This book places Li Ji (the Book of Rites) back in the overall context of "books," "rites" and its research history, drawing on the interrelations between myth, ritual and "materialized" symbols to do so. Further, it employs the double perspectives of "books" and "rites" to explore the sources and symbols of the capping ceremony (rites of passage), decode the prototypes of Miao and Ming Tang, and restore the discourse patterns of "people of five directions." The book subsequently investigates the formation and function of the Yue Ling calendar and disaster ritual, so as to reveal the human cognitive encoding and metalanguage of ritual behavior involved. In the process, it demonstrates that Li Ji, its textual memories, archaeological remains and "traditional ceremony" narratives are all subject to the latent myth coding mechanism in China's cultural system, while the "compilation" and "materialized" remains are merely forms of ritual refactoring, interpretation and exhibition, used when authority seeks the aid of ritual civilization to strengthen its legitimacy and maintain the social order.

The last of the Andean civilizations, Inca society was the product of complex historical and social processes of class and state formation. State institutions and practices of repression were essential for maintaining and extending exploitation, as the traditional social relations of encapsulated communities were distorted and reorganized to accommodate the interest of a ruling class whose membership was continually reconstituted through the addition of other Andean peoples and, later, Europeans. This study examines the contradictions, tensions and conflicts these processes engendered and explores the involvement of Europeans in Andean life after the 1530s as it resulted in new forms of exploitation and repression.

In Ground in Stone: Landscape, Social Identity, and Ritual Space on the High Plains, Elizabeth Lynch examines the insights and challenges of bedrock ground stone research in archaeological inquiry. Ground in Stone includes analyses of case studies to illustrate field data collection techniques as well as the rich social lives of ground in stone on the Chaquaqua Plateau. Lynch argues that the bedrock features in southeastern Colorado offer valuable insight into the archaeology of the High Plains because they are spaces where people gathered to craft important products-food, tools, and art. In doing so, these places anchored human movement to the landscape and became integral to story-telling and cultural lifeways.

Made in Africa: Hominin Explorations and the Australian Skeletal Evidence describes and documents the largest collection of modern human remains in the world from its time period. These Australian fossils, which represent modern humans at the end of their great 20,000 km journey from Africa, may be reburied in the next two years at the request of the Aboriginal community. Part one of the book provides an overview of modern humans, their ancestors, and their journeys, explores the construct of human evolution over the last two and half million years, and defines the background to the first hominins and later modern humans to leave Africa, cross the world and meet other archaic peoples who had also travelled and undergone similar evolutionary pathways. Part two focuses on Australia and the evidence for its earliest people. The Willandra Lakes fossils represent the earliest arrivals and are the largest and most diverse late Pleistocene collection from this part of the world. Although twenty to twenty-five thousand years younger than the oldest archaeological site in Australia, they exemplify the migrating end-point of the human story that reflect a diversity and culture not recorded elsewhere in the world. Part three records the Willandra Lake Collection itself from a photographic and descriptive perspective. Evolutionary biologists and geneticists will find this book to be a valuable documentation of the 20,000 km hominid migration from Africa to the most distant parts of the world, and of the challenges and findings of the Willandra Lake Collection.

Situated in the middle of the Irish Sea, the Isle of Man is like a stepping-stone between the lands that surround it. In medieval times, it played an important role in the histories of Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales. This book explores the first part of that turbulent era, tracing the story of the Isle of Man from the fifth to the thirteenth centuries. It looks at the ways in which various peoples - Britons, Scots, Irish, English and Scandinavians - influenced events in Man over a period of more than 800 years. A large portion of the book is concerned with the Vikings, a group whose legacy - in place names, old burial mounds and finely carved stones - is such a vivid element in the Manx landscape today.

Sacred presents photographs of locations cloaked in mysticism and imbued with a spiritual energy, exploring the meaning of the sacred in a global, multicultural context. Countless cultures have found it in the magnificence of nature and what can be called the divine gestures of the nature landscape. We looked to the majesty of snowcapped mountains, the glow of the full moon, the power of a magical waterfall, the endless sands of the Sahara Desert, the towering height of the tallest trees and the subtle essence of a lotus flower. We created remarkable buildings to the essence of what we felt to be sacred. What is sacred and what do cultures around the world consider sacred? What is sacred to a Muslim, a Tibetan monk, a Native American, a Christian elder, an atheist, a mountaineer, a poet or an artist? Chris Rainier has spent the last forty years in search of the sacred--from the peaks of Tibet to the icebergs of Antarctica, from the vibrant mysticism of India to the mysteries of the Silk Road, from the jungles of New Guinea to the druid stones of Scotland, and from the deserts of the Southwest United States to the rock art of aboriginal Australia and Africa. Rainier's photographs masterfully capture the wonder and awe inherent to all these sites. Sacred presents photographs from this lifelong journey. The collection offers spiritually driven glimpses of ancient monuments and haunting landscapes from around the world--each echoing with the energy of timeless and sacred power places. RENOWN PHOTOGRAPHER AND AUTHOR: Chris Rainier is a documentary photographer and National Geographic explorer who is highly respected for his documentation of endangered cultures and traditional languages around the globe. AWARD-WINNING PHOTOGRAPHY: Rainier was Ansel Adams last photo assistant and has contributed numerous photographs for the United Nations, UNESCO, Amnesty International, Conservation International, the Smithsonian Institution, CNN, BBC, NPR, National Geographic, TIME magazine, the New York Times, and LIFE magazine. CELEBRATED CONTRIBUTORS: Over twelve internationally recognized contributors discuss what sacred means to them and include British essayist and novelist Pico Iyer; ethnographer, writer, photographer, and filmmaker Wade Davis; and Pulitzer Prize winner and National Geographic Fellow Paul Salopek.

Historical archaeology has made great strides during the last two decades. Early archaeological reports were dominated by descriptions of features and artifacts, while research on artifacts was concentrated on studies of topology, technology, and chronology. Site reports from the 1960s and 1970s commonly expressed faith in the potential artifacts had for aiding in the identifying socioeconomic status differences and for understanding the relationships be tween the social classes in terms of their material culture. An emphasis was placed on the presence or absence of porcelain or teaware as an indication of social status. These were typical features in site reports written just a few years ago. During this same period, advances were being made in the study of food bone as archaeologists moved away from bone counts to minimal animal counts and then on to the costs of various cuts of meat. Within the last five years our ability to address questions of the rela tionship between material culture and socioeconomic status has greatly ex panded. The essays in this volume present efforts toward measuring expendi ture and consumption patterns represented by commonly recovered artifacts and food bone. These patterns of consumption are examined in conjunction with evidence from documentary sources that provide information on occupa tions, wealth levels, and ethnic affiliations of those that did the consuming. One of the refreshing aspects of these papers is that the authors are not afraid of documents, and their use of them is not limited to a role of confirmation."

This book discusses the evolution of Mongolian shamanism from the distant past to the collapse of great empires such as the Yuan Dynasty in the fourteenth century, drawing on archeological findings and historical resources like the Mongolian Secret History. Further, it introduces readers to the cultural and ideological differences between Mongolian shamanists, who believe in the Eternal Blue Sky, and modern Mongols, who follow Buddhist teachings. In closing, the authors put forward the idea that Mongolian shamanism could have helped build great empires, emphasizing, e.g., shamanism's influence on Mongolian culture and literature in the Middle Ages.

Since its publication in 1996, The Oxford Companion to Archaeology has firmly established itself as the standard reference work in the field of archaeology, selling nearly 15,000 copies to date and remaining a favorite among students, scholars, and anyone interested in archaeology. In 700 entries, the second edition provides thorough coverage to historical archaeology, the development of archaeology as a field of study, and the ways the discipline works to explain the past. In addition to these theoretical entries, other entries describe the major excavations, discoveries, and innovations, from the discovery of the cave paintings at Lascaux to the deciphering of Egyptian hieroglyphics and the use of luminescence dating. Much has changed in the field since 1996. Recent developments in methods and analytical techniques (e.g., laser-based mapping and survey systems, new applications of the scanning electron microscope) have revolutionized the ways excavations are performed. Cultural tourism, cultural resource management, heritage, and conservation have been redefined as areas within archaeology, and have had new emphasis given them by scholars and administrators.Major new sites have expanded our understanding of prehistory and human developments through time. The second edition explores each of these advances in the field, adding approximately 200 entries and exanding the total work to three volumes. Neil Asher Silberman, a renowned practicing archaeologist, author, and scholar, and a board member for the first edition, is the editor in chief. In addition to significant expansion, first-edition entries have been thoroughly revised and updated to reflect the progress that has been made in the last decade and a half. This important backlist title deserves revisiting. The second edition will be available DRS and will ensure that the Companion continues to have currency and authority in the field.

This book reviews the evolution of Biosemiotics and gives an outlook on the future of this interdisciplinary new discipline. In this volume, the foundations of symbolism are transformed into a phenomenological, technological, philosophical and psychological discussion enriching the readers' knowledge of these foundations. It offers the opportunity to rethink the impact that evolution theory and the confirmations about evolution as a historical and natural fact, has had and continues to have today. The book is divided into three parts: Part I Life, Meaning, and Information Part II Semiosis and Evolution Part III Physics, medicine, and bioenergetics It starts by laying out a general historical, philosophical, and scientific framework for the collection of studies that will follow. In the following some of the main reference models of evolutionary theories are revisited: Extended Synthesis, Formal Darwinism and Biosemiotics. The authors shed new light on how to rethink the processes underlying the origins and evolution of knowledge, the boundary between teleonomic and teleological paradigms of evolution and their possible integration, the relationship between linguistics and biological sciences, especially with reference to the concept of causality, biological information and the mechanisms of its transmission, the difference between physical and biosemiotic intentionality, as well as an examination of the results offered or deriving from the application in the economics and the engineering of design, of biosemiotic models for the transmission of culture, digitalization and proto-design. This volume is of fundamental scientific and philosophical interest, and seen as a possibility for a dialogue based on theoretical and methodological pluralism. The international nature of the publication, with contributions from all over the world, will allow a further development of academic relations, at the service of the international scientific and humanistic heritage.

This work explores the long-term evolutionary implications of the "Mobility Imperative:" the foundational nature of mobility for human beings and their societies. The author puts forward a parsimonious but comprehensive model based on Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES) rationales. The selected case studies range from the emergence and expansion of humans to cattle domestication and beyond.

A fascinating history of the Maya - drawing on a wealth of recent archaeological discoveries - whose civilisation in the jungles of Central America was for almost a thousand years hidden from the world. Over the last two centuries explorers have made the most remarkable discoveries in the tropical forests of Central America. Across much of present-day Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and Honduras dozens of cities - some with populations of well over 100,000 - have been unveiled, and every year fresh reports emerge of the findings of unknown Maya ruins - great temples, palaces, towering stone pyramids and the tombs of the Maya kings. What these spectacular discoveries indicate is the former presence of an exceptionally advanced, sophisticated and complex society. Recently, major developments made in the decipherment of Maya hieroglyphics have revealed that alongside the material achievements of the Maya ran intellectual accomplishments in astronomy, maths and calendrics, seemingly tied to the complexities of Maya religion, that were remarkable for a society technically in the Stone Age. From reliefs on temple walls, from magnificent hieroglyphic stairways and from stone stelae planted by Maya rulers in the plazas of their cities has come written history: the Chronicles of the Maya Kings. David Drew looks at why they constructed their cities in the hostile setting of the jungle, the exact age of their ruins, the strange human images depicted in elaborate costume at so many Maya sites, and he asks why at the time of the Spanish conquest, all knowledge of the Mayas had been lost.

In Correlative Archaeology, Fumi Arakawa applies correlative thinking practices, which are derived from an East Asian view of the world that stresses connectivity, to archaeological interpretations. Arakawa, a Japanese scholar who was trained in Western archaeology, argues that a correlative paradigm can help archaeologists, as well as scholars and researchers from other disciplines, consider competing paradigms and integrate Native American voices and narratives into interpretations of prehistoric art and landscapes.

Over the past 20 years there has been increased research traction in the anthropology of childhood. However, infancy, the pregnant body and motherhood continue to be marginalised. This book will focus on the mother-infant relationship and the variable constructions of this dyad across cultures, including conceptualisations of the pregnant body, the beginnings of life, and implications for health. This is particularly topical because there is a burgeoning awareness within anthropology regarding the centrality of mother-infant interactions for understanding the evolution of our species, infant and maternal health and care strategies, epigenetic change, and biological and social development. This book will bring together cultural and biological anthropologists and archaeologists to examine the infant-maternal interface in past societies. It will showcase innovative theoretical and methodological approaches towards understanding societal constructions of foetal, infant and maternal bodies. It will emphasise their interconnectivity and will explore the broader significance of the mother/infant nexus for overall population well-being.

This book unites studies in the fields of archaeometry, geoarchaeology, and ancient technologies, based on cases from northern Eurasia, and includes archaeometallurgy, stone tools investigation, exploitation of geological resources in the past, bioarchaeology, residue analysis, pottery and lithics investigation, and use of the GIS in archaeology. The book of Springer Proceedings in Geoarchaeology and Archaeological Mineralogy contains selected papers presented at the 8th Geoarchaeology Conference, which took place during September 20-23, 2021, at the South Urals Federal Research Center, the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Miass, Russia. A study of non-organic materials, rocks, minerals, ores, metals and metallurgical slags is a special focus of the book. Many papers also use modern analytical methods of isotopic, chemical, and mineralogical analysis to study the composition and structure of ancient materials and the technological practices of past human populations of Modern Russia, Ukraine, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Mongolia. The book is intended for archaeologists, historians, museum workers and geologists, as well as students, researchers from other disciplines and the general public interested in the interdisciplinary research in the field of archaeology and archaeological materials, strategies and techniques of past quarrying, mining, metallurgy and lithic technologies at different chronological periods in Eurasian steppe and adjacent forest zone.

Tap water enables the development of cities in locations with insufficient natural resources to support such populations. For the last 200 years, New York City has obtained water through a network of nineteen reservoirs and controlled lakes, some as far as 125-miles away. Engineering this water system required the demolition of rural communities, removal of cemeteries, and rerouting of roadways and waterways. The ruination is ongoing. This archaeological examination of the New York City watershed reveals the cultural costs of urban water systems. Urban water systems do more than reroute water from one place to another. At best, they redefine communities. At worst, they erase them.

Investigating what life was like for African Americans north of the Mason-Dixon Line during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, James Delle presents the first overview of archaeological research on the topic in this book, debunking the notion that the "free" states of the Northeast truly offered freedom and safety for African Americans. Excavations at cities including New York and Philadelphia reveal that slavery was a crucial part of the expansion of urban life as late as the 1840s. The case studies in this book also show that enslaved African-descended people frequently staffed suburban manor houses and agricultural plantations. Moreover, for free blacks, racist laws such as the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 limited the experience of freedom in the region. Delle explains how members of the African diaspora created rural communities of their own and worked in active resistance against the institution of slavery. Delle shows that archaeology can challenge dominant historical narratives by recovering material artifacts that express the agency of their makers and users, many of whom were written out of the documentary record. Emphasizing that race-based slavery began in the Northeast and persisted there for nearly two centuries, this book corrects histories that have been whitewashed and forgotten. A volume in the series the American Experience in Archaeological Perspective, edited by Michael S. Nassaney.

This book addresses practical issues in connoisseurship and authentication, as well as the legal implications that arise when an artwork's authenticity is challenged. In addition, the standards and processes of authentication are critically examined and the legal complications which can inhibit the expression of expert opinions are discussed. The notion of authenticity has always commanded the attention of art market participants and the general art-minded public alike. Coinciding with this, forgery is often considered to be the world's most glamorous crime, packed with detective stories that are usually astonishing and often bizarre. The research includes findings by economists, sociologists, art historians, lawyers, academics and practitioners, all of which yield insights into the mechanics and peculiarities of the art business and explain why it works so differently from other markets. However, this book will be of interest not only to academics, but to everyone interested in questions of authenticity, forgery and connoisseurship. At the same time, one of its main aims is to advocate best practices in the art market and to stress the importance of cooperation among all disciplines with a stake in it. The results are intended to offer guidance to art market stakeholders, legal practitioners and art historians alike, while also promoting mutual understanding and cooperation.

Norfolk has a wealth of important archaeological sites, historic buildings and landscapes. This guide is the first to use them to tell the county's rich history. Starting with real footprints of people who lived here nearly 1 million years ago, A History of Norfolk in 100 Places will take you on a chronological journey through prehistoric monuments, Roman forts, medieval churches and Nelson's Monument, right up to twentieth-century defensive sites. With detailed entries illustrated by aerial photographs and ground-level shots, here you will find a reliable guide to historic places that are either open to the public, or are visible from public roads or footpaths for you to explore.

This volume provides a comprehensive overview of the history and culture of the Parthian Empire, which existed for almost 500 years from 247 BC to 224 AD. The Parthians were Rome's great opponents in the east, but comparatively little is known about them. The Parthians focuses on the rise, expansion, flowering and decline of the Parthian Empire and covers both the wars with the Romans in the west and the nomads in the east. Sources include the small amount from the Empire itself, as well as those from outside the Parthian world, such as Greek, Roman and Chinese documents. Ellerbrock also explores the Parthian military, social history, religions, art, architecture and numismatics, all supported by a great number of images and maps. The Parthians is an invaluable resource for those studying the Ancient Near East during the period of the Parthian Empire, as well as for more general readers interested in this era.