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Lead pollution in Arctic ice reflects midlatitude emissions from ancient lead-silver mining and smelting. The few reported measurements have been extrapolated to infer the performance of ancient economies, including comparisons of economic productivity and growth during the Roman Republican and Imperial periods. These studies were based on sparse sampling and inaccurate dating, limiting understanding of trends and specific linkages. Here we show, using a precisely dated record of estimated lead emissions between 1100 BCE and 800 CE derived from subannually resolved measurements in Greenland ice and detailed atmospheric transport modeling, that annual European lead emissions closely varied with historical events, including imperial expansion, wars, and major plagues. Emissions rose coeval with Phoenician expansion, accelerated during expanded Carthaginian and Roman mining primarily in the Iberian Peninsula, and reached a maximum under the Roman Empire. Emissions fluctuated synchronously with wars and political instability particularly during the Roman Republic, and plunged coincident with two major plagues in the second and third centuries, remaining low for >500 years. Bullion in silver coinage declined in parallel, reflecting the importance of lead-silver mining in ancient economies. Our results indicate sustained economic growth during the first two centuries of the Roman Empire, terminated by the second-century Antonine plague.

It has become a widespread practice to convert δ(18)O(p) values measured in human and animal dental enamel to a corresponding value of δ(18)O(w) and compare these data with mapped δ(18)O(w) groundwater or meteoric water values to locate the region where the owner of the tooth lived during the formation of the enamel. Because this is a regression procedure, the errors associated with the predicted δ(18)O(w) values will depend critically on the correlation between the comparative data used to perform the regression. By comparing four widely used regression equations we demonstrate that the smallest 95% error is likely to be greater than ±1% in δ(18)O(w) , and could be as large as ±3.5%. These values are significantly higher than those quoted in some of the recent literature, and measurements with errors at the higher end of this range would render many of the published geographical attributions statistically unsupportable. We suggest that the simplest solution to this situation is to make geographical attributions based on the direct comparison of measured values of δ(18)O(p) rather than on predicted values of δ(18)O(w).

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This book is an introductory manual that explains the basic concepts of chemistry behind scientific analytical techniques and that reviews their application to archaeology. It explains key terminology, outlines the procedures to be followed in order to produce good data, and describes the function of the basic instrumentation required to carry out those procedures. The manual contains chapters on the basic chemistry and physics necessary to understand the techniques used in analytical chemistry, with more detailed chapters on Atomic Absorption, Inductively Coupled Plasma Emission Spectroscopy, Neutron Activation Analysis, X-ray Flourescence, Electron Microscopy, Infra-red and Raman Spectroscopy, and Mass Spectrometry. Each chapter describes the operation of the instruments, some hints on the practicalities, and a review of the application of the technique to archaeology, including some case studies. With guides to further reading on the topic, it is an essential tool for practitioners, researchers and advanced students alike.

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The metal composition of bronze alloys has been routinely examined as a means of inferring the source of the ore. But bronze is recycled, and the quantity of some components, such as arsenic, is depleted every time the alloy is melted down. Since the Early Bronze Age of the British Isles was largely supplied from a single mine on Ross Island, Co. Kerry, tracking arsenic content shows the number of re-melts and this gives the object a biography and a social context. Applying this ingenious new procedure to their large database, the authors also winkle out other sources of supply and new insights about the technology involved.

The southern African recent past is replete with examples of elite settlements, some of which were occupied sequentially, and by different rulers. Shona, Venda and Tswana traditions identify the many dry stone walled capitals with former kings who ruled during different reigns. This historical reality is often not factored when considering the issues of political centres and urbanism in the Iron Age. The resolution of radiocarbon dating produces an aggregate time that conflates the chronology of capitals or elite centres when they may not have been contemporary – ‘the suck in and smear’ phenomenon described by Baillie (1991). This article combines historical and archaeological information to develop an alternative explanation for the existence of hundreds of elite Zimbabwe settlements, some of which were synchronous according to the radiocarbon chronology. The main indication is that rather than suffering from a glut of elites, southern African urban and political centres are associated with individual leaders of competing polities which may not have been part of unified hierarchical and sequential structures. The archaeology of the region stands to benefit from understanding the dynamics of politics, power and leadership in this way.