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This book documents analyses of the Late Cretaceous dinosaur nesting sites of the Lameta Formation at Jabalpur, Districts Dhar and Jhabua,… Madhya Pradesh; Districts Kheda and Panchmahal (Gujarat); and the Pisdura, Dongargaon and Pavna sectors in the Chandrapur Districts of Maharashtra, which are exposed in India along an east-west and central axis. In this work, special emphasis has been given to the dinosaur nesting sites of the east-central Narbada River region, including its regional geology. The work was undertaken to provide detailed information concerning dinosaur eggs, eggshell fragments, nests and clutches found in the Lameta Formation of peninsular India. Prior to the present work there had been no detailed review of systematic work on the taxonomy, and of micro- and ultrastructural studies of dinosaur eggs and eggshells from the Lameta Formation. The study documents the field and laboratory investigations that facilitated the reconstruction of the morphotaxonomy, models for the burial pattern of eggs and eggshells, taphonomic implications,and the palaeoenvironmental context and palaeoecological conditions during the Late Cretaceous at the time of the extrusion of the Deccan traps, which may have been partly responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs. The need to follow a parataxonomic classification for Indian dinosaur eggs and eggshell types is very apparent, and this book addresses this aspect in some detail. The emphasis on the application of parataxonomic schemes is based on the description of new oospecies and their comparison with previously known forms. The present work has led to the recovery of numerous nests, many collapsed eggs and hundreds of dinosaur eggshell fragments from the localities situated near the east, west and central Narbada River regions. It will be of interest to academics and professional palaeontologists, and all students of dinosaurs.
This book presents a collection of archaeological and anthropological writings by Li Chi, the founding father of modern archaeology in… China. It is divided into two parts, the first of which traces back the rise of Chinese civilization, as well as the origins of the Chinese people; in turn, the second part reviews the rise of archaeology in China as a scientific subject that combines fieldwork methods from the West with traditional antiquarian studies. Readers who are interested in Chinese civilization will find fascinating information on the excavations of Yin Hsü (the ruins of the Yin Dynasty), including building foundations, bronzes, chariots, pottery, stone and jade, and thousands of oracle bones, which are vividly shown in historical pictures. These findings transformed the Yin Shang culture from legend into history and thus moved China’s history forward by hundreds of years, shocking the world. In turn, the articles on anthropology include Li Chi’s reflections on central problems in Chinese anthropology and are both enlightening and thought-provoking.
This book describes an archaeological investigation of human occupation in the northern area of the Patagonian archipelago in the far… south of South America. It is of global anthropological and archaeological interest, dealing as it does with an archipelago characterised by a maze of islands, fiords, channels, volcanoes and continental glaciers, in an area which is still very sparsely inhabited with only scattered settlements. It was one of the last parts of the continent to be populated by man, with the arrival of marine hunter-gatherer-fishers. The arrival of human beings in this area, and their subsistence strategies in varied environments, constitute a new example of man's ability to adapt over the course of his history. It is also of interest to document how humans overcome some biogeographical barriers to occupy territories, and how other kinds of barrier restrict movement and access to other regions, leaving certain human groups isolated. Two hunter-gatherer traditions, one marine and one pedestrian, with very different cultural development processes, coexisted in this part of Patagonia separated by less than 100 km of mountains, volcanoes and glaciers. There is no evidence of contact between them over their whole time sequence; on the contrary, the archaeological and bioanthropological evidence indicates two independent axes of movement: one used by canoe groups along the Pacific coast and the other by pedestrian groups in the interior of the continent east of the Andes.
In Daily Life of the Aztecs, Frances Berdan and Michael E. Smith offer a view into the lives of real… people, doing very human things, in the unique cultural world of Aztec central Mexico. The first section focuses on people from an array of social classes - the emperor, a priest, a feather worker, a merchant, a farmer, and a slave - who interacted in the economic, social and religious realms of the Aztec world. In the second section, the authors examine four important life events where the lives of these and others intersected: the birth and naming of a child, market day, a day at court, and a battle. Through the microscopic views of individual types of lives, and interweaving of those lives into the broader Aztec world, Berdan and Smith recreate everyday life in the final years of the Aztec Empire.
This collection of essays presents a synthesis of current research on the Oxus Civilization, which rose and developed at the… turn of the 3rd to 2nd millennia BC in Central Asia. First discovered in the 1970s, the Oxus Civilization, or the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC), has engendered many different interpretations, which are explored in this volume by an international group of archaeologists and researchers. Contributors cover all aspects of this fascinating Bronze Age culture: architecture; material culture; grave goods; religion; migrations; and trade and interactions with neighboring civilizations, from Mesopotamia to the Indus, and the Gulf to the northern steppes. Chapters also examine the Oxus Civilization’s roots in previous local cultures, explore its environmental and chronological context, or the possibly coveted metal sources, and look into the reasons for its decline. The World of the Oxus Civilization offers a broad and fascinating examination of this society, and provides an invaluable updated resource for anyone working on the culture, history, and archaeology of this region and on the multiple interactions at work at that time in the ancient Near East.
The Eastern Archaic, Historicized offers an alternative perspective on the genesis and transformation of cultural diversity over eight millennia of… hunter-gatherer dwelling in eastern North America. For many decades, archaeological understanding of Archaic diversity has been dominated by perspectives that emphasize localized relationships between humans and environment. The evidence, shows, however that Archaic people routinely associated with other groups throughout eastern North America and expressed themselves materially in ways that reveal historical links to other places and times. Starting with the colonization of eastern North America by two distinct ancestral lines, the Eastern Archaic was an era of migrations, ethnogenesis, and coalescence—an 8,200-year era of making histories through interactions and expressing them culturally in ritual and performance.
Bioarchaeology covers the history and general theory of the field plus the recovery and laboratory treatment of human remains. Bioarchaeology… is the study of human remains in context from an archaeological and anthropological perspective. The book explores, through numerous case studies, how the ways a society deals with their dead can reveal a great deal about that society, including its religious, political, economic, and social organizations. It details recovery methods and how, once recovered, human remains can be analyzed to reveal details about the funerary system of the subject society and inform on a variety of other issues, such as health, demography, disease, workloads, mobility, sex and gender, and migration. Finally, the book highlights how bioarchaeological techniques can be used in contemporary forensic settings and in investigations of genocide and war crimes. In Bioarchaeology, theories, principles, and scientific techniques are laid out in a clear, understandable way, and students of archaeology at undergraduate and graduate levels will find this an excellent guide to the field.
This book presents general problems in geoarchaeology, and discusses geophysical solutions, X-ray fluorescence spectrometry applications, X-ray and isotope analyses and… GIS technologies. It also examines practical reconstructions of technological processes used in ancient time, and investigates the use of minerals and rocks by ancient societies in the territories of modern Russia, Ukraine, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan, as well as the characteristics of ores, metallurgical slags and data on the composition and impurities of archaeological metals. Intended for archaeologists, historians, museum workers and geologists studying noble metals and copper, the book is also a useful resource for students, graduate students, experts and anyone interested in the use of various minerals at different stages of humanity’s development.
In recent years, three ancient manuscripts relating to the Yi jing (I Ching), or Classic of Changes, have been discovered.… The earliest—the Shanghai Museum Zhou Yi—dates to about 300 B.C.E. and shows evidence of the text's original circulation. The Guicang, or Returning to Be Stored, reflects another ancient Chinese divination tradition based on hexagrams similar to those of the Yi jing. In 1993, two manuscripts were found in a third-century B.C.E. tomb at Wangjiatai that contain almost exact parallels to the Guicang's early quotations, supplying new information on the performance of early Chinese divination. Finally, the Fuyang Zhou Yi was excavated from the tomb of Xia Hou Zao, lord of Ruyin, who died in 165 B.C.E. Each line of this classic is followed by one or more generic prognostications similar to phrases found in the Yi jing, indicating exciting new ways the text was produced and used in the interpretation of divinations. Unearthing the Changes details the discovery and significance of the Shanghai Museum Zhou Yi, the Wangjiatai Guicang, and the Fuyang Zhou Yi, including full translations of the texts and additional evidence constructing a new narrative of the Yi jing's writing and transmission in the first millennium B.C.E. An introduction situates the role of archaeology in the modern attempt to understand the Classic of Changes. By showing how the text emerged out of a popular tradition of divination, these newly unearthed manuscripts reveal an important religious dimension to its evolution.
The dead tell no tales. Or do they? In this fascinating book, Clark Spencer Larsen shows that the dead can… speak to us--about their lives, and ours--through the remarkable insights of bioarchaeology, which reconstructs the lives and lifestyles of past peoples based on the study of skeletal remains. The human skeleton is an amazing storehouse of information. It records the circumstances of our growth and development as reflected in factors such as disease, stress, diet, nutrition, climate, activity, and injury. Bioarchaeologists, by combining the methods of forensic science and archaeology, along with the resources of many other disciplines (including chemistry, geology, physics, and biology), "read" the information stored in bones to understand what life was really like for our human ancestors. They are unearthing some surprises. For instance, the shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture approximately 10,000 years ago has commonly been seen as a major advancement in the course of human evolution. <P><P> However, as Larsen provocatively shows, this change may not have been so positive. Compared to their hunter-gatherer ancestors, many early farmers suffered more disease, had to work harder, and endured a poorer quality of life due to poorer diets and more marginal living conditions. Moreover, the past 10,000 years have seen dramatic changes in the human physiognomy as a result of alterations in our diet and lifestyle. Some modern health problems, including obesity and chronic disease, may also have their roots in these earlier changes. Drawing on vivid accounts from his own experiences as a bioarchaeologist, Larsen guides us through some of the key developments in recent human evolution, including the adoption of agriculture, the arrival of Europeans in the Americas and the biological consequences of this contact, and the settlement of the American West in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Written in a lively and engaging manner, this book is for anyone interested in what the dead have to tell us about the living.
The raising of the Mary Rose in 1982 was a remarkable feat of archaeology and her subsequent preservation and display… at Portsmouth a triumph of technical skill and imagination. She is more than a relic, however. She has a story to tell, and her sinking in the Solent in 1545, when under attack by the French, and the reasons for it, have intrigued historians for generations. With the benefit of access to her remains, archaeologists have been able to slowly unravel the mystery of her foundering on a calm summer&’s day in July 1545. This new book by one of the country&’s leading experts on the Mary Rose contains much that is published for the first time. It has the first full account of the battle in which Henry VIII&’s warship was sunk, and tells the stories of the English and French admirals. It examines the design and construction of the ship and how she was used, and develops themes begun when he was earlier commissioned by the Mary Rose Trust to write the multi-volume history of the ship. He shows for the first time conclusively that the French fleet arrived unexpectedly to seize the Isle of Wight and Portsmouth a day later than was once believed, that the many bodies found in the wreck reflect her at action stations, and that the ship had had an extra deck added and was therefore more unstable than was previously thought. Finally, the author makes it clear who was responsible for the loss of the Mary Rose, after describing what happened onboard, deck by deck, in her last moments afloat. The fascinating revelation will intrigue the general reader as well as the historian and archaeologist and the book is set to become the last word on the career of this most famous of ships.
In this book, Claudia Glatz reconsiders the concept of empire and the processes of imperial making and undoing of the… Hittite network in Late Bronze Age Anatolia. Using an array of archaeological, iconographic, and textual sources, she offers a fresh account of one of the earliest, well-attested imperialist polities of the ancient Near East. Glatz critically examines the complexity and ever – transforming nature of imperial relationships, and the practices through which Hittite elites and administrators aimed to bind disparate communities and achieve a measure of sovereignty in particular places and landscapes. She also tracks the ambiguities inherent in these practices -- what they did or did not achieve, how they were resisted, and how they were subtly negotiated in different regional and cultural contexts.
Focusing on sites of key significance and the world’s first civilizations, Ancient Lives is an accessible and engaging textbook which… introduces complete beginners to the fascinating worlds of archaeology and prehistory. Drawing on their impressive combined experience of the field and the classroom, the authors use a jargon-free narrative style to enliven the major developments of more than 3 million years of human culture. First introducing the basic principles, methods, and theoretical approaches of archaeology, the book then provides a summary of world prehistory from a global perspective. This latest edition provides an up-to-date account of human evolution and the origins of modern humans. It explores the reality of life in the prehistoric world. Later chapters describe the development of agriculture and animal domestication, and the emergence of cities, states, and preindustrial civilizations in widely separated parts of the world. Our knowledge of these is changing thanks to revolutionary developments in LIDAR (light detection and ranging) technology and other remote-sensing devices. With this new edition updated to reflect the latest discoveries and research in the discipline, Ancient Lives continues to be a comprehensive and essential introduction to archaeology. It will be ideal for students looking for an accessible guide to the subject.
A groundbreaking argument about the link between autism and ingenuity.Why can humans alone invent? In The Pattern Seekers, Cambridge University… psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen makes a case that autism is as crucial to our creative and cultural history as the mastery of fire. Indeed, Baron-Cohen argues that autistic people have played a key role in human progress for seventy thousand years, from the first tools to the digital revolution.How? Because the same genes that cause autism enable the pattern seeking that is essential to our species's inventiveness. However, these abilities exact a great cost on autistic people, including social and often medical challenges, so Baron-Cohen calls on us to support and celebrate autistic people in both their disabilities and their triumphs. Ultimately, The Pattern Seekers isn't just a new theory of human civilization, but a call to consider anew how society treats those who think differently.
This first volume of John Worth’s substantial two-volume work studies the assimilation and eventual destruction of the indigenous Timucuan societies… of interior Spanish Florida near St. Augustine, shedding new light on the nature and function of La Florida’s entire mission system. Beginning in this volume with analysis of the late prehistoric chiefdoms, Worth traces the effects of European exploration and colonization in the late 1500s and describes the expansion of the mission frontier before 1630. As a framework for understanding the Timucuan rebellion of 1654 and its pacification, he explores the internal political and economic structure of the colonial system. In volume 2, he shows that after the geographic and political restructuring of the Timucua mission province, the interior of Florida became a populated chain of way-stations along the royal road between St. Augustine and the Apalachee province. Finally, he describes rampant demographic collapse in the missions, followed by English-sponsored raids, setting a stage for their final years in Florida during the mid-1700s. The culmination of nearly a decade of original research, these books incorporate many previously unknown or little-used Spanish documentary sources. As an analysis of both the Timucuan chiefdoms and their integration into the colonial system, they offer important discussion of the colonial experience for indigenous groups across the nation and the rest of the Americas. A volume in the Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series
This first volume of John Worth’s substantial two-volume work studies the assimilation and eventual destruction of the indigenous Timucuan societies… of interior Spanish Florida near St. Augustine, shedding new light on the nature and function of La Florida’s entire mission system. Beginning in this volume with analysis of the late prehistoric chiefdoms, Worth traces the effects of European exploration and colonization in the late 1500s and describes the expansion of the mission frontier before 1630. As a framework for understanding the Timucuan rebellion of 1654 and its pacification, he explores the internal political and economic structure of the colonial system. In volume 2, he shows that after the geographic and political restructuring of the Timucua mission province, the interior of Florida became a populated chain of way-stations along the royal road between St. Augustine and the Apalachee province. Finally, he describes rampant demographic collapse in the missions, followed by English-sponsored raids, setting a stage for their final years in Florida during the mid-1700s. The culmination of nearly a decade of original research, these books incorporate many previously unknown or little-used Spanish documentary sources. As an analysis of both the Timucuan chiefdoms and their integration into the colonial system, they offer important discussion of the colonial experience for indigenous groups across the nation and the rest of the Americas. A volume in the Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series
Secret treasures are buried all around us -- you just have to look for them!Accidental Archaeologists takes you on an… adventure through time to relive some of the coolest surprise discoveries by totally ordinary people all over the world. Meet:- The cowboy who found an ancient skeleton- A famous king buried underneath a parking lot- The team who found New York City's hidden African Burial Ground- A boy who finds the Dead Sea Scrolls while looking for his lost goat- And many more.Packed with incredible stories and expert tips for making your own exciting finds, this is an accessible, action-packed introduction to the world of archaeology.
Drawing on new archaeological evidence, an authoritative history of Rome’s Great Fire—and how it inflicted lasting harm on the Roman… EmpireAccording to legend, the Roman emperor Nero set fire to his majestic imperial capital on the night of July 19, AD 64 and fiddled while the city burned. It’s a story that has been told for more than two millennia—and it’s likely that almost none of it is true. In Rome Is Burning, distinguished Roman historian Anthony Barrett sets the record straight, providing a comprehensive and authoritative account of the Great Fire of Rome, its immediate aftermath, and its damaging longterm consequences for the Roman world. Drawing on remarkable new archaeological discoveries and sifting through all the literary evidence, he tells what is known about what actually happened—and argues that the disaster was a turning point in Roman history, one that ultimately led to the fall of Nero and the end of the dynasty that began with Julius Caesar.Rome Is Burning tells how the fire destroyed much of the city and threw the population into panic. It describes how it also destroyed Nero’s golden image and provoked a financial crisis and currency devaluation that made a permanent impact on the Roman economy. Most importantly, the book surveys, and includes many photographs of, recent archaeological evidence that shows visible traces of the fire’s destruction. Finally, the book describes the fire’s continuing afterlife in literature, opera, ballet, and film.A richly detailed and scrupulously factual narrative of an event that has always been shrouded in myth, Rome Is Burning promises to become the standard account of the Great Fire of Rome for our time.
Archaeological Theory in Dialogue presents an innovative conversation between five scholars from different backgrounds on a range of central issues… facing archaeology today. Interspersing detailed investigations of critical theoretical issues with dialogues between the authors, the book interrogates the importance of four themes at the heart of much contemporary theoretical debate: relations, ontology, posthumanism, and Indigenous paradigms. The authors, who work in Europe and North America, explore how these themes are shaping the ways that archaeologists conduct fieldwork, conceptualize the past, and engage with the political and ethical challenges that our discipline faces in the twenty-first century. The unique style of Archaeological Theory in Dialogue, switching between detailed arguments and dialogical exchange, makes it essential reading for both scholars and students of archaeological theory and those with an interest in the politics and ethics of the past.