This volume presents the Late Classical through Roman pottery from the University of Chicago excavations at Isthmia (1952-1989). In a series of three chapters - on the Late Classical and Hellenistic pottery, the Roman pottery, and the pottery from the Palaimonion - a general discussion is followed by a catalogue presenting datable contexts and then by a catalogue of other noteworthy pottery. Appendixes discuss the stratigraphy of the Palaimonion and observations on new and previously published lamps. Amphora stamps are the focus of a further appendix, followed by a catalogue of the Slavic and Byzantine pottery found in the sanctuary area. Although the pottery is sometimes fragmentary, the range of materials over this thousand-year period is typical of Corinthian sites. The finds presented here provide critical information about the history of the Panhellenic sanctuary of Poseidon and the ritual activities that took place there.

Focusing on the British Isles, the author explores a period of huge societal change – the Neolithic, or ‘New Stone Age’ – through the most iconic artifact of its time: the polished stone axe, using an ancient stone axe-head brought to him by a local quarry worker as a guide to the revolution that changed the world. These formidable creations were not only crucial tools that enabled the first farmers to clear the forests, but also objects of great symbolic importance, signifying status and power, wrapped up in expressions of religion and politics. Mixing anecdote, ethnography and archaeological analysis, the author vividly demonstrates how the archaeology on the ground reveals to us the evolving worldview of a species increasingly altering their own landscape; settling down together, investing in agricultural plots, and collectively erecting massive ceremonial monuments to cement new communal identities. As a direct result of the invention, and intensification, of agriculture, the planet entered the Anthropocene, or the current ‘age of humanity’: an era in which we are changing the world around us in significant, accelerating and often unpredictable ways. As the author poignantly concludes, our ancestors set us on the path to the modern world we live in; now seven billion humans must face the challenges that presents. With 76 illustrations, 24 in colour

For more than three millennia the cultures of Mesoamerica flourished, building the first cities of the Western Hemisphere and developing writing systems that could rival those of the Eastern Hemisphere in their creativity and efficiency. The Nahuatl-speaking Aztecs reigned over one of the greatest imperial civilizations the Americas had ever seen, and up until now their intricate and visually stunning hieroglyphs have been overlooked in the story of writing. In this innovative volume Gordon Whittaker provides the reader with everything they need to know to appreciate and understand Aztec hieroglyphs: a step-by-step, illustrated guide of how to read Aztec glyphs; an explanation of the special features of this writing system in comparison to others from around the globe; the story of how this enigmatic language has been deciphered; a tour through Aztec history as recorded in hieroglyphic codices; and demonstrations of how the writing system was adapted to transliterate Spanish words during the Conquest. With 300 illustrations

This book, a guide and companion to the prehistoric archaeology of Greece, is designed for students, travelers, and all general readers interested in archaeology. Greece has perhaps the longest and richest archaeological record in Europe, and this book reviews what is known of Greece from the earliest inhabitants in the Stone Age to the end of the Bronze Age and the collapse of the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations.
The book describes the prehistoric cultures of Greece in chronological order, and illustrates with 98 detailed drawings each culture's typical artifacts, architecture, burial customs, and art. Written in an informal and accessible style free of scientific jargon, the book can be used in the classroom or as a guide for the traveler, or read simply for pleasure by anyone with a curiosity about the earliest ages of this fascinating region.
Although intended for a wide audience, the book has a solid scientific foundation. The authors are professional archaeologists with more than 25 years of experience in the field and with a first-hand knowledge of the methods and results of contemporary research. There is no other book today that covers the same range of periods and subjects, making it essential reading for anyone interested in the early civilizations that shaped the Greek landscape, laid the foundations for Classical Greek civilization, and contributed in many ways to the formation of the modern Greek world.
The authors have been careful to address the many questions concerning prehistoric Greece that have been asked them by students and visitors to Greece through the years. The illustrations were created especially for this book, showing familiar artifacts and sites from a new perspective, and selecting others for illustration that rarely, if ever, appear in popular publications.

This volume brings together the work of scholars using various methodologies to investigate the prevalence, importance, and meanings of feasting and foodways in the texts and cultural-material environments of the Hebrew Bible and the ancient Near East. Thus, it serves as both an introduction to and explication of this emerging field. The offerings range from the third-millennium Early Dynastic period in Mesopotamia to the rise of a new cuisine in the Islamic period and transverse geographical locations such as southern Iraq, Syria, the Aegean, and especially the southern Levant. The strength of this collection lies in the many disciplines and methodologies that come together. Texts, pottery, faunal studies, iconography, and anthropological theory are all accorded a place at the table in locating the importance of feasting as a symbolic, social, and political practice. Various essays showcase both new archaeological methodologies-zooarchaeological bone analysis and spatial analysis-and classical methods such as iconographic studies, ceramic chronology, cultural anthropology, and composition-critical textual analysis.

Furniture, armour, jewellery, musical instruments, bronze, silver, and gold vases, and other priceless offerings all accumulated in the Parthenon and Erechtheion on the Athenian Acropolis during the classical period. Annual inventories of these precious objects were inscribed by the Athenians on marble tablets from 434 to 300 BC. The two hundred fragments of these stelai which have survived are the only evidence for these cult objects, gifts to Athena, and treasures of the city, since the items themselves have long since vanished - either stolen, melted down, or disintegrated. This volume presents the evidence for these ancient treasures for the first time, and provides data with important implications for the history of Athens and Greek religion. Chapters include a history of the treasures on the Acropolis, catalogues of each object kept in the Opisthodomus, Proneos, Parthenon, Hekatompedos Neos, and Erechtheion, and an analysis of the individual worshippers and allied-city states who gave gifts and offerings to their goddess, Athena. The most significant and startling conclusion from the author's findings is that the gifts were used again and again, and that the temples operated as repositories from which the treasures might be deposited, withdrawn, or even borrowed.

This is the first full biography of James Rendel Harris (1852-1941), Bible and patristic scholar, manuscript collector, Quaker theologian, devotional writer, traveller, folklorist, and relief worker. Drawing on published and unpublished sources gathered in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East, many of which were previously unknown, Alessandro Falcetta tells the story of Harris's life and works set against the background of the cultural and political life of contemporary Britain. Falcetta traces the development of Harris's career from Cambridge to Birmingham, the story of his seven journeys to the Middle East, and of his many campaigns, from religious freedom to conscientious objection. The book focuses upon Harris's innovative contributions in the field of textual and literary criticism, his acquisitions of hundreds of manuscripts from the Middle East, his discoveries of early Christian works - in particular the Odes of Solomon - his Quaker beliefs and his studies in the cult of twins. His enormous output and extensive correspondence reveal an indefatigable genius in close contact with the most famous scholars of his time, from Hort to Harnack, Nestle, the 'Sisters of Sinai', and Frazer.

This archaeological report provides a comprehensive study of the excavations carried out at Amheida House B2 in Egypt's Dakhleh Oasis between 2005 and 2007, followed by three study seasons between 2008 and 2010. The excavations at Amheida in Egypt's western desert, begun in 2001 under the aegis of Columbia University and sponsored by NYU since 2008, are investigating all aspects of social life and material culture at the administrative center of ancient Trimithis. The excavations so far have focused on three areas of this very large site: a centrally located upper-class fourth-century AD house with wall paintings, an adjoining school, and underlying remains of a Roman bath complex; a more modest house of the third century; and the temple hill, with remains of the Temple of Thoth built in the first century AD and of earlier structures. Architectural conservation has protected and partly restored two standing funerary monuments, a mud-brick pyramid and a tower tomb, both of the Roman period. This volume presents and discusses the architecture, artifacts and ecofacts recovered from B2 in a holistic manner, which has rarely before been attempted in a full report on the excavation of a Romano-Egyptian house. The primary aim of this volume is to combine an architectural and material-based study with an explicitly contextual and theoretical analysis. In so doing, it develops a methodology and presents a case study of how the rich material remains of Romano-Egyptian houses may be used to investigate the relationship between domestic remains and social identity.

This is the first book to explore prehistoric warfare and violence by integrating qualitative research methods with quantitative, scientific techniques of analysis such as paleopathology, morphometry, wear analysis, and experimental archaeology. It investigates early warfare and violence from the standpoint of four broad interdisciplinary themes: skeletal markers of violence and weapon training; conflict in prehistoric rock-art; the material culture of conflict; and intergroup violence in archaeological discourse. The book has a wide-ranging chronological and geographic scope, from early Neolithic to late Iron Age and from Western Europe to East Asia. It includes world-renowned sites and artefact collections such as the Tollense Valley Bronze Age battlefield (Germany), the UNESCO World Heritage Site at Tanum (Sweden), and the British Museum collection of bronze weaponry from the late Shang period (China). Original case studies are presented in each section by a diverse international authorship. The study of warfare and violence in prehistoric and pre-literate societies has been at the forefront of archaeological debate since the publication of Keeley's provocative monograph 'War Before Civilization' (Oxford 1996). The problem has been approached from a number of standpoints including anthropological and behavioural studies of interpersonal violence, osteological examinations of sharp lesions and blunt-force traumas, wear analysis of ancient weaponry, and field experiments with replica weapons and armour. This research, however, is often confined within the boundaries of the various disciplines and specialist fields. In particular, a gap can often be detected between the research approaches grounded in the humanities and social sciences and those based on the archaeological sciences. The consequence is that, to this day, the subject is dominated by a number of undemonstrated assumptions regarding the nature of warfare, combat, and violence in non-literate societies. Moreover, important methodological questions remain unanswered: can we securely distinguish between violence-related and accidental trauma on skeletal remains? To what extent can wear analysis shed light on long-forgotten fighting styles? Can we design meaningful combat tests based on historic martial arts? And can the study of rock-art unlock the social realities of prehistoric warfare? By breaking the mould of entrenched subject boundaries, this edited volume promotes interdisciplinary debate in the study of prehistoric warfare and violence by presenting a number of innovative approaches that integrate qualitative and quantitative methods of research and analysis.

This book shows how anthropology can provide an innovative perspective on the human movement into space. It examines adaptation to space on timescales of generations, rather than merely months or years, and uses evolutionary adaptation as a guiding theme. Employing the lessons of evolutionary adaptation, Principles of Extraterrestrial Anthropology recommends evolutionarily-sound strategies of space settlement, covering genetics at the organismal and population levels. The author organizes the concept of cultural adaptation to environments beyond Earth according to observed patterns in human adaptation on Earth. He uses original artwork and tables to help convey complex information in a form accessible to undergraduate and graduate students. Though primarily written to engage students interested in space settlement and exploration, who will eventually build a full anthropology of space settlement, Principles of Extraterrestrial Anthropology is engaging to anthropologists across sub-disciplines, as well as scholars interested in the human dimensions of space exploration and settlement. Just as the term exobiology was invented only a few decades ago to shape the field of space life studies, exoanthropology is outlined to assist in the perpetuation of Earth life through human space settlement.

Questions of public and private morality, values and choices have become important areas of collective discussion. A key feature of this book is that it takes an ethnographic rather than a philosophical or speculative approach to moral debates. This study examines the contemporary explosion of ethical discourse in the public domain and the growing importance of moral rhetoric as an aspect of social relations.

What was it like to live on the edges of ancient empires, at the boundaries of the known world?

When Ovid was exiled from Rome to a border town on the Black Sea, he despaired at his new bleak and barbarous surroundings. Like many Greeks and Romans, Ovid thought the outer reaches of his world was where civilisation ceased to exist. Our fascination with the Greek and Roman world, and the abundance of writing that we have from it, means that we usually explore the ancient world from this perspective too. Was Ovid's exile really as bad as he claimed? What was it truly like to live on the edges of these empires, on the boundaries of the known world?

Thanks to archaeological excavations, we now know that the borders of the empires we consider the 'heart' of civilisation were in fact thriving, vibrant cultures - just not ones we might expect. This is where the boundaries of 'civilised' and 'barbarians' began to dissipate; where the rules didn't always apply; where normally juxtaposed cultures intermarried; and where nomadic tribes built their own cities.

Taking us along the sandy caravan routes of Morocco to the freezing winters of the northern Black Sea, from Co-Loa in the Red River valley of Vietnam to the rain-lashed forts south of Hadrian's Wall, Owen Rees explores the powerful empires and diverse peoples in Europe, Asia and Africa beyond the reaches of Greece and Rome. In doing so, he offers us a new, brilliantly rich lens with which to understand the ancient world.

This comprehensive text is intended for the junior-senior level course in North American Archaeology. Written by accomplished scholar Dean Snow, this new text approaches native North America from the perspective of evolutionary ecology. Succinct, streamlined chapters present an extensive groundwork for supplementary material, or serve as a core text.The narrative covers all of Mesoamerica, and explicates the links between the part of North America covered by the United States and Canada and the portions covered by Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and the Greater Antilles. Additionally, book is extensively illustrated with the author's own research and findings.

Writing as Material Practice grapples with the issue of writing as a form of material culture in its ancient and more recent manifestations, and in the contexts of production and consumption. Fifteen case studies explore the artefactual nature of writing - the ways in which materials, techniques, colour, scale, orientation and visibility inform the creation of inscribed objects, spaces and landscapes, as well as structure subsequent engagement, perception and meaning making. Covering a temporal span of some 5000 years, from c.3200 BCE to the present day, and ranging in spatial context from the Americas to the Near East, the chapters in this volume bring a variety of perspectives which contribute to both specific and broader questions of writing materialities. Authors also aim to place past graphical systems in their social contexts so they can be understood in relation to the people who created and attributed meaning to writing and associated symbolic modes through a diverse array of individual and wider social practices.

Dedicated to Erica Cruikshank Dodd, Art and Material Culture in the Byzantine and Islamic Worlds offers new perspectives on the Christian and Muslim communities of the east Mediterranean from medieval to contemporary times. The contributors examine how people from diverse religious backgrounds adapted to their changing political landscapes and show that artistic patronage, consumption, and practices are interwoven with constructed narratives. The essays consider material and textual evidence for painted media, architecture, and the creative process in Byzantium, Crusader-era polities, the Ottoman empire, and the modern Middle East, thus demonstrating the importance of the past in understanding the present. Contributors: Evanthia Baboula, Lesley Jessop, Anthony Cutler, Jaroslav Folda, John Osborne, Glenn Peers, Annemarie Weyl Carr, Mat Immerzeel, Bas Snelders, Angela Andersen, May Farhat, Marcus Milwright, Rico Franses.

Profusely illustrated with full color and black and white maps, photographs, illustrations. Center of Miliatry history publication CMH 30-22. Issued with a laminated hard cover that has an illustration of soldiers standing in front of American flags. Presents American military history from 1917 to the present. Includes expanded sections to include an analysis of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq up to January 2009.