World Archaeol 21

Current research on archaeological ceramics that use functional approaches are characterized as having two broad analytical goals: (1) the identification of the role of ceramics in subsistence systems, and (2) the identification of differences in settlement types. Much research has been conducted to meet each goal, but integration of the two approaches has been difficult because models of ceramic assemblage formation have been ill-defined. As a step toward this integration, a model of ceramic assemblage formation is presented outlining the major variables that must be considered in the assessment of differences in assemblage content. Using ethnoarchaeological data as input parameters, assemblage formation through time is modeled, and the effects of different variables on assemblage content are discussed. Au

The health of infants and children, who are nearly universally among the most vulnerable subgroups of a population, can be a sensitive indicator of the health of the population as a whole. Furthermore, repeated bouts of illness during infancy and childhood can have lasting effects on the individual and the group. A framework is offered for studying this topic, with a brief review of methods applicable to skeletal remains, and examples of the sensitivity and adaptive significance of this segment of the population are given for Nubia and Illinois. Harris Lines, dental enamel hypoplasia, and porotic hyperostosis are among the pathologies studied. Au(adp/abr)

Brief outline of the history of leprosy from 6th century BC; by 5th century AD the disease had reached Britain and rose to a peak between 11th and 13th, dying out by 16th. Questions of early diagnosis and treatment are considered. It is a disease of the poor which flourishes in crowded conditions. Many therapies were used, most probably ineffective. Lepers were housed in hospitals, but not necessarily treated, and in general arrangements for lepers were very haphazard and regionally varied.

On the change from small crowded urban graveyards, as these became a threat to public health, to large new cemeteries with private plots and memorials which allowed ostentatious remembrance of the dead and layouts in garden form.

Some of the structural timbers from the waterlogged 1BA platform are reused or collapsed, but others are thought to be in situ. A tentative reconstruction is offered. Generally, carpentry standards are high, showing excellent control of various splitting techniques and a clear appreciation of suitable straight-grained and slow-grown source materials, with simple and effective jointing. Au(abr)

Recent study of the four streets with shops at both street and first-floor levels (the upper shops connected by a series of galleries or 'Rows') has produced firm dendrodates and allowed new theories for their origins (see 89/769). The buildings seem to derive some inspiration from Constantinople - as indeed did Caernarvon Castle, also late 13th century.