Reductions in the cost of transporting manufactured goods have been an important element in economic development in the recent past, and previous research suggests that the Roman period in Britain also saw substantial reductions in such costs. The authors investigate how far it is possible to measure changes in transport costs by considering the spatial distributions of pottery from known Roman production locations over time. Their analysis of an extensive database of pottery assemblages is designed to evaluate a series of expectations concerning how reductions in transport costs may have affected such assemblages and their distribution. Results suggest that costs were reduced by a factor of about two, leading to related changes in pottery production, distribution, and consumption over time. The ability to quantify changes in transport costs opens new perspectives for investigating the general determinants of economic development using archaeological data.

Wealth differentials in archaeological sites are a frequently studied topic, but social differentiation approaches are rarely applied to different contexts within a wider territory, especially in Portugal. In this article, the authors discuss the differences in wealth and inequality through the consumption of tablewares from fifteen sites across Portugal dated from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries ad. The archaeological evidence derives from two types of contexts: secular (houses and dumps) and religious (female and male religious institutions). Using a statistical similarity method to compare different consumption patterns in each context, the authors discuss how this can help us understand wealth differences in distinct social environments.

The Bell Beaker site near Brodek u Prostějova (Czechia) has yielded remains of a large timber construction accompanied by four symmetrical ritual deposits with numerous artefacts, including more than fifty ceramic vessels. Their decoration consists of incised patterns, in nineteen cases with preserved white inlaid incrustations. To investigate the social relations at this extraordinary site, a multi-analytical and micro-destructive approach was employed to determine the provenance and technology of the pottery and the composition of the white incrustations. The results indicate various origins for the pottery within the region and the presence of extra-regional fabrics and graphitic temper. The main raw materials for the white inlays were calcium carbonate (calcite), hydroxyapatite (bone), and bright clay. The mixing of decorative motifs and the variation in the shape and size of the beakers suggest unique manufacturing processes. These results lend support to the monumental site of Brodek serving as a ritual place for several communities from both local and wider areas.

Early Neolithic funerary practices and the meaning of complete ceramic vessels found isolated are poorly researched topics in western Iberia. However, recent archaeological salvage excavations at Armazéns Sommer and Palácio Ludovice in Lisbon have revealed individual burial pits of male individuals laid in a foetal position and directly associated with necked vessels. These discoveries suggest that finds of isolated vessels, known since the beginning of the twentieth century in Portugal and usually found fortuitously apparently without archaeological context, may also have originally belonged to similar burials, unnoticed by their finders. This hypothesis opens new perspectives for the interpretation of such finds, which are inventoried in the present article.

Using the example of pottery imported into the Channel ports of southern England, an approach to examining the role of pottery in the emergence and mediation of coastal communities is proposed here. Building on recent scholarship, it is argued that it is no longer tenable to see pottery as a carrier of identity, or as part of a ‘cultural package’, with meaning emerging with identity as people interact with pottery within and without port environments. The study proposes that imported pottery found meaning in different ways, depending on the context of acquisition and use. Hence it mediated different forms of community and identity. The article ends with a consideration of the wider implications of this approach for ongoing studies of material culture, trade, and urban identities in medieval Europe.

En dépit des progrès enregistrés en Arthroplastie Totale de Hanche (ATH), sous certainesconditions, les contraintes prothétiques peuvent être amplifiées et transmises auxancrages osseux avec un risque accru de descellement (B. The et al., J. Biomech. 41 (2008)100–105). Les pics de chargement sont identifiés parmi les facteurs qui conduisent auxéchecs des ATH (A. Boulila, Optimisation et aide à la conception d’implants orthopédiques– Étude de l’usure d’implants articulaires de hanche, Travaux non publiés et Rapportd’avancement, INO MT Kassab, décembre 2006, Tunis, 82 p.). Cette étude porte sur unesimulation numérique des prothèses de hanche hybrides, de géométrie et de couple dematériaux différents. On montre que certaines géométries (∅28 × 56 mm) et certains couplesde matériaux (alumine/polyéthylène), peuvent atténuer les contraintes induites après chocet protéger la prothèse contre l’usure ou les ruptures prématurées. Devant une panoplied’une cinquantaine de modèles de prothèses de hanche existant sur le marché (M.R. Urist,Curr. Prob. Surge. 12 (1975) 1–54), certaines PTH de diamètre (interne et externe)incompatible avec un niveau de contraintes admissible doivent être éliminées. Unecombinaison judicieuse des matériaux de contact pour favoriser l’amortissement (cas ducouple polyéthylène/céramique) peut être une solution pour absorber les chocs et remédierau problème de descellement.

In spite of his great applied interest, the tensile strength of brittle materials, and chiefly that of ceramics, is difficult to measure directly by classical tensile tests. This results from the difficulties induced both by the samples machining and their grip on the testing machine. So, it is common to perform indirect determinations on the basis of strength values obtained in 3 or 4 points bending tests on prismatic samples. In the case of massive or hollow cylindrical samples, the diametral compression tests seem to be the best measurement technique, but these tests require refined experimental approach to lead to significant results. In order to characterise these care, two original experimental devices, one dedicated to massive cylinders, the other to hollow cylinders, have been built. The comparison of results thus obtained with those given by the classical bending tests permits to specify the validity and the limits of the techniques here developed.

This article considers the results of an analysis undertaken on pottery recovered mostly from multi-phase Iron Age sites in the Trans-Urals region of Russia. It focuses on a particular project involving fieldwork and the subsequent analysis of archaeological contexts and the laboratory studies of pottery morphology, ornamentation, technology, and statistics, with an attempt to apply the concept of style. This type of research project is unusual for Russian ceramic studies and the article begins with a consideration of the formal typological approach to the study of artefacts, which is a traditional aspect of Russian archaeology and is still the primary focus of many research programmes.