bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Psychiatry and you
Authors: McKnight Rebecca , Price Jonathan , Geddes John
Published: November 2020

Improving your emotional resilience is a key task for you as a medical student. As a future doctor, your health and well- being are vital to that of your patients: if you are not functioning reliably, you will not be able to help your pa­tients as much as you otherwise would. It is therefore vital that you look after your body and mind and, by implica­tion, adopt a lifestyle that is both healthy and sustainable. It is often said that doctors make bad patients. There is some evidence that doctors are slow to seek help for health problems, and comply poorly with advice given by other healthcare professionals. In addition, doctors’ lives may be unhealthy, with high levels of stress, low levels of exercise, and excessive consumption of alcohol. The mental health of doctors is a particular con­cern. Doctors are at relatively high risk of mental dis­order, and female doctors appear to be at higher risk of suicide than women in the general population. The reasons are several, and include the following: … ● The nature of doctors. Doctors are driven to succeed, and do not tolerate failure well. It is inevitable that some of our patients will die, some treatments will not be successful, and that, in a professional lifetime, some mistakes will be made. Our aim should be to reflect on and learn from these events, and then to move on positively. ● The nature of doctors’ work. Doctors tend to work hard, work for long hours, and work in challenging, resource- constrained environments. ● Poor help- seeking. Doctors may be reluctant to seek help for their medical problems, and this is particularly likely when the problem is psychiatric. ● Unsupportive and unsustainable lifestyle. Many doctors have challenging careers and challenging home lives, and allow themselves little time to recharge their batteries away from these ever-present stressors. They may not prioritize the maintenance of important resilience factors, such as the relationship with their partner, or interests outside medicine. ● Knowledge of and access to the means of suicide. Doctors (and vets, farmers, and pharmacists, to whom the above- mentioned factors also apply) have special expertise in the use of chemicals which are toxic in overdose.
Infrastructure
Authors: Hanson Robin
Published: November 2020

As we will discuss in Chapter 18 , Cities section, em cities are likely to be big, dense, highly cost-effective concentrations of computer and communication hardware. How might such cities interact with their surroundings? Today, computer and communication hardware is known for being especially temperamental about its environment. Rooms and buildings designed to house such hardware tend to be climate-controlled to ensure stable and low values of temperature, humidity, vibration, dust, and electromagnetic field intensity. Such equipment housing protects it especially well from fire, flood, and security breaches. The simple assumption is that, compared with our cities today, em cities will also be more climate-controlled to ensure stable and low values of temperature, humidity, vibrations, dust, and electromagnetic signals. These controls may in fact become city level utilities. Large sections of cities, and perhaps entire cities, may be covered, perhaps even domed, to control humidity, dust, and vibration, with city utilities working to absorb remaining pollutants. Emissions within cities may also be strictly controlled. However, an em city may contain temperatures, pressures, vibrations, and chemical concentrations that are toxic to ordinary humans. If so, ordinary humans are excluded from most places in em cities for safety reasons. In addition, we will see in Chapter 18 , Transport section, that many em city transport facilities are unlikely to be well matched to the needs of ordinary humans. Higher prices to rent volume near city centers should push such centers to extend both higher into the sky and deeper into the ground, as happens in human cities today. It should also push computers in city centers to be made from denser physical devices, that is, supporting more computing operations per volume, even if such devices are proportionally more expensive than less dense variants. City centers are also less likely to use deterministic computing devices, if such devices require more volume and cooling. It may be possible to make computing devices that use less mass per computing speed supported, even if they cost more per operation computed. Such lighter devices are more likely to be used at higher city elevations, because they reduce the cost of the physical structures needed to hold them at these heights.
Existence
Authors: Hanson Robin
Published: November 2020

A functioning em is the result of information representing an em mental state being placed in compatible signal-processing hardware. When this hardware “runs,” it repeatedly calculates the next mental state by combining the previous mental state with inputs from outside systems, and then sends resulting signals to outside systems. In this situation, an em can be said to experience this succession of mental states, while interacting with outside systems. As em hardware and supporting resources are not free, ems are not free; someone must pay to create an em. When an em is copied, the em mental state sitting in compatible hardware is fi rst read out as bits, and then those bits are copied, transmitted, and read into new compatible hardware. Then at the new hardware those bits are converted into the exact same em mental state, now ready to run on this new hardware. Immediately after this copy action, the evolution of the mental states in the two different hardware systems would be exactly the same, if it were not for errors and differences in environmental inputs, and differences in random fluctuations within a fault-prone emulation process. Just as ems are not free but costly, copies are also not free but costly. Typically, an em with an established role in the em world is asked if they want to approve the creation of a new copy, who would have a new life with a new role in that world. Before agreeing to create this new life, the original could ask about the new em’s intended job, location, friends, etc. On occasion, offers for new life roles might be made to archived copies. That is, ems might agree to allow the storage of archive copies, who can then be awoken later to consider new life offers. If the revived copy rejected the offer, it might be retired or ended, as previously agreed. To actually make a copy, an em may invoke a special viewing mode, wherein the em specifies or approves a description of the set of em roles that would result from this copying act. When an em initiates a copy event, it should be ready and willing to take on any of the roles of the resulting copies. Immediately after the copy event, each em copy is informed of its assigned role. Typically one of the ems is assigned to continue its previous role, while other ems are assigned to take on new roles.
Labor
Authors: Hanson Robin
Published: November 2020

Economists find supply and demand to be a very useful way to describe markets, including labor markets. Yes, supply and demand models sometimes fail, but such cases are notable precisely because such models usually work so well. In fact, arguably no model in social science works as well; it is the crown jewel of economic theory. In a supply and demand based labor market, buyers and sellers mostly take prices as given, and assume that they can’t change prices much. Given this assumption, they try to achieve their goals by varying how much labor they buy or sell. Note that supply and demand doesn’t require that everyone know everything, or that they always do exactly what is best for them. It is actually a pretty robust and useful model of human behavior. True, workers often acquire very specific job skills, after which there may be too few sellers or buyers of each specific skill to make for a competitive market. At that point people may reasonably believe that their behaviors can change relevant prices. But for each specific skill there is usually a large pool of workers who are similarly able to learn that skill, and another large pool, this time of employers, with skills they’d like this same pool of workers to learn in order to do their jobs. There is thus a pre-skill labor market with pools of similarly-able-to-learn workers, and with employers who have similar-tasks-to-learn. If these pools are large, and if they do not coordinate to limit the wages they accept, then supply and demand analysis will apply well to this pre-skill market. Thus while it may be hard to predict the specific wages that workers will earn after they learn a specific skill, we can more confidently predict that, in the pre-skill labor market, similar workers will reasonably expect to earn a similar net compensation after they train. Also, employers trying to attract similar workers should expect to pay a similar net compensation. (Of course “wages” include not just cash, but other forms of compensation such as status markers, connections, and resources including information access and computing power.) Consider how such pre-skill labor markets change when we introduce ems built from cheap signal-processing hardware, who are able to substitute in most jobs for ordinary human workers after they’ve acquired relevant skills.
Business
Authors: Hanson Robin
Published: November 2020

We tend to think of the future as a place full of new technology, but to many, only physical and software devices count as “technology.” However, economic growth results from innovation not only in physical and software devices, but also in social practices and institutions. Scholars in economics, finance, business, and law have long identified many simple changes to business and social practices that seem to improve efficiency, but that are rarely adopted, and that tend to generate little interest when explained to potential adoptees. For example, economists tend to consistently recommend charging non-zero prices for scarce resources like parking and road use, and recommend weakening import tariff s, immigration restrictions, rent control, mortgage subsidies, taxes on products where both supply and demand are elastic, and penalties for victimless crimes such as drug use or prostitution. While clever scholars can often invent auxiliary hypotheses to explain why these polices are useful, contrary to appearance, it is far from obvious that such hypotheses are the real reasons for disinterest in these policies. We have six reasons to expect ems to adopt such improvements more often than they are adopted today. First, the much larger em economy has more resources to explore and develop the many complementary adaptations usually required to make general good ideas effective in particular contexts. Second, a more competitive economy should less often reject cost-saving changes merely because they seem strange or repugnant. When efficiency gives a competitive advantage, more competition should lead to more efficiency. Third, as ems can more easily obtain trustworthy strategic advice on personal choices from their clan, their behavior should more closely approximate the rational agent models on which scholarly advice tends to be based. Fourth, as em clans will know their members very well, such clans can provide high levels of insurance to members while suffering much less from the usual disadvantages of insurance, such as insurance reducing incentives to be careful, and people with hidden higher risks buying more insurance. While today risk-aversion is often a barrier to institutional efficiency, riskaversion is much less of a barrier for ems.
Conflict
Authors: Hanson Robin
Published: November 2020

How unequal are ems from one another? during the forager era the main units of organization were bands of roughly 20 to 50 people, and smaller family units. As activity wasn’t organized via larger units, foragers did not see inequality comparable with our unequal towns, firms, or nations. Foragers also had only mild differences in personal property and prestige. Over the roughly million plus year forager era, however, foragers had an enormous inequality of lineages, in the sense that almost all lineages eventually went extinct, with zero descendants. The farmer era had larger units of organization, such as clans, villages, nations, and empires. Although empires sometimes became nearly as large as feasible given transportation limits, large empires usually only had a weak influence on local behaviors. Villages were much smaller than nations, and firms were typically tiny. As discussed in Chapter 18 , Cities section, while most farmers lived near small villages, in our industrial era people are spread rather evenly across towns and cities of all feasible sizes. Also, for most industrial products today, market shares are relatively concentrated within transport-cost-limited market areas. That is, for each type of product in an area, only a small number of firms supply most customers. power laws are mathematical forms that often usefully describe such inequality. That is, power laws often fit the large-unit end of the distributions of how such items are grouped into units. In such cases, a power of one describes a uniform distribution of items across feasible unit sizes. Powers greater than one describe more equal distributions, wherein most items reside in small units, and powers less than one describe less equal distributions, wherein most items are clumped into fewer larger units. Compared with any given sized unit, for a power of one a unit with twice the size appears half as often. Thus for a power of one, different sized units hold a similar total number of items. Compared with a power of one, with a power greater than one such double-size units are less frequent, while with a power less than one double-size units are more frequent.
Choices
Authors: Hanson Robin
Published: November 2020

Now that we have spent most of this book gaining a better idea of what a future em world might look like, we can start to ask: is this a good or a bad scenario? Would we want to encourage or discourage having this world replace our world? What small changes might make this world better? Many people just don’t care much about the non-immediate future, making their evaluation of the em era very simple; it is a big zero to them no matter how it plays out. Others care mainly about the very distant future, so the em era mainly matters to them via how it might influence the ages that follow. But alas that topic is beyond the scope of this book. So let us consider now how we might evaluate the em era itself, if we cared about it. Our evaluation of the em era depends, of course, on the criteria we use. One simple option is to use the usual intuitive criteria that most people seem to use when they verbally evaluate a distant future. A recent study of people evaluating different possible futures for 2050 found that their main consideration or concern was how warm and moral future people would be ( Bain et al. 2013 ). That is, most people surveyed cared little about the future of population, pleasure, wealth, poverty, freedom, suicide, terrorism, crime, poverty, homelessness, disease, skills, laziness, or progress in science and technology. They cared a bit more about future self-discipline, humility, respect for tradition, equality, meaning in life, and protection of the environment. But mostly people cared about future benevolence: how honest, sincere, warm, caring, and friendly future people would be. This pattern of responses makes sense if people tend to think about the far future abstractly, and if abstract modes of thinking function in part to help us make good social impressions about our views on morality (Liberman and Trope 2008; Hanson 2009; Torelli and Kaikati 2009). By emphasizing whether future folks follow standard social norms, we show our respect for those norms.
Regional identities Angles and Saxons?
Authors: Rippon Stephen
Published: November 2020

Writing in the early eighth century, Bede described how three separate peoples— the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes—had settled in Britain some three hundred years earlier, and ever since the genesis of ‘Anglo-Saxon’ scholarship in the nineteenth century archaeologists have sought to identify discrete areas of Anglian, Saxon, and Jutish settlement (e.g. Leeds 1912; 1936; 1945; Fox 1923, 284–95). The identification of these peoples was based upon different artefact styles and burial rites, with most attention being paid to brooches. The degree of variation in the composition of brooch assemblages across eastern England is shown in Table 9.1. Cruciform brooches with cast side knobs, for example, were thought to have been ‘Anglian’, and saucer brooches ‘Saxon’ (although even in the early twentieth century Leeds (1912) had started to doubt the attribution of applied brooches to the West Saxons). In recent years, however, this traditional ‘culturehistorical’ approach towards interpreting the archaeological record has been questioned, as it is now recognized that, rather than being imported from mainland Europe during the early to mid fifth century, regional differences in artefact assemblages emerged over the course of the late fifth to late sixth centuries (e.g. Hines 1984; 1999; Hilund Nielsen 1995; Lucy 2000; Owen- Crocker 2004; 2011; Penn and Brugmann 2007; Walton Rogers 2007; Brugmann 2011; Dickinson 2011; Hills 2011). In early to mid fifth-century England, in contrast, it now appears that Germanic material culture was in fact relatively homogeneous, with objects typical of ‘Saxon’ areas on the continent being found in so-called ‘Anglian’ areas of England, and vice versa. The earliest material from East Anglia, for example—equal-arm, supporting-arm, and early cruciform brooches—are most closely paralleled in the Lower Elbe region of Saxony, with the distinctive ‘Anglian’ identity of EastAnglia onlyemerging through later contact with southern Scandinavia (Hines 1984; Carver 1989, 147, 152; Hills and Lucy 2013, 38–9). Indeed, many elements of the classic suite of early Anglo-Saxon material culture actually developed within Britain as opposed to having been created on the continent (Hills 2003, 104–7; Owen-Crocker 2004, 13), with new identities beingmade in Britain rather than being imported frommainland Europe (Hills 2011, 10).
The boundaries of early medieval kingship
Authors: Rippon Stephen
Published: November 2020

In the past the study of early medieval kingdoms has mostly been a singledisciplinary activity based upon the extremely limited documentary sources, with boundaries back-projected from much later evidence (e.g. Bailey 1989, fig. 8.1). What is presented in this study, in contrast, is an attempt to have a more archaeologically and landscape-based discussion that includes using the distributions of cultural indicators such as artefact types, architectural forms, burial practices, and the locations of particular sites that appear to have been positioned in liminal locations. Three phases in the development of these kingdoms can be distinguished: • The fifth to sixth centuries (emergent kingdoms): the period of Grubenhäuser and Anglo-Saxon burials associated with a suite of material culture showing marked regional affinities. Anglo-Saxon kingdoms existed by the end of this period, and a broad consensus has emerged that they were formed through the amalgamation of a series of smaller regiones (e.g. Arnold 1988; Bassett 1989a; Yorke 1990; Scull 1993; 1999; Harrington and Welch 2014). This model—which Bassett (1989b) has compared to a football knock-out competition—is, however, based largely upon the fragmentary and very partial documentary record (see Chapter 7), and it does not explain the close correspondence of the boundaries between the fifth- to sixth-century socio-economic zones spheres identified here and those of the Iron Age and Roman periods. • The seventh and eighth centuries (mature kingdoms): a new suite of material culture (e.g. East Anglian and East Saxon coinage, and Ipswich Ware) whose circulation in part appears to have been restricted to the polities within which they were produced. The authority of the East Saxon kings had started to decline during the latter part of this period, although East Anglia survived. • The ninth century (the declining kingdoms): the East Saxon kingdom virtually disappeared and become a territory within Wessex. The distributions of later eighth- and ninth-century inscribed coinage, and distinctive artefact types such as silver wire inlaid strap ends, suggest that the East Anglian socio-economic sphere, and the kingdom that was based upon it, survived within the same boundaries that had emerged by the fifth and sixth centuries until it was overrun by the Danes in the 870s.
How: EdTech
Authors: Willetts David
Published: November 2020

I have attended the launch of an education programme. It was blasted into orbit. I was in French Guyana for the launch of an Ariane rocket carrying a telecommunications satellite which would deliver broadband access to educational services for parts of Africa not reached by fibre or mobile phone masts. Many education programmes and teaching materials are available on-line but schools and colleges in parts of Ethiopia or Kenya or Rwanda do not have the broadband connections to access them. A small and affordable satellite dish at a local school or college opens up higher education to them. For centuries our picture of education has been very different. A wonderful image in a medieval illuminated manuscript shows a professor lecturing a class. It is a scene we recognize today: students at the front who are keen and attentive and others at the back who aren’t. The place is Bologna and the lecturer is Henry of Germany so the university is international. Some of the most profound features of university life are not very different from what those students experienced centuries ago, even whilst at the same time a student may be learning about the latest intellectual advances. This mix of ancient and modern is part of the particular appeal of the university—graduates dressed up in medieval robes and perhaps with some Latin thrown in are awarded doctorates for research out at the frontiers of knowledge. We are now at the moment when the technological revolution which has changed so much else in our lives is going to transform education. It won’t be the first time innovation has had this effect—the Victorian Penny Post made the correspondence course and the University of London external degree possible. There are sceptics who doubt the balance of ancient and modern is about to change radically. They argue that even whilst technology has changed the classic forms of academic study—the lecture, the printed book, the essay—are going to continue to be impervious to innovation because they meet deep human needs. Moreover there have been bold claims for the impact of technology on education which now sound pretty silly.
The living house
Authors: Brück Joanna
Published: November 2020

In the winter of 1995–6, a Late Bronze Age house was excavated at Callestick in Cornwall (Jones 1998). This showed an interesting sequence of activities on its abandonment. First, the timber posts that had supported its roof were removed and the sockets of those at the centre of the building were filled with materials that included charcoal, pottery, quartz, and fragments of rubbing stones. The low stone wall that originally surrounded the structure was pushed into the interior of the building, and a series of quartz blocks were placed across the doorway, as if to prevent access. The roundhouse was then filled with a deposit of clay containing stone, charcoal, quartz, pottery, flint, and an inverted saddle quern. Parts of a large decorated jar were placed just left of the doorway. Finally, a ring of quartz stones was arranged around the edge of the building, inviting visual comparison with the funerary cairns of earlier centuries. This sequence of activities in many ways seems quite alien to us, for we have quite different experiences and understandings of house and home. The past two centuries have seen mass movements of people on an extraordinary scale as a result of war, urbanization, global differences in the distribution of wealth and opportunity, and a range of other factors. At the same time, dramatic social and political change has resulted in the perceived fragmentation of communities. All this has had a significant impact both on our relationship with the houses we live in, and on the concept of home itself (Allan and Crow 1989; Spain 1992; Birdwell-Pheasant and Lawrence-Zuniga 1999). Home may now be a transitory place, a state of mind evoked by the judicious arrangement of a few meaningful objects, but at the same time the idea of home remains highly emotive. High house prices in contemporary Britain and Ireland reflect the significance of the home in the cultivation of self-worth, emotional security, and social position. The materiality of the home evokes an aura of permanence in a world of change, acting as a lieu de mémoire in which ideas of personal and family history can be created.
Craniofacial growth and development
Authors: Gillgrass T J , Welbury R
Published: November 2020

This Chapter describes, in general terms, the prenatal development and postnatal growth of the craniofacial skeleton, and the occlusal development of the primary and permanent dentitions. Understanding of embryological development is essential for the dental practitioner who may frequently face patients with common craniofacial anomalies such as cleft lip and/or palate. For routine care, an understanding of their development and aetiology will bring insight to their likely presenting signs and symptoms. This section will include a brief summary of the development of the face, including the neural crest and pharyngeal arches. It is not the intention of this summary to be in any way a complete or thorough description but simply to describe some of the key cells/interactions and structures. Neural crest cells are derived from the neural fold, and are highly migratory and specialized cells capable of predetermined differentiation. The differentiation occurs after their migration and is essential for the normal development of face and teeth. By week 4 the primitive mouth or stomatodeum is bordered laterally and from the developing heart inferiorly by the pharyngeal or branchial arches. These are six bilateral cylindrical thickenings (although the fifth and sixth are small) which form in the pharyngeal wall and into which the neural crest cells migrate. They are separated externally by the branchial grooves and internally by the pharyngeal pouches. The first groove and pouches are involved in the formation of the auditory apparatus and the Eustachian tube. Each arch has a derived cartilage rod, muscular, nervous, and vascular component. The first two arches and their associated components are central to the development of the facial structures. This period is also characterized by the development of the organs for hearing, sight, and smell, namely the otic, optic, and nasal placodes. By the end of week 4, thickenings start to develop in the frontal process. The medial and lateral frontonasal processes develop from these, together with the nasal placodes. The maxillary process develops from the first pharyngeal arch and grows forward to meet the medial and nasal processes, from which it is separated by distinct grooves at week 7.
Operative treatment of dental caries in the primary dentition
Authors: Duggal M S , Day P F
Published: November 2020

While there is no doubt that the best way to tackle the problem of dental caries is through an effective programme of prevention, as outlined in previous chapters, it is unfortunate that many children still suffer from the disease and its consequences. Hence, there is a need to consider operative treatment to prevent the breakdown of the dentition. As discussed in earlier chapters, there are a number of different techniques and philosophies for treating dental caries. This Chapter will concentrate mainly on the methods of complete caries removal (a ‘surgical’ approach). Research to support different philosophies, techniques, and materials frequently lacks evidence from randomized controlled trials, which are considered as the gold standard. Consequently, lower levels of evidence are used to support different techniques. More importantly, dentists need to be skilled in different techniques and philosophies to ensure that appropriate care is provided to each and every child. The removal of caries is not a new concept for the treatment of dental decay. Over the years the treatment of dental caries in children has been discussed and many attempts have been made to rationalize the management of the disease. Writing more than 150 years ago, Harris (1839) was one of the first to address the problem of restoring the primary dentition. Even in those days he was emphasizing the importance of prevention by good toothbrushing. Caries could be arrested by ‘plugging’, but from his description he obviously found treatment for the young patient difficult and not as successful as for adults. However, he did emphasize the importance of looking after children’s teeth: ‘If parents and guardians would pay more attention to the teeth of their children, the services of the dentist would much less frequently be required’, and ‘Many persons suppose that the teeth, in the early periods of childhood, require no attention, and thus are guilty of the most culpable neglect of the future well-being of those entrusted to their care’. Unfortunately, this statement still applies today. Caries removal can be a stressful experience for the child, the parent, and the dentist. Therefore it is important that there is a positive health gain from any treatment that is provided.
Traumatic injuries to the teeth
Authors: Welbury R , Whitworth J M
Published: November 2020

Dental trauma in childhood and adolescence is common. At 5 years of age 31–40% of boys and 16–30% of girls, and at 12 years of age 12–33% of boys and 4–19% of girls, will have suffered some dental trauma. Boys are affected almost twice as often as girls in both the primary and the permanent dentitions. The majority of dental injuries in the primary and permanent dentitions involve the anterior teeth, especially the maxillary central incisors. Concussion, subluxation, and luxation are the most common injuries in the primary dentition, while uncomplicated crown fractures are most common in the permanent dentition. Prognosis of traumatic injuries has improved significantly in the last 20 years. This has been largely due to a greater understanding of dental pulp reaction patterns and vital pulp therapies. Children are most accident prone between 2 and 4 years for the primary dentition and between 7 and 10 years for the permanent dentition. Coordination and judgement are incompletely developed in children during the primary dentition years, and the majority of injuries are due to falls in and around the home as the child becomes more adventurous and explores his/her surroundings. Most injuries in the permanent dentition are caused by falls and collisions while playing and running, although bicycles are a common accessory. The place of injury varies in different countries according to local customs, but accidents in the school playground remain common. Sports injuries usually occur in the teenage years and are commonly associated with contact sports. Injuries due to road traffic accidents and assaults are most commonly associated with the late teenage years and adulthood, and are often closely related to alcohol abuse. One form of injury in childhood that must never be forgotten is child physical abuse or non-accidental injury (NAI). More than 50% of these children will have orofacial injuries (see also Chapter 4, Safeguarding Children). Accidental dental injuries can result from direct or indirect trauma. Direct trauma occurs when a tooth receives a direct blow, making this sort of injury more common at the front of the mouth.
Urbanism: Built Space and Communities at the Meso-Scal
Authors: Letesson Quentin , Knappett Carl
Published: November 2020

Agglomerations of buildings, whether just a handful in a loose settlement, or a whole town with elaborate urban infrastructures (street system, drainage, open spaces, and other ‘public works’) constitute the meso-scale, the level of the community. Remarks on the variable quality of our data sets (see chapter 2) clearly apply to what we know of the meso-scale. Unfortunately, additional parameters also limit our understanding of Minoan agglomerations, constrain interpretation and, at worst, undermine the applicability of some analytical methods. First, we are confronted with the urban palimpsest phenomenon: many settlements were occupied during very long periods of time and witnessed multiple construction phases, often very difficult to differentiate in the archaeological record. When they are not reused as foundations for later buildings, early structures are sometimes dismantled and their building materials recovered for new projects; paved streets can be maintained for centuries (Cunningham 2007; Gomrée 2013), whereas in other instances they disappear under new building programmes (Devolder et al. forthcoming; Platon 1990; see also chapter 9); and the longer and denser the occupation, the more building phases are jumbled together in intricate layouts. Of course, this tendency is not limited to Minoan times: large parts of sites like Chania and Archanes are still buried under modern towns. Although making sense of this urban palimpsest is certainly not beyond the reach of archaeologists, other factors also hinder approaches to Minoan agglomerations. In recent years, for obvious reasons, excavations have been unable to match the scope of early twentieth-century projects. Nowadays, towns like Gournia and Palaikastro could not be as extensively and rapidly excavated. This, of course, has clear positive implications but also means that, in many cases, we only have a glimpse of the overall area of settlements. Nevertheless, the same limitations often prompt very productive approaches.
Processes and Patterns at the Macro-Scale: Crete and Beyond
Authors: Letesson Quentin , Knappett Carl
Published: November 2020

Zooming out, we first reach the various regions that compose Crete (e.g. west Crete, Mesara, north-central Crete, Malia-Lasithi zone, Mirabello Bay area, east Crete) and then the whole island itself. This is the macro-scale where settlement patterns can be observed and ‘which may see low-level exchange, competition, close affiliations; a whole range of potential scenarios, including “states”’ (Knappett 2012: 395). Further out, we might speak of the global scale, that of the supra-regional, with connections beyond the island to the Cyclades, Asia Minor, the Greek mainland, and so on. Although we have a general idea of how settlement patterns evolved during the Cretan Bronze Age (Driessen 2001; see also Bevan 2010 for an up-to-date synthesis), limitations at the micro- and meso-scale clearly also constrain our understanding of the macro-scale. Nevertheless, starting with Sir Arthur Evans (1928: 60–92), who was particularly interested in roads and how they connected specific settlements both in central and east Crete to support his view of Knossian overarching power (see also Warren 1994: 189, n.3), an interest in broader regional dynamics and top-down approaches to sociopolitical complexity was always prominent in Aegean archaeology (Cherry 1984; Renfrew 1972; Renfrew and Cherry 1986). This focus on site hierarchies has motivated a broad range of studies, from comparative material culture analysis (e.g. Knappett 1999) to surface surveys and associated tests which provided invaluable information on road networks (e.g. Müller 1991; Tzedakis et al. 1989; Tzedakis et al. 1990) and settlement distribution (for extensive bibliography and synthesis, see Driessen 2001; Whitelaw 2012). Although recent surveys clearly increase the temporal and spatial resolution of our data sets (e.g. Haggis 2005; Watrous 2012; Whitelaw, Bredaki, and Vasilakis 2006–7), they still have considerable gaps. For example, compared to central and east Crete, relatively few sites have been identified in the west of the island. This problem was recently tackled by Bevan and Wilson (2013), who devised a model for exploring settlement locations, hierarchies, and interconnections despite our incomplete dataset (see also chapters 12 and 15).
Dining on the Fringe? A Possible Minoan- Style Banquet Hall at Ayia Irini, Kea and the Minoanization of the Aegean Islands
Authors: Fitzsimons Rodney D. , Gorogianni Evi
Published: November 2020

Since its excavation by John Caskey and the University of Cincinnati from 1960 to 1976, Ayia Irini has served as one of the principal catalysts for investigations into the spread of Minoan culture throughout the Aegean in the later Middle and early Late Bronze Age (Fig. 14.1). Indeed, the abundance, concentration, and range of ceramic, architectural, iconographic, technological, and administrative evidence at the site that was inspired by, adapted, and/or adopted from the Cretan cultural package suggests that it functioned as one of the key nodes in the complex web of exchange networks that facilitated the dissemination of non-local traits across the region throughout this period (Abell 2014; Berg 2006, 2007; Davis 1979; Davis and Gorogianni 2008; Dietz 1998; Graziadio 1998; Knappett and Nikolakopoulou 2005; Knappett, Evans, and Rivers 2008; Knappett 2011; Nikolakopoulou 2007; Papagiannopoulou 1991; Schofield 1982a, 1982b, 1983, 1984a). Despite the quantity, quality, and variety of such evidence at Ayia Irini, however, only a single structure in the settlement, House A, has been hitherto recognized as betraying any indication of Minoan architectural influence (e.g. Berg 2007: 114; Cummer 1980; Cummer and Schofield 1984; Hitchcock 1998: 173; Letesson 2009: 298–303; Whitelaw 2005: 56). Currently located in the south-east quadrant of the site, though originally probably closer to its centre if changes in sea level are taken into account (Caskey 1962: 266, 278; 1964: 321; 1966: 365; 1971: 362), House A underwent a series of remodellings over the course of the Late Minoan IA through LM II periods (Cummer and Schofield 1984: 30–5; or Periods VI and VII in Caskey’s local pottery terminology), the end result of which produced an interesting blend of local and Minoanizing features.
A Comparative Perspective on Minoan Urbanism
Authors: Letesson Quentin , Knappett Carl
Published: November 2020

Urban settlements are often presented as a prominent feature of Bronze Age Crete (McEnroe 2010). And yet, summarizing what is actually known about Minoan towns is much more challenging than one would expect, especially for non-palatial settlements. Many studies are narrowly focused and often take one urban element out of context in all communities (e.g. villas, classification of houses, street system, etc.), hence undermining an understanding of the urban environment as a whole. Furthermore, research on Minoan urban contexts has long been characterized by a strong focus on polite or palatial architecture and very specific urban features related to it (such as the so-called west courts, raised walks, theatral areas, etc.), while most case-studies have often had a rather limited dataset. There are clearly exceptions but, to date, our knowledge of Minoan urban settlements is partly built on a large collection of heterogeneous and disparate information. As already noted some fifteen years ago, the ‘nature and character’ of urban settlements ‘has seen much less discussion, particularly at a generalized level’ (Branigan 2001a: vii; but see chapters 7 and 9). Of course, this situation is also inextricably linked to the nature of our datasets. Research is clearly constrained by the low quality of work in the initial decades of Minoan archaeology when somany of the larger exposures of townscapes on the island were made. And yet, for more than a century now, the archaeology of Bronze Age Crete has thrived:many excavations initiated at the beginning of the twentieth century have either continued or been revived, providing descriptions of numerous settlements of various sizes; new projects have unearthed fascinating buildings and sites; and many regions of the island have now been systematically surveyed. As a consequence, Minoan archaeologists have at their disposal a solid and varied dataset. Of course, sampling issues do exist. Firstly, remains of Neopalatial urban settlements clearly outnumber those of other periods.
Two of a Kind: Conceptual Similarities between Cremation and Inhumation in Early Anglo-Saxon England
Authors: Nugent Ruth
Published: November 2020

The physical difference in the archaeological traces of the bodies produced by cremation and inhumation have polarized discussions of these two burial practices. Conceptually, the wet, fleshy, decaying inhumed body has long been viewed as the binary opposite of the dry, skeletal, fragmentary cremated body. Inhumed bodies rot in situ, usually below ground, while cremains become portable, capable of being stored above ground. Recent studies aimed at re-integrating our understanding of cremation and inhumation have tended to focus on transitions between the hiatus of one burial mode and the (re-)introduction of another (e.g. Rebay-Salisbury 2012). However, in early Anglo-Saxon England (fifth to seventh centuries AD), cremation and inhumation were concurrently practiced, often in the same cemetery for tens if not hundreds of years. Therefore focusing only on transitions substantially reduces the field of investigation. Such different but contemporaneous burial modes may well have been influenced in part by contrasting and evolving beliefs concerning the body, death and the afterlife. In a recent transhistorical study of cremation and inhumation, Katherine Rebay-Salisbury (2012) identified religion as the primary influential context for funerary practices, with social concerns influencing the choices made within religious practices. However, any divergent cosmologies underpinning this difference still remain frustratingly veiled (Hutton 2010). While early Anglo-Saxon burials reveal a degree of genuine difference in the type and quantity of grave-goods and animals accompanying cremations and inhumations, a range of similarities also exists between them, ripe for further exploration. Cemeteries from Essex and Cambridgeshire provide particularly useful evidence of both cremation and inhumation practices, especially in light of recent publications of organic-rich burial sites of the fifth and sixth centuries AD from this area, notably Mucking I and II (Hirst and Clark 2009) and Springfield Lyons (Tyler and Major 2005). Three overarching concepts of body orchestration are addressed: containment, wrapping, and structuring, the evidence for which is first outlined thematically, then discussed as a whole. These shared concepts may be symptomatic of broader concerns for managing cadavers, which transcended the cremation-inhumation divide that is most clearly expressed through artefact and animal selection.
The Emergence of Cremations in Eastern Fennoscandia: Changing Uses of Fire in Ritual Contexts
Authors: Saipio Jarkko
Published: November 2020

Since the 1980s, a rapid increase in the number of Mesolithic and Neolithic cremation burials discovered has prompted a substantial re-evaluation of the position of cremation as a prehistoric mortuary ritual in northern Eurasia. Sporadic but persistent appearances of cremation in a wide variety of cultural contexts from early Mesolithic to late Neolithic have undermined the traditional models seeing cremation and inhumation as two radically different ways to treat the deceased. In studies of north-western Europe, from British Isles to southern Scandinavia, it is now widely recognized that inhumation and cremation co-existed in many Mesolithic and Neolithic cultures traditionally treated as textbook cases of mortuary practices emphasizing the corporeal integrity of the deceased. Importantly, the unexpected appearances of cremation are only one part of a wider challenge to the traditional assumption of dominance of primary burial in Mesolithic and non-megalithic Neolithic cultures of northern Europe. One important aspect of this challenge are finds of scattered burnt and unburned human bones in Mesolithic and Neolithic cultural layers, suggesting that articulated pit inhumations may actually represent exceptional cases (e.g. Hallgren 2008; Larsson 2009). North-eastern Europe still remains a white area in regional studies of pre- Bronze Age appearances of cremation in northern Europe. This border generally coincides with the language barrier between Germanic languages and various ‘eastern’ languages in terms of local archaeological research traditions. On the other hand, the border also roughly coincides with many genuine differences in archaeological record. Therefore, there is an obvious danger that differences in archaeological research histories and differences in archaeological phenomena become intermingled, creating ill-founded generalizations and assumptions. This chapter examines the earliest known cases of cremation in Eastern Fennoscandia, the area consisting of Finland, the Kola Peninsula, and Russian Karelia (Fig. 11.1). It is currently the easternmost part of northern Europe where confirmed cases of Mesolithic and Neolithic cremation have appeared so far. Such cases are currently few and little studied but they have a potential to redefine the whole study of prehistoric mortuary rituals in the area. In most of Eastern Fennoscandia acidic soil usually does not preserve any unburned bone material older than about a thousand years.
The Contemporary Archaeology of Urban Cremation
Authors: Williams Howard , Wessman Anna
Published: November 2020

Modern cremation is often portrayed by archaeologists as a distracting antithesis of the open-air cremation practices encountered in the archaeological record from the prehistoric and early historic past. In some key ways, the process of burning cadavers within gas-fired ovens, followed by the grinding of bones to uniformly sized granules, offers a stark contrast to the varied multi-staged open-air cremation practices known from recent ethnographic studies, and from the increasingly rich data provided by the archaeological record. The cremation process is hidden, indoors and hence distanced from the survivors in modern cremation. However, there are also numerous connecting themes between modern and ancient cremation and this chapter hopes to shed light on how mortuary archaeologists can explore cremation today to better understand cremation’s memorials, spaces and materials in both the distant and recent past, including both shared themes and distinctive dimensions in relation to other disposal methods, like inhumation. For while the burning of the body itself is hidden from view in modern cremation, the deployment of space, architecture, and memorialization before, during, and after the transformation of the body by fire choreographs comparable, if varied, emotive and mnemonic engagements between the living and the dead. This argument certainly holds for the post-cremation disposal of the ‘ashes’ or ‘cremains’ (the burned, distorted, shrunken, dried, and fragmented vestiges of the body and the materials and fuels involved in the cremation process: although in modern cremation, all artefacts and artificial body parts are removed prior to the grinding of bones). Both ancient and modern cremation practices share in providing a wide range of options regarding the destinations and treatments of ashes. They might be left at the site of cremation (in the modern sense, dispersed by crematorium staff in the garden of remembrance), yet they are readily retrievable, transportable and partible, and can be dispersed and integrated into a range of spaces and materials unavailable to the treatment of the unburned dead (see Williams 2008). Some of the spectrum of opportunities for ash disposal are comparable to those available for the inhumed dead and involve a specific plot and memorial, yet others can take on other material and spatial dimensions far different from the traditional grave plot.