaeology represents a coherent alternative or complimentary practice.

This research sets out to assess the potential of geometric morphometric (GMM) outline analysis to refine taxonomy and analyse diversity among charred wheat grains preserved in archaeological deposits. An equivalent methodology is applied across three archaeological case studies, allowing for specific research questions and the parameters and effectiveness of the GMM approach to be assessed. Analysis of experimentally charred modern wheat accessions demonstrates that a combination of two-dimensional views enables taxonomic separation based on grain shape. Morphological diversity of grains is further explored as relating to a range of factors, including varietal-level distinctions, domestication status, growing conditions and crop processing. The first case study (Paper 1) concerns the taxonomic identification and domestication status of so-called 'new glume wheat' (NGW) at Neolithic Çatalhöyük (Central Anatolia), summarising existing evidence for a once-widely spread crop that has almost disappeared in the present day. Results indicate that NGW grains exhibit a strong morphological resemblance to Timopheev's wheat (Triticum timopheevii), while morphological analysis of both grain and chaff suggest that this crop underwent a gradual co-evolutionary process of domestication during the Neolithic occupation sequence. Development of the crop is interpreted in the context of diverse plant food strategies at the site which helped to offset the risk of individual resource failure. The second case study (Paper 2) analyses 'free-threshing' wheat (FTW) grains from Neolithic Çatalhöyük and Kouphovouno (southern Greece), highlighting ambiguities in the early evidence for the two genetic groupings of 'naked' wheats. Results indicate that a tetraploid wheat resembling modern durum was cultivated at Kouphovouno, and support evidence of hexaploid wheat cultivation at Çatalhöyük. The findings build on theories of a more southerly route of tetraploid FTWs into Europe along the Mediterranean coast, with hexaploid FTW spreading through the Balkans and Carpathian basin into central Europe. Interpretation of results considers the sustainability of the regimes associated with these crops in the long term. The third case study (Paper 3) investigates the theorised introduction of tetraploid rivet wheat into Late Anglo-Saxon agriculture. Archaeological wheat grains are examined from twelve sites in central, eastern and south-west England, accessed through the 'FeedSax' (Feeding Anglo-Saxon England) project. Specimens closely resembling modern rivet wheat, and particularly traditional 'Blue Cone' rivet, are identified at multiple sites. The introduction of rivet is contextualised within a period of acceleration and innovation in arable production, including the strategic cultivation of a broader range of crops as corresponding to local conditions. The final study (Appendix 1) addresses related concerns, reporting on experiments comparing grain shape, size and yield of the same wheat variety grown under different agricultural regimes. Across the case studies, insights into diverse and flexible practices of cultivation in the past are interpreted in the context of contemporary concerns regarding sustainability and the loss of genetic diversity in modern wheat farming. Overall, findings indicate much potential for further exploration of morphological diversity in archaeobotanical cereal remains using GMM, a rapidly evolving field for which new archaeological applications are continuously emerging.

The site of Hamanaka 2, Rebun Island (Hokkaido), contains an archaeological record including well-preserved faunal remains, including clam shells and cod otoliths, from hunter-gatherer groups across the Epi-Jomon to Historical Ainu periods. As demonstrated by sclerochronologists worldwide, incremental stable isotope analysis of marine carbonates can provide an archaeologically-relevant and directly-datable proxy record of oceanic palaeotemperature, which is especially important for coastal sites such as Hamanaka 2. Despite this, marine carbonates from the site have not yet been used for this purpose, partly due to concerns over a variable regional marine reservoir effect. This, in combination with the possibility of 'old' shells being incorporated into younger stratigraphic units, means that any climatic information gained can be difficult to associate conclusively with the stratigraphic unit from which it was excavated. This thesis aims to address the methodological and interpretational obstacles relating to the archaeological use of this material at Hamanaka 2, and considers the local palaeotemperature record these materials can provide and their implications. The first paper examines the candidacy of the Sakhalin surf clam as a sub-annual temperature record, using stable isotope analysis of modern shells to compare carbonate-derived temperature estimates with observed water temperature. The results confirm that, as with most large, slow-growing marine bivalves, this species is a reliable recorder or water temperature, although seasonal extremes are likely to be dampened in the shell isotopic record. The second paper focuses on the complications arising from high resolution incremental sampling of marine carbonates, specifically the issue of contamination from embedding resin, and the relative merits of hand drilling versus micromilling. Comparison between two series of directly comparable samples shows that embedding may produce implausibly high δ13C values in the embedded, micromilled samples. This is interpreted as evidence of the contamination effect of resin on δ13C, whilst δ18O appears unaffected. The results indicate that hand drilling fast-growing species can provide a sub-annual palaeotemperature record comparable to micromilling, minimising sampling time and maximising sample size. The final paper addresses the main archaeological questions of the thesis. It assesses the palaeotemperature record of shells and otoliths from Hamanaka 2 over the Epi-Jomon-Final Okhotsk period in the context of new radiocarbon dates, which are paired with existing terrestrial dates. This allows calculation of new marine reservoir corrections, useful not only for this site but all others in the region which contain similar marine evidence. The integration of marine material into Bayesian chronological modelling at Hamanaka 2 constrains the timing of the Final Okhotsk period more tightly compared to previous models, showing a revised end date of 1107-958 cal BP. δ18O results show no clear temperature trend across the study period, although the single Early Okhotsk otolith sampled is consistent with the existing suggestion that this period saw a short-lived period of cooler temperatures. Overall, stable isotope analysis and radiocarbon dating combine to show the potential of marine carbonate material from Hamanaka 2 as a climatic and chronological record.

This volume and supporting papers constitute the submission for an award of a PhD research degree by publication. Eleven works completed by the author within the last 15 years (eight published; three in press) have been submitted for consideration. All the papers are concerned with animal exploitation in late prehistoric and Roman Britain and/or Medieval north-west Russia. To put these submissions into context, Chapter 2 summarizes the author’s academic career and the history of the research projects with which he has been involved. The next two chapters provide summaries and critically evaluative comments concerning the submitted works. Chapter 3 discusses the works concerned with the exploitation of animals and their products in the late Iron Age and Roman periods in Britain. Chapter 4 considers papers principally concerned with the exploitation of animals within the Medieval town and territory of Novgorod in north-west Russia. Chapter 5 presents an evaluation of the contribution the submitted works have made to furthering knowledge, not only of the specific periods and regions involved, but also more generally to the development of urban zooarchaeology (including comparisons between urban and rural faunal assemblages), the study of carcass processing, and the integration of zooarchaeology into general research questions.

Burnt human remains are recovered from a variety of contexts as a result of funerary treatment (cremation) in archaeology and fatal fires in a medicolegal context. The timing that this burning takes place compared to the time of death has received a great deal of attention in the literature, with inconclusive results. Cremation after active or passive excarnation, as a funerary rite, was mainly proposed during the prehistory of the British Isles. The postmortem (after death) transformation of the corpse starts during early diagenesis, thus taphonomic changes are thought to have the potential to determine the postmortem interval (PMI) at the time of burning. This thesis aims to provide insight into the taphonomy, early diagenesis and heat-induced changes of bone through an experimental approach with repercussions to both archaeology and forensic science. The thesis is a collection of three interdisciplinary approaches organised into three papers to identify if the corpse was burnt fresh or partially decomposed. Fleshed pig (Sus scrofa) tibiae, used as a proxy for humans, were left exposed in a field in Wytham Woods, Oxfordshire, UK, then collected at 14, 34, 91, 180, 365-day intervals prior to being burnt in an outdoor fire (≤750 °C bone temperature). Fresh (fleshed) tibiae acted as unburnt and burnt controls. In addition to this experimentation, two cremated human bone fragments from Middle/Late Neolithic (ca. 3300-2500 cal BC) Ireland were added to the physicochemical investigations. A variety of techniques were employed across academic disciplines: (1) histological, using microbial bioerosion as a proxy for decomposition by transmitted light microscopy and backscattered electron microscopy (BSEM); (2) physicochemical, investigating the structural changes through Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and major and trace elemental concentration changes by the wavelengthdispersive electron microprobe (EMP-WDS); and (3) the bone's osteogenic-reaction, investigating its response to sharp force trauma (SFT) and heat-fracturing compared to its collagen content. Data analyses were carried out using a variety of methods. Histotaphonomy was assessed quantitatively and systematically by a novel data labelling application developed for this study in Python and Javascript programming languages. The physicochemical results were investigated by unsupervised (PCA) and supervised (LDA) dimensionality reduction techniques and further statistical analyses (linear regression, MANOVA, multivariate comparison of means test). The latter was applied in the morphological investigations as well. All data analyses were done in Jupyter notebook in Python programming language. Results show that changes in elemental concentration of bone throughout the PMI might indicate whether the bone was burnt fresh or partially decomposed as well as if SFT was inflicted after 6 months of exposure before burning. If SFT is present in the bone, results show that the decrease of perimortem features (irregular edges, splintering, curling or uplifting) and increase of postmortem features (regular shaped, sharp edges) in cutmarks can potentially inform on the timing of SFT infliction in burnt bone. However, microbial bioerosion might not indicate early diagenesis prior to burning. Features resembling microbial bioerosion were present on the fresh burnt bones, indicating that burning is not only able to conceal features but also produce them. The concentration of elements associated with extracellular fluid (K, Na, Cl) change with the PMI and endure burning. K values under 0.07 ± 0.01 wt% in inner and midcortical zones of burnt bones suggest that bones were not burnt immediately after death. Using this criterion, results from the Neolithic bone fragments would indicate a PMI of at least weeks to months prior to cremation. Ca, P, Fe, Al, Si, and Sr are not significantly altered with burning, and Fe, Al, Si, Sr are also unaffected by the PMI. In unburnt bone increased crystallinity and carbonate loss are detectable in < 1 year, but both are obscured by burning. Structurally, the carbonate to phosphate ratios (C/P) and phosphate high temperature (PHT) are the most 5 valuable ratios for discriminating between unburnt and burnt bones. Fractures did not depend on the limited collagen loss during the one-year PMI prior to burning. All in all, the amount of potassium in burnt bone is suggested to be the most useful proxy of bone decomposition prior to burning.

An interdisciplinary study of an aesthetic particularism: the 'Split representation in the Art of Asia and America'. This thesis consists of an interdisciplinary research on an aesthetic particularism mentioned by anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss as "The split representation in the Art of Asia and America" in his 1944 eponymous essay. Most researchers include in this group the Ainu and Jōmon People from Japan, tribes from the Amur Basin, Haida people from the Northern West Coast, Ancient China (Yangshao and Shang Dynasty), Māori People from New Zealand and Kadiweu people from Brazil. I conducted this inquiry through an online study of academic papers and historical accounts available in online databases, by doing researches at research Libraries in Paris, through field researches in the Arctic, Brazil, Hawaii and Nepalese Himalayas, and email exchanges with some prominent researchers in the disciplines related to the subject, on a six years period. In the framework of this research I was also granted an access to National Geographic's Genographic Project database, and allowed by Claude Levi-Strauss's widow to consult his unpublished expeditions notebooks at his archival fund at the research Library of the National Institute of Art History in Paris. After presenting Levi-Strauss's Life and the roots of his theories, I discuss more recent perspectives on the subject, including the researches of the British anthropologist Alfred Gell. Before exposing the cases of the widely acknowledged connections between the pattern making habits amongst certain hunter-gatherers tribes with the taking of entheogenic drugs during rituals, with the Shipibo people from the Peruvian Amazonia and their ritualistic use of Ayahuasca as a case study. I continue by providing dedicated inter-disciplinary case studies on the specific patterns of each populations from the Split Representation groups using up to date researches results in the fields of Art theory, ethnobotany and allied sciences. Using an interdisciplinary and technoetic approach, My first original contribution to knowledge consists of a demonstration of the flaws in Levi-Strauss theory by documenting how he based his overall reasoning on now outdated datas that have been for some completely refuted since the publication of his essay. I also propose an alternative theory on the split representation, by highlighting the common practice of shamanism among the various people cited by Levi-Strauss, and how entoptic visual imagery derived from altered states of consciousness, primarily induced by psychoactive plants, as well as animistic self-other identification and the influence of shamanic type rhythmic drumming might explain for a part the similarities between those diverse artistic styles. Finally, this set of new knowledges brings new perspectives and possible explanations to the function and origins of Art and their influences on early human cognitive development.

In 1880 Gerard Baldwin Brown (1849-1932) was appointed by Edinburgh University as its first Watson Gordon Professor of Fine Art. Over the fifty-year period that he held the professorship he was to become well-known as a scholar of Anglo-Saxon art and culture, preparing the first comprehensive study of Anglo-Saxon church architecture in England as part of a six volume study of the arts in early England. In 1905 he produced a monograph, The Care of Ancient Monuments (Cambridge, 1905) which provided a comprehensive assessment of the protective systems in place across Europe and America for the protection of ancient buildings and monuments and made strong recommendations for the strengthening of the protective measures in Britain. These recommendations led amongst other things to the creation of Britain’s first national inventory bodies but Baldwin Brown’s call for the protection of occupied ancient buildings to be improved was not successful. Although The Care of Ancient Monuments appeared to be a departure from Baldwin Brown’s usual interests, this research suggests that it formed part of the author’s longer-term commitment to the protection of long-lived elements of the built environment, and that his views were strongly influenced by his experience of pursuing preservation campaigns in Edinburgh’s Old and New Towns. This study draws on a detailed study of Baldwin Brown’s preservation-related campaigns in Edinburgh to trace the coalescence of an urban preservation movement in the city in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It draws on a range of information sources including a hitherto unidentified collection of letters to the press, reports of lectures and published papers to trace the development of his preservation philosophy and the nature and scope of his preservation campaigns. It also explores the mechanisms available to would-be preservationists in the absence of effective legislation, and it assesses Baldwin Brown’s broader significance in the development of the urban preservation movement.

How do people conceptualize a new landscape, is a study of research in archaeology with a long tradition. This paper proposes to approach the study of landscape through Belonging. With no prior theorization in archaeology, Belonging is developed through a multidisciplinary perspective to understand how people form attachments to landscapes. Belonging is then applied to the landscape of the San Emigdio Hills in south central California. This thesis both proposes four themes of Belonging: identity, emotional ties, instrumental ties, and performativity, and applies these themes to a rural case study. The post-colonial landscape provides an ideal data set, as issues of identity and Belonging are inherent, and are further magnified by the ever changing demographics of the rural landscape. The San Emigdio Hills in the modern period was inhabited by both homesteading families who lived in dual-gendered households and corporate households of the Kern County Land Company. Some corporate households are also nested dual-gendered households living in paternalistic situations, and are commonly linked to positions of power in the corporate structure. Tensions of the similarities and differences between dual-gendered and corporate households allows for the study of Belonging to occur. Households were both affected by the past landscapes they inhabited (emotional ties), particularly through chain migration from international and internal sources of similar ethnic backgrounds, such as Basque or Midwestern. Different ethnic groups expressed their Belonging in different ways. Both are affected in their instrumental ties by domestication of the landscape through Victorian notions of the domesticity / bread winner model, with the corporate households further affected by capitalism and corporate structure. The primary labour sector for the San Emigdio Hills is agricultural, particularly cattle husbandry performed by vaqueros. Finally, the aspects of performavity rooted in the work of Fortier and Butler, are applied to show how the two households utilized fences to express outward notions of gentility. Ultimately, three forms of Belonging are proposed, consisting of instrumental, imagined and bridge attachments.

Over the last two decades the potential for the combined study of literature and archaeology has been increasingly recognised. The Victorian era, which gave rise to new literary forms, and to archaeology as a science, offers a fertile area of enquiry. This thesis seeks to bring together the imaginative possibilities of archaeology and literature, conceiving their close association to be rooted in the observance and appreciation of the natural world. Focusing on the work of Thomas Hardy and Richard Jefferies, who both wrote about Wessex landscapes rich in archaeology, the thesis identifies the processes involved in the authors’ engagement with nature in archaeological settings. In 1851, Sir Daniel Wilson welcomed archaeology into the ‘circle of the sciences’, and the subject rose to popularity in the periodical press alongside rural pursuits; driven by the closing divide between town and country. Literary depictions of nature in ancient settings elevated the imaginative conception of the past, and found a receptive audience in London papers such as the Graphic and the Pall Mall Gazette, to which Hardy and Jefferies contributed. Both authors associate the mysterious qualities of prehistoric times, and the consonant sense of ‘untrodden space’, with the discovery of new subterranean territories in the self. In a society that was ‘adrift on change’, and seeking new meaning, these connections between the literary and archaeological imagination, and between the present and the past, forged at least temporary consolation. Both authors anticipated early Modern approaches to an archaeology of mind.

Although important studies have been made of the Andean pottery of the Inca Empire and its predecessors, these studies usually have been based on pottery collections which lack good archaeological contexts. The usual interpretative framework for ceramic variation has been the hierarchical social organisation of the Inca Empire described in the Spanish chronicles. In this paper, the pottery differs from the previously studied collections in two ways: first in the classification and study methods, and secondly in its derivation. Pottery fabric has been studied, and used as a primary discriminator. The potential of fabrics for identifying imported pottery is useful, in order to consider the economic activities within the Inca Empire and across its borders. source areas are considered, both in terms of geological environment and pottery workshops. Potting techniques are examined in relationship to workshop organisation, to formal and decorative characteristics, and to marketing and consumer requirements. The pottery derives from excavated, stratified deposits. This chronological control allows developments in the pottery to be discussed. A period of intense mercantile activity, before the Inca occupation of the area, can be identified. The deposits are distributed anngst five sites, all with Inca-period remains, which means that contemporary variation can be considered. Each site has a particular kind of ceramic assemblage, and the reasons for this, and for the lack of concordance between assemblages and specific types of buildings, are discussed.

The objective of this paper is an historical study of the workings of the provincial government of the late Eleventh and early Twelfth Dynasties, primarily on the basis of the titles of the officials of that Period, particularly the provincial governors. To this end, a Prosopography of early Middle Kingdom officials is included in Chapter two and four Appendices chart the frequency and patterns of occurrence of twenty-three separate titles held by these officials. The evidence points to a destruction of the old 'feudal' system of provincial government during the late Eleventh Dynasty and its transformation, in the early Twelfth Dynasty, into a system of centralized control of provincial affairs. High-ranking royal officials bearing the titles of provincial governors were stationed in certain key geographical areas. Like most high offices, the governorship at this period seems to have been an appointive office and not an hereditary one. This fact, in addition to the individuals' close relationship to the king, seems to have ensured the loyalty of these officials to the Crown. By stabilizing the provincial administration and re-establishing strong central control, Amenemhat I and Senusert I created the conditions necessary for the rapid expansion of the Twelfth Dynasty into Nubia.