The past decade has witnessed a remarkable momentum in the advancement of archaeomalacological research but there is still a lot of room for progress. These ten papers are the second published proceedings of the archaeomalacology sessions organised by ICAZ (Mexico City, 2006). The contributions revisit important archaeological issues such as provenance of raw materials, dye production and the secondary uses of industrial shell waste, the role of shell artefacts in the symbolic world of diverse civilisations, technology and early cross-regional exchange networks. The papers testify to the merits of using state-of-the-art laboratory techniques to address archaeomalacological questions and demonstrate the interpretative value of integrating malacological expertise with experimental archaeology and detailed knowledge of archaeological context.
Introduction (Canan Çakirlar)
1. Personal ornaments made from mollusc shells in Europe during the Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic: News and View (Esteban Álvarez-Fernández)
2. Purple-Dye Industry Shell Waste Recycling in Bronze Age Aegean? Stoves and murex shells at Minoan Monastiraki (Crete, Greece) (Alfredo Carannante)
3. Shell Artefacts from the Gold Museum in Colombia: A view from the Intermediate Area (Diana Rocío Carvajal Contreras)
4. Shell Symbolism in Pre-Columbian North America (Cheryl Claassen)
5. The Necklace That Wasn’t a necklace: the Shell Circles of Chamber II at the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan (Mexico City, Mexico) (Mtra. María de Lourdes Gallardo Parrodi)
6. Technological change in shell object manufacture on the western coastline of Chetumal Bay (México) (Emiliano Ricardo Melgar Tísoc)
7. ‘She Drills Seashells on the Seashore’: An Experimental Study – Manufacture-wear Vs. Use-wear Using Palaeolithic Technologies for the Perforation of Whole Shell Beads (Kirsty Murphy)
8. Adorning the Dead: Shell Embroidery from the Temple of Quetzalcoatl, Teotihuacan, México (Clara Paz Bautista)
9. Producing jewellery for the upper class in Pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica: A shell pendant from Yaxchilán, Chiapas, México (Alicia Reyes Espinosa)
10. The Oliva Shell Necklace from Tlacojalpan,Veracruz, México (Adrián Velázquez Castro, Pedro Jiménez Lara, Belem Zúñiga Arellano and Norma Valentín Maldonado)
