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Books > Humanities > Archaeology
The Druids and the Arthurian legends are all most of us know about
early Britain, from the Neolithic to the Iron Age (4500 BC-AD 43).
Drawing on archaeological discoveries and medieval Welsh texts like
the Mabinogion, this book explores the religious beliefs of the
ancient Britons before the coming of Christianity, beginning with
the megaliths-structures like Stonehenge-and the role they played
in prehistoric astronomy. Topics include the mysterious Beaker
people of the Early Bronze Age, Iron Age evidence of the Druids,
the Roman period and the Dark Ages. The author discusses the myths
of King Arthur and what they tell us about paganism, as well as
what early churches and monasteries reveal about the enigmatic
Druids.
Originally published: Washington City: Printed for the Author, by
Way and Gideon, 1823. 4], 316 pp. Hardcover. New.
Reprint of the uncommon first edition of the fourth and last of
Taylor's books on the United States Constitution. Little-known
today, Taylor's work is of great significance in the political and
intellectual history of the South and essential for understanding
the constitutional theories that Southerners asserted to justify
secession in 1861. Taylor was a leading advocate of states' rights,
agrarianism and a strict construction of the Constitution in the
political battles of the 1790s.
"Taylor and myself have rarely, if ever, differed in any political
principle of importance."-- Thomas Jefferson. Later Southern
political leaders, notably John C. Calhoun, shared this opinion.
Known as John Taylor of Caroline 1753-1824], Taylor fought in the
Revolutionary War and served briefly in the Virginia House of
Delegates before he became a Senator from Virginia. Taylor was the
author of Construction Construed and Constitutions Vindicated, A
Defence of the Measures of the Administration of Thomas Jefferson,
attributed to Curtius, An Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of
the Government of the United States and other works
Native American Artifacts of Wisconsin is designed to bridge the
gap between the professional and amateur archaeologist. In an easy
and logical format, it serves as an excellent reference on the
prehistoric artifacts found specifically in Wisconsin. The guide
provides time periods, detailed drawings, artifact photos, and
documented discovery locations quickly and easily, without the
reader having to wade through lengthy journal entries or detailed
scholarly papers. In addition, Paul Schanen and David Hunzicker
provide guidelines to collectors about the importance of
documenting the circumstances and locations of their own artifact
finds and how best to share this information with others in order
to increase our collective knowledge about these priceless,
prehistoric artifacts and the populations who created and used
them. Only through careful unearthing, detailed documentation and
collaborative sharing will we learn about the people(s) that lived
thousands of years ago. No doubt much remains for us to discover
about Native Americans from the daily tools they used as they
farmed, hunted, lived, hoped, dreamed, and died among the very same
forests, hills and streams Wisconsin residents call home today.
In 1996 on the banks of the Columbia River a 9,300-year old
skeleton was found that would become the impetus for the first
legal assault on the Native American Graves Protection and
Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). The Kennewick Man, as it came to be
called, put to test whether the American Indian tribes of the area
were culturally affiliated with the skeleton as they claim and
their oral traditions affirm, or whether the skeleton was
affiliated with a people who are no longer present. At the same
time, another 9,000-year old skeleton was found in the storage
facility of the Nevada State Museum, where it had gone unnoticed
for the past 50 years. Like the Kennewick Man, the Spirit Cave
Mummy also brought to fore the question of cultural affiliation
between contemporary American Indian tribes of the western Great
Basin and those people who resided in the area during the Late
Pleistocene and Early Holocene. Cultural anthropologist Peter N.
Jones tackles these contentious questions in this landmark study,
Respect for the Ancestors. For the first time in a single work, the
question of cultural affiliation between the present-day American
Indians of the American West and the people of the distant past is
examined using multiple lines of evidence. Out of this
comprehensive study, a picture of continuous cultural evolution and
adaptation between the peoples of the ancient past and those of the
present-day emerges from the evidence. Further, important
implications for the field of anthropology are discussed as a
result of this benchmark study. Anyone working in the American West
today will benefit from this book.
The first two centuries AD are conventionally thought of as the
"golden age" of the Roman Empire, yet Italy in this period has
often been seen as being in a state of decline and even crisis.
This book investigates the relationships between city and
countryside in Italy in the early Empire, using evidence from
literary texts and inscriptions, and the wealth of data derived
from archaeological field surveys over recent years. Looking at
individual towns and regions as well as at the broader picture, and
stressing the diversity of situations across Italy, John R.
Patterson examines how changing patterns of building and
benefaction in the cities were related to developments in the
country, and underlines the resourcefulness of the cities, both
large and small, in seeking to maintain and develop their civic
traditions.
The second volume of Excavations at Mendes furthers the publication
of our archaeological work at the site of Tel er-Rub'a, ancient
Mendes, in the east central Delta. Mendes is proving to be one of
the most exciting sites in the Nile Delta. Occupied from
prehistoric times until the Roman Period, Mendes reveals the nature
of a typical Late Egyptian city, its distribution of economy, and
demography. The discoveries reported on in this volume were wholly
unexpected, and bear meaning fully on Ancient Egyptian history:
these include the prosperity and size of the original Old Kingdom
city, the major contributions of Ramesses II and Amasis to the
monumental nature of the city, and the role of the city in the
period c. 600-100 B.C. as an entrepot for Mediterranean trade.
Searching for Jonah offers a fresh, eclectic, and indisputably
imaginative approach to interpreting one of the most famous stories
in all of literature. The author, a lifelong Bible scholar, applies
evidence from Hebrew and Assyrian history and etymology, along with
scientific and archeological discoveries. The author concludes that
Jonah was a state-sponsored evangelist and diplomat, acting on
behalf of an official cult in Bethel. He was sent to Nineveh in
Assyria to make alliance with a rebel faction that was friendly to
Israel. In this he succeeded, and changed history.
This book brings together new and original work by forty two of the
world's leading scholars of Indo-European comparative philology and
linguistics from around the world. It shows the breadth and the
continuing liveliness of enquiry in an area which over the last
century and a half has opened many unique windows on the
civilizations of the ancient world. The volume is a tribute to Anna
Morpurgo Davies to mark her retirement as the Diebold Professor of
Comparative Philology at the University of Oxford.
The book's six parts are concerned with the early history of
Indo-European (Part I); language use, variation, and change in
ancient Greece and Anatolia (Parts II and III); the Indo-European
languages of Western Europe, including Latin, Welsh, and
Anglo-Saxon (Part IV); the ancient Indo-Iranian and Tocharian
languages (Part V); and the history of Indo-European linguistics
(Part VI).
Indo-European Perspectives will interest scholars and students of
Indo-European philology, historical linguistics, classics, and the
history of the ancient world.
Uncovering the Germanic Past brings to light an unexpected
side-effect of France's nineteenth-century Industrial Revolution.
While laying tracks for new rail lines, quarrying for stone, and
expanding lands under cultivation, French labourers uncovered bones
and artefacts from long-forgotten cemeteries. Although their
original owners were unknown, research by a growing number of
amateur archaeologists of the bourgeois class determined that these
were the graves of Germanic 'warriors', and their work, presented
in provincial learned societies across France, documented evidence
for significant numbers of Franks, Burgundians, and Visigoths in
late Roman Gaul. They thus challenged prevailing views in France of
the population's exclusively Gallic ancestry, contradicting the
influential writings of Parisian historians like Augustin Thierry
and Numa-Denis Fustel de Coulanges. Although some scholars drew on
this material evidence to refine their understanding of the early
ancestors of the French, most ignored, at their peril, inconvenient
finds that challenged the centrality of the ancient Gauls as the
forebears of France. Crossing the boundaries of the fields of
medieval archaeology and history, nineteenth-century French
history, and the history of science, Effros suggests how the slow
progress and professionalization of Merovingian (or early medieval)
archaeology, a sub-discipline in the larger field of national
archaeology in France, was in part a consequence of the undesirable
evidence it brought to light.
This engaging work uses key discoveries, events, people,
techniques, and controversies to give the general reader a rich
history of archaeology from its beginnings in the 16th century to
the present. The history of archaeology leads from the musty
collections of dilettante antiquarians to high-tech science. The
book identifies three major developmental periods-Birth of
Archaeology (16th-18th centuries), Archaeology of Origins and
Empires (19th century), and World Archaeology (20th century). An
introductory essay acquaints the reader with the essence of the
science for each period. The short entries comprising the balance
of the book expand on the themes introduced in the essays.
Organized around personalities, techniques, controversies, and
conflicts, the encyclopedia brings to life the history of
archaeology. It broadens the general reader's knowledge by
detailing the professional significance of widely known discoveries
while introducing to wider knowledge obscure but important moments
in archaeology. Archaeology is replete with the visionaries and
swashbucklers of popular myth; it is also filled with careful and
dedicated scientists. 200 entries present chronological milestones
in the history of archaeology Includes 70 photographs and drawings
of people, sites, and artifacts Three maps locate sites mentioned
throughout the text Includes an extensive bibliography for
introductory essays and each entry
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