ForewordAuthor BiographiesSelected Publications by Roger Matthews1. Devolving Early Neolithic community ecology: animal connections and interactions at Bestansur, Iraq Robin Bendrey2. “If only those jaws could move”. A narrative of Building 1 at ÇatalhöyükIan Hodder3. Beyond subsistence: new perspectives on Sialk North village, 6000-4900 BCEHassan Fazeli Nashli, Javad Hussainzadeh and Jebraeil Nokandeh4. Cities, symbols and deities: ancient and modern constructions of political power in Late Chalcolithic southern IraqMónica Palmero Fernández5. Washing hands and feet? Personal hygiene at Abu Salabikh (and further north)Nicholas Postgate6. To change, or not to change… Transitional glyptic styles in ED II Fara / Šuruppak and their relation to officialdomAdelheid Otto7. Two Babylonian beakers and an unpublished report on excavations at Ur in 1858John Curtis8. How high were the walls of Mesopotamia?John MacGinnis9. Large-scale pottery production at Middle Bronze Age QatnaDaniele Morandi Bonacossi10. The beads from the Achaemenid period of the archaeological site of Barikot, Swat Valley, northern Pakistan (c. 500-350 BCE): a preliminary typological studyMubariz Ahmed RabbaniInterlude 1: Roger’s deconstruction seminarBirger Ekornåsvåg Helgestad11. Human-environmental interactions in the Zagros region from the Epipalaeolithic to the Neolithic period: key debates and issuesMaria Rabbani12. Still mind the gap: a note on the ‘missing millennium’ between the Late Epipaleolithic and the Transitional Neolithic in the Central ZagrosHojjat Darabi13. The walking dead: a brief view on the mobility of mortuary remains and practices in the Neolithic central Zagros and adjacent regionsJudith Thomalsky14. Rural fortitude at Çadır Höyük: the 5.9 and 5.2 kya climate events on the Anatolian plateauMadelynn von Baeyer, Sharon R. Steadman and Benjamin Arbuckle15. Commensality, ritual and the making of transtopographic communitiesClaudia Glatz16. Ancient neighbourhoodsAlessandra Salvin17. “Alas the destroyed city!” A search for private houses of the Ur III period at UrElizabeth Stone and Paul Zimansky18. Thinking through and beyond the hinterland: towards a critical archaeology of rural settlements in Western AsiaChristoph Bachhuber19. Hilltop forts and pasture control: the spatial organisation of the semi-nomadic communities in the Late Bronze Age-Early Iron Age South CaucasusGuido Guarducci20. Archaeology of the recent past in mountainous Kurdistan: Kani Gund villageKarel Nováček, Lenka Starková and Hemin Naman KawesInterlude 2. A person of influence: in gratitude and admiration to Prof. Roger MatthewsRozhen Kamal Mohammed-Amin21. East India Company diplomats and antiquarians in early nineteenth-century IraqMichael Seymour22. Partialities, priorities and unintended glimpses of the archaeological process: a review of the site reports of the British excavations at CarchemishLisa Cooper23. Reverting to the Fertile Crescent: the story of the CZAP project 2008Yaghoub Mohammadifar with Leila Ghanbari24. Leading transitions in research excavations: impacts of the excavations at Neolithic BestansurAmy Richardson and Kamal Raeuf Aziz25. Decolonising knowledge-making on Iraq: a conversation with Zahra AliAlesia KoushThis book features a collection of papers produced in honour of Roger Matthews, Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology at the University of Reading. Roger previously taught at UCL’s Institute of Archaeology (2001–2010), before which he served as the Director of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq (BSAI, today BISI) in Baghdad and the British Institute at Ankara (BIA) in the 1980s and 1990s. The volume honours Roger’s legacy by assembling interdisciplinary research by his students, collaborators, and colleagues that maps challenges and new possibilities in the archaeology of Southwest Asia across the interrelated themes that have emerged from his work in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Türkiye.