A recent paper in Britannia explored some of the potential factors which might have led to potters in the Silchester area continuing the production of flint-tempered pottery, already established in the Iron Age, into the start of the Roman period. This paper attempts to expand the discussion by considering the viewpoint of the potters’ customers and what they might have been looking for when purchasing their pots, with particular emphasis on the characteristics required of cookwares.

I argue that Avicenna allows for at least one case where we can intellectually grasp a particular individual as such: Each human intellect can intellect itself as numerically this one intellect without relying on any general notion or concept. This is because humans can retain their individuality when separated from their bodies. I discuss passages in which Avicenna appears to affirm and deny that humans can intellect themselves. I conclude that in contrast to the self-awareness that Avicenna showcases in his “floating human” thought experiment, human self-intellection is a rare achievement, and I explain how it differs from the more perfect self-intellection of the divine intellect.

This article analyses Avicenna's Ḥayawān III, 1, which deals with the well-known disagreement between physicians and philosophers on the origination of blood vessels (arteries and veins) and nerves. However, the proposed analysis is not limited to this chapter and its main topic. The more general purpose of this article is to reconstruct the psycho-medical context in which Avicenna's exposition lies, that is, the soul's oneness and the consequent conditions for body ensoulment (i. e. the soul's need for a primary, unitary attachment to the body through the heart and the cardiac pneuma). The article then outlines the strategy through which Avicenna presents medical positions (heart, brain, and liver are all on an equal footing) that challenge his (and Aristotle's) anatomical model, which is coherent with his theory of the soul. In this connection, firstly, the article shows how Avicenna takes physicians’ arguments apart in a philosophical context (he usually points at their logical shortcomings). Then, it clarifies the contribution of anatomy to determine the conditions of body ensoulment and, ultimately, how to reconcile medical practice with philosophical truths, if need be.

In the next 10 years, the US cultural resource management (CRM) industry will grow in terms of monies spent on CRM activities and the size of the CRM labor force. Between US fiscal years 2022 and 2031, annual spending on CRM will increase from about $1.46 to $1.85 billion, due in part to growth in the US economy but also to an added $1 billion of CRM activities conducted in response to the newly passed infrastructure bill. The increased spending will lead to the creation of about 11,000 new full-time positions in all CRM fields. Archaeologists will be required to fill more than 8,000 positions, and of these, about 70% will require advanced degrees. Based on current graduation rates, there will be a significant MA/PhD-level job deficit. Accordingly, there is a compelling need to (a) stop the trend to close or decrease the size of current graduate programs, (b) reorient academic programs to give a greater emphasis to the skills needed to be successful in CRM, and (c) better integrate academic and applied archaeology to leverage the vast amount of data that will be generated in the next decade to best benefit the public.

The polymath Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ (d. 1154 CE) is known for a number of comparatively small treatises on specific aspects of ancient Greek mathematical and philosophical works. He devotes many of his works to greater or smaller errors that he found in the works by Euclid, Ptolemy, and Aristotle. The aim of the present paper, which focuses on three treatises on Ptolemy and Aristotle, is to describe Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ’s method and aim in these works. I argue that his treatises on the Almagest, On the Heavens, and Posterior Analytics follow a similar structure and that there is much value for modern research resulting from the bibliographical details provided by Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ. To give but just one example, Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ attests to the existence of a so far unknown Arabic translation of Aristotle's Posterior Analytics. In this way, this paper is the first to establish Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ’s research profile: his works tell us which sources were available to scholars active in Baghdad and Damascus in the 12th century CE and how he tried to resolve contradictions from the different versions of authoritative texts. Thus, this paper enhances our knowledge of the Graeco-Arabic transmission of scientific and philosophical texts.

The procurement and use of salt in Anatolia has received limited scholarly attention despite its abundance in the region. This study synthesizes geological, archaeological, ethnoarchaeological, and textual data to assess the role of salt within the socioeconomic setting of the third and early second millennia bc (c. 3000–1730 bc) in Anatolia. The easy accessibility of rock salt and saltpans ranks salt lower among the strategically controlled materials of the era. The author argues that the early non-state Anatolian communities’ strategy for obtaining and distributing this salt was community-driven. Unlike societies in Mesopotamia and Europe, for which the production and distribution of salt contributed significantly to their political economy, salt never became a prestige good, nor did it contribute to the accumulation of wealth in Bronze Age Anatolia.

Gender has long been recognized as an important structuring agent in Bronze Age communities across Europe. A strong impression of binary gender emerges from some Early Bronze Age cemeteries, and models of social organization developed from this evidence have greatly influenced understandings of gender across the continent. This article focuses on two regions with more equivocal evidence: Ireland and Scotland, where idiosyncratic practices characterize individual cemeteries alongside wider trends. Expressions of gender varied in radical ways between different communities, and this cannot be captured or explained by the current grand narratives for the European Bronze Age. Instead, the author argues that gender could be subtle, contextual, and of varying importance to individual communities at different times, not necessarily a common feature unifying the European Bronze Age.

An integrated study of the zooarchaeological, iconographic, and artefactual data from the Etruscan site of Poggio Civitate (Murlo, Italy), inhabited from the eighth to the sixth century bc, reveals intra-site differences in the distribution and disposal of animal body parts and species represented, including wild animals. Smaller mammals and birds that would be trapped are encountered more frequently in the site's workshop area and larger prey (deer, wolf, bear, and aurochs) that would be hunted are found more often in the area of the elite residence. We suggest that some of these remains are evidence that hunting was for the purpose of trophy display by the elites of Poggio Civitate and we discuss the social implications of such an activity in this community.