Archaeological research on interregional interaction processes has recently reasserted itself after a long hiatus following the eclipse of diffusion studies. This "rebirth" was marked not only by a sudden increase in publications that were focused on interac tion questions, but also by a diversity of perspectives on past contacts. To perdurable interests in warfare were added trade studies by the late 196Os. These viewpoints, in turn, were rapidly joined in the late 1970s by a wide range of intellectual schemes stimulated by developments in French Marxism (referred to in various ways; termed political ideology here) and sociology (Immanuel Wallerstein's world-systems model). Researchers ascribing to the aforementioned intellectual frameworks were united in their dissatisfaction with attempts to explain sociopolitical change that treated in dividual cultures or societies as isolated entities. Only by reconstructing the complex intersocietal networks in which polities were integrated-the natures of these ties, who mediated the connections, and the political, economic, and ideological significance of the goods and ideas that moved along them-could adequate ex planations of sociopolitical shifts be formulated. Archaeologists seemed to be re discovering in the late twentieth century the importance of interregional contacts in processes of sociopolitical change. The diversity of perspectives that resulted seemed to be symptomatic of both an uncertainty of how best to approach this topic and the importance archaeologists attributed to it."

This book deals with the early history of agriculture in a defined part of Western Europe: the loess belt west of the river Rhine. It is a well-illustrated book that integrates existing and new information, starting with the first farmers and ending when food production was no longer the chief source of livelihood for the entire population. The loess belt was chosen because it is a region with only one type of soil and climate as these are all-important factors where farming is concerned.

Subjects covered are crops, crop cultivation, livestock and livestock handling, the farm and its yard, and the farm in connection with other farms. Crop plants and animals are described, together with their origin. New tools such as the plough, wheen, wagon and scythe are introduced. Groundplans of farm buildings, the history of the outhouse and the presence or absence of hamlets are presented as well, and the impact of farming on the landscape is not forgotten.

The loess belt was not an island and the world beyond its boundaries was important for new ideas, new materials and new people.

Summarising six millennia of agriculture, the thinking in terms of the Western European loess belt as one agricultural-cultural unit seems justified.

1. This new edition provides a much-needed update to the original Conservation Skills and, like the previous edition, presents an overview of the current issues facing conservators of historic and artistic works. 2. The book assists with the development of judgement in conservation students and young professionals and, as such, will be essential reading for student conservators and conservation professionals working across a wide range of conservation disciplines around the globe. 3. Titles on conservation that have published since the last edition have generally focused on specific approaches or themes, rather than taking a more general approach to conservation. The proposed book is a more holistic and general text, which explores the subject at an introductory level and enables those studying a specific area of conservation to develop an understanding of the wider nature of the discipline.

Written for the general visitor, the Athenian Agora Museum Guide is a companion to the 2010 edition of the Athenian Agora Site Guide and leads the reader through all of the display spaces within the Stoa of Attalos in the Athenian Agora - the terrace, the ground-floor colonnade, and the newly opened upper story. The guide also discusses each case in the museum gallery chronologically, beginning with the prehistoric and continuing with the Geometric, Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine periods. Hundreds of artifacts, ranging from common pottery to elite jewelry held in 81 cases, are described and illustrated in color for the very first time. Through focus boxes, readers can learn about marble-working, early burial practices, pottery production, ostracism, home life, and the wells that dotted the ancient site. A timeline, maps, and plans accompany the text. For those who wish to learn more about what they see in the museum, a list of further reading follows each entry.

This remarkable book is the most ambitious work on mythology since that of the renowned Mircea Eliade, who all but single-handedly invented the modern study of myth and religion. Focusing on the oldest available texts, buttressed by data from archeology, comparative linguistics and human population genetics, Michael Witzel reconstructs a single original African source for our collective myths, dating back some 100,000 years. Identifying features shared by this "Out of Africa" mythology and its northern Eurasian offshoots, Witzel suggests that these common myths--recounted by the communities of the "African Eve"--are the earliest evidence of ancient spirituality. Moreover these common features, Witzel shows, survive today in all major religions. Witzel's book is an intellectual hand grenade that will doubtless generate considerable excitement--and consternation--in the scholarly community. Indeed, everyone interested in mythology will want to grapple with Witzel's extraordinary hypothesis about the spirituality of our common ancestors, and to understand what it tells us about our modern cultures and the way they are linked at the deepest level.

An attempt to use archaeological materials to investigate the colonization of southeastern Africa during the period 1500 to 1900. Perry demonstrates the usefulness of archaeology in bypassing the biases of the ethnohistorical and documentary record and generating a more comprehensive understanding of history. Special attention is paid to the period of state formation in Swaziland and a critique of the Settler Model', which the author finds to be invalid.

This book constitutes a major reassessment of the mortuary remains from the two X-Group royal cemeteries at Qustul and Ballana in Lower Nubia (c. AD 380-500). Since their excavation more than seventy years ago, and the subsequent flooding of the sites following the building of the Aswan High Dam, and despite the spectacular nature of the finds, the sites have received remarkably little scholarly attention. This book offers the first interpretation of social life at these key sites, and proposes a series of innovative, theoretically informed frames for exploring the significance of the material remains found there. In doing so, it sheds new light on a culture which, although less well known than the Meroitic Empire that preceded it and the subsequent development of the Christian Kingdoms of the Sudan, is nevertheless of considerable archaeological and historical significance. The sites present a series of archaeologically unique monumental tumuli and multi-chambered tomb structures containing evidence of human and animal sacrifice, as well as a highly sophisticated material culture. The interpretations presented here draw on the emergent field of sensory archaeology to address the key issue of identity formation. It makes a case for the heretofore unrecognised significance of an 'aesthetic' identity mediated by material culture. It approaches X-Group culture as a materially complex indigenous culture that created and altered identities through time via the manipulation of materials, colours and patterns (the 'aesthetic' basis of identity). This study explores the relationships between humans, animals, and artefacts. It demonstrates how a less stable society, which based control on aggressive public displays, became a more stable state, as power was mediated by magico-ritual performances, festal occasions, and the rise of certain individuals. The interpretations put forward here are based on a systematic quantitative analysis of the archaeological material from the sites. These analyses draw on complex typologies differentiating objects according to use, ware, colour, decoration method, designs, surface finish, contents, grafitto, location in a tomb, location near a body, etc. Such a quantification and synthesis of tens of thousands of individual pieces of data enabled the identification of key trends in the dataset--the empirical basis for the modelling of socio-political change undertaken here. The study was undertaken to combat the limited and unsatisfactory set of questions posed by previous debates about the activities at Qustul and Ballana. It constitutes a significant departure from previous work which restricted the discussion of life at the sites to a limited debate about the identity of tribal groups and the chronology of activity at the sites. In contrast, this research demonstrates that the way in which the X-Group(s) dynamically created, maintained, and altered their identity through various forms of praxis. The book is essential reading for anybody researching ancient Sudanese civilisations. It has a wider appeal for researchers and graduate students interested in new developments in approaches to the archaeology of North-East Africa. It also has a broader appeal to all those interested in the theorisation of identity, the practical application of archaeological theory to the study of material culture and the human relationship to the sensory nature of the sensory world.

Our understanding of the human past is very limited. The mute evidence from excavation - the dusty pot shards, fragments of bone, slight variations in soil colour and texture - encourages abstraction and detachment. Reconstruction art offers a different way into the past, bringing archaeology to life and at times influencing and informing archaeologist's ideas. At its best it delivers something vivid, vital and memorable. Illustrating the Past explores the history of reconstruction art and archaeology. It looks at how attitudes have swung from the scientific and technical to a freer more imaginative way of seeing and back again. Through the exploration of seven artists' work, the reader is shown how the artist's way of seeing illustrates the past and sometimes how it has changed the way the past is seen. Illustrators working in archaeology are often anonymous and yet the picture that summarises an excavation can be the idea that endures. As well as drawing on her specialist knowledge, Judith Dobie uses conversation and correspondence to build a picture of how these artists' personalities, interests and backgrounds influences their art. Case studies featuring working sketches demonstrate how reconstruction artists deliver understanding and can change the interpretation of a site. This book celebrates and acknowledges reconstruction art within the field of archaeology.

In this book an internationally distinguished roster of contributors considers the state of the art of the discipline of archaeology at the turn of the 21st century and charts an ambitious agenda for the future. The chapters address a wide range of topics including, paradigms, practice, and relevance of the discipline; paleoanthropology; fully modern humans; holocene hunter-gatherers; the transition to food and craft production; social inequality; warfare; state and empire formation; and the uneasy relationship between classical and anthropological archaeology.

How much was archaeology founded on prejudice? The Archaeology of Race explores the application of racial theory to interpret the past in Britain during the late Victorian and Edwardian period. It investigates how material culture from ancient Egypt and Greece was used to validate the construction of racial hierarchies. Specifically focusing on Francis Galton's ideas around inheritance and race, it explores how the Egyptologist Flinders Petrie applied these in his work in Egypt and in his political beliefs. It examines the professional networks formed by societies, such as the Anthropological Institute, and their widespread use of eugenic ideas in analysing society. Archaeology of Race draws on archives and objects from the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology and the Galton collection at UCL. These collections are used to explore anti-Semitism, skull collecting, New Race theory and physiognomy. These collections give insight into the relationship between Galton and Petrie and place their ideas in historical context.

With one million dead, and just as many forced to emigrate, the Irish Famine (1845-52) is among the worst health calamities in history. In 2006, archaeologists discovered a mass burial containing the remains of nearly 1,000 Kilkenny Union workhouse inmates. In the first bioarchaeological study of Great Famine victims, Jonny Geber uses skeletal analysis to tell the story of how and why the Irish Famine decimated the lowest levels of nineteenth century society. By examining the physical conditions of the inmates that might have contributed to their institutionalization, as well as to the resulting health consequences, Geber sheds new and unprecedented light on Ireland's Great Hunger.

Profusley illustrated with full color and black and white illustrations, maps and photographs. Center of Military History publication CMH Pub. 30-21. Army Historical Series. Richard W. Stewart, General Editor. Revision of the 1989 edition which was a revision of a textbook written for the senior ROTC courses. Contains an historical survey of the organization and accomplishments of the United States Army. Designed to inculcate in young officers and soldiers an awareness of our nation's military past and to demonstrate to them that the study of military history is an essential ingredient in leadership development. Intended primarily for use in the American Military History course in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps program in civilian colleges and universities.

The Early Anglo-Saxon Period is characterized archaeologically by the regular deposition of artefacts in human graves in England. The scope for dating these objects and graves has long been studied, but it has typically proved easier to identify and enumerate the chronological problems of the material than to solve them. Prior to the work of the project reported on here, therefore, there was no comprehensive chronological framework for Early Anglo-Saxon Archaeology, and the level of detail and precision in dates that could be suggested was low. The evidence has now been studied afresh using a co-ordinated suite of dating techniques, both traditional and new: a review and revision of artefact-typology; seriation of grave-assemblages using correspondence analysis; high-precision radiocarbon dating of selected bone samples; and Bayesian modelling using the results of all of these. These were focussed primarily on the later part of the Early Anglo-Saxon Period, starting in the 6th century. This research has produced a new chronological framework, consisting of sequences of phases that are separate for male and female burials but nevertheless mutually consistent and coordinated. These will allow archaeologists to assign grave-assemblages and a wide range of individual artefact-types to defined phases that are associated with calendrical date-ranges whose limits are expressed to a specific degree of probability. Important unresolved issues include a precise adjustment for dietary effects on radiocarbon dates from human skeletal material. Nonetheless the results of this project suggest the cessation of regular burial with grave goods in Anglo-Saxon England two decades or even more before the end of the seventh century. That creates a limited but important discrepancy with the current numismatic chronology of early English sceattas. The wider implications of the results for key topics in Anglo-Saxon archaeology and social, economic and religious history are discussed to conclude the report.

This book synthesizes in-depth bioarchaeological research into diet, subsistence regimes, and nutrition-and corresponding insights into adaptation, suffering, and resilience-among indigenous north-coastal Peruvian communities from early agricultural through European colonial periods. The Spanish invasion and colonization of Andean South America left millions dead, landscapes transformed, and traditional ways of life annihilated. However, the nature and magnitude of these changes were far from uniform. By the time the Spanish arrived, over four millennia of complex societies had emerged and fallen, and in the 16th century, the region was home to the largest and most expansive indigenous empire in the western hemisphere. Decades of Andean archaeological and ethnohistorical research have explored the incredible sophistication of regional agropastoral traditions, the importance of food and feasting as mechanisms of control, and the significance of maritime economies in the consolidation of complex polities. Bioarchaeology is particularly useful in studying these processes. Beyond identifying what resources were available and how they were prepared, bioarchaeological methods provide unique opportunities and humanized perspectives to reconstruct what individuals actually ate, and whether their diets changed within their own lifespans.

1. This new edition provides a much-needed update to the original Conservation Skills and, like the previous edition, presents an overview of the current issues facing conservators of historic and artistic works. 2. The book assists with the development of judgement in conservation students and young professionals and, as such, will be essential reading for student conservators and conservation professionals working across a wide range of conservation disciplines around the globe. 3. Titles on conservation that have published since the last edition have generally focused on specific approaches or themes, rather than taking a more general approach to conservation. The proposed book is a more holistic and general text, which explores the subject at an introductory level and enables those studying a specific area of conservation to develop an understanding of the wider nature of the discipline.

The origins and development of civilization are vital components to the understanding of the cultural processes that create human societies. Comparing and contrasting the evolutionary sequences from different civilizations is one approach to discovering their unique development. One area for comparison is in the Central Andes where several societies remained in isolation without a written language. As a direct result, the only resource to understand these societies is their material artifacts.
In this second volume, the focus is on the art and landscape remains and what they uncover about societies of the Central Andes region. The ancient art and landscape, revealing the range and richness of the societies of the area significantly shaped the development of Andean archaeology. This work includes discussions on:

- pottery and textiles;
- iconography and symbols;
- ideology;
- geoglyphs and rock art.This volume will be of interest to Andean archaeologists, cultural and historical anthropologists, material archaeologists and Latin American historians.

This collection of original essays focuses upon Roman Italy where, with over 400 cities, urbanization was at the very centre of Italian civilization. Informed by an awareness of the social and anthropological issues of recent research, these contributions explore not only questions of urban origins, interaction with the countryside and economic function, but also the social use of space within the city and the nature of the development process.; These studies are aimed not only at ancient historians and classical archaeologists, but are directed towards those working in the related fields of urban studies in the Mediterranean world and elsewhere and upon the general theory of towns and complex societies.

The nineteen papers collected in this volume explore a notable phenomenon, that of retrospection in the art and architecture of Romanesque Europe. They arise from a conference organized by the British Archaeological Association in 2010, and reflect its interest in how and why the past manifested itself in the visual culture of the 11th and 12th centuries. This took many forms, from the casual re-use of ancient material to a specific desire to re-present or emulate earlier objects and buildings. Central to it is a concern for the revival of Roman and early medieval forms, spolia, selective quotation, archaism and the construction of histories. The individual essays presented here cover a wide range of topics and media: the significance of consecration ceremonies in the creation of architectural memory, the rise of pictorial concepts in 12th-century chronicles, the creation of history in the Paris of Hugh of St-Victor, and the appeal of the works of Bernward of Hildesheim and of Hrabanus Maurus in the centuries after their deaths. There are studies of buildings and the ideological purpose behind them at Tarragona, Ripoll, Cluny, Pannonhalma (Hungary), La Roccelletta (Calabria), and Old St Peter's, comparative studies of Trier, Villenauxe and Glastonbury, and of Bury St Edmunds, Rievaulx and Canterbury, and wide-ranging papers on the tantalizing evidence for an engagement with an overseas past in Ireland, an Anglo-Saxon past in England, and a Milanese past among the aisleless cruciform churches of Augustinian Europe. The volume concludes with an assessment of the very concept of Romanesque.

This volume provides an up-to-date and in-depth summary and analysis of the political practices of pre-Columbian communities of the Araucanians or Mapuche of south-central Chile and adjacent regions. This synthesis draws upon the empirical record documented in original research, as well as a critical examination of previous studies. By applying both archaeological and ethnohistorical approaches, the latter including ethnography, this volume distinguishes itself from many other studies that explore South American archaeology. Archaeological and traditional-historical narratives of the pre-European past are considered in their own terms and for the extent to which they can be integrated in order to provide a more rounded and realistic understanding than otherwise of the origins and courses of ecological, economic, social and political changes in south-central Chile from late pre-Hispanic times, through the contact period and up to Chile s independence from Spain (ca. AD 1450-1810). Both the approach and the results are discussed in the light of similar situations elsewhere.

Throughout its treatment, the volume continually comes back to two central questions: (1) how did the varied practices, institutions and worldviews of the Mapuche s ancient communities emerge as a historical process that resisted the Spanish empire for more than 250 years? and (2) how were these communities reproduced and transformed in the face of ongoing culture contact and landscape change during the early Colonial period? These questions are considered in light of contemporary theoretical concepts regarding practice, landscape, environment, social organization, materiality and community that will make the book relevant for students and scholars interested in similar processes elsewhere."

The Handbook of East and Southeast Asian Archaeology focuses on the material culture and lifeways of the peoples of prehistoric and early historic East and Southeast Asia; their origins, behavior and identities as well as their biological, linguistic and cultural differences and commonalities. Emphasis is placed upon the interpretation of material culture to illuminate and explain social processes and relationships as well as behavior, technology, patterns and mechanisms of long-term change and chronology, in addition to the intellectual history of archaeology as a discipline in this diverse region. The Handbook augments archaeologically-focused chapters contributed by regional scholars by providing histories of research and intellectual traditions, and by maintaining a broadly comparative perspective. Archaeologically-derived data are emphasized with text-based documentary information, provided to complement interpretations of material culture. The Handbook is not restricted to art historical or purely descriptive perspectives; its geographical coverage includes the modern nation-states of China, Mongolia, Far Eastern Russia, North and South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and East Timor.