Masada

Masada: Herod's Fortress and the Zealots' Last Stand
by Yigal Yadin

Respected historian and archaeologist Yigael Yadin is an expert on the well-known ancient Masada fortress, and here he presents the incredible story of the 960 Jewish men, women, and children who refused to be taken alive by Flavius Silva and his Roman Tenth Legion. This covers the siege of Masada, the mass suicide of the 960 rebels (when victory was clearly impossible they decided that "a death of glory was preferable to a life of infamy" (as prisoners)), and the 1963-1965 excavations at Masada that yielded a huge amount of artifacts that reveal even more about the rebels, who were led by Eleazar ben Yair. This is a compelling story made even better by the more than 200 photos showing all kinds of artifacts, including spearpoints, coins, pottery, jewelry, surviving Old Testament scrolls, skeletons, even clothing items that have survived to this day! There's also a generous amount of maps that are very helpful. This siege is one of the most interesting in military history, and this story is a lasting testament to the strong character of the Jewish people.

"Trade in Prehispanic Philippine Complex Societies"

"The Organization of Intra-Regional and Long-Distance Trade in Prehispanic Philippine Complex Societies"
by Laura Lee Junker

"In this paper, I have made a preliminary attempt to construct such a model through ethnohistoric analyses of Philippine lowland societies examining systems of social stratification, the nature of chiefly authority and regionally integrating political structures, and chiefly control over the regional economy, in the early to mid-second millennium. Focusing specifically on the central role of the chiefly political leader in coordinating and controlling both intra-regional and inter-regional systems of resource mobilization and exchange, I examined archaeologically testable predictions about the development of these economic systems, using data on regional settlement and artifact distribution patterns from one region of prehistoric complex society development in the Philippines."

"Why Settle Down?"

"Why Settle Down? The Mystery of Communities"
by Michael Balter

ÇATALHÖYÜK, TURKEY--This 9000-year-old settlement in Anatolia was once hailed as the earliest city, with a population of 10,000, shared institutions, a division of labor, and a reliance on agriculture. But a meticulous new excavation of the site, being conducted by a team including on-site specialists in human and animal remains, fossil plants, pottery, and stone tools, is challenging the long-held assumption that the first settlements and the transition to agriculture were part of a single process dubbed the "Neolithic Revolution". By using the techniques of a relatively new field called micromorphology, which puts archaeological remains under the microscope to provide the maximum amount of information about how people lived and died, it now appears that the people of this high-density settlement, and other early communities, still depended heavily on hunting and gathering and may have settled down for some still-mysterious cultural purpose.

Read the full article here.

See Michael Balter's website here.