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Books > Humanities > Archaeology
This long-awaited resource complements its companion volume on
Classic Period monumental inscriptions. Authors Martha J. Macri and
Gabrielle Vail provide a comprehensive listing of graphemes found
in the Dresden, Madrid, and Paris codices, 40 percent of which are
unique to these painted manuscripts, and discuss current and past
interpretations of these graphemes.The New Catalog uses an original
coding system developed for the Maya Hieroglyphic Database Project.
The new three-digit codes group the graphemes according to their
visual, rather than functional, characteristics to allow readers to
see distinctions between similar signs. Each entry contains the
grapheme's New Catalog code, an image, the corresponding Thompson
number, proposed syllabic and logographic values, calendrical
significance, and bibliographical citations. Appendices and an
index of signs from both volumes contain images of all graphemes
and variants ordered by code, allowing readers to search for
graphemes by visual form or by their proposed logographic and
phonetic values. Together the two volumes of the New Catalog
represent the most significant updating of the sign lists for the
Maya script proposed in half a century. They provide a cutting-edge
reference tool critical to the research of Mesoamericanists in the
fields of archaeology, art history, ethnohistory, and linguistics,
and a valuable resource to scholars specializing in comparative
studies of writing systems and related disciplines.
This volume asks how the current Information Technology Revolution
influences archaeological interpretations of techno-social change.
Does cyber-archaeology provide a way to breathe new life into grand
narratives of technological revolution and culture change, or does
it further challenge these high-level theoretical explanations? Do
digital recording methods have the potential to create large,
regional-scale databases to ease investigation of high-level
theoretical issues, or have they simply exposed deeper issues of
archaeological practice that prevent this? In short, this volume
cuts beyond platitudes about the revolutionary potential of the
Information Technology Revolution and instead critically engages
both its possibilities and limitations. The contributions to this
volume are drawn from long-term regional studies employing a
cyber-archaeology framework, primarily in the southern Levant, a
region with rich archaeological data sets spanning the Paleolithic
to the present day. As such, contributors are uniquely placed to
comment on the interface between digital methods and grand
narratives of long-term techno-social change. Cyber-Archaeology and
Grand Narratives provides a much-needed challenge to current
approaches, and a first step toward integrating innovative digital
methods with archaeological theory.
A monumental synthesis of a half century of research, this book
investigates three communities from the ancient Nubian civilization
of the Nile River Valley. Excavations in this region first inspired
the "biocultural approach" to human biology now used by
anthropologists worldwide, and Life and Death on the Nile
exemplifies the very best of this perspective. It is the life's
work of two highly accomplished anthropologists. George Armelagos
and Dennis Van Gerven present studies of cranial morphology and
evolution in Nubian populations. They look at patterns of
physiological stress and disease, as well as growth and
development, in infants and children. They study bone fractures and
age-related bone loss in adults, and they discuss case studies of
diseases such as cancers and congenital defects. Focusing on the
link between human biology and the cultural and natural
environment, they provide a holistic view of the lives of ancient
Nubian peoples.
This book meticulously recreates the most important episodes in
Czech-German relations in what is now the Czech Republic. Drawing
on extensive archival research, Stephen M. Thomas depicts the
formation of the Czechoslovak Republic from the ruined
Austro-Hungarian empire and examines political and public life
between world wars via the ethnic rivalry between Germans and
Czechs. He questions the nature, legitimacy and political viability
of the nation state, and especially its relationship to ethnic
minorities, such as the Slovaks. Confrontational nationalism and
the use of ethnicity as a political tool are no less common today
than they were in the 20th century. This book's radical
contribution to studies of nationalism and ethnicity is that it
juxtaposes German and Czech perspectives of power and oppression as
part of the same story. This framework allows us to appreciate new
complexities regarding the creation of Czechoslovakia and ponder
them in 21st century terms.
The nucleus of society is situated at the local level: in the
village, the neighborhood, the city district. This is where a
community first develops collective rules that are intended to
ensure its continued existence. The contributors look at such
configurations in geographical areas and time periods that lie
outside of the modern Western world with its particular development
of society and statehood: in Antiquity and in the Global South of
the present. Here states tend to be weak, with obvious challenges
and opportunities for local communities. How does governance in
this context work? Scholars from various disciplines (Classics,
Theology, Political Science, Sociology, Social Anthropology, Human
Geography, Sinology) analyze different kinds of local arrangements
in case studies, and they do so with a comparative approach. The
sixteen papers examine the scope and spatial contingency of forms
of self-governance; its legitimization and the collective identity
of the groups behind them; the relations to different levels of
state governance as well as to other local groups. Overall, this
volume makes an interdisciplinary contribution to a better
understanding of fundamental elements of local governance and
statehood.
A new look at National Museums Scotland collections covering the
period 800-1200: the fall of the Pictish kingdoms and rise of the
Viking Age; the emergence of new players like Alba, Moray,
Strathclyde, Galloway and the Norse Earldom of Orkney. Out of this
turmoil were forged the roots of the kingdoms of Scotland and
England. National Museums Scotland houses one of the most
significant collections of Viking-age and early medieval artefacts
in the world. This book offers new perspectives on star objects
which have been on display for decades, and on lesser-known
artefacts which have never been seen in public, and shows these in
photographs taken specially for third part of The Glenmorangie
Company Research Project. The previous two books coming out of the
project are Early Medieval Scotland and Scotland's Early Silver.
This book expands on Archaeological Human Remains: Global
Perspectives that was published in the Springer Briefs series in
2014 and which had a strong focus on post-colonial countries. In
the current volume, the editors include papers that deal with
non-Anglophone European traditions such as Portugal, Germany and
France. In addition, authors continue the exploration of
osteological trajectories that are not well-documented in the West,
such as Senegal, China and Russia. The lasting legacies of
imperialism, communism and colonialism are apparent as the authors
of the individual country profiles examine the historical roots of
the study of archaeological human remains and the challenges
encountered while also considering the likely future directions
likely of this multi-faceted discipline in different world areas.
A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 'As brilliant a history of the Vikings as
one could possibly hope to read' Tom Holland The 'Viking Age' is
traditionally held to begin in June 793 when Scandinavian raiders
attacked the monastery of Lindisfarne in Northumbria, and to end in
September 1066, when King Harald Hardrada of Norway died leading
the charge against the English line at the Battle of Stamford
Bridge. This book, the most wide-ranging and comprehensive
assessment of the current state of our knowledge, takes a
refreshingly different view. It shows that the Viking expansion
began generations before the Lindisfarne raid, and traces
Scandinavian history back centuries further to see how these people
came to be who they were. The narrative ranges across the whole of
the Viking diaspora, from Vinland on the eastern American seaboard
to Constantinople and Uzbekistan, with contacts as far away as
China. Based on the latest archaeology, it explores the complex
origins of the Viking phenomenon and traces the seismic shifts in
Scandinavian society that resulted from an economy geared to
maritime war. Some of its most striking discoveries include the
central role of slavery in Viking life and trade, and the
previously unsuspected pirate communities and family migrations
that were part of the Viking 'armies' - not least in England.
Especially, Neil Price takes us inside the Norse mind and
spirit-world, and across their borders of identity and gender, to
reveal startlingly different Vikings to the barbarian marauders of
stereotype. He cuts through centuries of received wisdom to try to
see the Vikings as they saw themselves - descendants of the first
human couple, the Children of Ash and Elm. Healso reminds us of the
simultaneous familiarity and strangeness of the past, of how much
we cannot know, alongside the discoveries that change the landscape
of our understanding. This is an eye-opening and surprisingly
moving book.
This book documents analyses of the Late Cretaceous dinosaur
nesting sites of the Lameta Formation at Jabalpur, Districts Dhar
and Jhabua, Madhya Pradesh; Districts Kheda and Panchmahal
(Gujarat); and the Pisdura, Dongargaon and Pavna sectors in the
Chandrapur Districts of Maharashtra, which are exposed in India
along an east-west and central axis. In this work, special emphasis
has been given to the dinosaur nesting sites of the east-central
Narbada River region, including its regional geology. The work was
undertaken to provide detailed information concerning dinosaur
eggs, eggshell fragments, nests and clutches found in the Lameta
Formation of peninsular India. Prior to the present work there had
been no detailed review of systematic work on the taxonomy, and of
micro- and ultrastructural studies of dinosaur eggs and eggshells
from the Lameta Formation. The study documents the field and
laboratory investigations that facilitated the reconstruction of
the morphotaxonomy, models for the burial pattern of eggs and
eggshells, taphonomic implications,and the palaeoenvironmental
context and palaeoecological conditions during the Late Cretaceous
at the time of the extrusion of the Deccan traps, which may have
been partly responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs. The
need to follow a parataxonomic classification for Indian dinosaur
eggs and eggshell types is very apparent, and this book addresses
this aspect in some detail. The emphasis on the application of
parataxonomic schemes is based on the description of new oospecies
and their comparison with previously known forms. The present work
has led to the recovery of numerous nests, many collapsed eggs and
hundreds of dinosaur eggshell fragments from the localities
situated near the east, west and central Narbada River regions. It
will be of interest to academics and professional palaeontologists,
and all students of dinosaurs.
The pre-Hispanic pueblo settlements of the Pajarito Plateau, whose
ruins can be seen today at Bandelier National Monument, date to the
late 1100s and were already dying out when the Spanish arrived in
the sixteenth century. Until recently, little modern scientific
data on these sites was available.
The essays in this volume summarize the results of new
excavation and survey research in Bandelier, with special attention
to determining why larger sites appear when and where they do, and
how life in these later villages and towns differed from life in
the earlier small hamlets that first dotted the Pajarito in the
mid-1100s. Drawing on sources from archaeology, paleoethnobotany,
geology, climate history, rock art, and oral history, the authors
weave together the history of archaeology on the Plateau and the
natural and cultural history of its Puebloan peoples for the four
centuries of its pre-Hispanic occupation.
Contributors include Craig Allen (U. S. Geological Survey, Los
Alamos, New Mexico), Sarah Herr (Desert Archaeology, Inc., Tucson,
Arizona), F. Joan Mathien (National Park Service), Matthew J. Root
(Rain Shadow Research and Department of Anthropology, Washington
Sate University), Nancy H. Olsen (Anthropology Department and
Intercultural Studies Division, De Anza College, Cupertino,
California), Janet D. Orcutt (National Park Service), and Robert P.
Powers (National Park Service).
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