Islands in Time explores the ecological and cultural development of prehistoric island societies. It considers the prehistory of the Mediterranean and offers an explanation of the effects of isolation on the development of human communities. Evidence is drawn from a broad range of Mediterranean islands including Cyprus, Crete and the Cyclades, Malta, Lipari, Corsica and Sardinia.

When we consider the Cretans and Hittites, the powers of Babylonia and Assyria, and the internal conditions in Syria and Palestine, it can hardly be doubted that the reign of Akhetaten marks a turning point, notably in Egyptian history, but also in the wider history of the ancient world. Here the author vigorously reproduces this age, to show the intensely human interest that lies in the story of religion and art of decadence and reform.

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.

Covering archaeology from a range of angles, incorporating history, major themes, theories and methods, Doing Archaeology provides a firm grounding for anyone interested in learning more about the discipline. Throughout the book, key information is accessibly presented and important questions are answered, including: What is archaeology? How did archaeology begin? How can archaeology tell us about the past? How can archaeology tell how people use space and the landscape? How can we use the past to understand people? How do archaeology and 'heritage' interact? What role does archaeology play in society today? How do we practice archaeology? Drawing on the experiences of practising archaeologists, with engaging examples and studies from sites around the world, this book gives the reader a sense of what is it to study archaeology and be an archaeologist. An essential text for students studying A-Level archaeology, those considering or beginning a degree/foundation degree in archaeology, and those of all ages interested in volunteering or becoming involved in archaeological projects.

Human social life is constrained and defined by our cognitive and emotional dispositions, which are the legacy of our foraging ancestors. But how difficult is it to reconstruct the social systems and cultural traditions of those ancestors? The Archaeology of Human Ancestry provides a stimulating and provocative answer, in which archaeologists and biological anthropologists set out and demonstrate their reconstructive methods. Contributors use observations of primates and modern hunter-gatherers to illuminate the fossil and artefactual records. Thematic treatment covers the evolution of group size; group composition and the emotional structure of social bonds; sexual dimorphism and the sexual division of labour; and the origins of human cultural traditions. The Archaeology of Human Ancestry is an essential introduction to the subject for advanced undergraduates and researchers in archaeology and biological anthropology. It will also be used by workers in psychology, sociology and feminist studies as a resource for understanding human social origins.

Published in the year 2006, Lost Pharaohs is a valuable contrubution to the field of History.

This book is an impressive collection of some of the earliest literature still extant from the great Ancient Egyptian civilization. Much of the material contained in this work -- poems, narratives, songs and prayers -- was translated here and made accessible to lovers of antiquity for the first time. Covering a range of topics including schools, religion and love, the collected works here provide the reader with a deeper understanding of ancient life along the Nile.

The rock paintings and engravings of southern Africa have long been considered obscure, yet research has managed since to piece together that message, and we now know that this beautiful and detailed art tells us about the religious experiences of the San (bushmen) who made it: centuries ago the San believed that the art carried messages from the spirit world. This book traces the story behind that research, how it started, its failures and successes, and some of its debates, linking the art to the people who made it.

From gods, heroes, and monsters to Druids, sorcerers, and talking animals, Celtic Myths explores every aspect of Irish and Welsh myths in this appealing and authoritative guide. Besides vividly retelling the tales, Miranda Aldhouse-Green brings her expertise in the archaeology of the Iron Age and particularly shamanism to bear on the mythical world she describes, with evidence as diverse as the Gundestrup Cauldron and the famous bog bodies. Starting with a discussion of how myths are transmitted and by whom, Aldhouse-Green continues with an account of Irish and Welsh myths, their key actors and motifs, and themes such as heroes, animals, women, environment, and the Otherworld. The book concludes with a look at the influence of monastic chroniclers on the tales, which they preserved and adapted. Boxed features, quotes from primary texts and contemporary sources, two-color illustrations, photographs, and drawings all come together to create a comprehensive guide for anyone interested in Celtic history or the history of myth as well as anyone who simply loves a good story.

Sponsored by the Museum Education Roundtable

Icons of Power investigates why the image of the cat has been such a potent symbol in the art, religion and mythology of indigenous American cultures for three thousand years. The jaguar and the puma epitomize ideas of sacrifice, cannibalism, war, and status in a startling array of graphic and enduring images. Natural and supernatural felines inhabit a shape-shifting world of sorcery and spiritual power, revealing the shamanic nature of Amerindian world views. This pioneering collection offers a unique pan-American assessment of the feline icon through the diversity of cultural interpretations, but also striking parallels in its associations with hunters, warriors, kingship, fertility, and the sacred nature of political power. Evidence is drawn from the pre-Columbian Aztec and Maya of Mexico, Peruvian, and Panamanian civilizations, through recent pueblo and Iroquois cultures of North America, to current Amazonian and Andean societies. This well-illustrated volume is essential reading for all who are interested in the symbolic construction of animal icons, their variable meanings, and their place in a natural world conceived through the lens of culture. The cross-disciplinary approach embraces archaeology, anthropology, and art history.

This volume presents a sophisticated set of archival, forensic, and excavation methods to identify both individuals and group affiliations--cultural, religious, and organizational--in a multiethnic historical cemetery. Based on an extensive excavation project of more than 1,000 nineteenth-century burials in downtown Tucson, Arizona, the team of historians, archaeologists, biological anthropologists, and community researchers created an effective methodology for use at other historical-period sites. Comparisons made with other excavated cemeteries strengthens the power of this toolkit for historical archaeologists and others. The volume also sensitizes archaeologists to the concerns of community and cultural groups to mortuary excavation and outlines procedures for proper consultation with the descendants of the cemetery's inhabitants. Copublished with SRI Press.

Archaeology and Folklore explores the complex relationship between the two disciplines to demonstrate what they might learn from each other. This collection includes theoretical discussions and case studies drawn from Western Europe, the Mediterranean and North. They explore the differences between popular traditions relating to historic sites and archaeological interpretations of their history and meaning.

Unclassical Traditions. Volume II: Perspectives from East and West in Late Antiquity is the second of two collections of essays by leading scholars discussing the nature and extent of the late-antique engagement with the classical past. Rather than concentrating on developments at the centre of empire (the focus of a previous volume, Unclassical Traditions I ), the aim here is to present a set of views from the margins: social, political, religious, literary, geographical and linguistic. Ranging from Armenian ecclesiastical histories, Egyptian alchemy and Jewish power politics, across the Mediterranean to the challenges raised by shifting circumstances in 5th-century North Africa and Ostrogothic Italy, the eight papers in this volume seek to establish the persistent importance of the classical tradition throughout a broadly defined late antiquity. Despite the divergent forms taken by these various responses, they are united by a common preoccupation with that still authoritative past. From these eastern and western perspectives - often peripheral and sometimes isolated - the classical past appears neither monolithic nor inflexible but as offering a set of assumptions or conventions that might be opposed or accepted, subverted or ignored or reworked into a striking variety of newly imagined worlds. Like its predecessor, this volume will be of interest to anyone concerned with the history, literature and culture of the later Roman empire. It stems from an international conference held in Cambridge in 2009, generously supported by the Faculty of Classics and the Henry Arthur Thomas Fund.

Excavations of medical school and workhouse cemeteries undertaken in Britain in the last decade have unearthed fascinating new evidence for the way that bodies were dissected or autopsied in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This book brings together the latest discoveries by these biological anthropologists, alongside experts in the early history of pathology museums in British medical schools and the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and medical historians studying the social context of dissection and autopsy in the Georgian and Victorian periods. Together they reveal a previously unknown view of the practice of anatomical dissection and the role of museums in this period, in parallel with the attitudes of the general population to the study of human anatomy in the Enlightenment.

Between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries, the social and cultural worlds of medieval Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean were transformed by the religious impetus of the crusades. Today we bear witness to these transformations in the material and environmental record revealed by new archaeological excavations and reappraisals of museum collections. This volume highlights new archaeological knowledge being developed by scholars working in the fields of history, archaeology, numismatics, and architecture to demonstrate its potential to change and augment our understanding of the crusades. The 16 chapters in this volume deploy a contemporary scientific approach to archaeology of the crusades to give an up-to-date account into the diverse range of research in this area. They explore five key themes: the implications of scientific methods, new excavations and surveys, architectural analyses, sigillography, and the application of social interpretations. Together these chapters provide a new way of approaching the study of the crusades, and demonstrate the value of taking a holistic view that utilises the full diverse range of evidence available to us.

Bronze Age Worlds brings a new way of thinking about kinship to the task of explaining the formation of social life in Bronze Age Britain and Ireland. Britain and Ireland's diverse landscapes and societies experienced varied and profound transformations during the twenty-fifth to eighth centuries BC. People's lives were shaped by migrations, changing beliefs about death, making and thinking with metals, and living in houses and field systems. This book offers accounts of how these processes emerged from social life, from events, places and landscapes, informed by a novel theory of kinship. Kinship was a rich and inventive sphere of culture that incorporated biological relations but was not determined by them. Kinship formed personhood and collective belonging, and associated people with nonhuman beings, things and places. The differences in kinship and kinwork across Ireland and Britain brought textures to social life and the formation of Bronze Age worlds. Bronze Age Worlds offers new perspectives to archaeologists and anthropologists interested in the place of kinship in Bronze Age societies and cultural development.

This catalogue accompanies an international exhibition, "First Kings of Europe," and another volume also published by the Cotsen Institute, First Kings of Europe: From Farmers to Rulers in Prehistoric Southeastern Europe, that examine the artifacts and cultures of this area from the Neolithic to the Iron Age. Over several millennia, early agricultural villages gave rise to tribal kingdoms and monarchies, replacing smaller, more egalitarian social structures with complex state organizations led by royal individuals invested with power. Several hundred objects and artifacts in the exhibition are portrayed in the catalog, accompanied by introductory text and detailed entries for each item. The spectacular and highly detailed color photographs introduce us to the gold and silver ornaments, bronze and iron weaponry, rich metal hoards and magnificent ceremonial vessels that are masterpieces from this period of history. Many of them have never left their countries of origin, making the two volumes documenting them an opportunity not to miss.

The study of the prehistory of East Asia is developing very rapidly. In uncovering the story of the flows of human migration that constituted the peopling of East Asia there exists widespread debate about the nature of evidence and the tools for correlating results from different disciplines. Drawing upon the latest evidence in genetics, linguistics and archaeology, this exciting new book examines the history of the peopling of East Asia, and investigates the ways in which we can detect migration, and its different markers in these fields of inquiry. Results from different academic disciplines are compared and reinterpreted in the light of evidence from others to attempt to try and generate consensus on methodology. Taking a broad geographical focus, the book also draws attention to the roles of minority peoples - hitherto underplayed in accounts of the region's prehistory - such as the Austronesian, Tai-Kadai and Altaic speakers, whose contribution to the regional culture is now becoming accepted. Past Human Migrations in East Asia presents a full picture of the latest research on the peopling of East Asia, and will be of interest to scholars of all disciplines working on the reconstruction of the peopling of East and North East Asia.

Archaeologists are increasingly aware of issues of gender when studying past societies; women are becoming better represented within the discipline and are attaining top academic posts. However, until now there has been no study undertaken of the history of women in European archaeology and their contribution to the development of the discipline. Excavating Women discusses the careers of women archaeologists such as Dorothy Garrod, Hanna Rydh and Marija Gimbutas, who against all odds became famous, as well as the many lesser-known personalities who did important archaeological work. The collection spans the earliest days of archaeology as a discipline to the present, telling the stories of women from Scandinavia, Mediterranean Europe, Britain, France, Germany and Poland. The chapters examine women's contributions to archaeology in the context of other, often socio-political, factors that affected their lives. It examines issues such as women's increased involvement in archaeological work during and after the two World Wars, and why so many women found it more acceptable to work outside of their native lands. This critical assessment of women in archaeology makes a major contribution to the history of archaeology. It reveals how selective the archaeological world has been in recognizing the contributions of those who have shaped its discipline, and how it has been particularly inclined to ignore the achievements of women archaeologists. Excavating Women is essential reading for all students, teachers and researchers in archaeology who are interested in the history of their discipline and its sociopolitics.

First published in 1997, this collection includes papers on Crusader-era architecture in Palestine with a focus on 'Atlit, the castle of 'Ajlun and on the Citadel of Jerusalem, both the papers and sites of which have previously been difficult to access. The volume is presented partly to repair the very real deficit in the literature on Crusader architecture and partly as a fitting memorial to the author, who died in 1992. 'Atlit in particular held a special significance for C.N. Johns, being the site of his first major project as a field archaeologist. His Guide to 'Atlit, a masterly summary of his findings, remains the most complete and comprehensive account of the castle and its suburb. The studies collected here pay tribute to their author's enduring contribution to the medieval archaeology of the Near East. The first part of the book deals with the 'Pilgrim's Castle', the great Templar fortress and town at 'Atlit. The significance of Johns' excavations at this site has been relatively neglected, because it remains in a military area, inaccessible to visitors, and because almost the entire stock of his major publication was lost in 1947. This 'Guide to 'Atlit', a synthesis of historical, archaeological and architectural research on the monument, is reprinted here together with all the interim reports relating to the medieval period. Also included are Johns' studies on the Citadel of Jerusalem, the 'Tower of David', and on the Islamic castle of 'Ajlun. Together, they represent a fundamental contribution to the study of the period of the Crusades and to the military architecture of the Middle Ages. The notes by Denys Pringle bring the accounts up to date in the light of recent research.

Published in 1937: The author's work on the Renaissance in Italy is too well known, not only to students of the period, but now a wider circle of readers, for any introduction to be necessary.

The first and only monograph available on the subject, The Roman City and its Periphery offers a full and detailed treatment of the little-investigated aspect of Roman urbanism - the phenomenon of suburban development. Presenting archaeological and literary evidence alongside sixty-three plans of cities, building plans, and photographs, Penelope Goodman examines how and why Roman suburbs grew up outside Roman cities, what was distinctive about the nature of suburban development, and what contributions buildings and activities in the suburbs might make to the character and function of the city as a whole. With full bibliography and annotations throughout, this will not only provide a coherent treatment of an essential theme for students of Roman urbanism, but archaeologists, urban planners and geographers also, will have an excellent comparative tool in the study of modern urbanism.

Archaeologies of Presence is a brilliant exploration of how the performance of presence can be understood through the relationships between performance theory and archaeological thinking. Drawing together carefully commissioned contributions by leading international scholars and artists, this radical new work poses a number of essential questions: What are the principle signifiers of theatrical presence? How is presence achieved through theatrical performance? What makes a memory come alive and live again? How is presence connected with identity? Is presence synonymous with 'being in the moment'? What is the nature of the 'co-presence' of audience and performer? Where does performance practice end and its documentation begin? Co-edited by performance specialists Gabriella Giannachi and Nick Kaye, and archaeologist Michael Shanks, Archaeologies of Presence represents an innovative and rewarding feat of interdisciplinary scholarship.

Archaeologies of Presence is a brilliant exploration of how the performance of presence can be understood through the relationships between performance theory and archaeological thinking. Drawing together carefully commissioned contributions by leading international scholars and artists, this radical new work poses a number of essential questions: What are the principle signifiers of theatrical presence? How is presence achieved through theatrical performance? What makes a memory come alive and live again? How is presence connected with identity? Is presence synonymous with 'being in the moment'? What is the nature of the 'co-presence' of audience and performer? Where does performance practice end and its documentation begin? Co-edited by performance specialists Gabriella Giannachi and Nick Kaye, and archaeologist Michael Shanks, Archaeologies of Presence represents an innovative and rewarding feat of interdisciplinary scholarship.