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Books > Humanities > Archaeology
Summer farms occur throughout the world where there are rich
pastures that can only be utilised for part of the year, mainly
because they are under snow and ice during the winter. In Europe
transhumance is often a major event when the cattle and other
livestock leave their home villages and move up into the mountains,
and likewise on their return. The best known sites in Europe are
perhaps those found in the Alpine areas, but they occur everywhere
where there are suitable highland areas to exploit. Traditionally
they have been the subject of the studies of ethnographers and
anthropologists, especially in the second half of the 20th century
when technological and economic changes led to the gradual
abandonment of the farms and to other ways of exploiting the
highlands. The last of these farmers are gradually disappearing and
with them the oral records and memories. Now it is archaeologists
who are leading the recording of this material and also looking at
the history of such farming from prehistory and from the Bronze Age
with the rise in importance of 'Secondary Products' such as cheese
which could be stored for use over winter.Much of the evidence can
only be gathered by surface survey and by excavation, though in
some cases there are good written sources which have yet to be
fully exploited. This volume provides case studies, as well as
brief summaries of other projects in Europe, extending from the
Black Sea in the east to northern Spain and Iceland in the west,
though with a concentration on the Alpine area. One thing that
emerges is the very varied nature of these sites in terms of their
chronology, who went to the farms, the distances travelled, and the
other activities associated with transhumance such as mining. In
some cases the products were primarily for the subsistence of the
agricultural population, but in other cases they were traded and
could produce a large amount of profit. This is the first overview
of these sites in Europe written from an archaeological point of
view.
This book offers an anthropological analysis of how craft
production changed in relation to the development of complex
societies in northern China. It focuses on the production and use
of food containers-pottery and bronze vessels-during the late
prehistoric and early historic periods. A major theme is how
production and use of prestige vessels changed in relation to
increase in degree of social inequality. The research and writing
of this book took place intermittently over a period of several
years. When I first outlined the book in 1994, I planned to offer a
more limited and descriptive account of social change during the
late prehistoric period. In considering the human desire to display
status with prestige goods, my initial approach emphasized how the
case of northern China was similar to other areas of the world. I
began to realize that in order to adequately explain how and why
craft production changed in ancient China, it was crucial to
consider the belief systems that motivated produc tion and use of
food containers. Similarly, a striking characteristic of ancient
China that I needed to include in the analysis was the
preponderance of food containers, rather than other goods, that
were buried with the deceased. I decided to investigate the social
and ritual uses of food, bever ages, and containers during more
than one period of Chinese history. Some strong patterns could have
emerged during the late prehistoric period."
Biography of an Industrial Landscape tells the story of one of the
most significant urban redevelopment projects in northern Europe at
the turn of the century. Examining the reinvention of the Carlsberg
brewery site in Copenhagen as a city district, Svava Riesto unpacks
the deeper assumptions about value that lie behind contemporary
design, spatial planning and heritage practices. In particular,
Riesto examines ways of valuing a vital yet seldom explicitly
discussed feature of industrial landscapes: open space. Carlsberg's
industrial open spaces were largely disregarded during the
redevelopment, which was founded on canonical heritage thinking and
ideas about urban space that were poorly equipped to include the
characteristics of these spaces in the design's considerations. As
a response, this account reappraises industrial open spaces.
Drawing on Henri Lefebvre and biographical approaches to landscape
research, the Carlsberg site's open spaces are presented anew as an
interplay of materials, practices and the imagination - shaped and
reshaped by water, yeast, industrial working routines and
conflicting ideas about the future city.
At certain times of the day - at sunrise, and sunset - the outlines
of prehistoric fields, barrows and hill-forts in the British
landscape may be thrown into relief. Such 'shadow sites', best seen
from above, and captured by an airborne camera, are both examples
of, and metaphors for, a particular way of seeing the landscape. At
a time of rapid modernisation and urbanisation in
mid-twentieth-century Britain, an archaeological vision of the
British landscape reassured and enchanted a number of writers,
artists, photographers, and film-makers. From John Piper, Eric
Ravilious and Shell guide books, to photographs of bomb damage,
aerial archaeology, and The Wizard of Oz, Kitty Hauser delves into
evocative interpretations of the landscape and looks at the
affinities between photography as a medium to capture traces of the
past as well as their absence.
The province of Baetica, in present-day Spain, was one of the most
important areas in the Roman Empire in terms of politics,
economics, and culture. And in the late medieval period, it was the
centre of a rich and powerful state, the Umayyad Caliphate. But the
historical sources on the intervening years are limited, and we
lack an accurate understanding of the evolution of the region. In
recent years, however, archaeological research has begun to fill
the gaps, and this book-built on more than a decade of
fieldwork-provides an unprecedented overview of urban and rural
development in the period.
The Indus Civilization of India and Pakistan was contemporary with,
and equally complex as the better-known cultures of Mesopotamia,
Egypt and China. The dean of North American Indus scholars, Gregory
Possehl, attempts here to marshal the state of knowledge about this
fascinating culture in a readable synthesis. He traces the rise and
fall of this civilization, examines the economic, architectural,
artistic, religious, and intellectual components of this culture,
describes its most famous sites, and shows the relationships
between the Indus Civilization and the other cultures of its time.
As a sourcebook for scholars, a textbook for archaeology students,
and an informative volume for the lay reader, The Indus
Civilization will be an exciting and informative read.
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This manual is designed to take the mysticism out of archaeological
artifact conservation and act as both reference and guide. It is
intended as a tool to assist archaeologists in stabilizing a
majority of the artifacts they excavate, or those already in
storage. These stabilized archaeological collections will be
preserved into the future, permitting reexamination and multiple
interpretations of the data as our knowledge base grows through
time. In addition, conservation will permit improved in-depth
primary artifact interpretation, as fully conserved artifacts
reveal fabrication, wear patterns, and detail impossible to detect
in non-conserved artifacts. Conservation, therefore, is a critical
tool within archaeology, a tool that becomes less meaningful if it
is isolated, or seen as merely a technical skill that can be farmed
out to the "hard sciences." The Archaeologist's Manual for
Conservation is intended as a counterpoint to the popular
specialization trend. My goal in offering this manual is to put
artifacts back in the hands of archaeologists or material culture
specialists who can best decipher them, opening avenues of artifact
or material culture interpretation that are disappearing as
artifacts either decay in storage or are sent away to the
"conservation professionals. - from the Introduction.
This book is the culmination of over 10 years of work and the
merging, expansion, and improvement of 2 previous works:
Conservator's Cookbook and Conservation of Water Soaked Materials
Bibliography. Each chapter covers a particular substance: wood,
iron, copper, glass, ceramic, organic artifacts, textiles, and
leather, composite artifacts.
Chapters begin with a visual flowchart, walking the
archaeologist through a step-by-step stabilization process, backed
in the text by theoretical discussion and description. Practical
methodology follows theory in each chapter giving the archaeologist
a more detailed description of preserving material remains.
Chapters are backed and serviced by the most comprehensive
bibliographic reference available today.
The Archaeologist's Manual for Conservation was developed
through extensive documentary research, laboratory trial and error,
and the feedback of both underwater and terrestrial archaeologists.
It will become an indispensable reference for all archaeologists,
laboratory technicians, archaeology students, curators, and
conservators concerned with simple, proven, non-toxic, artifact
conservation procedures.
Popular television programmes highlight the satisfaction that can
be gained from investigating the history of houses, and there is
always plenty of interest in the subject, with archives becoming
ever more accessible with access to the internet. As the subject
covers a broad field, the authors have set out to include advice on
those aspects that usually apply to a project and others that will
be of particular use for beginners. The reader is guided through
every stage of research, from the first exploration of the archives
to the completion of the task. Suggestions are also included on how
to present the findings - a house history makes a very attractive
gift. The authors describe how to deduce the age of a property (it
is very seldom directly recorded when a house was built) and
characteristics of research on particular types of property - such
as cottages, manor houses, inns, mills, former church properties,
and farms - are discussed. In one example, research demonstrated
that a farm was likely to have been a Domesday manor - a
fascinating discovery achieved using records accessible to any
beginner.
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.
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.
Managing Heritage in Africa provides a wide-ranging, up-to-date synthesis of heritage management practice in Africa, covering a broad spectrum of heritage issues such as archaeology, living traditions, sacred sites, heritage of pain (slavery), international conventions cultural landscapes, heritage in conflict areas and heritage versus development. Dealing with both intangible and tangible heritage, Managing Heritage in Africa gives an informative insight into some of the major issues and approaches to contemporary heritage management in Africa and situates the challenges facing heritage practitioners.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Figures and Table
Contributors
Series General Co-Editors’ Foreword
1. Approaches and trends in African heritage management and conservation.Shadreck Chirikure, Webber Ndoro & Janette Deacon
2. The challenges of the preservation of archaeological heritage in West Africa.Adebayo Folorunso
3. The African response to the concept and implementation of the 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting Illicit Import and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. Dawson Munjeri
4. Reorienting heritage management in southern Africa: lessons from traditional custodianship of rock art sites in central Mozambique. Albino Jopela
5. Traditional methods of conservation: a case study of Bafut. Raymond Neba’ane Asombang
6. Sites of Pain and Shame as heritage discourses: Case of Shimoni Slave caves in south-eastern KenyaHerman Kiriama
7. The evolution of cultural and natural management systems with the waterlogged villages in BeninHermione Nonhome Koudakossi Boko
8. Managing Sacred Sites as Heritage in West Africa Victoria Ndidi Osuagwu
9. The sacred groves in the Bight of Benin: a misunderstood heritage.Souayibou Varissou
10. Investigating incorporation of community cultural values in archaeological impact assessment processes: case studies from Botswana.Nonofho Ndobochani & Gilbert Pwiti
11. Heritage management at cross-roads: the role of contract archaeology in South Africa Ndukuyakhe Ndlovu
12. Dammed if you do, damned if you don't: archaeology and the Lesotho Highlands Water Project Peter Mitchell
13. Managing the built environment and the urban landscape in South AfricaStephen Townsend
14. Heritage and energy development issues, a controversial compl
This book argues that the Indo-Europeanizing of Europe essentially
began shortly before 1600 BC, when lands rich in natural resources
were taken over by military forces from the Eurasian steppe and
from southern Caucasia. First were the copper and silver mines
(along with good harbors) in Greece, and the copper and gold mines
of the Carpathian basin. By ca. 1500 BC other military men had
taken over the amber coasts of Scandinavia and the metalworking
district of the southern Alps. These military takeovers offer the
most likely explanations for the origins of the Greek, Keltic,
Germanic and Italic subgroups of the Indo-European language family.
Battlefield warfare and militarism, Robert Drews contends, were
novelties ca. 1600 BC and were a consequence of the military
employment of chariots. Current opinion is that militarism and
battlefield warfare are as old as formal states, going back before
3000 BC. Another current opinion is that the Indo-Europeanizing of
Europe happened long before 1600 BC. The "Kurgan theory" of Marija
Gimbutas and David Anthony dates it from late in the fifth to early
in the third millennium BC and explains it as the result of
horse-riding conquerors or raiders coming to Europe from the
steppe. Colin Renfrew's Archaeology and Language dates the
Indo-Europeanizing of Europe to the seventh and sixth millennia BC,
and explains it as a consequence of the spread of agriculture in a
"wave of advance" from Anatolia through Europe. Pairing linguistic
with archaeological evidence Drews concludes that in Greece and
Italy, at least, no Indo-European language could have arrived
before the second millennium BC.
The history of archaeology is generally told as the making of a
secular discipline. In nineteenth-century Britain, however,
archaeology was enmeshed with questions of biblical authority and
so with religious as well as narrowly scholarly concerns. In
unearthing the cities of the Eastern Mediterranean, travellers,
archaeologists and their popularisers transformed thinking on the
truth of Christianity and its place in modern cities. This happened
at a time when anxieties over the unprecedented rate of
urbanisation in Britain coincided with critical challenges to
biblical truth. In this context, cities from Jerusalem to Rome
became contested models for the adaptation of Christianity to
modern urban life. Using sites from across the biblical world, this
book evokes the appeal of the ancient city to diverse groups of
British Protestants in their arguments with one another and with
their secular and Catholic rivals about the vitality of their faith
in urban Britain.
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.
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