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Showing 2221 - 2240 of 3354 items
By John J. Shea. 2020
Stone tools are the least familiar objects that archaeologists recover from their excavations, and predictably, they struggle to understand them.…
Eastern Africa alone boasts a 3.4 million-year-long archaeological record but its stone tool evidence still remains disorganized, unsynthesized, and all-but-impenetrable to non-experts, and especially so to students from Eastern African countries. In this book, John J. Shea offers a simple, straightforward, and richly illustrated introduction in how to read stone tools. An experienced stone tool analyst and an expert stoneworker, he synthesizes the Eastern African stone tool evidence for the first time. Shea presents the EAST Typology, a new framework for describing stone tools specifically designed to allow archaeologists to do what they currently cannot: compare stone tool evidence across the full sweep of Eastern African prehistory. He also includes a series of short, fictional, and humorous vignettes set on an Eastern African archaeological excavation, which illustrate the major issues and controversies in research about stone tools.By José Antonio González Zarandona. 2020
A fascinating case study of the archaeological site at Murujuga, AustraliaLocated in the Dampier Archipelago of Western Australia, Murujuga is…
the single largest archaeological site in the world. It contains an estimated one million petroglyphs, or rock art motifs, produced by the Indigenous Australians who have historically inhabited the archipelago. To date, there has been no comprehensive survey of the site's petroglyphs or those who created them. Since the 1960s, regional mining interests have caused significant damage to this site, destroying an estimated 5 to 25 percent of the petroglyphs in Murujuga. Today, Murujuga holds the unenviable status of being one of the most endangered archaeological sites in the world.José Antonio González Zarandona provides a full postcolonial analysis of Murujuga as well as a geographic and archaeological overview of the site, its ethnohistory, and its considerable significance to Indigenous groups, before examining the colonial mistreatment of Murujuga from the seventeenth century to the present. Drawing on a range of postcolonial perspectives, Zarandona reads the assaults on the rock art of Murujuga as instances of what he terms "landscape iconoclasm": the destruction of art and landscapes central to group identity in pursuit of ideological, political, and economic dominance. Viewed through the lens of landscape iconoclasm, the destruction of Murujuga can be understood as not only the result of economic pressures but also as a means of reinforcing—through neglect, abandonment, fragmentation, and even certain practices of heritage preservation—the colonial legacy in Western Australia. Murujuga provides a case study through which to examine, and begin to reject, archaeology's global entanglement with colonial intervention and the politics of heritage preservation.By Bonnie A. Glencross, Sabrina C. Agarwal. 2010
Illustrates new methodological directions in analyzing human social and biological variation Offers a wide array of research on past populations…
around the globe Explains the central features of bioarchaeological research by key researchers and established experts around the worldBy Peter Hessler. 2019
From the acclaimed author of River Town and Oracle Bones, an intimate excavation of life in one of the world's…
oldest civilizations at a time of convulsive changeDrawn by a fascination with Egypt's rich history and culture, Peter Hessler moved with his wife and twin daughters to Cairo in 2011. He wanted to learn Arabic, explore Cairo's neighborhoods, and visit the legendary archaeological digs of Upper Egypt. After his years of covering China for The New Yorker, friends warned him Egypt would be a much quieter place. But not long before he arrived, the Egyptian Arab Spring had begun, and now the country was in chaos.In the midst of the revolution, Hessler often traveled to digs at Amarna and Abydos, where locals live beside the tombs of kings and courtiers, a landscape that they call simply al-Madfuna: "the Buried." He and his wife set out to master Arabic, striking up a friendship with their instructor, a cynical political sophisticate. They also befriended Peter's translator, a gay man struggling to find happiness in Egypt's homophobic culture. A different kind of friendship was formed with the neighborhood garbage collector, an illiterate but highly perceptive man named Sayyid, whose access to the trash of Cairo would be its own kind of archaeological excavation. Hessler also met a family of Chinese small-business owners in the lingerie trade; their view of the country proved a bracing counterpoint to the West's conventional wisdom. Through the lives of these and other ordinary people in a time of tragedy and heartache, and through connections between contemporary Egypt and its ancient past, Hessler creates an astonishing portrait of a country and its people. What emerges is a book of uncompromising intelligence and humanity--the story of a land in which a weak state has collapsed but its underlying society remains in many ways painfully the same. A worthy successor to works like Rebecca West's Black Lamb and Grey Falcon and Bruce Chatwin's The Songlines, The Buried bids fair to be recognized as one of the great books of our time.This volume focuses on new research on the archaeology of the early medieval Celtic churches c AD 400-1100 in Wales,…
Ireland, Scotland, south-west Britain and Brittany. The 21 papers use a variety of approaches to explore and analyse the archaeological evidence for the origins and development of the Church in these areas. The results of a recent multi-disciplinary research project to identify the archaeology of the early medieval church in different regions of Wales are considered alongside other new research and the discoveries made in excavations in both Wales and beyond. The papers reveal not only aspects of the archaeology of ecclesiastical landscapes with their monasteries, churches and cemeteries, but also special graves, relics, craftworking and the economy enabling both comparisons and contrasts. They likewise engage with ongoing debates concerning interpretation: historiography and the concept of the Celtic Church, conversion to Christianity, Christianization of the landscape and the changing functions and inter-relationships of sites, the development of saints cults, sacred space and pilgrimage landscapes and the origins of the monastic town .By Carolyn D. Dillian, Charles A. Bello. 2020
A comprehensive portrait of the controversial self-taught archaeologist C. C. Abbott.In the late nineteenth century, Charles Conrad Abbott, a medical…
doctor and self-taught archaeologist, gained notoriety for his theories on early humans. He believed in an American Paleolithic, represented by an early Ice Age occupation of the New World that paralleled that of Europe, a popular scientific topic at the time. He attempted to prove that the Trenton gravels—glacial outwash deposits near the Delaware River—contained evidence of an early, primitive population that pre-dated Native Americans. His theories were ultimately overturned in acrimonious public debate with government scientists, most notably William Henry Holmes of the Smithsonian Institution. His experience—and the rise and fall of his scientific reputation—paralleled a major shift in the field toward an increasing professionalization of archaeology (and science as a whole).This is the first biography of Charles Conrad Abbott to address his archaeological research beyond the Paleolithic debate, including his early attempts at historical archaeology on Burlington Island in the Delaware River, and prehistoric Middle Woodland collections made throughout his lifetime at Three Beeches in New Jersey, now the Abbott Farm National Historic Landmark. It also delves into his modestly successful career as a nature writer. As an archaeologist, he held a position with the Peabody Museum at Harvard University and was the first curator of the American Section at the Penn Museum. He also attempted to create a museum of American archaeology at Princeton University. Through various sources including archival letters and diaries, this book provides the most complete picture of the quirky and curmudgeonly, C. C. Abbott.By Barbara Freitag. 2005
Here Barbara Freitag examines all the literature on the subject since their discovery 160 years ago, highlighting the inconsistencies of…
the various interpretations in regard to origin, function and name. By considering the Sheela-na-gigs in their medieval social context, she suggests that they were folk deities with particular responsibility for assistance in childbirth. This fascinating survey sheds new light on a controversial phenomenon, and also contains a complete catalogue of all known Sheela-na-gigs, including hitherto unrecorded or unpublished figures.By Louise Ravelli. 2005
Answering key questions in the study of how museums communicate, Louise Ravelli provides a set of frameworks to investigate the…
complexities of communication in museums: * What is an appropriate level of complexity for a written label?* Why do some choice in language make a more direct relation to visitors?* Is there a correct way of presenting a particular view of content?* How do design practices contribute to the overall meanings being made? The frameworks enhance the way we critically analyze and understand museums text, both in the sense of conventional – written texts in museums – and in an expanded sense of the museum as a whole operating as a communicative text. Using a wide range of examples Ravelli argues that communication contributes fundamentally to what a museum is, who it relates to and what it stands for. Not only museum studies and communications studies students, but also professionals in the field will find Museum Texts an indispensable guide on communication frameworks.By Michael J. Heckenberger. 2005
In 1884 a community of Brazilians was "discovered" by the Western world. The Ecology of Power examines these indigenous people…
from the Upper Xingu region, a group who even today are one of the strongest examples of long-term cultural continuity. Drawing upon written and oral history, ethnography, and archaeology, Heckenberger addresses the difficult issues facing anthropologists today as they "uncover" the muted voices of indigenous peoples and provides a fascinating portrait of a unique community of people who have in a way become living cultural artifacts.By Alicia Sanchez-Mazas, Roger Blench, Laurent Sagart. 2005
One of the most dynamic research areas in the prehistory of East Asian regions is the synthesis of the findings…
of archaeology, linguistics and genetics. Several countries have only recently opened to field research and highly active local groups have made possible a raft of collaborative studies that would have been impossible even a decade ago. This book presents an overview of the most recent findings in all these fields. It will be of great interest to scholars of all disciplines working on the reconstruction of the East Asian past.By John Wayne Janusek. 2005
The Tiwanaku state was the political and cultural center of ancient Andean civilization for almost 700 years. Identity and Power…
is the result of ten years of research that has revealed significant new data. Janusek explores the origins, development, and collapse of this ancient state through the lenses of social identities--gender, ethnicity, occupation, for example--and power relations. He combines recent developments in social theory with the archaeological record to create a fascinating and theoretically informed exploration of the history of this important civilization.By Douglass Bailey. 2005
Fully illustrated, Prehistoric Figurines brings a radical new approach to one of the most exciting, but poorly understood artefacts from…
our prehistoric past. Studying the interpretation of prehistoric figurines from Neolithic southeast Europe, Bailey introduces recent developments from the fields of visual culture studies and cultural anthropology, and investigates the ways in which representations of human bodies were used by the pre-historic people to understand their own identities, to negotiate relationships and to make subtle political points.Bailey examines four critical conditions:* figurines as miniatures* figurines as three-dimensional representations* figurines as anthropomorphs* figurines as representations.Through these conditions, the study travels beyond the traditional mechanisms of interpretation and takes the debate past the out-dated interpretations of figurines as Mother-Goddess as Bailey examines individual prehistoric figurines in their original archaeological contexts and views them in the light of modern exploitations of the human form.Students and scholars of History and Archaeology will benefit immensely from Bailey's close understanding of the material culture and pre-history of the Balkans.By Jasmine Day. 2005
The most penetrating study of the curse ever conducted, The Mummy's Curse uncovers forgotten nineteenth-century fiction and poetry, revolutionizes the study…
of mummy horror films, and reveals the prejudices embedded in children’s toys. Examining original surveys and field observations of museum visitors demonstrate that media stereotypes - to which museums inadvertently contribute - promote vilification of mummies, which can invalidate demands for their removal from display. Jasmine Day shows that the curse's structure and meaning has changed over time, as public attitudes toward archaeology and the Middle East were transformed by events such as the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb. The riddle of the 'curse of the pharaohs' is finally solved via a radical anthropological treatment of the legend as a cultural concept rather than a physical phenomenon. A must for anyone interested in this ancient and mystifying legend.By Michael Balter. 2006
Veteran science writer Michael Balter skillfully weaves together many threads in this fascinating book about one of archaeology’s most legendary…
sites— Çatalhöyük. First excavated forty years ago, the site is justly revered by prehistorians, art historians, and New Age goddess worshippers alike for its spectacular finds dating almost 10,000 years ago. Archaeological maverick Ian Hodder, leader of the recent re-excavation at this Turkish mound, designated Balter as the project’s biographer. The result is a skillful telling of many stories about both past and present: of the inhabitants of Neolithic Çatalhöyük and the development of human creativity and ingenuity, as revealed in the recent excavation; of James Mellaart, the original excavator, whose troubles off the mound eventually overshadowed his incisive work at the site; of Hodder and his intense, brilliant crew who marveled and squabbled over the meaning of finds in dusty trenches while attempting to reintepret Mellaart’s work; and of the recent history of the theory and methods of archaeology itself. Part story of the human past, part soap opera of modern scholarly life, part textbook on the practice of modern archaeology, this book should appeal to general readers and archaeological students alike.By Jane E. Buikstra, Lane A. Beck. 2006
The core subject matter of bioarchaeology is the lives of past peoples, interpreted anthropologically. Human remains, contextualized archaeologically and historically,…
form the unit of study. Integrative and frequently inter-disciplinary, bioarchaeology draws methods and theoretical perspectives from across the sciences and the humanities. Bioarchaeology: The Contextual Study of Human Remains focuses upon the contemporary practice of bioarchaeology in North American contexts, its accomplishments and challenges. Appendixes, a glossary and 150 page bibliography make the volume extremely useful for research and teaching.By Robert D. Leonard, Todd L. VanPool. 2010
Quantitative Analysis in Archaeology introduces the application of quantitative methods in archaeology. It outlines conceptual and statistical principles, illustrates their…
application, and provides problem sets for practice. Discusses both methodological frameworks and quantitative methods of archaeological analysis Presents statistical material in a clear and straightforward manner ideal for students and professionals in the field Includes illustrative problem sets and practice exercises in each chapter that reinforce practical application of quantitative analysisBy Renato Lancellotta, Alessandro Flora, Carlo Viggiani. 2018
Conservation of monuments and historic sites is one of the most challenging problems facing modern civilization. It involves various cultural,…
humanistic, social, technical, economical and administrative factors, intertwining in inextricable patterns. The complexity of the topic is such that guidelines or recommendations for ntervention techniques and design approaches are difficult to set. The Technical Committee on the Preservation of Monuments and Historic Sites (named TC19) was established by the International Society of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE) in 1981, is supported by the Italian Geotechnical Society (AGI), and was renamed TC301 in 2010. This book assesses the role of historic towers as symbols of community identity and how to best preserve this special cultural heritage. Well-documented, exemplary case histories highlight concepts of preservation, integrity, cultural heritage, dynamic identification techniques and techniques for long-term monitoring of historic towers, as well as provide examples of appropriate intervention measures. The book will be of interest to professionals and academics in the wider fields of civil engineering, architecture and cultural resources management, and particularly those involved in art history, history of architecture, geotechnical engineering, structural engineering, archaeology, restoration and cultural heritage management.By Sue Hamilton, Ruth D Whitehouse, Katherine I Wright. 2006
Archaeology and Women draws together from a variety of angles work currently being done within a contemporary framework on women…
in archaeology. One section of this collection of original articles addresses the historical and contemporary roles of women in the discipline. Another attempts to link contemporary archaeological theory and practice to work on women and gender in other fields. Finally, this volume presents a wide diversity of theoretical approaches and methods of study of women in the ancient world, representing a cross section of work being carried out today under the broad banner of gender archaeology. The geographical and chronological range of the contributions is also wide, from Southeast Asia and South America to Western Asia, Egypt and Europe, from Great Britain to Greece, and from 10,000 years ago to the recent past. An ideal sampler for courses dealing with women and archaeology.By Thomas Levy, Thomas Higham. 2006
Over the past several years, a number of Levantine archaeologists working on the Iron Age (ca. 1200 - 586 BCE)…
have begun to employ high precision radiocarbon dating to solve a wide range of chronological, historical and social issues. The incorporation of high precision radiocarbon dating methods and statistical modelling into the archaeological 'tool box' of the 'Biblical archaeologist' is revolutionizing the field. In fact, Biblical archaeology is leading the field of world archaeology in how archaeologists must deal with history, historical texts, and material culture. A great deal of debate has been generated by this new research direction in southern Levantine (Israel, Jordan, Palestinian territories, southern Lebanon & Syria, the Sinai) archaeology. This book takes the pulse of how archaeology, science-based research methods and the Bible interface at the beginning of the 21st century and brings together a leading team of archaeologists, Egyptologists, Biblical scholars, radiocarbon dating specialists and other researchers who have embraced radiocarbon dating as a significant tool to test hypotheses concerning the historicity of aspects of the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible. As this book "raises the bar" in how archaeologists tackle historical issues as manifest in the interplay between the archaeological record and text, its interest will go well beyond the 'Holy Land.'