The 8th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East (VIII ICAANE) was held in Warsaw in spring 2012, jointly organized by the University of Warsaw, the K. Michalowski Foundation and the Institute of Prehistory of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan. The three-volume Proceedings contain the latest information and analyses reported at the VIII ICAANE. The first volume contains papers presented during plenary sessions as well as two of the main themes: Township and Villages and High and Low – The Minor Arts for the Elite and for the Populace. The second volume includes the most extensive session dedicated to the results of field research, Excavations and Progress Reports, covering the entire Near East, the Gulf countries and the Caucasus. The volume is completed by contributions presented during the poster session. The third volume is a collection of four themes: Archaeology of Fire, Bioarchaeology – an innovation of the 8th ICAANE, introduced to bring together scholars working within interdisciplinary projects on various aspects of the ecology of the ancient populations of the Near East –, Conservation, Preservation and Site Management and the Islamic Session. Anyone with an interest in the ancient Near East will find much to enjoy and appreciate in these three impressive volumes.
