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Realizing Value in Mesoamerica: The Dynamics of Desire and Demand in Ancient Economies (Palgrave Studies in Ancient Economies)
By Scott R. Hutson, Charles Golden. 2023
This edited collection addresses concepts of value and its impact on economies and economic decision-making in Mesoamerica. It brings together…
various theoretical and methodological approaches to illuminate the little-studied topic of value in ancient economies.While scholars increasingly note that tangible objects found in the archaeological record could assume different values, depending on how they were used and circulated, less attention has been paid to how we might infer consensus (or lack of consensus) on how value was determined in past cultures so different from contemporary ones. These contributions show how multiple and conflicting understandings of what is important and meaningful coexist within any society even as moments of exchange create the impression of shared formulations of value. They consider divergences between shared understandings based on systems of beliefs and patterns of practice and the individual decisions of social actors. They also discuss how inequalities in social structures might inform our understanding of value, and how a multiplicity of values might encourage closer inspection of inequality in turn.The book brings together fifteen chapters focused on many parts of Mesoamerica, including Western Mexico, the Basin of Mexico, Veracruz, Oaxaca, and various parts of the Maya Lowlands, and range chronologically from the Classic period (250-900 CE) to the Spanish Conquest in the early 16th Century. It appeals to those working in archaeology, economic anthropology, economic history, and all those interested in how value can be understood in terms of contemporary cultural and political differences.Violence and Inequality: An Archaeological History (Path to Open)
By Thomas P. Leppard, Sarah C. Murray. 2023
Violence and Inequality explores the deep-time archaeological relationship between violence and inequality, focusing on prehistoric archaeology’s contribution to the understanding of…
the human dynamics among coercive force, aggression, and the state. Detailed archaeological case studies within a strong theoretical framework built from historical studies consider the role of coercive violence in trajectories toward complexity, how levels and types of violence can be traced alongside emerging wealth disparities, and the social role of violence. The assumption that violence and its threat buttressed elite social control is now challenged from various perspectives. This volume incorporates new models of the relationship between violence and social inequalities into the archaeology of social complexity, building more complicated and nuanced understandings of how different modes of social violence can militate different types of social constitution. Contributions from a variety of methodological angles—such as the bioarchaeology of health and trauma and radiogenic isotope studies and the aesthetics of violence—use a comparative perspective, drawing on data from the Southwestern US, Bronze Age China, early dynastic Egypt, ancient Mesopotamia, Roman Britain, and the Andes. Violence and Inequality offers an original and deep history of violence and inequality. Understanding the long-term intersection of violence and inequality and how they support or erode one another is of intrinsic importance, making this work significant to the study of archaeology, economic history, and collective action.The Epipalaeolithic and Neolithic in the Eastern Fertile Crescent: Revisiting the Hilly Flanks
By Tobias Richter, Hojjat Darabi. 2024
This volume brings together the latest results and discussions from research carried out in the eastern Fertile Crescent, the so-called…
hilly flanks, and adjacent regions, as well as providing key historical perspectives on earlier fieldwork in the region. The emergence of sedentary food producing societies in southwest Asia ca. 10,000 years ago has been a key research focus for archaeologists since the 1930s. This book provides a balance to the weight of work undertaken in the western Fertile Crescent, namely the Levant and southern Anatolia. This preference has led to a heavy emphasis on these regions in discussions about where, when and how the transition from hunting and gathering to plant cultivation and animal domestication occurred. Chapters assess the role of the eastern Fertile Crescent as a key region in the Neolithization process in southwest Asia, highlighting the key and important contributions people in this region made to the emergence of sedentary farming societies.This book is primarily aimed at academics researching the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture in southwest Asia. It will also be of interest to archaeologists working on this transition in other parts of Eurasia.Conservation of Contemporary Art: Bridging the Gap Between Theory and Practice (Studies in Art, Heritage, Law and the Market #9)
By Renée van de Vall, Vivian Van Saaze. 2024
This open access book investigates whether and how theoretical findings and insights in contemporary art conservation can be translated into…
the daily work practices of conservators or, vice versa, whether and how the problems and dilemmas encountered in conservation practice can inform broader research questions and projects. For several decades now, the conservation of contemporary art has been a dynamic field of research and reflection. Because of contemporary art’s variable constitution, its care and management calls for a fundamental rethinking of the overall research landscape of museums, heritage institutions, private-sector organizations and universities. At first, this research was primarily pursued by conservation professionals working in or with museums and other heritage organizations, but increasingly academic researchers and universities became involved, for instance through collaborative projects. This book is the result of such collaboration. It sets out to bridge the “gap” between theory and practice by investigating conservation practices as a form of reflection and reflection as a form of practice.Living Ruins: Native Engagements with Past Materialities in Contemporary Mesoamerica, Amazonia, and the Andes
By Philippe Erikson, Valentina Vapnarsky. 2022
Ruins and remnants of the past are endowed with life, rather than mere relics handed down from previous generations. Living…
Ruins explores some of the ways Indigenous people relate to the material remains of human activity and provides an informed and critical stance that nuances and contests institutionalized patrimonialization discourse on vestiges of the past in present landscapes. Ten case studies from the Maya region, Amazonia, and the Andes detail and contextualize narratives, rituals, and a range of practices and attitudes toward different kinds of vestiges. The chapters engage with recently debated issues such as regimes of historicity and knowledge, cultural landscapes, conceptions of personhood and ancestrality, artifacts, and materiality. They focus on Indigenous perspectives rather than mainstream narratives such as those mediated by UNESCO, Hollywood, travel agents, and sometimes even academics. The contributions provide critical analyses alongside a multifaceted account of how people relate to the place/time nexus, expanding our understanding of different ontological conceptualizations of the past and their significance in the present. Living Ruins adds to the lively body of work on the invention of tradition, Indigenous claims on their lands and history, “retrospective ethnogenesis,” and neo-Indianism in a world where tourism, NGOs, and Western essentialism are changing Indigenous attitudes and representations. This book is significant to anyone interested in cultural heritage studies, Amerindian spirituality, and Indigenous engagement with archaeological sites in Latin America. Contributors: Cedric Becquey, Laurence Charlier Zeineddine, Marie Chosson, Pablo Cruz, Philippe Erikson, Antoinette Molinié, Fernando Santos-Granero, Emilie Stoll, Valentina Vapnarsky, Pirjo Kristiina VirtanenA United Europe of Things: Portable Material Culture across Medieval Europe (Themes in Contemporary Archaeology)
By Jakub Sawicki, Michael Lewis, Mária Vargha. 2023
This volume studies high and late medieval material culture in a Pan-European context. The idea of ‘unity of culture’ in…
Medieval Latin Europe is well known in historical texts, especially when it concerns the so-called ‘Europe North of the Alps’. This book investigates the similarities and differences in material culture between areas, regions and political entities and opens the dialogue for a more interregional discussion. The editors acknowledge that there are numerous challenges in understanding the phenomenon the volume addresses, the fundamental one being defining (or even redefining) a common material culture of Europe. Important in determining this is greater appreciation of how objects reflect interactions between peoples, both local and foreign, which can be driven by a variety of factors, including trade, conflict and diplomacy etc. But just as important is observing the differences between ‘things’ across Europe, reflecting developments and transformations its cultural, social and economic history. These works are traditionally presented in isolation or at the local level, maybe even in very specialized tomes, as often it is thought their observation are not relevant to wider discourses. Conversely, what is clear, however, is that by interconnecting these seemingly introvert studies of specific artefact types or sites etc., readers can better appreciate the similarities and differences in material culture across Europe. This book is of interest to researchers in archaeology and material culture.Water in Ancient Mediterranean Households (Global Perspectives on Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology)
By Rick Bonnie, Patrik Klingborg. 2024
This book provides the first detailed study of the water supply of households in antiquity. Chapters explore settings from Classical…
Greece to the Late Roman Empire across a wide variety of environments, from dry deserts and moderate Mediterranean zones to wet and temperate climates further north.The different case studies presented in each chapter are united by three intimately interconnected aspects. The first, rainwater harvesting in cisterns, provides detailed techno-hydraulic investigations of the household water supply systems. The second aspect, households and water at the margins, stresses how domestic water supply systems were successfully adapted to unusually harsh environmental conditions. The third, other waters for houses, focuses on other types of water supply systems (rivers, water-bearers, stepped pools, wells) and their life biographies. As shown by the different chapters, a careful study of a household’s water supply is a rich source of evidence for understanding everyday decisions, anxieties, and changes in life. They also build towards a greater understanding of the social inequalities that are at play in the ancient Mediterranean and beyond, providing a wealth of new research to greatly augment our understanding of water as a resource in the ancient Mediterranean.Providing a new and important perspective on a central part of everyday life in the ancient world, this book is aimed at archaeologists and historians of the ancient Mediterranean, notably the Greek and Roman worlds, especially those with an interest in ancient households and water culture.Nur im Museum ist es möglich, in wenigen Schritten Milliarden Jahre Evolution, Menschheits- oder Technikgeschichte hinter sich zu bringen. Auf…
dem Weg durch fast 14 Milliarden Jahre stellt dieses Buch auf kurzweilige Art Museen und das in ihnen präsentierte Wissen vor. In zwanzig Stationen geht es vom Urknall über die Entstehung der Erde und des Lebens, zur Gründung erster Königreiche, zu Kleopatra, Luther und den Menschenrechten, zu Napoleon, Computern und dem Klimawandel. Man erfährt, warum Kuh und Wal so nahe Verwandte sind, warum die Preußen schon lange vor dem Berliner Hauptstadt-Flughafen ruinöse Bauprojekte realisierten und ob wir Menschen die Chance haben, jemals eine Supernova mit bloßen Augen zu sehen. Auf dieser unterhaltsamen Reise durch Raum und Zeit geht es aber auch um die Museen selbst, ihre Entstehungsgeschichten und ihre oft exzentrischen Gründer – unter denen einer die Wildtiere kurzerhand selbst erschoss, die er ausstellen wollte, während ein anderer kistenweise Landkarten und Bücher aus Japan stahl, bevor Stürme ihn zurück an die Küste warfen, oder jener dritte, der sich inmitten seiner Ausstellungsfläche begraben ließ und dort noch immer liegt. In diesem Buch vergehen (fast) 14 Milliarden Jahre wie im Flug.Coastal Landscapes of the Mesolithic: Human Engagement with the Coast from the Atlantic to the Baltic Sea explores the character…
and significance of coastal landscapes in the Mesolithic – on different scales and with various theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches. Mesolithic people were strongly connected to the sea, with coastal areas vital for subsistence and communication across the water. This anthology includes case studies from Scandinavia, western Europe and the Baltic area, presented by key international researchers. Topics addressed include large-scale analyses of the archaeological and geological development of coastal areas, the exploration of coastal environments with interdisciplinary methods, the discussion of the character of coastal settlements and of their possible networks, social and economic practices along the coast, as well as perceptions and cosmological aspects of coastal areas. Together, these topics and approaches contribute in an innovative way to the understanding of the complexity of topographically changing coastal areas as both border zones between land and sea and as connecting landscapes. Providing novel insights into the study of the Mesolithic as well as coastal areas and landscapes in general, the book is an important resource for researchers of the Mesolithic and coastal archaeology.This volume celebrates and examines the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center’s past, present, and future by providing a backdrop for the…
not-for-profit’s beginnings and highlighting key accomplishments in research, education, and American Indian initiatives over the past four decades. Specific themes include Crow Canyon’s contributions to projects focused on community and regional settlement patterns, human-environment relationships, public education pedagogy, and collaborative partnerships with Indigenous communities. Contributing authors, deeply familiar with the center and its surrounding central Mesa Verde region, include Crow Canyon researchers, educators, and Indigenous scholars inspired by the organization’s mission to further develop and share knowledge of the human past for the betterment of societies. Research, Education, and American Indian Partnerships at the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center guides Southwestern archaeology and public education beyond current practices—particularly regarding Indigenous partnerships—and provides a strategic handbook for readers into and through the mid-twenty-first century. Open access edition supported by the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center King Family Fund and subvention supported in part by the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center and the Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society.Archaeological Artefacts as Material Culture
By Linda Hurcombe. 2008
This book is an introduction to the study of artefacts, setting them in a social context rather than using a…
purely scientific approach. Drawing on a range of different cultures and extensively illustrated, Archaeological Artefacts and Material Culture covers everything from recovery strategies and recording procedures to interpretation through typology, ethnography and experiment, and every type of material including wood, fibers, bones, hides and adhesives, stone, clay, and metals. With over seventy illustrations with almost fifty in full colour, this book not only provides the tools an archaeologist will need to interpret past societies from their artefacts, but also a keen appreciation of the beauty and tactility involved in working with these fascinating objects. This is a book no archaeologist should be without, but it will also appeal to anybody interested in the interaction between people and objects.Treasured: How Tutankhamun Shaped a Century
By Christina Riggs. 2021
A bold new history of the discovery of King Tut and the seismic impact it left on modern society. When it…
was discovered in 1922, in an Egypt newly independent of the British Empire, the 3,300-year-old tomb of Tutankhamun sent shockwaves around the world. The boy-king became a household name overnight and kickstarted an international obsession that continues to this day. From pop culture and politics to tourism and the heritage industry, it&’s impossible to imagine the past century without the discovery of Tutankhamun – yet so much of the story remains untold. In Treasured, Christina Riggs weaves compelling historical analysis with tales of lives touched, or changed forever, by an encounter with the boy-king. Who remembers that Jacqueline Kennedy first welcomed the young pharaoh to America? That a Tutankhamun revival in the 1960s helped save the ancient temples of Egyptian Nubia? Or that the British Museum&’s landmark Tutankhamun exhibition in 1972 remains its most successful ever? But not everything about &‘King Tut&’ glitters: tours of his treasures in the 1970s were linked to Big Oil, his mummified remains have been exploited in the name of science, and accounts of his tomb&’s discovery exclude Egyptian archaeologists. Treasured offers a bold new history of the young pharaoh who has as much to tell us about our world as his own.Cultural Landscapes of Israel
By Aviad Sar Shalom, Yuval Peled, Rachel Singer, Irit Amit-Cohen, Rafi Rich, Avraham Avi Sasson, Elissa Rosenberg. 2023
This book introduces an inventory of proposed cultural landscapes in Israel, which have been identified, researched and mapped by the…
Israel Nature and Parks Authority. The categories as defined by the Operational Guidelines of the World Heritage Convention are used to classify the cultural landscapes and provide a framework to determine their significance on a global, regional and local scale. This volume explains the local planning framework and highlights the present complexities in a local context. A number of innovative case studies on the management of sites illustrate how it is possible to bring a range of stakeholders together with public participation, ensuring that appropriate decisions are made regarding the steps necessary for the future of cultural landscapes in Israel. This book appeals to planners and heritage conservationists equally as to students and post graduates in the fields of landscape planning and architecture, geography, archaeology and many related areas.Identities and Place: Changing Labels and Intersectional Communities of LGBTQ and Two-Spirit People in the United States
By Katherine Crawford-Lackey, Megan E. Springate. 2019
With a focus on historic sites, this volume explores the recent history of non- heteronormative Americans from the early twentieth…
century onward and the places associated with these communities. Authors explore how queer identities are connected with specific places: places where people gather, socialize, protest, mourn, and celebrate. The focus is deeper look at how sexually variant and gender non-conforming Americans constructed identity, created communities, and fought to have rights recognized by the government. Each chapter is accompanied by prompts and activities that invite readers to think critically and immerse themselves in the subject matter while working collaboratively with others.Authors, Factions, and Courts in Angevin England: A Literature of Personal Ambition (12th-13th Century) advances a model for historical study of…
courtly literature by foregrounding the personal aims, networks, and careers as the impetus for much of the period’s literature. The book takes two authors as case studies – Gerald of Wales and Walter Map – to show how authors not only built their own stories but also used popular narratives and the tools of propaganda to achieve their own, personal goals. The purpose of this study is to overturn the top-down model of political patronage, in which patrons – and particularly royal patrons – set the cultural agenda and dictate literary tastes. Rather, Fabrizio De Falco argues that authors were often representative of many different interests expressed by local groups. To pursue those interests, they targeted specific political factions in the changeable political scenario of Angevin England. Their texts reveal a polycentric view of cultural production and its reception. The study aims to model a heuristic process which is applicable to other courtly texts besides the chosen case-studies.Mythology and Symbolism of Eurasia and Indigenous Americas: Manifestations in Artifacts and Rituals
By Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba. 2023
A system of myths, symbols, and rituals, dating back to the Paleolithic and Neolithic, survives in present-day imagery. In exploring…
this system, special attention is drawn to the linkage between ancient and contemporary civilizations of Eurasia and Mesoamerica, as seen in their cosmology, and expressed in common mythological and iconographic themes. The author examines contemporary Middle American and eastern European textiles, especially women’s garments, that contain an elaborated sacred code of symbols, and include remnants of the four horizontal directions, and the three vertical worlds that portray the structure of the universe. The cosmology contained in patterns around the world denotes striking parallels that attest to internal connections between different cultures, beyond time and place.Selected Studies in Geomorphology, Sedimentology, and Geochemistry: Proceedings of the 3rd Conference of the Arabian Journal of Geosciences (CAJG-3) (Advances in Science, Technology & Innovation)
By Federico Lucci, Domenico M. Doronzo, Jasper Knight, Anna Travé, Stefan Grab, Amjad Kallel, Sandeep Panda, Helder I. Chaminé, Jesús Rodrigo-Comino, Sami Khomsi, Santanu Banerjee, Broder Merkel, Haroun Chenchouni. 2023
This book is based on the papers accepted for presentation during the 3rd Springer Conference of the Arabian Journal of…
Geosciences (CAJG-3). The book is of interest to all researchers in the fields of geomorphology, sedimentology, and geochemistry. Papers in the field of geomorphology deal with topics related to fault slip and incision rates, soil science, landslides and debris flows, coastal processes, and geoarcheology and geoheritage. Papers in the field of sedimentology cover research studies in stratigraphy and environmental, tectonic, and diagenetic processes, together with studies focusing on the evolutionary, biostratigraphic, and paleo-environmental significance of paleontology. This section also contains papers on marine geosciences, from molecular proxies related to climate to geophysical surveys. The third set of papers focuses on studies related to geochemistry that are focused on sedimentary geochemistry and mineralogical characterization, magmatic and metamorphic processes and products, and the origin and exploration of mineral deposits. This book resumes the current situation related to the abovementioned topics mainly in the Mediterranean realm and its surroundings. The book is of interest to all researchers, practitioners, and students in the fields of geomorphology, sedimentology, and geochemistry.The Accidental Detectorist: Uncovering an Underground Obsession
By Nigel Richardson. 2022
'Richardson writes beautifully about his return to the land, about listening to the soil and about understanding the ancient world.'…
- The SpectatorEach new field is hope, each old one reality.There are things below the surface that pull people together in a shared love of history, landscape and the hope that, this time, something incredible will be unearthed.When a travel writer is stuck on home soil in the middle of a pandemic he tries his hand at metal detecting - and is instantly addicted. This all-consuming hobby takes him around the country, back through history and deep into the psyches(his own included) of those hooked on 'happy bleeps'.The Accidental Detectorist is a big-hearted dig into a pastime sometimes mocked but always enticing.***When locked-down travel writer Nigel Richardson is looking for a travel story close to his country cottage he turns to a leading metal detectorist with an infectious passion for the hobby. Before he knows it the mysteries of the fields are leading him on, into a world that casts the history of these isles and its people in an intriguing new light.Sifting Britain's soil from Portsmouth to Edinburgh, Nigel yearns to lose his detectorist's virginity by finding a 'hammered' coin - while learning that the search for treasure comes with a serious responsibility to our common heritage. As he immerses himself further in the world of metal detecting, exposing the shady activities of 'nighthawks', attending rallies and making lifelong friends, a change comes over him. This country beneath his feet, these people who scour it for clues and tokens - they are the home he's been looking for.Households in Context: Dwelling in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt
By Caitlín Eilís Barrett, Jennifer Carrington. 2023
Households in Context shifts the focus from monumental temples, tombs, and elite material and visual culture to households and domestic…
life to provide a crucial new perspective on everyday dwelling practices and the interactions of families and individuals with larger social and cultural structures. A focus on households reveals the power of the everyday: the critical role of quotidian experiences, objects, and images in creating the worlds of the people who live with them. The contributors to this book share contemporary research on houses and households in both Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt to reshape the ways we think about ancient people's lived experiences of family, community, and society. Households in Context places the archaeology and history of Greco-Roman Egypt in dialogue with research on dwelling, daily practice, and materiality to reveal how ancient households functioned as laboratories for social, political, economic, and religious change.Contributors: Youssri Abdelwahed, Richard Alston, Anna Lucille Boozer, Paola Davoli, David Frankfurter, Jennifer Gates-Foster, Melanie Godsey, Darlene L. Brooks Hedstrom, Sabine R. Huebner, Gregory Marouard, Miriam Müller, Lisa Nevett, Bérangère Redon, Bethany Simpson, Ross I. Thomas, Dorothy J. ThompsonChasing Aphrodite: the hunt for looted antiquities at the world's richest museum
By Jason Felch. 2011
In 2005, the art world was rocked by scandal when news broke that the prestigious J. Paul Getty Museum had…
a long history of purchasing looted antiquities. Beginning in the 1960's with Getty's purchase of questionable European statues, this story chronicles the rise of the world's richest museum, and documents how the museum's curators knowingly purchased stolen art until 2000, when a Rome magistrate sued for the return of Italian statues. California Book Award winner. Some strong language