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Books > Humanities > Archaeology
This exciting book brings the often-overlooked southern Maya region
of Guatemala into the spotlight by closely examining the ""lost
city"" of Chocola. Jonathan Kaplan and Federico Paredes Umana prove
that Chocola was a major Maya polity and reveal exactly why it was
so influential. In their fieldwork at the site, Kaplan and Paredes
Umana discovered an extraordinarily sophisticated underground
water-control system. They also discovered cacao residues in
ceramic vessels. Based on these and other findings, the authors
believe that cacao was consumed and grown intensively at Chocola
and that the city was the center of a large cacao trade. They
contend that the city's wealth and power were built on its abundant
supply of water and its command of cacao, which was significant not
just to cuisine and trade but also to Maya ideology and cosmology.
Moreover, Kaplan and Paredes Umana detail the ancient city's
ceramics and add over thirty stone sculptures to the site's
inventory. Because the southern Maya region was likely the origin
of Maya hieroglyphic writing and the Long Count calendar, scholars
have long suspected the area to be important. This pioneering field
research at Chocola helps explain how and why the region played a
leading role in the rise of the Maya civilization.
This book represents a reflection on the policies of preservation
that were established and interventions for restoration that
occurred in Iran before and in the years after the Khomeinist
Revolution, as well as being an analysis of the impact that Italian
restoration culture has had in the country. Research concerning the
state of conservation and the ongoing restoration of the Armenian
churches in the Khoy and Salmas areas is included, along with
precise documentation of the observation of the two cities, their
architecture and the context of their landscape. The problems of
architectural restoration in present-day Iran and the compatible
use of buildings no longer intended for worship are addressed. The
book is bolstered by first-hand documentation obtained through
inspections and interviews with Iranian specialists during three
missions carried out between 2016 and 2018 and a large anthology of
period texts that have only recently been made available for the
first time for study in electronic form, including travel reports
written by Westerners describing Persia between the 15th and 19th
centuries.
How did small-scale societies in the past experience and respond to
sea-level rise? What happened when their dwellings, hunting grounds
and ancestral lands were lost under an advancing tide? This book
asks these questions in relation to the hunter-gatherer inhabitants
of a lost prehistoric land; a land that became entirely inundated
and now lies beneath the North Sea. It seeks to understand how
these people viewed and responded to their changing environment,
suggesting that people were not struggling against nature, but
simply getting on with life - with all its trials and hardships,
satisfactions and pleasures, and with a multitude of choices
available. At the same time, this loss of land - the loss of places
and familiar locales where myths were created and identities formed
- would have profoundly affected people's sense of being. This book
moves beyond the static approach normally applied to environmental
change in the past to capture its nuances. Through this, a richer
and more complex story of past sea-level rise develops; a story
that may just have resonance for us today.
'Western-Pontic Culture Ambience and Pattern: In Memory of Eugen
Comsa' is dedicated to the memory of Eugen Comsa, an archaeologist
whose work created the foundation of the Northern Balkan prehistory
and was essential for the contemporary view of the prehistory of
the North-western Pontic region. This edited volume brings together
researchers in the field of Circumpontic archaeology from the
Neolithic to the Iron Age period. The content of the volume is
offered to students and scholars who seek a deeper understanding of
the prehistory of the Western Pontic region, in particular the
Balkans in their Eurasian context and more broadly to enhance the
scholarly collections of academic, educational, public and private
libraries throughout the world.
How do archaeologists think? How do they use the scattered and
often-fragmentary remains from the past-both historical and
excavated-to create meaningful, sensible interpretations of human
history? In Archaeological Thinking, Charles E. Orser Jr., provides
a commonsense guide to applying critical thinking skills to
archaeological questions and evidence. Rather than critiquing and
debunking specific cases of pseudo-archaeology or concentrating on
archaeological theory, Orser considers the basics of scientific
thinking, the use of logic and analogy, the meaning and context of
facts, and the evaluation of source materials. He explains,
concisely and accessibly, how archaeologists use these principles
to create pictures of the past and teaches students to develop the
skills needed to make equally reasoned interpretations.
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